Newspaper Page Text
Griffin Daily News
‘CHINA’S
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The
author is a freelance
Scottish cameraman who
spent some weeks in the
Peoples Republic of China
recently filming for Brit
ish and American tele
vision. He was able to
visit more areas of China
than any other journalist
to date.)
By LEWIS McLEOI)
/Copyright 'i 1971
by Lewis McLeod)
PEKING—< NEA)—I had a
sore throat in China. They
cured it by sticking a needle
in my hand.
Fantastic? Yes—to us, but
not to the Chinese. In China,
everything is different. To
try to understand what is
going on there, you have to
forget everything you ever
learned about human nature.
Because the Chinese are
changing that, too.
I went to China to make a
documentary film on every
day life. I came out three
weeks later, having seen a
way of life which resembled
nothing I had seen in 17
other countries I visited.
One fact alone makes
China extraordinary—its 700
million people. Just provid
ing food, clothes and homes
for all of them is a colossal
task.
Don’t go to China making
comparisons with Phoenix,
Passaic or Peoria. It’s hu
man to do so but China can
not be compared with any
where else.
Most of what we think we
know about China is either
myth or out of date.
The Communist revolution
smashed the old society.
Mao Tse-tung’s cultural rev
olution smashed the new so
ciety, after only 20 years.
The cultural revolution was
fundamental. Mao, who
made China a Communist
country and who had got rid
of mandarins and beggars,
starvation and foreign bank
ers, saw his new China de
veloping like every other
state. Office workers, teach
ers, civil servants, doctors
and engineers looked down
on garbagemen, clerks,
street sweepers, laborers
and machine minders. Mao
saw a Communist party elite
developing, plus a big bu
reaucracy, all mouthing slo
gans without applying them
to life and piling up paper
work unrelated to producing
the goods.
Mao set out—against fierce
opposition from some of his
colleagues—to smash all this
up and end the division be
tween mental and physical
labor. He seems to have won.
But they still have 4,000
years of culture hanging
over them—old customs, old
habits, old thinking. To
break this down, Mao has
said many things, but the
phrase that’s most popular
these days is: “Dare to
think and dare to act.”
What this means in prac
tice I saw in the mountains
of the north, at a place
named Tachai where the
peasants have dug up the
mountains and carried rocks
and soil—on their backs—
somewhere else.
2
CAPITAL,... WEALTH
IS CHINA’S MILLIONS’
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China’s capital, China’s
wealth, is China’s millions.
When you’re in China you
get a feeling after awhile
that there are so many peo
ple they can do anything.
I suppose this is what wor
ries a lot of people outside
China. The thought of 700
million industrious Chinese
working calmly away for six
days every week, nonstop,
transforming this huge coun
try which has deserts as
well as rice paddies, and in
the process transforming
themselves as well.
The aim of education, for
example, is to make children
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Rural China has not changed
appreciably in thousands of years.
This farmer takes a tea break,
unusual since most breaks are far
political theory sessions.
feel that there is no problem
that cannot be solved—and
also that no job is so menial
that someone else ought to
do it. He doesn’t have to
pass exams. This, they say.
might “ambush" the child.
At the age of 12. Chinese
children start physical labor
in addition to their class
room lessons. They learn
how to grow food in the
school garden and how to
make tools in the school
workshop. And it isn’t “let’s
pretend” stuff. They grow
rice and vegetables, keep
their own chickens and make
real things for sale.
This practical education
goes on all through life, ex
cept that after school years
it becomes re-education.
Near Peking I found the
head of a Peking department
store who was being “re
modeled.” He was shoveling
muck in a piggery. He said
he was having a wonderful
time and that the open-air
life was doing him a world
of good.
He had been plucked out of
his department store to
learn what it is like to get
one’s hands dirty doing a
The cuisine remains one of
the splendors of China. Lunch
also means political talk.
Note bust of Chairman
Mao Tse-tung in background.
dirty job. No matter who you
are, your turn for “remod
eling” eventually comes.
But while everyone works,
no one rushes. Work is done
at a leisurely pace. 1 never
once saw a sweaty brow be
ing wiped with a weary hand.
I never once saw anyone who
looked exhausted. They take
their time, but they get
things done.
* * *
The sense of being a mem
ber of a community is very
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