Page
MY RED CHINA NOTEBOOK
NO TIPS-AND THEY MEAN IT
1
By Rene MacColl
OVIET Russia has ex- Europe periodically discuss in a tended far-reaching defeatist way in letters to the and vital help to the editor-but go on submitting to. Communist New People's No tips are ever expectoa or perhaps China of Mao Tse-tung and accepted Repeatedly,
through forms of habit, I have the results of this help are tried to pass a little baksheesh everywhere evident.
to the boys slace I've been here, but no.
But spile of this Russian
Wolters, valets, pedica help and of the KYTESCT.CO in Chinese cities of large numbers taxi-drivers, the whole
men,
SUG
туды
of Rusalan technicians and "ad- step back in horor at the sight visers" the contrasta between of the proffered largesse. Busia and China hit
anyone who has had first-hand expert- of the two Communist paradises smack between the Суга
enco
Those censors
First and foremost-and what a joy for a Journalist--there is no connorship in China.
I can write here to Peking precisely as I please, and evory- thing which I am sending is coming to you without anyone fiddling around with it on the
way,
Compare that with Moscow. where I see that my old friend and colleague Sydney Smith is having his troubles with glum Russian censors, just as I did wiren was there.
the
The Russians simply don't seem to understand that their Ensletence on "prestige censor- ship" (because they just don't want you to say anything even slightly rude about the place or the people only means a huge build-up of ill will and resent ment on the part of reporters.
Western
They ought to take a leaf out of the Chinese book,
Those smiles
Secondly, the ordinary people of China are far more friendly and charming to the foreigner thun are the Russians.
Give them a smile-and Chinese give it right back you a hundredfold, Not just a polite smile, but a boaming grin plus, on occasion, a throsty chuckle.
The other day when 1
Great Wall, picnicking at the my colleague, David Chipp 0{ Reuters, was worried about wrother our cor driver had fund his Juneli or not.
After some inconclusive cou versation in English which the driver didn't understand, Chipp Chinese money produced sole
and tried to hand it to the driver, Indicating as he did ∞ that it was apposed to be lor meal
The driver would have of it, and Anally,
Chipp tried to insist, the driver hauled out some money of his own and to It up
denote his held independence.
In the Soviet Union, where
abolished, tipping is nominally
In foot tips are still accepted without question, especially in Moscow.
That honesty
Red Chim is almost fanatic- ally honest,
дго
uncer-
You can say that it is due to fear if you like, but all I can say is that the Chinese absolutely honest and that i have not the slightest tainty about what will happen to my personal property in the hotels (in contrast to Indie, where I had my wallet swiped my hotel room in New from Dohli a few weeks back.)
the
And the final big difference between the Russians ank
is that whETERB the Chiese
to Russlars will not hear of amy- with their thing being wrong country and get pretty milled them that if you try to tell there is, the Chinese more or less treg for criticism of what is wrong and appear to hang on your lips when you set out to pay.
In the Soviet Union, it I tried a plece of common cour- tesy, like standing aside to let a Russian women go through a door thead of me, my reward was an icy giare.
But the Russians are well in here so question. They tre swarming all over the place, in Thirdly, tipping. With hand contrast to 1954. Not only the upon heart I can repor! that ren. but their fat. shapeless. and rather Chim has utterly abolished the 11-dressed wives loathsome practice which we In
ntasy blond children,
PAGE FOUR PERSONAL
CAMERA
THE CHINA MAIL,- TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1956.
The Man With A Year to Live
Why I am not Afraid'
explains
1.
WILLIAMS: I must go on working
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You are 25. Life is gay, the
the information you dread receiving.
bright. Then a doctor tells you; y impossible to keep to yourself
have only a few years to live.” life, end for you there and then? Or, like Gordon Williams, would you fight your way out of despair
"The person you tell will be somebody near to you. And that person may suffer more than you
Then came the problem of settling down to civilian life.
REPORT..by WILLIAM ALLISON
S
"I was considered to be
mentally suitable for near- ly every job I applied for, but always up came the
ENTENCE of death was passed on question of a medical examination,
Gordon Williams on a spring, after- 'noon in 1953.
"I produced the certificate which I had'
turned
He was a naval seaman and 25 begun to hate, and always I was when he was told because he suspected away. and demanded to know that he had a
"I tramped the streets of nearly every disease for which there is no cure."
Midland town for nearly a year looking for
I was unsuccessful. work.
How long to live? Well, said the naval doctor, people in his condition had lasted, Bay... four or five years.
Williams had then 'been ill for a year. Ho stumbled back to his ward, lay on his bed, covered his face with a newspaper, and wept.
'a
But he is still alive-and a £10-n-week council clerk in Bilston, Staffs.,
He has beaten the four-year forecast. That leaves now less than a year of the doctor's outside forecast of five years. He believes he can outlivò this year too.
He, does not regret asking' that doctor for the truth. "I think doctors should tell if they feel a patient can be helped to adjust himself," he said the other day in his office on the corner of Bliston's Church Street.
"But make no mistake-to live with donth, a death just round the corner, is at times nearly impossible.
