Letters From Peking. Michael Richardson
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Letters
from Peking
Letters from Peking
A British Diplomat in China 1972-1974
Michael Richardson CB
Published by Alba Publishing,
P O Box 266, Uxbridge
UB9 5NX, United Kingdom
© 2019 Michael Richardson
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
e-ISBN: 978-1-912773-31-2
Edited, designed and typeset by Kim Richardson
Cover picture © Michael Richardson
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Michael and Celia Richardson lived in Peking, China from January 1972 to January 1974. It was Michael’s first posting as a member of HM Diplomatic Service as Third Secretary at the Office of the British Chargé d’Affaires, after two years learning Mandarin Chinese in Hong Kong where their son Jamie was born. Jamie was almost two when the family went to China. The following are extracts from their letters home. Where no addressee is stated they are ‘round-robin’ letters – known as ‘mammoths’ – to both sets of parents and others, written either by Celia (CR) or Michael (MJR). Britain’s diplomatic relations with China were limited to offices headed by Chargés d’Affaires, rather than full ambassadors, because of disagreement over Britain’s continued recognition of – and diplomatic presence in – Taiwan. The office of the British Chargé d’Affaires in Peking had been burnt down by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in 1968.
Contents
OFFICE OF THE BRITISH CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES PEKING
10 JANUARY 1972 CR
We arrived late last night and the first Bag [diplomatic bag through which all our private correspondence came and went] goes tomorrow so I am scribbling this by the light of my plastic lamp and to the sound of a million lorries hooting their way through the dark streets of unlit bicycles. We are well but tired. A 22 hour flight from London to Hong Kong with no sleep. Three frenzied days in a very seductive-looking Hong Kong and then a day’s journey to do the 60 miles from HK to Canton. Our onward plane from Canton to Peking was cancelled so we were sent to the celebrated Dong Fang Hotel of grisly proportions and comforts. We had time the next day to wander round a zoo where we were more of an attraction than the animals, especially Jamie with his blonde hair. Four large Mao badges had been pinned to his jacket by the end of the morning. We eventually took off last afternoon in our Russian turboprop to the accompaniment all the way of revolutionary music and were served by a large red cheeked lady in khaki. Jamie stood up on his chair and said ‘One milkman, two milkmen’ and was then stunned into silence when he realized the whole plane was full of milkmen (i.e. men in caps). We are in a grim hotel for ten days. Very rough and very noisy but have been cheered by our flats which are cosy at least though they stand in a bleak compound with bare leafed trees and dirty snow. The Great Masses seem friendly too and Michael is delighted to be able to use his Chinese and to have a job at last.
I haven’t focused on Peking yet. It is too early for detailed impressions and I am a bit stunned. Jamie talks about you all the time and from here Christmas takes on magical proportions which indeed it was.
OFFICE OF THE BRITISH CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES PEKING
24 JANUARY 1972 MJR
We have now been two weeks in the Celestial City and yesterday moved from the Hsin Chiao Hotel to our flat in the Diplomatic compound. We share this habitat (in Chinese Wai Jiao Da Lou – literally Diplomatic Big Building) with people of varied races and creeds, from multitudinous Pakistani families, to squat Bulgars, graceful Africans and elegant French. It is heavily guarded by members of the People’s Liberation Army; no Chinese may enter without a proper pass from the authorities (at present the Peking Revolutionary Committee). The danger of contamination by such a concentration of foreign devils is thought to be very great. It is built round a huge rectangular space full of trees, bare earth and paths framed by the main block of flats (of Russian inspired monolithic pretentious ugliness unequalled in the western world). Our own flats are smaller, three storey blocks in the middle of this space. We are about a mile from the centre of Peking in a quartier where many embassy buildings are, including our own. It is at least quiet. Too much to hope that the flat should be even remotely adequately furnished but I will have to let Celia elaborate on that in her customary pithy way.
To re-cap a little on our journey, we crossed the border into China by foot from one train to another with a great sense of occasion; looked after faultlessly by China Travel who deal with all visitors from HK. We spent three hours going through customs, having lunch and hanging around waiting rooms full of thick chairs covered in anti-macassars. We reached Canton in a magnificent train only to find our flight to Peking had been cancelled. We rattled around in the desolate 800 bed Dong Fang hotel where the number of guests were 6. Jamie quickly became familiar with the large busts and photos of the Chairman, calling out Mao! excitedly whenever he sees one: to much good effect if people are looking on which they nearly always are. We are objects of great curiosity here.
We haven’t been able to leave Jamie much so we have been launched gently onto the diplomatic swings and roundabouts. It’s the cosmopolitan-ness that’s oddest. I was at lunch a few days ago with a Nepali, two Indians, an Egyptian, a Russian, a Canadian and a Scot. Last night I was with Swiss, French, Russian, Malian, Cameroonian and Algerian. I have called on my Chinese counterparts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they were very friendly. Everyone looks very proletarian since they all wear ill-fitting baggy jackets and trousers of blue cloth.
We haven’t seen much of Peking yet but there are many wonders. The Great Gate of Heavenly Peace [entrance to the Forbidden City] is awesome as is Tien An Men Square in front of it where one million people can gather. Behind the walls either side of the Gate, the parks and courtyards of the Forbidden City unfold one after another.
Foreigners are treated with caution and elaborate deference to the ludicrous extent that Chinese children back away when Jamie goes near them in the park to play. This is partly because they are frightened of him as a small foreign devil but also because they want him to have preferential treatment on the swings and slides.
Work is very good indeed but much of it. I do some reporting on internal Chinese affairs and deal with Sino-British relations. I am also H.M. Consul. A romantic title of dubious worth since it mostly involves signing birth certificates, issuing visas (breathtakingly complicated) and comforting 95-year-old British citizens, bedridden in places like Tientsin and Shanghai, who are the flotsam of the British in China.
J and C have had a difficult time adjusting to all the changes but now that we are under our own roof, if camping, things are easier. Our new Chargé [Chargé d’Affaires rather than ambassador for the reasons explained earlier] arrives early tomorrow and I must be up early to bow low at the station. It is a marvellous place. Great gleaming steam engines towing huge trains to Shanghai, Harbin, Ulan Bator and Moscow.
OFFICE OF THE BRITISH CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES PEKING
7 FEBRUARY 1972 CR
I am sitting at our dining table in the middle of the sitting room which the painters have just finished, surrounded by meagre pieces of furniture, and gazing out across the compound to a building opposite which looks not