China and the West

Lessing, Doris ; Raskin, Jonah. The progressive interview. In : The Progressive ; June (1999).
http://www.dorislessing.org/theprogressive.html
Q: I'm amazed at the amount of traveling that you have done in the last decade or so. You're all over London reading to students, and you've been to Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, China, Iceland, Italy, Pakistan, the United States, Zimbabwe.
Lessing: I have done a lot, haven't I? But I'm not going to do much more traveling from now on. I am, however, going to Catalonia because I am going to be awarded a big literary prize - Premi Internacionál Cataluña. I simply adore Barcelona. You know, of course, that Catalonia would like to be separate from Spain, but instead of rushing into the streets with banners, or blowing up the Spanish king, they have taken a different tact. They've created a great cultural movement at the highest levels. I'm impressed because it's good politics and also very entertaining.
Q: Have you ever written about your experiences in China?
Lessing: I haven't and I probably won't because I mostly have a lot of impressions based on a short visit. Before I went to China I was told that the Chinese wouldn't talk about politics, but that wasn't true. I was there with Margaret Drabble and Michael Holroyd, and we found that the Chinese were very open and apparently fearless. They spoke critically about the cultural revolution. There was no one looking over his or her shoulder expecting an arrest.
In Shanghai, I saw great contrasts. On one street there would be impressive shops selling copies of the latest word in glamorous European fashion, and around the corner on a back street there were poor families crammed into one room with a naked light bulb. One evening I heard a Chinese family singing "Happy Birthday." It was weird. You would have thought that they'd have their own happy birthday song. Every dominant society in the world - whether it's French or British or American - imposes its culture on less developed societies.