The Changing Face of Asia

New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1054, 6 November 1959, Page 17

The Changing Face of Asia

ISTENERS who heard the thoughtprovoking series of talks An Englishman in China, which was broadcast on National link last spring (and later printed in these pages) will want to follow Felix Greene’s further travels in a new series that starts from all YA stations this Friday (November 6), at 9.45 p.m, These talks, which were specially commissioned by the NZBS, are a series of up-to-the-minute reports on the Asian scene; a balanced assessment by an observant reporter of the various factors --political, social, economic-that are operating in each of the countries he has recently visited, and of the effect of these forces on the people. The opening talk is on Russia, a country that Felix Greene last visited in 1933. Things were bad then, he says, and the Russians did not welcome visitors. Now, however, like the breadshops and other signs of poverty of those days, secrecy and suspicion are past history. No longer is the traveller conscious of the silent companion fifty yards behind; the shops are full of goods, and the streets full of cars. He was left, says Felix Greene, with "an overpowering impression of how

alike Russia and America are." Both believe that happiness is to be obtained in material things, and the great Russian dream of thirty years ago, "that they were building a new Heaven and a new earth," has "dwindled into a trivial obsession with mechanical gadgets." Other reports to be heard in this series are on Afghanistan, India, Singapore and Indonesia. There may be two additional talks heard later, but details of these are not yet to hand. YZ stations will also take the series, 1YZ starting it on November 9, and 2YZ, 3YZ and 4YZ on November 12.