Taiping Road

Sunday Siriol’s Birthday 1935

My dearest Everybody,

I had an excellent journey here yesterday by train (3½hours) together with Brough, a very lively little man, a Reuters correspondent in Hong Kong. Mr Barrett and his 2 children came to see me off. One of the children, Ruth aged 10 said, "Please come and see us again, because when you come you make us all happy."!!

It was interesting on the journey to see the Chinese graves on the hills and the big pots containing bones which have been dug up. We passed an area where there have been bad floods and the rice fields were covered with water. On the border between the British New Territory and Kwangtung Chinese soldiers with rifles came on to the train.. They look a harmless lot of boys. I was reading a book called, "The story of Oriental Philosophy "as I am getting most interested in comparative religions. On the train we made friends with a Chinese family and they took me (about 6 of them ,hardly speaking English) to a cinema and for a car ride round Canton last night.

I have never seen so much chaos in my life as Canton. Everybody seems to be tooting a motor horn or rushing about in a rickshaw.

Monday June 3

After tea and oranges and apples we went for a walk down a very poor alley way where a woman held her baby with a red headgear and made incantations, while another woman burned pieces of paper and lit joss sticks (i.e incense like the Catholics) The baby was ill and the women were making incantations for the child to improve.

We went to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall which is a a huge place with a blue roof. There were a few soldiers "guarding" it,  But their idea of guarding was to look about with their rifles anywhere,s taring at everybody and grinning at the children. "General Choy’s soldiers "said my friends. We climbed a great hill and had a great view over Canton which is a huge place.

Today went to see Shameen the British settlement; saw snakes for sale. They eat them. I’ve just had shrimps au gratin for lunch .At 2 o’clock I am expected at the General’s house (The General is in Hong Kong) probably for safety or because he has made enough money) So I am going now.

About Saturday I leave for Changsha. Just had a nice letter from Dick Weigle saying that he’s looking forward to seeing me at "Yale-in China" .the American their.

I bought 2 more pictures on Sat morning. I’m sorry you’ll have so much bother with the customs.

 Cariad Cynesaf

Gareth

June 4th

Am having a most enjoyable time. I  lunch tomorrow with the consul-General ,but I find it difficult to settle down to write articles- no time Gareth .Am being taken to a Chinese film tonight.

P.S.3 months today I sail from Yokohama , probably. Have booked passage.

THE NEW ASIA HOTEL

6.30 in the morning June 8 1935

My dearest All,

I’m just getting ready to leave for Changsha by train ,junk and bus. 1 stay in Yale in China with Dick Weigle.

I’ve had a great time in Canton. What luck I have in meeting people! My friends made in the train were none other than the family of General Tsai who was a national hero (19th Route Army) kept back the Japanese at Shanghai and of General Chen .They have been amazingly kind and have taken me out for hours .You will remember the Chinese keeping back the Japanese and the applauding of the world.

I’ll answer letters later. 1 am sorry to hear about all the bereavements. I shall write to the families.

Cariad Cynesaf

Gareth

*******

Hotel Pingshek

Sunday June 9 1935

My dearest Everybody,

This one of the queerest places I have ever written my Sunday letter from. It is a small town on the Kwangtung-Hunan border. I am in a very queer inn and I have had a 15 mile walk to get here. My tongue almost seemed to crack from thirst and heat .It was a former bandit ridden area,but now safe. It’s hard to write .My room is very primitive and my oil lamp bad.

In a Presbyterian Mission.. .Monday June 10

This is one of the most awful places I have ever been in. I am dripping wet, hungry., tired .The town is flooded and full of miserable people.

