Cheesu

By WILLIAM DOUGLAS HOME IHAVE always admired foreign correspondents, those squash-hatted men who dash from capital to capital on behalf of the more sensational daily newspapers in order to supply the latest foreign news to every British breakfast table.

`Wonderful men !' I have Said to myself, enviously tapping the top of my boiled egg. 'Paris on Monday talking French, Tuesday in Berlin talking German, Wednesday in Rome talk- ing Italian, Thursday in Delhi talking whatever they talk in Delhi, Friday in Moscow talking Russian, and Saturday in Peking talking Chinese.' You know the kind of stuff : 'The French man in the street feels strongly ,about this,' Berliners are convinced about that,' Vatican circles are unanimous about the other.' I have swallowed it all with my egg, secure in the knowledge that I am absorbing the informed opinion of expert linguists. And it is their linguistic ability that I have admired most of all. Then suddenly—on March 24 to be pre- cise—I suffered disillusionment. It happened when I picked up my popular morning paper in order to read an article by a well-known foreign correspondent. And the disillusionment was all the greater because this particular gentleman has all those qualifications which go to make up a well-known foreign correspondent. First of all, he has a name consisting of what appears to be two surnames and no Christian name, which is, of course, the hallmark of a foreign correspondent. And, secondly, he has a most impressive mileage on his clock.

I quote from his log-book as advertised in an jnset beside his previous article on March 23. 'On October 14th, he was in Hong Kong. A few days later he was in Karachi on his way to London. He returned to Hong Kong via Istanbul—and since then his passport has taken him through Custom barriers in Calcutta. Rangoon, Canton in Red China, Peking, up to Man- churia, back to Shanghai, Peking and Hong Kong. The distance round the world at tie Equator is 24,902 miles. He has flown 23,720 miles in five months.'

There you are. Apart from carelessly by-passing an odd thousand miles at some unspecified point, he has been round the world on our behalf. Wonderful man ! —searching out information in every country, applying his incredible linguistic ability to the problem, of capturing the atmosphere, both social and political, in every, foreign land: Here, for example, culled from the article he wrote on the day before he disillusioned me, is some of the vitally important information he unearthed in Peking. I quote: 'The street, crowds look determined rather than happy.' There it is, itself well worth flying 23,720 miles to get, conveying as it does such a strangely foreign picture to our British minds. For, to those living in a country like ours, where laughter rings out from the draughty pavements of Oxford Street on a wet March afternoon and every shopper wears a carefree smile, this sombre, picture is surely vital to our understanding of the Chinese people. .

Then, the very day he disillusioned me. more vital informa- tion came to light. I quote from the description of a journey in the Manchuria Express: 'In the dining-car, every one meekly waits his turn.' How intensely interesting and indeed how strange this sounds to those of us who travel by train in this country. None of that ugly rush for the tomato soup that we are so accustomed to on the Cheltenham Flier, no low tackle such as we expect from an old lady on the Flying Scotsman as the waiter passes down the corridor with cheese and biscuits. Instead all are quiet, cowed by the ruthlessness of Chou En-lai.

And then, almost most interesting of all, I quote: 'Comrade waiters eject those who have finished wit humour and wave the next customer to the Amazing! What a scoop! Diners in Ill leave their seats when they've finished to ; waiting! But, my dear, how too, too Ori Chinese for words!

Well, there I sat on March 24 with rny and colder, drinking in these astounding from the folds of the Yellow, Curtain, paragraph three, I read the following: '1 catering service by asking for cheese.' disillusionment yet. Happily, I pictured fluent Chinese, spiced no doubt with a st dialect of the province through which th be passing. at the time, for cheese. I et nationalism and his mastery of languag 'I went through the motions of milking a the motions! But why? Why not descri cow? Why, with that incredible ,comman is clearly the first necessity of any respo spondent, go through the motions, presi milking a cow? Then, finally, complete ; ment came' over me, when read this: `At last, light dawned— —Cheese," cried the head waiter. "Cheese," I said relieved.'

There it was. .There, in its stark naked graph that made me lay aside my paper draught of tea, for it had dawned on m reporter, two-surnamer and all, one of t public opinion in the English-speaking superman I thought he was. In other w foreign country when it came to speech- ing. Of course it is. It's always disillus heroes like oneself; especially in the mat I once asked 'for two sailors for myself South of France in the belief that I was mattresses. On another occasion, I proud policeman, in search of my particulars, e ness, stood the para. nd swallow a strong e that my hero, star he prime formers of world, was not the rds, he'd had it in a well, it is disillusion- ioning to find one's ter of foreign travel. and my wife in the asking. for two, sun- ly informed a French that I was a writing- h considerable good vacant seat.'

e dining-car actually make room for those ental, too incredibly eggs getting colder of news cabled when suddenly, in paralysed the railway That's all right, no my hero, asking in ninon of the native e train happened to vied him his inter- e—then came this: cow.' Went through be the milking of a d of language which nsible foreign corre- umably in mime, of and total disillusion- desk. But then I am not a foreign correspondent. I am just a plain Englishman travelling abroad, equipped with the usual conversational repertoire of travelling Englishmen, that is to say the following five words, spoken in the following order: Taxi (spoken at the airport), How much? (spoken at the hotel entrance), and Bloody Foreigner (spoken, sotto voce, almost anywhere).

And now, to my horror, I find that at least one of the experts is no better equipped than myself. From there, it is a short step towards doubting whether any of them are able to speak a word of any foreign language. And it is a still shorter step towards disbelieving every word they write. For, after all, how can one pin one's faith on the word of a man who goes career- ing round the world asking' for cheese, and, merely because there is the difference of one letter• between his word and the other fellow's, indulges in an orgy of mime, like an old- fashioned Shakespearian actor with a sore throat? No wonder our breakfast tables are weighed down with gloomy reports.

`The girls in Peking have lost their sense of fun,' for example. Who wouldn't lose their sense of fun when confronted by a speechless Englishman with a contorted face, imitating a cow being milked in a Peking park, in his search for cheese?

Picture yourself in Oxford Street, faced with a Chinaman in pigtails asking for cheese in Chinese. Wouldn't you lose your sense of fun? And wouldn't you be surprised to learn that he was the foreign correspondent of a great Chinese news- paper and that, around your reaction to his request, he intended to frame an article analysing the political situation in Britain.

`Cheese,' cried the head waiter. 'Cheese,' I said, relieved.

There, in that minimum slice of dialogue, lies the maximum piece of international understanding achieved by a British foreign correspondent after travelling 23,720 miles.

All that money spent, all that petrol burnt, all that news- print spoilt, and all those countless breakfast eggs neglected and the only result a nameless gentleman saying 'Cheese,' or rather, echoing 'Cheese' in the Manchuria Express!

After all, one can say 'Cheese' just as well at home. Indeed. in this connection, and with all respect to my ex-hero, I felt sorely tempted to.