Mood changed
"AT first you do not believe, then you realise it is true and gradually you become deranged.
amash
"I wanted to reach out and *something...
preferably people. Then I felt like leaping off a bridge.
"The mood changed again. I sought help frantically md quickly-and there I made my first mistake.
"I gave up, went home to bed, and just waited to die.
"I was in this state when Bilaton town. council officials called, literally pulled me out of bed, and sat me down at a desk.
"The work stopped me feeling sorry for myself. Then I found little things began to get me down.
Not funny
OUTSIDE my office door is a notice board giving
Ono the condition of patients in a hospital. day I saw the phrase 'Remains poorly. I have not looked at it again.
"In the pub across the road, a printed limerick on the wall behind the bar finishes with the line! If a man carot drink when he is living how can he drink when he is dead?" To me that was most unfunny. Now I can bear to look at it. But I still cannot laugh.
"I found that I refrained from forming attach- ments with people who appeared to like or love mo. I wanted to spare them grief, when I die.
"Now I think I have come to terms with myself, with life and with death.
"Each day means more to me than to thoso, around me. The day after I never think about. "When I plan ahead it is in the sense that my plans may mern something to thoen, who will survive me.
I am not likely to be here.” [Williams is now arranging a holiday in Norway in August for crippled. and orphaned children in the district.]
DUT.
Important
"I am not afraid of death. Thave noyer
"I told my wife in that Devon hospital. burden. Actually I transferred more than turn to God for a specific purpose would not be
right, I feel. half.
I suppose I wanted to unload some of the B gone to church and I will not start now. To
"The thought of going out on the town and "My advice to those who fear the worst living in a guy, dizzy world of excess occurred to, but seek confirmation, is this:-
me once. I pushed it aside.
TIME TO ALTER ALL THIS
THE young
By ANTHONY HERN
man with
Harwell is a vast place. Five For these are not men with un thousand people
work there. sasured background of wealth. Sheffield in his voice
University enen, 'yes; but they
on were educated and the blood of steel-men You need transport to get from They are
one research block to another.
Their State or County grants. in his veins picked up a
So there are car-parks' every voices, as they talk quietly in tube of the world's most whore. You should see pore of shadow of a gant atomic
curs! Ancient Morrisca, awesome metal and stroked the
plic, tell of their upbringing. ramshackle It affectionately...
Austins, battered Those are the products of Fords what irony, it is that secondary schools. in Bristol, acad "Uzonfum," he said. "Now these are all that men dealing Birmingham, in London using power metallurgy..." with the very latest scientifle Liverpool, in Hull and Hudders-
a torrent of enthusiasm about his now world of atars and arentrons and fission.
a
and
He was off-surging ahead in development can afford to buy! fold.
to Britain the Ir And these are the lucky onES, They offer
physicist,
brains, their unmatched Manya chemist dealing in formulas that cathustam will change our children's way Britain should be proud of But she should be has to bicyclo to hit them. of life, laboratory because he is not paid, ashamed of the rewards they are
setting. enough to rum di care
1 I don't think I understood more than one word in three of what he said. But you need no dictionary I understand en- thusiasm when you hear' in a young man's voice or see it in a young man's, eye.
And then, inter, this young man said something which was, at once, enormously heartening and strangely patholle.
"You have to be enthusiastic about the job." he said. "You enthusiastic about the
can't be
money.
That is the monstrous piradox of this new world, this prototype of a peaceful 1984, that they are creating at Harwall.
in 10 years, in the time it takes an oak tree to grow zoft., Britain has transformed herself scientifically;
IMMENSELY GIFTED.
Thousands of young men im- maisely gifted, Immensely keen, are working on atomic projects which; 10 years ago, would have seemed the purest fantay, M And their reward is to be
underpaid.
-Here Is a man who knows. about beryllium, the wonder inetal Incredibly light, that will nélp lo detormúze, the flure of Britain
It would have palá him beiter to lay in Sheffield and work in Malcol foundry, godt kenga
Hora: 1# uydung) Welshiruary who knowa, krowy- to- delock and dent with: tho: Iminute poisonous aubrtánéos created in om of the
nuclear reaction procenim better
would have paid to say in
Rod Work In
my did not stay. They won, wcholkrships, they worked, they componering in the still- unchartedecke
"Remem- *** have more important things to do ber, it is with what tile time may be left. I misst go on practic, mving for the future of my wife and child. That gives me more happiness there .spending. We leave him.....
Smiling
PROBLEM OF LEISURE The superfluous ex-workers,
get sick of cricket, horseracing and TV. To prevent moral rot, the Welfare Authorities plan to occupy then with glamorous jobs.
like damming the Mediterranean and building a space satellite
to control the weather,
приве
THE PRESE-BUTTON AGE-2
World Copyrigh
"Above all else I must "work" and go on working, for that way I can forget."
Forget not only the future that may never be, but the pain of his illness. Much of. It is con centrated in his back
"[Williams has a glandular discaso; he asked me not to reveal its name and nature.3
Then, as Williams reflected once again on what a wonderful day
it had been, his five-year-old: daughter named Barbara Francesca Luela after her Italian mother-included in her bedtime prayers this plea
"Please malce my back better."
daddy's