Wednesday ,June 12 , 1935

My dearest Everybody,

On Saturday morning at 6 o’clock the Chinese boy woke me at the New Asia Hotel, Canton and I reluctantly got up. I had packed my rucksack and small bag. 1 had tea and settled the bill (very high for thanks to Roosevelt and his policy of buying silver the money has gone up terribly) tipped the boys who looked after me, got into a rickety taxi and rattled off to the Wongsha Station. I had a second class ticket to Lokchong as there was no 1st class on the train. It is on the Canton -Hankow Railway which will be finished in 1936-37.and will have a great affect on the unification of China. Two villainous looking coolies carried my bags from the Taxi to the station and also 2 parcels filled with bread, ham, butter, cheese and chocolate.

The train was awful - all wooden and the 2nd class was packed so I made myself at home in the dining car (very primitive). The train left at 7.45 .There were dozens of officers of General Chen Che-tang’s army (he is a great man in Canton) and lots of soldiers in blue uniforms. We went pass the lotus and the fish ponds and past the rice-fields. We crawled along. It was pouring. Soon I realised that the floods around were terrific. There were vast areas covered with yellow water trees peeping out of the floods and the big wide river was lashing down full speed with thousands of eddies and whirlpools. 1 got rather alarmed because I knew that most of the journey would have to be made by river and bus and I was afraid that the roads would be covered with water and that the force of the river would be too great for any Sampan to go upstream.

I was taken to hotel in the dirty main street; very primitive, but fine red silk designs at the entrance with pictures of dragons on it. The Chinese Hotel is like a barracks ;one big room and the sleeping quarters are divided by wooden partitions, but you can padlock your sleeping room. A boy of about 1 or 12 who seemed to dominate the hotel gave orders to all, gave me boiling water to wash and a little cup of tea . He was surprised that I wanted a dry towel. They always give wet towels in Chinese

inns and it took him along time to understand .1 had a little balcony from which I looked out at a pond and a decrepit temple.

I had a look at the flooded river and thought it would be impossible to take a sampan to Pingshek, my next destination. I showed my bit of paper with "I want a sampan to Pingshek" written in Chinese. The boy and two other men made gestures to imply "no good - Flood to high by waving their hands to imitate the river and making noises like a flooded river.

I showed the written sentence" I want a chair to Pingshek". They made gestures of a chair and seemed delighted" Yes, they gestured you can get a chair to Pingshek at 9 dollars. It will take two days.  I did not like the idea of being bumped in a chair carried on the shoulders of two coolies for two whole days.

I decided to go for a walk. 1 wandered through the most narrow arcades you can imagine saw Chen Chi-tangs soldiers with fixed bayonets at the entrance of each temple  suppose the troops were quartered at the temples.

I should explain that the part between Pingshek and Lokchong was up to recently infested by bandits. Gerald Yorke had given me letters written by his Chinese servant Li (see Peter Flemings One’s Company for a description of Li and of Gerald and also of the journey I did ,except that Fleming and Gerald came with Chinese servant Li from Changsha to Canton while I did it from Canton to Changsha). The letters were to magistrates on route asking for 2 soldiers to accompany me should there be bandits. In Canton I was assured that there were no bandits left.

Lokchong. I went for a walk and saw a church with a cross. I made my way past some soldiers who were jumping (long jump) and across some rice-fields, until I came to the Church. There was an Italian Dominican priest there and he welcomed me and we spoke a mixture of French ,Latin and Italian. .He came from Sicily. It was most lucky I called to see him, because he told me that the railways had been built many miles into the mountains along the gorges ."You need not go by chair. You take the railway as far as it can go.  But be careful between the railway and Pingshek .'Molto bandits'! In Hunan (beyond Pingshek) there are no bandits"

The rogues at the Hotel had not told me about the railway going on, because they would have had a share of the 9 dollars for carrying me in the chair (The Chinese are most dishonest like that .The missionary told me that 9/10 of the conversation he overheard in the streets was about money and the bargains they had made.

I went back to the Hotel ,had Chinese food and orangeade (you can get orangeade in most places in the world tasting exactly as it does in Barry Island ) The Chinese food was a dish of mushrooms, a few pieces of chitin ,macaroni and soup all mixed up.

