Books

Three comedians in China

Harold Acton

China Diary Stephen Spender and David Hockney (Thames & Hudson £10)

When one is over 70 one watches the activities of other septuagenarians with morbid interest. Stephen Spender, the veteran poet of the pink Thirties, dubbed a Fuddy Duddy by Evelyn Waugh, is still an indomitable crusader for British culture, but unlike his comrades Auden and Isher- wood he never visited China until the most enterprising of artistic publishers were in- spired to send him there to complete his education.

Three weeks, as Elinor Glyn sought to prove, are the time-limit for an exotic romance, and a veteran poet may glean as memorable impressions in three weeks as in three years when their novelty has faded. Mr Spender, aged 72, was accompanied by the versatile painter Mr David Hockney, aged 44, and by his American assistant Mr Gregory Evans who looks even younger: three modern musketeers well equipped with cameras and painting materials to record their visual experiences and swap opinions during a first trip to the Chinese People's Republic. None of them could speak the language, perhaps a negative ad- vantage, but one pair of eyes could com- pensate for what the others missed. The en- tire journey, including Hong Kong, Peking, Sian, Nanking, Hangchow, Wusih, Shanghai, Kweilin and Canton, (pre-Pinyin spelling), was arranged impeccably by the China International Travel Service.

The resulting diary is so lavishly il- lustrated with photographs, watercolours and drawings that the reader becomes more familiar with the features of this fascinating trio than with the scenes and incidents described. Mr Hockney suggested that it should be `a bit bitty — like life — patched up in some way, as if made by three schoolboys on a tour of a continent for the first time', and this is precisely how it reads. It is all very jolly, pervaded by Mr Hockney's humorous temperament.

To supplement the illustrations Mr Spender describes the trio's apparel: `David wore a white flat peaked cap and a striped jersey. Gregory a Robin Hoodish kind of jerkin, canary-coloured, I a fawn-coloured camel-hair jacket and dark blue trousers' the floppy white headgear is omitted. `We looked a bit absurd,' he muses, `especially me with my big feet.' Among the uniformly garbed Chinese they must have attracted more attention than the average globe- trotters. I fancy they would be stared at even in London.

From the moment they landed in Hong Kong, where they were driven in a Rolls- Royce to the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon, they received VIP treatment: `The bed itself was king size. From his room, David dialled a call to Los Angeles and got through at once. We were not yet cut off from the out- side world.' Elsewhere they were driven in an air-conditioned Toyota minibus. A very superior guide, Mr Lin Hua, was allotted to keep them in order, and he is depicted so often in the book that one gets a trifle bored with his bureaucratic appearance. No doubt this was intentional for his is a type destined to survive every regime in China. For Mr Hockney, a believer that `everything is im- agination', daily intercourse with such an embodiment of Marxist materialism must have taken the edge off ecstasy. I suspect he saw the farcical side of his predicament. Im- agination is notoriously lacking in com- munist China: painting and literature are swamped in socialist realism and the Stalinist blight on architecture still endures. Ironically, the best Chinese architects are working in the United States. Since the miscalled Cultural Revolution, however, which retarded progress in every direction, ancient monuments have been skilfully repaired and copies of old paintings, porcelain, and jade are produced somewhat mechanically for foreign export. And the archaeologists have never been so busy — with amazing success.

A Los Angeles film director advised the authors to disregard the official guide's in- structions by wandering wherever they felt inclined, but this would not have been possible under the aegis of Mr Lin Hua. Now and then one of them was tempted to stray. `Mr Lin is quite the disciplinarian. He tells us when we should appear in the lobby; and outdoors when we are in the streets he rattles out commands — "Come here!", "Don't go there!", "Hurry up!" ' While Mr Lin fed them with general in- formation, Miss Li, a stern assistant guide, supplied local statistics such as: `Three million of the nine million inhabitants of Peking have bicycles.' Which leads to con- jectures about how the six million without bicycles get along. Padlocks on the two- wheelers seemed to contradict Miss Li's assertion that no one in China ever stole.

Mr Spender's account of Peking, formerly the most harmonious of capitals, is acutely depressing to an erstwhile resi- dent. How many fine buildings were demolished to broaden the streets with high tenements on either side. The vast plain of north China has been brought into the city, as it were, in Tien An Men Square, to rival the Red Square in Moscow, a monstrous parade ground.

A formal visit to the Central AcadeglY6 Fine Arts for the benefit of Mr 11°ekelleiee was balanced by a formal visit to the °f AI of Poetry Magazine for Mr Spender. hor the Academy of Arts a young ieacciale declared: `Directly or indirectly the O. employs all professional artists,' etriP"apcl

.,

ing the distinction between profession4'd of amateur status. An amateur was 'a °n pry certified half or quarter artist.' The fes. an artist received as a recognised Pr.° os, sional covered government comMissi011 etc. `David asked pointedly: "D° 8I notice that certain artists are very gu"" painting — better than others?Awe to teacher replied earnestly: 'It's imPos''cate prevent it happening in any countrY. "-yen students are very talented. They paillit gel well but for some reason they estrip%hipa recognition. I think there are some in' of I now ...' Some academic drav011g,sths, nudes, male and female wearing loirvel° iO provided ample proof of the revolutionro. Chinese taste. The same teacher had P duced a picture of Chairman IVIa,°01n horseback 'in the heroic style of '– socialist realism.' At the office of Poetry MagazigeZ meeting followed the usual formula' 40, sat down, hosts on one side of the to guests on the other, with our guides', v the acted as interpreters, at the end 01 the room.' The authoress of Ode to Feathers of White Geese was inspired yYttoo oil field where she had worked, and the been gratified because `members Ministry of the Petroleum Industry sal :ts poems were good'. Laborious alter, were made to translate a number °;tiged translatable verses. `Poets were elle°. e to go in for self-criticism in the cours the discussion'. Mr Spender concluded Oat, poets he met were, `like the painters' ey.• doubtedly anxious to have a gentlill,coith change of ideas' and resume contact In a post-prandial epilogue stm111°1,4.01i5iii! the West. the pleasures of their trip they sadlY ad lot ted that there were only about fourtoole Chinese people with whom they hadpd any real contact, mostly guides. Tile ha of some Mr Li of Kweilin who disaPPrclv to! the Beatles — (`How can you like „ sod kind of music when you have CitoPI% Beethoven?') — seems to have bee notable exception. At one Pdifit.whi Hockney declares his opinion that 0oP Mao should have done ... is °Peholll things in China to the world.' Let us this will happen in the near future. 0011 It is primarily as a pictorial seraP:.if.lifc

that this diary will be enjoyed. The etre

photographs of shop-window disPlaY.,ater characteristic of the artist, and the clod, colours are succinct examples of H° 38 iso Chinoiserie. The portrait facing PagZhino masterpiece. Mr Spender regarded .„ `a hiatus between places condition lives in the West.' Some hiatus, bYrilitojil b One is left with the image of three bur comedians capering in front of a Coromandel screen.

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