Two Eyewitnesses Behind the Bamboo Curtain

Two of the journalists who accompanied the U.S. table tennis team on their historic six-day trip to China last week were LIFE'S Hong Kong Bureau Chief John Saar and LIFE Photographer Frank Fischbeck. Saar's full report will appear in next week's LIFE.

AT first it was like being on another planet," said Saar after he returned to Hong Kong. "For at least two days, no one was quite sure what he was seeing, and then gradually things began to fall into place and we began to see a society and a nation that was very much unified and organized--with a level of overall poverty but absolutely no misery, no hunger. My impression was of a nation very much together, very strong and reliant not on police or enforced discipline but on genuine conviction. There are no beggars, no suffering visible."

"The people are adequately dressed in their blue denims," reported Saar. But there are signs of austerity. "Many of the jackets are very heavily patched, but there was no one in rags or destitute. The Chinese are obviously healthy. I didn't see many fat people. They're a very fit nation now, and most of them are glowing with health."

Saar was impressed by the self-confidence of the Chinese. "Here was an Asian nation that owed nothing to anybody, and in consequence one looked them in the eye and they looked you right back. They seemed very content within themselves, content with their lot and sure of themselves, knowing where they are going." He also found that the much-remarked honesty in Communist China is still there. "At one point, someone came down three floors to give Fischbeck a tiny coin worth perhaps a tenth of a cent--his change from a cup of coffee." Chinese life is beset by red tape. "After a taxi ride, a driver had to give me four separate coupons and fill in a form," said Saar. "Similarly, half an hour to check out of a hotel seemed about normal."

Saar found Peking "swept by harsh winds and with storms of dust swirling across Tienanmen Square." He was impressed by the Russian-Gothic buildings fronting the square, which seemed "built as if for a race of men 10 feet tall." Peking's immensely wide streets are "strangely silent" much of the time, with virtually no traffic except for trol ley buses towing trailers. "The streets," said Saar, "are polished every day by the passage of thousands and thousands of bicycles-- the standard means of transportation. In the morning one heard the clopping hooves of horses bringing in produce from the communes, and the tinkling of a million bicycle bells." He discovered that the cities are startlingly clean. "The whole place has an incredible sense of non-waste. I didn't see a garbage can anywhere. It's as if they're making use of absolutely everything. Not only is there no littering of the street; there's none of the usual clutter that builds up in a city. It's all being disposed of, put into its place and put to work."

The American visitors learned that one of the current popular campaigns in China is emulation of Mao's long march, and columns of children set off into the countryside in the mornings. "Also part of the scene," says Saar, "is the sound of whistles and the shouting of time in the old German army style, as great masses of children of all ages drill outside." He got the feeling of "a population marshaled by a military system but not overtly for military purposes." Among the hundreds of army men he saw, very few carried rifles, and the drilling children did not wear uniforms. "This might be a false impression, since what I've described is confined to the cities," Saar cautioned.

But he added: "One felt that the whole of China was a well-balanced and smoothly running clock."

Photographer Frank Fischbeck recalled: "Everywhere the people were warm, healthy, round-faced, rosy-cheeked, with white teeth. I could see that through the lens all the time. They were apparently very happy. When they shook your hand they crushed it. You had to applaud in greeting and just stay away from shaking hands. They seemed so happy to see foreigners. The interpreters with us said, 'We hope more people are coming.' They didn't seem to know quite what was happening or whether more people would be coming to China. We assured them that there would be more."

Fischbeck agrees with the group's general view that Chou En-lai was "smooth, very handsome and quite witty." Speaking through an interpreter, Chou told the Americans at one point: "Now criticize our country." But no one would. Then Chou said: "Well, I can criticize. Those photographers over there wouldn't even let me through. I had to get somebody to push them out of the way." Everyone laughed.

Fischbeck thinks that one central message the Chinese were putting across in their hospitality to the U.S. team was: The peoples of the world are welcome in China. All in all, he says, "it was a big, smiling campaign through a vast country at very high speed."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.