So many Chinese people travel, even in sub-zero winter weather like this, that one is never sure of getting a hotel room. But in Shenyang I had no problem. The 500-room Phoenix Hotel had only six other guests. It was only seven-thirty at night, but already the dining room was closed. I begged them to open it, and they said I could eat providing I did not require anything very fancy. The specialities of the Phoenix were bear's paw (350 yuan), moose nose, and "fillet of pork in the shape of a club." I had crunchy chicken and cabbage. It was no good, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that for the first time in weeks I was warm. This hotel was heated. My room was full of light fixtures. There was imitation fur on the walls. The toilet didn't work, but the room had a television.
I needed help getting a ticket to Dalian because (but how was I to know this?) the trains to Dalian were always full and tickets were almost unobtainable at short notice. That was how I met Mr. Sun.
Mr. Sun was self-educated. He had spent what should have been his school days on a farm, another casualty of the Cultural Revolution. But he still believed in self-reliance and serving the people, and in order and obedience. In the course of his getting me a train ticket we had several illuminating conversations, and I was glad he was a frank hard-liner, because I sometimes had the feeling that everyone I met resented the past and felt that Mao had created a society of jackasses.
"I think the students have no right to criticize the government," Mr. Sun said, and then launched into a harangue. "I had to teach myself English. I had no chance to go to any university. The government has given these students the right to go to university. It is paying for their education. And what do the students do? They demonstrate against the government! I don't agree with them at all. If they demonstrate they should be removed."
Mr. Sun showed me the gigantic epoxy-resin statue of Mao in Shenyang. It is the apotheosis of Mao the founding father, surrounded by fifty-eight figures that represent all phases of the Chinese revolution. I did not have to be told that it was erected during the Cultural Revolution. Like the Mao statue in Chengdu, it showed the old man beaming his benediction down upon the proletariat. Such statues were expensive. The money for the Chengdu statue had been earmarked for a sports stadium, and the Shenyang one had been built with civic funds.
I asked Mr. Sun whether he thought it was all a waste of public money.
"No," he said.
"Do you think the statue should be pulled down and destroyed like the other Mao statues?"
"There is no need to pull down the statue just because it was put up during the Cultural Revolution," Mr. Sun said. "Mao was a great man and we must not forget his achievement."
There was no question that Mao had been a remarkable man. He had said that he had pondered for years a means by which he might shock the Chinese people, and then he had hit upon the idea of the Cultural Revolution as the perfect shock. But he had overdone it: no one had known when to stop.
Mr. Sun was an interpreter. He was not a very good one—we spoke a mixture of Chinese and English in order to carry on an intelligible conversation. But he surprised me by saying that he would soon be going to Kuwait in the Persian Gulf to be an interpreter for a Chinese work gang.
One of China's newest money-making schemes was the export of skilled laborers on construction projects. They were putting up buildings in Saudi Arabia, and indeed all over the Middle East. It seems very odd that the Chinese are hired as architects and builders, since their own buildings are so undistinguished, not to say monstrosities. It was rather as though Poland were exporting chefs, and Australia sending elocution teachers to England, and Americans running classes in humility or the Japanese in relaxation techniques. Post-1949 Chinese buildings were among the very worst and shakiest and ugliest I had ever seen in my life.
"Won't you have to speak Arabic in Kuwait?"
"No. The other workers are Germans and Koreans and Pakistanis and Americans. Everyone speaks English. That's why I am needed."
I asked him whether he was apprehensive about the new job.
"My friend just came back and he told me the weather is bad."
"It's not much like Shenyang"—minus twenty-eight degrees today, by the way. "What are the people like?"
"Not friendly."
"And the housing?"
"Everyone sleeps in the same room."
"What about the food?"
"He just ate tins."
"Cans of Ma Ling cow's tendon, and White Lotus pigs' trotters in gelatin, and Sunflower pork luncheon meat, and China National Foodstuffs boneless chicken pieces in spicy broth—that kind of thing?"
"Yes. And noodles. I think so."
I imagined crates and cartons stacked to the ceiling of the dormitory where this team of workers lived.
"Is there any advantage to living that way and eating out of cans in the sandstorms of Kuwait?"
"You can buy some things."
"What did your friend buy?"
"One refrigerator. Three television sets—one had remote control. A radio. A video recorder. An oven for the kitchen—microwave. Cassette recorder. And a Honda motorcycle. All Japanese."
It was as if the fellow had won the jackpot on a game show.
"It must have cost him a lot of money," I said.
"He earned one hundred and seven U.S. dollars every month."
And lived on cans of Ma Ling loquats in syrup and Double Happiness dried noodles for two years—pass the Lucky Eagle can opener, Abdul.
"What will he do with all those televisions?"
"One for his mother, one for his brother, and one for himself."
"What are you planning to buy in Kuwait?"
"A Japanese refrigerator."
"What will you do with it?" I asked, because Mr. Sun had already told me that he lived with his parents.
"I will need it, because after two years in Kuwait I will be of marriageable age."
He told me that the legal age for marriage in the north of China is twenty-six for a man and twenty-four for a woman; and that in the south it is a year lower. But I bought a pamphlet of the Chinese marriage laws a few weeks later and it seemed to dispute what Mr. Sun had said.
"Is that all you want—a refrigerator?"
"I also want a video camera. I want to take pictures of Kuwait and of different places in China. Then I can show these pictures to my mother. She has never been anywhere except Shenyang."
It was smoggy in Shenyang that day—a brown sky and icy streets; and it was as cold as Harbin.
Mr. Sun said, "You should stay longer here."
"It's too cold," I said. "I want to go south."
"Where do you come from in the United States?"
"Not very far from Portsmouth, New Hampshire."
He looked puzzled. He didn't have a clue. Why did so many Chinese have an intimate knowledge of ancient history, the legendary Yellow Emperor and the Tang Dynasty, and have no information at all about more recent Chinese history?
I said, "Does the Treaty of Portsmouth mean anything to you?"
It was the treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War and that gave Shenyang—then called Mukden—to the Japanese. It was only eighty years ago, probably in the lifetime of Mr. Sun's mother. This treaty was suggested by Teddy Roosevelt and signed in that little town—actually in the Portsmouth Naval Yard, which happens to be just over the state line, in Kittery, Maine, but I felt that would only confuse Mr. Sun.
He didn't know anything about it. He wanted me to see what Shenyang was famous for now—not only its "three great treasures" (ginseng, sable pelts and furry antlers), but its factories and its automobile assembly plant. Just as the Chinese make steam engines and spittoons and quill pens, so they also make brand-new old cars—the Red Flag is a slightly bloated and swollen version of an old Packard. I declined a visit to Fushun, to see China's largest open-pit mine—more than four miles across and a thousand feet deep. In this smog and frosty air it would be impossible to see the bottom, much less get a glimpse of the other side of the mine. I wanted to leave this great dark city.