"But we have to please the first reader," another man said, and stuck a finger in the air.
"He means the political censor," someone said.
It seemed to me that there was a certain hypocrisy in believing in censorship for the lower orders but not for intellectuals, but I didn't want to intimidate them by questioning their logic. I told them that Henry Miller had been banned in England and America until the 1960s, and the Lady Chatterley trial was in 1963. So much for enlightenment in the West.
"We are improving," one of the scholars said. "We have just published a series of volumes on the economics of Keynes."
I said that perhaps John Maynard Keynes for them was like D. H. Lawrence for us, and I tried to imagine what forbidden, dark, brooding supply-side economics might be like.
I was sobered up just before I left Mrs. Lord's when a young man approached me and said he heard that I was interested in Chinese railways.
'There is a certain railway line that you should see," he said. "It is called 'Death Road.' During the Cultural Revolution people used to kill themselves on this section of track. One person a day, and sometimes more, jumped in front of the train. In those days the buildings in Peking weren't very tall — you couldn't kill yourself by jumping out of the window of a bungalow. So they chose the train because they were too poor to buy poison."
"A few years ago, we used to see the tourists and say, 'Americans are so old,'" a man told me in Peking. And it was true: only old people went to China then, because it was very expensive and took time, and being a wealthy retiree helped if you wanted to go. But nowadays everyone went. There were tycoons, budget travelers, free-loaders, cyclists, tourists, archeologists and prospective students of kung fu. In Peking every one of them visited the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven and the Friendship Store. I had seen these sights on my previous trip. Very interesting, I thought; very big, too. But I had come to China to find things that were unspectacular.
I went to Death Road. It was immediately clear why it had been chosen for suicides: it was a curve in the line hidden by a footbridge, with a dusty culvert on either side. It was possible to see where people jumped from and where they fell. Apart from that it seemed an ordinary place, just a section of track, but in its ordinariness lay all of its horror.
Then I decided to go to the big foreign-language bookstore on Wangfujing Street to see if Professor Dong's book of English phrases was available. It was not, but I was given A Dictionary of New and Difficult English Words. In the B's I found balled, ball-up, ballsy, ballahoo [sic], and banged, and under shit the expression I feel shitty in my body—a newly minted American colloquialism. But most of the words were chemical compounds—methyloxylate, sulphur dioxide— and their Chinese equivalents.
An elderly Chinese man was perusing a copy.
"It is not much use to me," he said, "because I usually translate music theory and this is very scientific. You probably don't know many of these words."
"Some of them look familiar," I said.
His name was Zhang Mei. He was a musician, adept at several instruments, including the piano; a composer, a conductor, and lately a music teacher. He also sang, he said — he was a baritone. As well as Chinese music, he played and sang Schubert ("very sad"), Verdi and Handel ("my personal favorite"). He also liked Stephen Foster. He said that Foster was one of the most popular composers in China.
"When I hear 'Beautiful Dreamer' I feel like weeping," I said.
"I prefer Handel," Mr. Zhang said.
He was small and frail and rather bent over, but when I said I was going for a walk he offered to come with me. He looked older than his years — he was seventy-five — but he walked nimbly. He said he had just seen his son off at Peking Central Station — the son was taking the train to Paris to study singing; he was not stopping on the way. I said, "It's a nine-day trip," but Mr. Zhang said, "He has a berth — he can sleep. He's very lucky."
I asked him whether the government disapproved of Western music. He said no, not these days. Later I found out that there were official directives about such matters; for example, on 7 March 1977, the Party sent forth a decree lifting a ban on the playing of Beethoven's music.
Mr. Zhang had never studied music. He said, "I am self-taught. I was in the New Fourth Army against the Japanese. I led the chorus, forty men. That was to rouse the troops. Also I wrote music and composed songs."
I asked him for an example.
"In the town of Huangzhou in Jiangsu Province we won an important battle. I commemorated it by writing The Song of the Baking Cakes.'"
He explained that it was a patriotic song based on people baking a particular kind of cake, called shaobing. They served them when the soldiers went off to battle and welcomed the soldiers back with more cakes.
I said, "Didn't you write songs about the Japanese as evil little fiends?"
"Oh, yes," Mr. Zhang said. "In the songs we called them all sons of names. Ghosts. Robbers. Rapists. Because they were robbing and raping. If you say 'rapist' most people will know immediately that you're talking about a Japanese, even now."
"Were they ghosts?"
He laughed. "Ghosts are guizi. They are cruel. Well, not exactly cruel. They are abominable."
I liked him. I asked him whether he was hungry. He said yes, but he also said he had very bad digestion. Nevertheless, he ordered an enormous amount of food. It cost 33 yuan and we ate very little of it. He paid for it in ordinary Chinese money (renminbi), and then I gave him the equivalent in Foreign Exchange Certificates, which were like hard currency. It was quite a transaction but it occurred to me that my changing this money was the whole point of his ordering this expensive meal.
He said he had chosen the restaurant because it was Cantonese, and so was he. While we were eating, he overheard four Cantonese men speaking about their bill — their meal had cost 35 yuan.
"They must be merchants to have paid so much for their meal," he said. He asked them if this was so, but they told him they worked in a nearby government office.
"Times are changing," he said. As a veteran he had various pensions and subsidies that came to 271 yuan a month. He said he felt fairly well-off.
I asked him what he thought of so many Japanese tourists visiting China after they had caused so much misery for the Chinese by occupying the country and fighting so tenaciously.
"We have forgotten all that. It is better to forget. Anyway, Chairman Mao said, 'Most foreigners are good — only a few are bad.'"
"I wonder what Chairman Mao would say if he saw what was taking place in Peking right now."
Mr. Zhang said, "He would be interested. Certainly surprised."
"He might not like it."
"He would have to like it. The facts would teach him. He could not deny it."
He said what most people had told me, that Mao in old age was senile. After 1957, Mao was not the same. He kept making mistakes and was easily misled by Lin Biao and the Gang of Four.
"People worshipped him. It was very bad. He did not encourage it but he tolerated it."
I asked Mr. Zhang whether he was optimistic about the changes in China.
"Yes," he said. "Things are much better. We should have more money to spend, but if we tighten our belts for a few years I think we'll see some results."
"Don't you think there could be a change for the worse when Deng dies?"