The Jolly Music Master

For years the propagandists of Peking and Formosa have fought a subsurface battle for the loyalties of Thailand's 3,000,000-odd Chinese. Even though the Communist Party is outlawed by the Thais, the victories mostly seemed to go to the Communists. Afraid of being caught on the wrong side, impressed by Red China's military powers, and on occasion intimidated by ominous warnings from the underground, Chinese oldsters in Thailand have been persuaded to be either cautiously closemouthed or openly sympathetic to the Reds. The biggest victories of all have been won on the impressionable battleground of youthful minds.

Crowded together in Bangkok's cluttered slums, laboring for long hours each day in the city's markets, shops and factories, Thailand's young Chinese are eager for learning and enlightenment. They band together in hundreds of small groups to discuss art, literature, music and the world of ideas. Many a shrewd Communist has been able to plant his ideas in fertile soil. With the battle all but lost in this vital salient, Thailand's Chinese anti-Communists last month sent a call for help to Formosa. Their answer came in the form of a fat, jovial, 43-year-old music teacher named Chu Yung-chen.

An accomplished singer, composer and conductor, Chu had a special knack for getting along with the young. Soon after his arrival in Bangkok, they were flocking by the hundreds to listen to his lectures and to hear him play and sing. Chu extended his visitor's visa and took up more or less permanent residence at the leading Chinese anti-Communist headquarters.

One night a fortnight ago, after an exceptionally crowded meeting at the headquarters building, during which his young enthusiasts had kept him answering questions about musical theory until well after 11 p.m., Chu went upstairs to the small room he used as a bedchamber. A few hours later, a passer-by noticed flames spurting from the lower floors of the all but empty building. He raced to turn in an alarm, but by the time the firemen arrived the whole place was ablaze. Cut off from escape by the collapse of a wooden staircase, the visiting music professor was burned to death. Thai police could not prove that the building had been purposely set afire; in fact, the local Chinese community found in the event new reason for saying nothing at all.

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