1957-02-02

THE CHINA MAIL,

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1957. ·

SATURDAY

Travel Club

BY THE MEN WHO REALLY ‘GO ANYWHERE DO ANYTHING'

KI KO RUN AT SIE GEST AQUI ONE ISVEER MON CREE MACH MESIN MALE KERES"

WHAT SUEZ DONE TO

NIGHT CLUB

N the morning it was

warm enough to sit

on the balcony of the

ing-gown and drink the strong coffee.

by DONALD EDGAR

HAS THE

GIRLS

room in your dress BEGINNING TODAY: Saturday Travel Club.

Written by a group of Britain's most-travelled ̈ men: the foreign correspondents. Its aim: to On the right the snow- mirror the off-beat news....the piquant, the

capped mountains, where

there is good ski-ing, were rosy pink in the sun.

A handsome young Arab was fishing offshore with nets,

He lashed the sea with a sort of iron fail to frighten the bish into his trap. He worked a long time.

His catch was halt a dozen fish.

The shape of his bust, of his hi dali huct probably not, of no changed in 2,000 years,

was

To the left of my

however, there

balcony,

wide

boulevard along which swept

the pink. blue,

and excam

Behind the

hotels, were vust

American, cars.

rond

offlees

apartment buildings,

new

blocks of

And so from my balcony I could sce the problem of the

Middle East.

stuff

you

Sidon is ill defended, although the castle Is in Tuirs.

"Goodbye Shanghai'

By Russell Spurr

OR Mrs. Smith, the of China has cost Britain. But munists marched in six years who chats about the weather,

ordeal la almost in Shanghal alone, the total ngo. Today, there are hardly and then mentions a

losses are put at more than more than a hundred. over,

£500,000,000. Boon, she will be aboard a

Nearly all of them are wall- Blow boat from China. The Mrs Smith's

husband coon ing permission to leave. himself found Shanghai skyline, the mud- Communist organised alteck, target of

They at meet together in idy Whangpoo River, will The workers who had served their one remaining club. They

allp slowly astern and with him ro loyally slice

dine euch the war wine and

other in it will go many things Mrs were urged to take over the Smith will try to forget. management,

their homes.

missing Chinese friend--to see if there is any reaction.

Mr and Mrs Smith have learned how to turn the co- versa.lon when the houseboy comes in with the drinks. They have learned to shut out the 1004-like world around them and to concentrate on their own microscopic society.

100

There is no other entertain- Twice he was locked in his ment-all the glittering night She has been virtually a once by frate Union representa clubs have Jorg been closed, 1'4 engy, prisoner of the Communists tives, Still he refused to give the enemas show only dreary ob'e madly bored with each

Russian Alms, for nearly six years. Only Jn.

other. Conversation languishes after the dally discussion of the today do they seem anxious The Communists finally had

Travel rea'rictions keep BBC newscast, The sense of. to see her go. The con- to suspend all cuppites of raw foreigners within the sprawling fearful kolation sets tempers

of fiscation of the factory her materials and

A Shanghai, being his plant suburbs

slightly on edge. to a standstill.

petrol husband has been managing cted on the staff being paid, renters

They suli in disappearing

ration to abolish their in being hustled through, of

and forbade these last few weeks, with retrenchment. When

of course,

ars motoring. almost indecent haste.

there

The little red starves exit permits, so eagerly awaited by so many foreigners in Shanghai, will soon be stamped into the Smiths' passports, Nut only because the last penny has been wrung

Iirlitsh The shareholders.

DALL cr

Duż the

at Jast wai 610 mere incacy negotiations had to begin for the carefully avoided suppressing surrender of the factory in pay. ment for its "debts,**

HOSTAGES

Mr and Mrs Smith were held as hostages. They were refused exly permits until the handover had been completed.

Communists have

Paine comforts tho the Ane

ORDEAL

Men laugh over-loudly at the the material

vild jokes Women ECTvants, the food,

coumeté Over-freely on tho furnishings-that gild their anties of their friends, Httle cage,

The gramophones squeak out Boredom is the chief disease six-year-old tunes from worn- While a French- brong the shabby skyscrapers out records, and palut-parched streets,

A woman tells Mrs Smith how life with little to do but drink the will reconstruct a dress up the enormous whisky stocks, from a newly smuggled pattern complain about the new regling, book. and discuss each other's private

Suddenly a glosa smashes on the floor. The drinkers wince. They watch

the As silently hourshoy cleans up the mess.

Then someone again. The party goes on.

else laughs

The haggling and form Alling affairs, of took three years,

Mrs Smith is already pack- Crates clutter the rooms of the comfortable houre she will be

the surrendering to Chinese, The souvenirs years of oriental

lying are being carefully bedded Into straw and sawdust,

For the answer you 171681 drive Ing. through the city. There

will

come intriguing

usually overlooked in the

on nest buildings with lawns. search for the Significant. Today's writer And pumping stations, a jetty

off Middle East. and long, low ships lying just returned from

ahore.

This is the terminus of Tap- line, the American pipe-line which brings the ol of Saudi Arabla to the West.

has

their

Gulf

Lone down pleasures.

Now the girls have nothing

din

tvil except

nostalgic stories of the past and wait for the occasional Englishman American.

BEAUTY

Beirut

the

or two things I would like fell you. I first came out here with Allenby,

"For centuries all you Alabs

allowed rh

yourselves to be pillaged, raped and impoverished by The Turks. You had done nothing about it.

11 Sidon

men,

the

Red

political

Sometimes

great The Communists only agreed Marias filled with to sign when they realised the prisoners screech through the shareholders

be streets escorted by jeeps full of 'could not Not all these treasures will squeezed into sending in more armed Rel Dut. The Chinese money. And when a new servant disappears. Sometimes Mrs Smith looks Communists persistently

came con- direcйlve

Peking there is a polite little call by her husband. For her, the urging the Shanghal authorities fiscale anything they fancy,

aplainclothes secret polletnati, ordeal is almost over. to speed the exit of unwelcome foreigners.

