RUNNING THE GAMUT OF RUSSIAN CUSTOMS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 37, 27 February 1937, Page 17

RUNNING THE GAMUT OF RUSSIAN CUSTOMS

A SURPRISING HOTEL Experiences of - a Travellei

JN THE MIDLLE of the night a few kilometers away from the little border town of Manchouli, the Soviet Trans-Siberian Express prepared to hand over its paisengers to the "Independent" State of Manchoukuo, or, in effect, to the Jupgnese, writes B. If or Evans in the Christian Science Monitor. First, the Bussians go throhgh the haggage jn their elow, but not discourteous way,. They seem uuinterested in. all those articles which attract customs officers elsewhere in the world. 1 For them the prohibited articles are pistols, cameras, and above all, books. An elderiy and rather alarmed Gerjnan lady by my sxde has' just been asked whether she "carries a gun." Above. all, printed matter seems dangerous, even treaeonable, The English and Anierican. travellers with detectivc stories fare.badiy, for the hirid picturep on the jackets and the eovers of the "paper backl" speak to the nninitiated eye of terrorism, not of entertaiument, Eepepially, one flnds, are the work? Of the fate'Edgar Wallace open to suspieion* or is it, one wonders, that some Sovfet customs official is learning English by reading a chapter of Mr. Wallace each' time one of the paper-back volumes comes through from Europef In this leis'urely, apparently ineffective way the Soyiet says gpod-by tp iti Trans-Siberian passengers. At 1 ajn. we are sent back to the train to travel oue of the most inu portant miles in the world: the mile that divides East Siberia from the Japanese new northern boundary in Manchoukuo. At Manchouli; we are handed over to the Japanese. If one had. the illusion that the Chinese have any voice left in Manchuria, the Customs Housp. would dispel it. All the oflxcials are Japaese, and pacing up the long, low room are plump Japanese privatee in their raw, ill-fitting khaki uniforms and soft cloth caps. The only Chinese in the room are the red-istted porters, whose fasiiliar blue

uniforms welcome the traveller all over China. The Japanese are again interested; not in clothes and valuables, but in books. The cjbtoms obviously can* not read my edition'of Tolstoi's "War and Peace," but he turns ite pages gingerly, as if it were an incendiary bomb. Behind him Is a small legion of minor cfficials, for the Japanese on duty always seem to hunt in crowds. Nor is his investigation confined to book inspectiop; he begins that traij of questions which pursues the traveller all over Manchoukuo, "Where ypu come fromf" "Whefe you gof' "Why you come to Manchoukuo I" "How old are you?" " What you do at home?" Most of ue answer all .this mOekly, bnt an Enslmh engineer by my side teils them plainly to mind their own business. Brave, rather than wige, perhaps, this attitude, and certainly un8ucces,sful, for it only brings a row oi other questions, longer - and even more personaL * • • • The customs eatipfied, we peareh at 2.30 a.m. for the Japanese passport offioers, but those offieials, like sensible men, are in bed. They will appear, we are told, at 8 n*m» or 2.30 aua* and later the train will go. Sb Manchouli must be our host for the' night, Apparently Manchouli ia aware oi these frontier delays, and in the d&rk* ness outside the etation there become* visible a row Of Japanese and two Chinese hotel-tout^ all ,carrylng lanterns and all smelling most strongly of garlic. The Japanese hotela we reject, nor do they aeem very anxioue to have ns. The two Chinese represent establish- ' ments kept by White Bussians. We ehoos® one of them, and by the un-

steady light of his paper lantern we find our way, not very hopefuUy, along xnud roads to the hous© that will hold us until the Japanese customs decides to function in the morning. The hotel ie unpromising outside, without a single light app&rent, and as we enter; the hall, too, is in darkness. Immediately before us are wide stair§ and at their head silhouetted against a dull light stands a woman. She moves to greet us, and even as we ascend we can see that the movement is one of practiced grace. Bimply she welcomes up n broken English, and then in French, easily and with gegtures that are natufal, even exquisite, After weeks in Soviet Bussia, the effect is etartling. Been in Paris it would be nothmg, but in Manchouli it speaks profoundly. Here is ihe exile Bussian who has found somehow. an uncertain refuge in this Manchurian frontier town. Everywhere in the world one may happen on these victixne of the Bevolutioix, the Whito Bussians, the aristocrats, the artists, soldiers, and prplessional men whom the Bevolution drov# abroad. In India, Shanghai, New york, or on the Biviera one meets them until their stories, each one more pathetic than the last, become meaningless because they are too many. But here in Manchonli was a White* Bussian who offered not a etory °f patHos but a bed for the night. She., too, could have told a story, as the faee suggested, but instead at 3 a.m. with an un-Slavonie rapidity, she producedeggs and toaet and hot baths. Every where in the house one rnoved among the shadows of an esdled way of life,

the ikons in the corner of the rootns, the old elaborate silver, the psendo baroque decorations, and the aUCient photographs of Bussians who had ohcC teen a genial way of life. • '• • Everyone will tell you that it is futfle to sympathise with the White Bussians. The future of Bussia Hes in the U.S.S.B., but after weeks in Soviet BusJ eia, when one han seen only weary f&ces and drab black clothes, some* thing responds to grace, to the gesture that is decorative, and in Manchouli we were warming, too, to the meoL • • • W© all have our own fWhite Bhssian whose story we cultivate even if we have hardened ourselyes against the class as a whole. My favourite, and 1 must share her with many travellers,. is an elderiy eareworn woman in an hotel, whose name I never knew, in Manchouli. In the morning she presented b mbxute accQunt and we sajd goed-by, and so tp the Japahese pkssport ©flies of the " Independent " State of Man> choukuo. No where else, it would seem, caq oue be. asked so many qnestions, al) the questions which the customs man had asked. us. qix the prevxous night and many more. ''Why you go, where you go, how long you stay, wixy you stay, have ybu done it before, why did you do it before, why you go baek to Europe?" and so on. * •' . • Before he hu flnished the ordeal. even the most innocent traveller begins to feel, by the very forpe of insinua* tion, that he is a seqret service age'nt. An added touch of the sini'ster lies in the fact that all the answers are trans* lated into Japanese and eopied into a big ledger, the black book of travellers -to Manchoukuo. , At Jast,. on the train. going south to Harbin, Japan offers her other side; the reetaurant ear decked in flpwbr»» aud White Bussian girls of a wellrdesBrving charm, and all that elean linen and neatness which contrasts- Japanese domestie detail with that of any other eountry in the East.