In Lapland, it's smart to ASK THEM OVER FOR A BATH
Says RENE MacCOLL
Rovaniemi or fula 15,000-population capital
the
WHEN my plane in mens wr-with Im- me here the other mense pride the now schools .and hospitals, the modernistic
and evening I stepped out slap Lutheran church, on to the Arctic Circle it pleasant residential area. runs right through the middle of the airfield."
A herd of reindeer was sniffing around and it was andwing hard
Everyone was covered in fur hath, fur-lined, grenteonts, and
high boots.
I have so far refused to make
any
sartorial concessions
to
local weather conditions and 'om dressed as though for a stroll in the King's Road, Chelsea-a fact which has enused frosted eyebrows to rise on all sides,
Here in Rovaniemi, as all over Finland, the sauna plays a great part in life. This is the com- runal bath house, and the Finns delight
In the ceremony whereat water is poured over hat stones to produce clouds of cum.
After an hour in a near- boiling temperature you take
an lcc-cold shower-or rush out of doors wearing nothing, for
11
The fall in the snow.
fauna is so much of a tradition of the country-thaw are between 300,000 and 400,000 the wooden bath houses in This is the cantal at Lapland Finland that families who -nd the gateway in cherding have just but now orea for fantasy.
themselves often lavite the neigh- bours for a gala inauguration. (The women have their sound
st, then the men).
Two worlds exist side by side the and Intermingled: one is
and hills. of forests wandering reindeer (about 150,000 of them), wild bear, the little Lapps themselves in their distinctive hollyberry-red tunics decked with touches of brilliant green and blue.
A world of misty beauty and, above all, a world of silence; a world in which there is only jus now two hours a day of
mowlake-Bled day- dim ond light in which to see it.
The other is the modern world of this capital-matter-of-fact and businesslike,
Rovahital was 08 percent destroyed by German spile in the last war and the Finns have had to do their usual energetic Job of rebuilding.
Young Dancers
The hotel i am at la excellent. wear Thi service-waitresses well-cut dark cults is deit.
Reindeer Riches
Saunas, skla, and schnapps. Toboggans and people hauling their babies along on the, frozen snow on what look like invert- ed saucepan lids.
But the consumption offery schnapps is limited. You must order 'a plate of food with every glass-just like a London night spot.
Oli, and
never, you must never make the mistake of ask-
ing a Lapp how many reindeer he has gut. The Lapp economy is based on reindeer and this is like asking casual Just acquaintance back In England how much money he has got in the bank.
Not the least of my surprises up here on the Arctic Circle has been encountering Miss And I can get anything from Elleen Davies, of London
ander straks to a bette vintage
burgundy
་
ot
of
the
watched & dance
clean hotel during which cut, well-dressed young men and women solemnly executed fox- trots
and slightly uncertain sambus to the strains of ancient American dance Brikh and tunes.
courtesy I pald
call Hannula, the hard- on Uuno bitten governor of Lapland.
He courteously insisted on my being taken by car for a tour
She is a bright-eyed, energetle
little thing who, like so many
of her fellow Quakers, has de voted her life to welfare work
and teaching.
A couple of years ago she made her way from Britain to Helsinki, hitch-hiked north, and got a job here teaching English at a school with 900 puplis.
She says that when the tem- perature drops to 60 below it be unpleasant "because all then your clothes get cold through and when that happens you are apt to feel cold as well."
con
OASIS Air Drier stops moisture damage
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PHOTOGRAPHS
by our Staff Photographers
Khud Race
King's College Sports Launching of New Ferry Table Tennis Exhibition
Po Loung. Kuk Charity Ball
C-in-C Testimonial Presentation Tennis Exhibition at H.K.C.C. Farolf Inter-unit Basketball Final Y's Mon Club. Chinoso. New Year Party K.C.C. Annual Chinese New Year Dance Presentation at Marine Police to Chinese Residents Land Forces Hockey Finals & Présentation Lawn Bowls Prize Giving at C.C.C. Photo of Chinese New Your Fair H.E. Opens Fisharias. Exhibition',
Tung Wah Directors Dinner Lancastrian Dinner. Dance All Local Sports Local Presentations LocalWeddings
etc etc,
Available at
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, LTD.
