Mr Rewi Alley’s China

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32778, 1 December 1971, Page 1

Mr Rewi Alley’s China

(Staff Reporter)

“Has China any shortcomings, and if so, what are they?” was one of the questions asked Mr Rewi Alley after a lecture in the Christchurch Civic Theatre last evening.

“If I answered that question in full rd be here till tomorrow morning,” Mr Alley replied. “Chairman Mao says that the only people who don’t make mistakes are little babies and bld men with a pain in their stomachs/’ Fqr many of Mr Alley’s 700 listeners the lecture itself must have been something of a disappointment. Scarcely pausing for breath, rarely

lifting his eyes from his papers, seldom changing the tone of his voice or the pace of his delivery, he confined too many observations within political cliches and reeled off statistics that tended to confuse as much as they enlightened. Nevertheless, some of the facts and figures caught at the imagination—eight million walnut trees planted by one commune, 39 schools in 'a district where there had been none, small tractors produced for about the price of a water buffalo. Some of the descriptions were poetry rather than prose—Mr Alley’s Chinese of today is "a new man before whom hills bow, and streams run where he desires.” j Some of the statements were sobering. “China needs pqace but is not afraid of war if it is forced on her,” he said, drawing a picture of a nation surrounded by the bases and missiles of “imperialist America’’ and “imperialist Russia" and threatened by the resurgence of “imperialist Japan.” “ “We will fight, and fight I on for ever,’ they say,” said I Mr Alley. QUESTION TIME But it was at question time that Mr Alley came into his • own. Showing his years, but not bowing to them, he answered quickly and directly and often with a telling turn of phrase. Religion as such did not mean a great deal in China g

today, he said in reply to one questioner. Of six former cathedrals in Peking, the largest was now an adjunct of an electric light factory and used as its mess hall.

To another questioner, he said that medical care in China was a mixture of Western and traditional methods, employing herbs and acupuncture. In particular, the needles of acupuncture were used a great deal for anaesthetic purposes. “The other day,” said Mr Aliev. “I watched a Chinese

girl have an abortion. She’d had one child and didn't want another. Needles were pushed in and twirled round, the whole thing was over in 15 minutes; and she shook hands all round and walked out. You get a lot of surprises in China if you hang around long enough." Mr Alley said it was all very well for “us in New Zealand” to benefit from the imperialism of the last century, but China’s success meant a better livelihood for the underprivileged two-thirds of the world—“and, I think, a better way of living for all of us.” The chairman was the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr N. G. Pickering), and the speaker was thanked by Dr Roger Duff.