I told the boy and his cronies, the coolies I did not want the chair that I was going on by train and they were most disappointed ,but smiled as if to say that they had nearly succeeded in deceiving me.

To bed at 8o’clock.but people were singing Chinese songs, shouting , stamping most of the night and marching up and down . You could here the sound of Mah Jong pieces. Outside the temple two girls were singing monotonously, so it was hard to sleep.

I started eating bread. The people were amazed .They had never seen bead before .1 gave some for them to taste and they put tiny crumbs into their mouths as if it were caviar. Then I ate the chocolate and the passengers were amused. They tried to taste it and the kept the red and silver paper (nestles Id bar) as a momento.

The wagon jerked along the track, along the river and came to a stop. My companion indicated that we had to walk to Pingshek. We got a coolie for my bags and we started walking.

I won’t forget that walk. It lasted from 10.45 till 4 o’clock almost without stopping in boiling heat. My tongue was cracked with thirst. I n one village I got some boiling water to drink in an opium den, where a coolie was rolling his piece of opium just before smoking it ,stretched out on a mat. In one place I got lemonade, but no sooner had I drank, then I got thirsty again.

A number of soldiers with small semi-rifles, semi-revolvers were marching along the track. We walked through unfinished tunnels, watched hundreds of coolies build uo embankments. We saw sampans trying to go up stream being tugged by about 10 coolies on the bank and moving about 1 foot a minute. Had I taken a sampan it would have lasted 6-7 days to get to Pingshek.

My companion gave me his umbrella against the sun. Visions of iced drinks floated before me all the time until they almost became an obsession. We scrambled over embankments across hills, got carried by a ferry across a river. Then suddenly the sun disappeared and it poured. Sun came out again and we boiled.

It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon when we saw Pingshek, a town on the river. We found a primitive inn. where my room was like a prison cell with bars instead of windows and I swallowed 2 bottles of orangeade at once. I had mushroom soup, fried eggs. Then I showed my companion photos of you all and lanto .He showed me his wife and his children (he has 8) We sang songs.

At 8.15 I went to bed. There were noises all night; people tramping up and down in wooden shoes, shouting playing Mah Jong games, and singing Chinese songs,

Monday 4.50 a.m. My companion woke me; told me to hurry; hotel boy carried out luggage through dim streets, till we came to a mob of people fighting for bus tickets. It was on the Kwangtung -Hunan frontier

Then I found my money was no good! I had Canton money and I had Hong Kong dollars ,but they were worthless and I was stranded and penniless .People would not bk at my valuable money!

Luckily my travelling companion came to my rescue .He wa swilling to exchange my Canton dollars for Hunan or Shanghai dollars.. Save again! He bought my ticket and we were pushed into a lorry,just like a prison lorry ,no windows,but some windows with iron bars. There were 21 of us inside At 6 o’clock off we went across the frontier into Hunan province.We changed bus again; another lorry ; very uncomfortable.

Changed bus again at Ichang. The bus had ledges along the side less than a foot wide . You have no idea how luxurious White’s buses are. We do not realise our advantages in Britain.

My destiation was Chenchow .We rattled along all day .Three times our bus was stoned .It

was lucky there were no glass windows .Orie big stone came right near me ,but no one was hit. Thet

were boys throwing them. Then the pouring rain came .3 o’clock in the afternoon we stopped after 9

I did pour . A coolie got my luggage and my bespectacled companion and I got into a sampan and croosed a vey wide river to a most miserable town ihave ever seen. We almost slipped on the landing place. We were bombarded by rickshaw coolies .1 paid off my coolie(carrier) and gave him lots of copper coins thinking I was most generous .He yelled and shreiked and cried and I could not understand and the rain was dripping down my neck and everywhere (I discovered later that I had given him Canton copper coins instead of Hunan copper coins.)