T
THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1956.
"Lot, of wasted talent here, that could be doing us a bit of good in Cortina.”
Russia Proclaims Herself A Western Nation,
Yet
CAFC
THE EAGLE FACES EAST
Walter Kolarz, "the
THE heraldic eagle of writes
the old Imperial Czar of Moscow had to become Russia was provided Genghis Khan." In expanding a not very considerable Russian heads, stol into a great multi-national
with two
Mr Krushchev
By Stephen Garnett of the former Czarist meining, Kazalch
November 15, 1917, the different the virgin lands of the re
stockbreedera Empire ware declared to have with forms manned by - the right to separate existence. "yclunteers" from the West,
"Organise, your national life Now Kazakhstan; like the
looking different ways, as if emo, the Czars presented the Marshal Bulganin, and Mr Krushchev, in complete freedom," sold other constituent Republics, stiil to symbolise the argument cutside world with that comfu-
between "East" and during their recent visit to Burma, referred Lenin and Stalin three weeks possesses, its writing, "the right and dilemma of the his-
Ister in their proclamation to
to secede which its people ence "West" which
In this "all Muslim toilers of Russia demanded. Why, when other torians: is Russia an Eas- has now emphatically, dispelled.
and, the East." They added: Easton peoples have preferred tern nation looking west-
The Czar may have become wards, or a Western nation
Genghiz Khan, but his Soviet looking eastwards?
Russian. What, then, have they Revolu done with
Since the 1917 tlon, the territory
successors
conheritance?
have
remained
their Asian
to themselves as "Europeans.". article Garnett points out that "from that point in time when European Slavs turned back the tide of Mongol invasion ...... the dominating theme of Russian history has been the thrust to East and South."
volution and to its govern- ees
In
many caseCT
"Lend your support to this yo ndipendon? existerace, has it. ment."
not done so? The answer be that It prefers the
cultural the support coonomic and was given. In others- there was nationalist opposition to the re volution from the West. It is a bloody story, but revolutions are often bloody.
Not Granted
raposed by the Western revolu tion. Or the answer might be found in Stalin's announcement of 1020, less than three years after the right of accession had been declared.
trolled from Moscow. has They have not relinquished not shrunk; it has exit and see no reason to do so, panded. The argument has whatever may become of other consequently continued, empires. They have organised Europeans," directing are change, from "Ladin" - tp. alphabets, mado
"The demand for the secession How are we to regard n it, and they have done so on volution conceived even further "Oyrillic"
the principle of the supremacy West than Russia.
necessary by the deeree on the
of the border regions from continental power thn't
of the Russian propie, the
obligatory teaching of Russian
Russia," he then wrote, "mi sprawls from the North Sea Russian language and advanced To secure and consolidate the in all non-Rusalán schools. Both
be rejected." There Wis Revolution, it to the Pacific? "How, In fact, Russian experience," The history -Russian
was alphabetic revolutions represent
GAIN,” it may be historically have "good" or "bad" for the demand, and it was rejected. do the Russians, or their of the USSR since its establish deemed essential to extend its Western progress both
*9 weapons against peoples of Central Asia to have
Not only that, but in the case leaders, regard themselves?ment is the story of the success power as quickly as possible to served
ful grafting of that possibly old- what Lenin endled the border- nationalism and against religion been incorporated in the Soviet
and Buddhist Aslan territories. but very vigorous lants (all 15 of what are now in Russia's
Union. Moscow, proclaiming it of the Mongol If the visit of the Soviet fashioned
the ́idës upon Marxist theory,
Autonomous Boviat non-Russian Soviet. Re. Whether this is "good" of "bad" as "good," set about the rein- Kalmyks, woord by Lenin and
of granted un chiels
to India. Burma ond
publies, are considered to
the by is a matter for a different en- terpretation of history and
culture and the elimination of Soc
Socialist Republic,”. Afghanistan at the end of 1955
"border republics", as against quiry. But it is 50.
