McEWEN REPORTS ON CHINA Old skills blended with new Two cities in China famed for their natural beauty, gor- geous parks, dragon - green lakes and palatial residential areas are Soochow and Hang- chow. Because of their rare beauty the Chinese refer to them as the “two halves of Heaven.” I spent two busy days in each city. Actually, under the Kuomin- tang regime, Soochow and Hangchow came much closer to being the “two halves” of @ Hell, since every native and foreign ex- ploiter, . wal- lowing in the mriches wrung Mout of the os ¥ sweat and toil of the Chinese people, flocked to these two cities and made them centres of an alien “cul- ture.” There they built palatial homes, kept whole droves of underpaid servants, rickshaw coolies, gardeners, houseboys, all the entourage of a royal household. These luxurious establish- ments with their full quota of idle officials, hangers- -on, con- cubines (the polite word for domesticated whores) and the like, explained the poverty- stricken condition of the Chin- ese people. As one Chinese worker in Hangchow put it, “A thousand starved so that one might gorge.” Most of these great resi- dences were built in the Euro- pean style, each with its huge grounds, its elaborate rock gardens, its fish ponds, grottos and pagodas. To ornament them the country was plund- ered of its art treasures, I occupied rooms in a num- ber of these residences pre- viously owned by British, French, German, American and other foreign™ officials, and there was nothing their pre- vious owners had overlooked in the way of comfort, con- venience, lavish living — for themselves. techniques In many instances, the cut- lery, glassware and silver bore the stamp of famed English, German or American manu- facturers, and sometimes it was also engraved with the family “crest” of the “old China hands” who lived so well at the expense of the Chinese people. All that, of course, is happi- ly ended now and the people themselves enjoy the beauty, culture and freedom of their own “two halves of Heaven.” Their enjoyment is all the greater when they remember that in the old days they were whipped and beaten like dogs, and sometimes shot if they left their own disease-ridden slum areas and ventured too near these “sacred” precincts of their foreign and native overlords. xt be xt In Soochow much of the beauty is man-made, built to suit the tastes of bourgeois philistines. There are muse- ums and rock gardens galore, where children now play hide- and-seek among the grottos, and scold each other if a deli- cate flower bed is injured in their game. Soochow, which dates back more than 2,500 years, was a great centre of culture and learning during the Ming dyn- asty, and its people are still proud of the artists, scholars and “traditional” doctors the city produced, and of its mag- nificent Buddhist temple which not even Chiang Kai-shek’s bombers could destroy. Parents bring their families to these beautiful botanical gardens and parks and teachers come with their classes to tell them of the long history, the struggle and joys of their city. Over in a corner a young girl sketches in graceful lines the beauty around her, and in another secluded nook an old man wearing the traditional long coat of bygone Mandarin days sits and snoozes in the sun. And all around the air is laden with the strong per- fume of flowers and the gar- dens ring with the laughter of happy children. In Soochow I visited a co- operative silk weaving plant and a fan factory. In both places the intricate skill and artistry of these handicraft workers of Soochow was some- thing to marvel at. In this one silk weaving plant (there are many such co- operatives in Soochow) some 500 workers, young and old, are employed. The old mast- ers teach the young and many of the completed tapestries were things of exquisite beauty. In one room of the silk weav- ing plant the supervisor intro- duced me to a very old man and, I should add, a very great artist. Bent almost double, his lined face and wispy’ beard reminded me of an etching from an-‘old masterpiece. He could not have been much less than a hundred years old. He was working on a huge tapestry which would still take him months to complete. Be- side him were his hundreds of needles, each with their separate shades of rich color. With the utmost care and pre- cision he would lay down one needle and pick up another MON. - TUES. ANNUAL BOOK SALE 4 DAYS ONLY SATURDAY, 26TH JANUARY - WED. — 28, - 29 - 30 JANUARY Thousands of Progressive Books at Clearance Prices Sales Hours 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Out of Town Customers Send for List of Outstanding Bargains PEOPLE'S CO-OP BOOKSTORE 337 W. PENDER z Hai The children have four “social health duties” for a few blending stitches. He required no glasses as his eyes moved from the paper design in front of him to the tapestry on his frame; eyes that smiled in the deep pride of artistry, surviving all social change. “In my younger days,” this old man told me, “I designed and wove the regal robes for China’s emperors. Now I make things of beauty for the peo- ple.” Beside his loom hung one of his tapestries, the strong face of Chairman Mao Tse- tung in the deep russet and green terrain of the old artist’s China. For a. long minute I watched the delicate fingers of this aged craftsman stroke the emerging design of his work. It was like a mother stroking the brow of her child. In the fan factory I was amazed at the skill of workers in one operation, that of saw- ing out each blade of a sandal- wood fan from a log with an antiquated hand saw. closely resembling the good old Can- adian “buck-saw.” With the log shaped the size of the fan blade required, the worker lays it on a low stool, puts his foot on it to hold it firm, and without lines, gauges or other aid, saws off precision fan blades the thickness of a dime with fascinating accur- acy and speed. Of all the delicate artistry and crafts- manship which goes into the making of a fan, it struck me that this precision buck-saw- ing job was the most skilled of all. A good exercise for our home-carpenter fix-it- yourself fans, bes be be The city of Hangchow is built around majestic lakes and. sheltered lagoons. Along its banks the inevitable fish- erman casts his bag net on the end of a long bamboo pole, or patiently awaits the expected bite. Out on the lakes, their sails gleaming in the bright sun yachts sail back and forth, with noisy speed boats cutting * JANUARY 25, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PA in and out in a whirl of 5) And in quiet lagoons wh reflection of an ancient P da: joins land and wat boy and a girl lazily P along in their little boat haps dreaming and pl their lives together in 4 world of their own Chi Hangchow is also fam its silk tapestries, its fans, and its bamboo su in a riot of color. Its Buddhist temple, of whi wrote last week, and its new workers’ sanitorl@ rest homes are the pride ; civic authorities. The great sanitorium 7 by the Chekiang Prov" Trade Union Council pre needed rest and _ heal thousands of workers ally. During the. ne years, because of its pOP™ ity and the health giving; mate of Hangchow, it is F ned to double its capacitY In one of the city’s beautiful parks I at “school.” In the summer months. iT of China’s children atten! door schools while new construction goes on. The children sang so: us, wanted to know all Canada, how we liked and told us how well thé carried out the four health duties’ of Pioneers. These four | are: The elimination. of the elimination of rats; imination of starlings; * imination of mosquitoes From their enthusia’ the completion of these © it looked as though Chi? going to be a very unwé place for any of these P When I bade these hu®™ of Hangchow children % bye I had a guilty feelin®) three Canadians had tho! ly disorganized school £0 day at least. Looking could see teachers © about like distracted hem ing to get their ch@ chicks together again 1» semblance of order.