I got a ride in a terribly old rickshaw .1 wanted to go the Presbyterian Mission where Dick Weigle had told me to spend the night with Rev, and Mrs .Johnston. I said to the rickshaw coolie "Meriko " (American) and I made the sign of the cross (ie Church) He nodded asnd said "Yay-su" (Jesus). I said "yes" and off we went.

It was terrible .1 had my legs perched over my luggage . The rain was pouring through the hide covering over the rickshaw. The streets were so narrow that 2 rickshaws could hardly pass each other, about as broad as the drawing room . Then the roofs were so near each other that the streets were dark.Worse than that the roofs gathered all the rain and poured threefold onto the rickshaw.and upon myself.. The stones of the road were bad and I was bumped and bumped.. He went on and on and on,never stopping. The rain never stopped either and I was getting wetter and wetter At last he came to a river .He pointed and I saw a church .1 was never so delighted to see a cross ,for we had gone about 3 miles .We took a ferry across an angry flooded river Then we had to walk through flooded streets up to my ankles got to the church"now for a lovely bath and a welcome from Americans " I thought.

"How do you do Mrs Johnson?" And I continued: "Dick Weigle suggested I should stay here in Chenchow and has given me this letter of introduction to you". "But this not Chenchow. This is Henchow and I am not Mrs Johnson [she was actually called Mrs Birkle⁴]. You have come 100 miles too far!"

I had a much-needed hot bath and a room for the night. It is one of the most awful places that I have ever been in. I am dripping wet, hungry, tired. The town is flooded and full of miserable peopl. Next morning at 4.45 a.m. Mr Birkle called me. After a good breakfast, a rickshaw coolie took me for miles into the country until at last we reached the bus station. It was the fourth day of my journey and I on left on a six hour bus trip from Henchow (Hengyang) to my final destination. The bus was a luxury bus with windows and front facing seats. Next to me sat a German missionary. Everywhere on the journey I saw soldiers, some of whom had curved swords and on the top of every hill there was a large tower or blockhouse. These had been built against the Communists who had ravaged the country in 1931. The mission where I had stayed the previous night had been destroyed at that time.

One of the men on the bus could speak English. He was a keen anti-Japanese Nationalist. "We must have machines everywhere in China. We are building roads and railways. We will have railway right to Szechuan. The Canton-Hankow railway that will be finished next year will unify China. Chiang Kai-shek is a wonderful man."

"Why is he [Chiang Kai-shek] friendly with the Japanese?" I asked. "Oh! That’s a trick. He is pretending to be friendly to mark time until he is strong enough to have revenge and regain Manchuria!"

Just before three o’clock the bus arrived at the gates of Changsha and soldiers came out of the towers and searched the bus for firearms. Then it drove to the centre, a city of half a million inhabitants. A rickshaw then took me to the big public school run by Yale University. Dick Weigle whom I met on the President Monroe who gave me a very warm welcome. I had done the journey of 420 miles by railway, wagon, sampan, walking, bus and rickshaw!

Sitting beneath a tree in Yale, Changsha, Hunan on Wednesday, June 12^th 1935

Yale in China Changsha,

My dearest All,

I have bought some pictures and some silk work and I shall send them home. I am afraid you will have to pay a lot of duty (several L’s) on the silk but I’ 11 pay for it when I return.! hope you like the work.

Here are the photos. I had intended to enlarge some and send them. What do you think of the family of the famous General Tsai? It all arose out of a Chinese girl sitting at my table on the train saying "You live Hong Kong . You like Hong Kong ?" They gave me a great time.

Cariad Cynhesaf

Gareth

I hope lanto has plenty of exercise and that his back is better .Please thank Phyllis very much for looking after him.  I am afraid you’ll have a lot of trouble with the customs.!

*******

Foreign Y. M. C. A. of Shanghai,

150, Bubbling Well Road.

P. 0. box 1647

Sunday,June 30 th 1935

My dearest All,

This has been a packed week in Shanghai and I am off to Nanking tonight. It has been an exceedingly interesting time talking to everybody and being entertained all round. People are amazingly kind to me everywhere .1 have had a good time with Mr Cheng and he is coming to see me with Pax this afternoon . Last night I had a good dinner with the Consulate men at the County Club.