former national heroes,
public was abolished in Decem- had done nothing else, it did at
"Inner Russia").
bor 1943, the entire population icast
that question. answer
And Moscow is a. Western was deported, the capital was Marshal Bulganin and Mr
And. It is of some interest road which the Asian peoples' of Krushchev arrived: as Westem
that. L'anin gave the, name of the USSR have travelled is not capital. Organisation, roads, given a new Russian name and
factories, operation is The Great Revolution of
dams, the Kalmyks dimppeared from They offered friend- THIS sizable
the the road explorers.
which they thought railways,
Soviet reference books. eventually flowed in that THE
usually attributed to Stalin East to an operation that was had been opened to them by ship and assistance from
and in Burma they and the triumph of his tactle of not an obvious product of the the Russian Revolution. The
Western tide, and with them, viewpoint,
eve · give, name Whatever By 1939 the 'Rumber Russians, were reported to have referred "Socialism in one country arsh Communist Manifesto. This was destruction of the Czarist power
of Kazakhs
had them, these are large historic (in Krushchev's as against those who wished to the "latinisation," or westmi, estraed
in the USSR to promise freedom A
are to be r give priority to the promotion
fallen by 870,000 from the 1820 gestures. They ion of words) as "Wo. Europeans"
sation of all the Arabic and from Muscovite control. world revolution. But there is other backward" Asian alpha-
figura But the Russians and garded, it has now been avow- It was almost an invitation to no convincing reason to suppose bets
And, indeed, in answer to this Ukrainians in Kazakhstan had ed, as Western gestures Di the among would
tasteful a the increased by at least half
as it may be to mora unconcealed aspiration, tidy our minds, to look again at that the course of events
* peoples.
promise
actually
in the in-. liberal traditions in the. West, made. million. This ins the map, and to ask ourselves have been radically different, or
region, and now this orientation after the Revolu- dustrialised
was Later, from, 1037 onwaids, Immediately all there was a further compulsory tion, in the basic decree of there is a big drive to colonise really in doubt,
to themselves
Bloody Story
by what general or special less ruthless, under any one of
rivals, They Were historical process a European his nation came to occupy, or to be dominant in, so large an area of two continents. It was certainly, in Mr Krushchev's own phrase5- logy, an invllation to compara the Russian record with that of other nations in the West.
Four Centuries
Ben to me erators of today-- QUT let us leave that compari-
dependent
What is also clear is that, the
was
on
IT'S NAT GUBBINS AGAIN!
N case you didn't know,
**I didn't."
a Mr Geoffrey Bocca has written the life
or the historians of tomorrow.story of Nancy Lady. Astor Comparisons,
at the
1
. to the Press
moment, for a Sunday newspaper. are apt to be strident. Now that we know which way the cagio
Nancy Lady Astor in the facts em statement really looks, simple. It is only when the sum
has to
Bald: be of these facts described as "good" or "bad" that conversation suddenly be comes controversy.
"To avoid misunderstanding I would like it to be, known that I have never mat, Mr
Whether it was "good" or Bocca." "bad" that "Ivan the Terrible captured
· She also said that although Kazan on October 2, Mr B. telephoned for, on later- 1552, 1s not - now a burning isstre. It made an incident in a view, he didn't get one," mentrable Soviet Alm. But what elso?
"Yes you did" "No I didn't sald G for Clearge."
"George Gee in't here, elther,"
"I don't want George Gee."", “Then who do you want?” "The Queen of Tonga, Tonga, Tonga, Tonga."
́ "Bonga,' Banga, Bonga?".
"No. Tonal tong, tong, tong, tong."
U
"Are you ringing a bell?” "No."
"Who are you anyway?"
"Gubbins,"
--
Whenever wives and mothers Ho blames it on the Govern
•ment. meet
To talk about the current price
They stand about on aching feat. My husband says such awful In wind and rain, on snow and Wings
toe,
Abo the way they're pulling
THOR Of bacon, mylons, meat, and hats. My husband says they have Of winter coals and cooking
to go, fats.
