FAMILY

Brought up on the propaganda of the sixties and seventies, the photographs, stories, and television documentaries of the poor and the homeless in quote, Third World Countries, unquote, I was prepared for poor homes, homeless, and beggars when I went to visit Mexico. My camera automatically turned towards the filth, the garbage, the unfinished buildings. My pockets bulged with candies to give to children asking for money. Two months later, when I came home from China, my pockets were still full, with the same candies.

Because we in Canada have the highest standard of living in the world we tend to think of those without a telephone as impoverished. Why does a Mexican, or an Oriental, need a

HOLAND USA Promotional Products

telephone if his entire family lives within the same walls as himself. We who hide our elderly away in homes for the aged need vehicles to make our obligatory visit to our parents on Sunday afternoon. The Mexicans and the Chinese see their parents and their children every day, they don't need cars.

Not that cars aren't available to them. In Shanghai you can buy a new Buick or Ferrari on the main floor of a department store.

Before I went to China, Huang Yi Ming, my step-son, born and raised in Shanghai, used to laugh at me when I complained about the traffic in Vancouver. He told me that there are many more cars in Shanghai. But I knew better, I had read the stories of how poor the Chinese are. I knew that no one there could afford a new car.

I have had many an argument about many of the things in China. After all a boy of sixteen, from any race, thinks he knows everything in the world and grown ups have read the `National Geographic' and watched `Sixty Minutes' and are fully informed about other countries.

One thing I didn't find, in China, was oppression. After all the stories I had heard of being careful where I pointed my camera I never gave them a thought while I clicked the shutter. I took pictures of who and what I wanted, where and when I wanted, except for one monk who admonished me for taking a picture of a Buddha.

At no time was I ever accosted by a policeman and asked for my papers. In fact other than traffic I never saw any police. Nor, other than for some soldiers out shopping, did I see any sign of the dreaded Red Army.

Yi Ming told me that there are no slums in Shanghai, that there are no street people. True enough when I was there I never saw anyone sleeping on the sidewalks or holding out their hands for money. I never saw drug dealers or prostitutes. But on the other hand I never saw skid row, which he tells me doesn't exist but I steadfastly believe does. I just never got to that part of the city, or so I believe.

As my wife is a member of the upper middle class I only saw the suburbs and the stores. And don't ever believe for one minute that there are no classes in China. The Chinese could well teach the English aristocracy a thing or two about snobbery. Despite the few years when Communism ruled with an iron fist the Chinese have practised prejudicism for thousands of years before England ever existed.

I had learned in Mexico, and I found it to be true in China, that the people are not poor. They earn far less than we do in dollars but the dollars stretch further in their countries. Though they may not have insulated homes they all have the obligatory television and stereo. They may not be able to afford trips to other countries but they have family and in many ways are richer than we.