The Bridge House Hotel Ltd

Nanking

My dearest All,

I’m off to Peking by the night express tonight .The letter I began on Sunday is somewhere in my luggage. It is a 36 hour journey to Peking so I’ll be there on Thursday morning.

I n a few minutes Mr T.T.Li .the big man at the Foreign Office is coming to fetch me and take me to tea. I can’t help laughing at his name.

"Too -too-loo medd T.T.Li"

I had intended to write a long letter this afternoon, but the hot weather seems to have settled in and I fell asleep . I have been exceedingly lucky ,because we have had rains and cool weather all June instead of the usual heat.

I shall look forward to letters in Peking where I shall try and stay about a fortnight.

If events are interesting I shall stay on in the north and sail on a later boat to America .So do not be disappointed if I sail later from New York and do not arrive until November .A lot will depend on whether California arranges a lot of radio talks .This will probably depend on whether the Far East is in the news.

I wonder how you will like the pictures and the silks . Some of the silks I want to give away as presents ,but please give the cape with tiny horses on it to Siriol with love from me .It is a real Mandarin’s collar.

Shanghai was most interesting, but I did have a rush ,seeing so many people .Here I have interviewed the Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs .The Minister (Wang Cheng-wei) is also Prime Minister and he is away "ill" in Shanghai. The dictator Chiang Kai Shek is in Szechuan, I am told he is a very sick man - teeth bad, indigestion and general breakdown ,that he has not many years to live and that there is no man to fill his shoes .In which case when he dies there will probably be chaos in China again.

Sunday night I left Shanghai by the 11 o’clock train ,took a sleeper and got here at 7 o’clock in the morning . Off to the Consulate ,to Reuter’s, to the Foreign Office,the Legislative Yuen asking questions on policy towards Japanese.

I dined -wonderful Pekingese cooking -with Reuter’s correspondent .clever Chinese called Chao and so to bed.

Today I had a talk with a Chinese geologist Ting and hired a car to take me out of the huge city walls (this is a defended city and the gated are closed at night) to see the ancient Ming tombs and the Sun Yat Sen Memorial . Lovely country and most interesting

I hope to buy some more pictures in Peking Do you like the swallows .1 hope that they arrive safely.

Mr Li mat be here at any moment.

Cariad Cynhesaf a hefyd i lanto

Gareth

He remarked that the future in Peking was very uncertain and that there were heaps of rumours, but nothing else. There were some Japanese aeroplanes

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My dearest all,

Tomorrow I start off on the great journey to Inner Mongolia; up from Kalgan to the palace of Prince The Wang, the leader of the Mongols- with whom I shall be staying. Do not be surprised if you do not hear from me for a long time, because postal arrangements are not good there and I may stay more than a week- perhaps two- if it is interesting. It is a wonderful opportunity and \i have good company in Baron von Plessen and Dr Muller.

Today I had an interesting talk with the American Ambassador and this morning with Major Takahashi, the Jap military attaches whose name you have often seen in the papers. Peking is quiet now.

Last night Mr Cheng the Chinese Commissioner for Foreign Affairs here invited me to dinner and we had a most amusing talk, for all present had had lives packed with thrilling experiences.

Monday I lunched with Baron v. Plessen, Countess Lichnovsky and Mr Fischer of the German Embassy. In the evening I went to see a Chinese puppet show at Timperley’s house(M.G.).

It was good to have your letter of June12th and l4th

I am taking a lot of films to Inner Mongolia. It is by the way a very safe country-no bandits.

Gobeithio cerwch Awst hyfryd.

Sutmae Siriol a John. Bydd lanto yn mynhau chwareugyda hwy.

Caria cynesaf a lots o gusannau. Gareth

I have bought a lot of silk embroidery - some for Siriol-fancy dress.