MV
kusband says, and he should know.") They talk of weddings, grooms,
and brides;
They talk of pains in their
insides;
The cost of margarine and eggs; The veins that start upon their
legs,
Of operations and (ahem) '. Advice the doctor gave to them
G for George, julle said to me, the doctor
They stand about In, wind and And talk and talk and talk again
rain
nover
"Or lettuce and cucumber. Think you're looking pretty hot?
He's a hotter number.
Lady, wear your oldest frock
When you're buying, taters; Greengrocers as hard of rock Are kind to- second-raters. Buy your, fruit and voz bi zas,
Dress yourself in trouble...... Then the kindly greengrocer
May charge you only double
Half Home Guard
M
that mink Guard is
Home
Of things quife'nice'and" not
quito.pied, Stamping their feet on how and Antony Head, Secretary "Who?"
GAVI for "War "told: Mr George "GUBBINS.
Wigg, MP.." that the enrolled for
malo" "strength of the Uncle"
Uncle “You say you are
10.112 officers ark George?"
25,016. other ranks, “No, I am, not Uncle George!
According to my reckoning "Then
be Uncle I don't know how you 14 Want
TELLING women how to bring the get-up must therefore George?"
about:
ane officer to two and a half down food prices, Mrs Uucie With all the things we've taken Elaine Burton, M.P.. advises: "No. I don't want
other ranks.ee
And if I know anything about George."
Then who do you want.
• "Oh, skip :15,"
saids "Of course, by rights-you should
be dead,
out
Park
get
"Don't, drone too well. There
Most women, would have stayed greengrocers who will charge the Home Quard, which I do
Honest Mr B. admite all this, but his story is to be continued From that point in time when regardless, European Slavs turned bacit the Readers might also enjoy tide of Mongol · Invasion from my Não story of the Queen ; of the East, the dominating theme Tonga when I write it. I have of four centuries of Russian never met her and... know: history has been the thrust to nothing at all about her except Bast and South. The courts and she is tali, slightly overweight. policies of spectacular "Western- and drove, sinlling, through the looking" sovereigns like Peter rain in an open
during
I think you're wonderful, the
Groot
and Catherine, the Coronation
Bron. secured most of the attention · In Considering the distance from Untethered by facis, I would European history books, the Sea Neat to Tonga I might then write the life story of the be even low fortunate than Mr Queen of Tonga for an enormous But all the time and partly. If I rang her up,
fee and retire to an enormous. They talk about their no doubt, because the other
"Hulip. Is that the Queen of home in Surrey, Stockbroker gums
And scarlet cashes on their. Western
Tudor skyld, I think. Tatlong could hold Tobяn?"
turing, an What
tirale Trouliers with Russiabe
of Muscovite Monergy
Was
Dowing the other way. Genera
tion after generation pushed |**
Queen the
of
„1" what??? WHA
"He is not here 'either,"
The gossips
wiping
almost silently to the Urals and The QUEEN OF TONGA, T across the Ural to the Altal and for tare. O for dsoe, Nador, XOOKEN byer them to the great plains of Nan G, for George="Pok the nomada, and southeast to the.
puthere is
•Hindu”“Kuah, and south to the
south to the Georges i hobody Here (called, scuring com
Caucérum. ›
"I don't want Cleorge
in bed.
bables'.
(I mean, of course, tho, balina'
And not the turns of babies",
They talk about their husbands'
»
for things like celery according one of the other ranke iis a to how much money the cuts leaving only half a private to be sergeant, the other a corporal, tomer seems to have,” “
Lady, do not wear your mink When you're buying cauli,.. Greengrocers are apt to Mink You have too much lolly, Twopence on the broccDIS,
Throopence, each, tomaber Kid yourself you're looking
Vilart?
Groengrocers aro amarter,
In groupe. And how they suffer from the Lady, do not: voor your ring
and
ORF, Rocidente”- by.
'you're buyina
pushed ground by the "lot of them.
"Where's that little half-pint private we were drilling fast wook sergeant?
"We've Worts, hiin out Can't taka It, ale !!!
That what's" : "wrong"}
the services today. No guta.
Gift Hint
mánscÒ