China’s opening lures British Sinophile

I first became interested in China in 1966, at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Relations between Britain and China became very bad and I wanted to find out why.

I became interested in Chinese culture, language and literature in 1969. I had finished the first part of my degree course at Oxford University in Classics (ancient Greek and Roman language and literature). I was not interested in the second part of the course, entailing study of philosophy, but my college allowed me to switch courses and finish my BA by changing to Chinese Studies. There were six students in my year.

I had a tutor from Peking (Beijing) for spoken Chinese and British tutors for classical Chinese. I first visited China in 1972, just after Nixon and the ping-pong diplomacy.

It was before the days of easy international travel by jumbo jet, so we took the Trans-Siberian railway to Beijing. Four Chinese train guards looked after our group of some 30 students and we became great friends with them, especially Comrade Xue. He was a very diligent and sincere worker and despite my terrible Chinese, he managed to tell me how he really felt about things in China. In particular he seemed to find it difficult to turn his back on Buddhist worship, though he accepted the need for progress.

China wasn't used to foreigners and wherever we went we were followed by an enormous crowd. When we visited a rubber factory in Shijiazhuang, the whole town turned out to welcome us.

Our translators also became warm and dear friends and showed us the best of China. I remember once our bus was crossing an enormous, but empty boulevard close to the Friendship Hotel in Beijing. Comrade Wang confidently told us that soon China would rival the west in the number of private cars and modern conveniences. We just didn't believe him! At that time Dazhai village was seen as a model commune and we met its leader Vice-premier Chen Yong-gui.

Picture shows Chen Yong-gui on left and John Skeels on right at Dazhai in 1972.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Meantime, I needed to find a job. So I trained as a computer programmer and made my fortune. But I still had a fascination for China.

In 1981 I took a three-month course in Chinese language at the People's University in Beijing. Again, I enjoyed a great friendship, this time with Professor Song.

In 1983 I found myself assigned on a computer contract at UN Headquarters in New York and made some great friendships with the Chinese translators.

I love visiting Shanghai and Beijing. My favourite haunts are the Summer Palaces (Old and New), The Temple of Heaven and the Peace Hotel. I can't believe these places are only nine hours by jumbo jet from London now.

I have studied a little Japanese and Korean. I notice that, despite the difficulty of learning Chinese characters, neither of these countries really want to drop them completely. It's as if they see China as the mother culture. I see too that China wants to learn from Singapore. The whole Chinese diaspora is finally coming together as one family.

And I see that as the US is leaving the space race, China is taking up the challenge.

I still cannot pretend to understand China. Which is why I continue to study it.

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