I emerged from my study one evening recently to find my wife, who is Chinese, in tears in front of the television news. Between sobs she told me that a People's Liberation army lieutenant had drowned trying to save a suicidal young girl.
The tragedy had taken place in Jinhua, a nearby town. Our local station was showing footage of the funeral. There were repeated—to my mind intrusive—close-ups of the widow weeping over the body, the coffin and then the casket. An enormous portrait of the lieutenant dominated the town square. Senior officers saluted. Every person in a crowd of 30,000 carried a yellow chrysanthemum. Schoolchildren held banners with the characters: "Learn from the hero."
The background was that the lieutenant's wife and child had travelled from his distant home for his first leave in a long time, and that very day he had rushed to save the drowning girl, and perished in the act.
Tragic, certainly. But with the close-ups, the chrysanthemums, the banners and the sombre officers, I couldn't help thinking—what perfectly orchestrated propaganda.
In these days of transition, China is short of role models. The party is worried at the country's lack of a moral compass—and realises that it is no longer seen as one itself. Its favourite hero, Lei Feng, is way out of date: the model soldier was killed by a telegraph pole in the early 1960s. He left a diary that listed his good communist deeds. By an amazing fluke, after his death a collection of photographs turned up that caught him in the act of doing each one. Dead role models are easier to handle.
Call me cynical, but what if the suicidal girl was a girlfriend of the lieutenant? Could that be why his parents had had their phone line cut, and were effectively barred from speaking to the press? Might they have spoiled the story? (According to the news reporter, it was to protect them from the shock.) When I suggested as much to my wife, she certainly called me something. Perfect propaganda.
Burning the rulebook
My ongoing task at this time of year is collecting firewood. It is forbidden to take timber from the forests, but our wood-burning stove is the main source of heat in our stone villa, and the temperature dropped below freezing in early January.
I only chop up dead trees or typhoon damage, so I like to think I am performing a community service of sorts, but recently I was caught in the act by a forestry department patrol.
"I should report you," the old man said.
I gave him a cigarette, and as I lit it for him protested: "But I only chop dead or fallen trees—surely that's OK?"
"Still illegal. No one can take any wood whatsoever." He exhaled with a long sigh, then added: "These foreign cigarettes aren't bad."
A "no smoking" sign was nailed to a tree on the path behind us. The man was also responsible for fire prevention.
"Anyway, they don't burn well," he said, returning to the subject of dead trees. "You want trees that are just beginning to die. Like this one." He pointed to a pine beside him. It looked fine to me.
He went on. "I'll be in no end of trouble if someone finds out you were chopping wood on my patch. Can't you go somewhere else? There are lots of trees like this round the other side of the hill."
As he turned to go, he said over his shoulder, "And I'll be here tomorrow." I detected a subtle emphasis on "tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "About an hour of daylight left." He patted the tree again. "That should give you enough time."
The lost millions
It has been a good year in Moganshan, the hilltop village built by foreign missionaries in the early 1900s where my family and I have withdrawn from the capitalist madness that is Shanghai. The place was designed as a heat retreat, and is resuming that role. Last summer the coffee shop we own was overrun by chief executives and managers from all over the world. Convoys of them wound their way up the mountain in people carriers packed with children, maids, and in-laws. The journey only takes three hours from Shanghai. It took two days when the frock coats "discovered" the mountain.
Shanghai's international community seems pleasantly surprised by what we have done—which is to have created a cosy place to sit and read, meet friends or make them. We've been far busier than we expected, and it has been hard work.
But I am entertained and reassured by stories from the commercial world I left behind. The China CEO of a major international company, a typical guest, got talking to me on his second visit. "I think your president of international development took me out for lunch once in Shanghai," I said, once I had realised who he was. "He wanted to pick my brains about setting up in China."
"What did you tell him?"
"To be honest I can't remember, but knowing me I wouldn't have held back from telling him all the problems he would face. In fact my usual advice to people like that is: don't."
"Well we've been here three years now."
"And so far?"
He leant across the bar and whispered, "We're losing millions a year."
