Shouting from China

Unlike China correspondents today, who have instant clear communication with countries around the world, she had to shout to be heard over an antiquated telephone line. One year she lost her voice five times and the doctor warned she could lose it permanently.

When uprooted from a posting that had totally engrossed her for three years, she wrote: 'China had been the most secure yet the most hostile, the most exotic yet the most dreary, the most stimulating yet the most depressing experience of my life. I loved and hated it. I had been frustrated in my efforts to report news, infuriated by the bureaucracy and driven almost to despair by the inefficiency, but I had become fascinated by the country and its people. China’s majesty and squalor, virtue and injustice, beauty and horror had caught me in its spell.'

'The white marble Marco Polo Bridge, named after the Venetian adventurer to China, signalled the south-west limit of Beijing to foreigners in the 1980s. I could amble across, admire its miniature stone lions, and contemplate how the bridge was the site of the Triple Seventh, 7 July 1937, when the firing of a shot triggered Japan's invasion of Beijing — the onset of the Sino-Japanese War. But I could go no further. A sign at the end of the bridge warned: OUT OF BOUNDS TO FOREIGNERS. Today, foreigners and Chinese alike freely venture beyond the bridge and into cities throughout China.'

Published by Penguin in 1988, the book was republished to include Helene's coverage of the democracy demonstrations in 1989.