CHINA IS MORE THAN JUST ANOTHER COUNTRY

Blog number 208                                                             23 August 2008

When Americans mortared in WW 2, they would drop the mortar in the tube, then turn around and cover their ears.  I saw yesterday, Germans firing mortars and what they did, they would drop the round in the tube and then all three men would run like hell up and out of the hole.  That must have been some powerful explosions going off in that tube.

I finished the book on General Stilwell's experience in Burma during WW 2.  I liked it a lot, but I think you would have to have lived through WW 2 to really appreciate the nuances.  Maybe not, but I think so. 

I remember the way we were presented to Generalisimo Chiang K'ai-Shek in newspaper articles.  Great hero.  Savior of China.  Turns out he was really an ignorant uneducated pompous manipulative greedy back-stabbing bullheaded asshole.  At least that's the way General Stilwell sees him.

I'm reading a new book about Stilwell.  This one goes into his background all the way to before his entry into West Point.

After WW 1, Stilwell was sent to UC Berkley to study Chinese, but he said that it wasn't going to work.  He asked for duty in China so that he could hear the language being spoken.  He got the assignment.

The founder and director of the school, one Dr. Pettus, told Stilwell and his partner that they had picked up a bad accent in California which could lead to confusion, "for even the most fluent foreigner could encounter difficulties."

Dr. Pettus then told of Dr. Hume, who spoke perfect Chinese and had lived in the country many years, coming across two farmers by the side of the road.  He asked them the road to Changsha.  They looked blank.  He asked them the question several times, and receiving no answer, he gave up and walked on.  As he was leaving, he heard one of the farmers telling the other,  "it sounds just as if the foreigner were asking, 'is this the road to  Changsha?' "