HOUSE ARREST

But Mrs

Smith won't care, The Commissars can have the

All she

wants is

from

That way natural enough. The old Shanghai bands know 100 much. They have

too many old friends who si dare her to meet them from time to time to talk about the bad old days.

Topline brings work. Tapline brings money to the people of also brings the Amerienn civilisation to form Another layer over Babylon, Ansyria, Rome, and the Crusaders, "Then the British and Aus- The women of Italians came, For years this

As for defence, you must look | jot.

the whole arta was white ed with to

1056. Beyond

freedom. the erulses ONL of the gave you horizon beatiti their bones. They

Life In Shanghai has been very

mightiest seaborne forces known

Smith's factory workers ful, especially your freedom.

little better than house arrest have already laken "So remember that now and to history-the American Sixth

for the Christiant

the dwindling handful of Fleet when you are criticising Arabs. They aguin

foreigners

wage these past three If I hadn't been are dark and the British.

years. The Chinese Communists, their eyes are for us you would still be under

who originally begged them to Tuiks and fantastically the

would you

stay at their jobs, cracked down by the big on them as soon as they got anyway."

hotels you would think

the the hang of running the city. The

Englishman stopped,

United States had luken over breathing rather heavily.

Everything was very polite, Everything was very legal, The Arab was silent.

It is hard to advance 2,000 large. They are full-bodied, but probably never have had any oll years in a lifetime, Not only tall enough to carry it.

hard, but dangerous. But that is what is happening.

her.

They dress with French clyle one thing the Lebanese cannot criticise the French for. It as well for them to realise that the French occupation had good side.

its

MAGIC

wus pleasant

drive

"I swear." I said to

friend after a long struggle to reach the other side of the road, "that the drivers aim at pedestrians

"Yes, well they do," he it is a time of tremendous through the orange groves

"YDE see, H brings change

for the women. Unifi in the sunshine and remember out the arrogance of the Arab w years ago they were that it was early January. But when he has a car to drive, e

with Oriental scort. I was glad when we saw Sidon feels, I am a big shot,

Let They

were objects of pleasure rising from the SOB. 1 had those wretched pedestrians get or of use.

always wanted to go to Sidan, Out of my way.'"

not for any reason except that Now they are working in its name is magic. Like Fama- offees, teaching in the schools, gusta, Arle, Taormina, practising as doctors. Their Seville.

BAD TIME

THE night clubs have been having a bad time since the citis.

The Greek, Circassian, Italian, and German dlance hostesses walk hungrily round the floor like lionesses walling for prey.

The meat days when The shelks

of Araby

came with sucka of gold provided by the oil companies have gone.

Then there were stories of girls leaving Beirut to rellie in Paris,

vajel

horizons ate widening westwards,

PILLAGE

and

JUKE-BOXES

IF you judged

the Lebanon and the Middle Eart already.

The juke boxes glitter the waits. The martinis

The greeting is "Hi"

dry. The

The

along

reason is that Belrut Is

But one by one the foreign firms were picked off by flies, taxes and reetra-active laws.

a claging-point for the Amer. No mo dures to estimate how guns on the way to their gl-rauchh Communist conquest Helds in Saudi Arabia, And they come back for a few days to shop and enjoy civilisation.

How superb is the American contempt for distancel ********

"You ste," said aft American who has lived there for years, They are rames to set one "I am afraid Islam is not in- dreanding when the curtains are terested in this world. It makes crown on the bleak nights of it a negative, destructive creed." the northern winter.

and

Here the Phoenicians set their The Arab sails

founded Carthage, refugee from Assyria, Babylon, and Persia Palestine had vor quered II.

Alexander feasted here,

BUSINESS BEIRUT, unlike

The of

other Arab eitles, gives che a feeling drive and effelency. It

been dropping ilttle crack: Romans brought their peace.

bout the Jesus walked near by. St Paul Casy to do business. But then, it is the Christian Arabs who British for stayed here.

control bome time,

I kept quiet, You have to keep falely quiet in the Middle East incre days. sheiks of Saudi But then something caught And the the old Middle East hand on the Faw. He turned to the Arab, Look, he said, "there are one

Then the Beirut night club owners could get the loveliest girls of Europe,

But the Arabis are in dot. British have brought

on the shelks of the

pressure

Persian

William The

Hickey

ISS Luise

once

The life of the country, [1 under 1 wish, I told one of them, that weit un

aggressive people in our way, Then you might

have 12 hond in the development of the whole of the Middle East,

Saladin brought lam's sway. Moslems, Franks and Crusaders fought for it,

Lawrence of Arabia was here 449 ū student Surveying the Crusader' Castles.

You can see that Skion is still

prosperous, and it does not rely on its fruit groves.

"Don't worry." he replied, through business we do,"

(COPYRIGHT)

forgotten actress

and her Oscars

"No," she "I keep

Ruler of is one director,

M Hollywood and now of in my daughter's bedroom. Just of the richest mean the world, enviar, were on the point of

London, plcked up an Oscar in to teach her more respect for is reputed to carn Bome hot and breathless, each hand and waved them in mother."

the air.

For a second I was

dumb-bells....

afraid

HIS FAVOURITE

£3,000,000 a year from oil.

Настор now shores the Bury Street flat with the shelk.

Each day, from 10 till five,

Dolin said: "Marvellous.... Misy Muller laughed reller.

was

with

colo

she was going to use them as MUSIC Critte Noel Goodwin, Sheik Khalifa learns a littic ballerinas with the Budapest

tells me Secembo has

Share This Page