bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2001) — Spring 2001 // Printemps 2001, pp. 21–23
One of the rewards of traveling and living abroad is being able afterwards to picture far-off places and events. It gives them relevance wherever one is and whatever the time. When I see a TV image of peasants in loin-cloths gathered around a village pump on a sun-baked desert, I have a vague idea what they are feeling. On the hard, dusty plains of Uttar Pradesh, my family and I once consumed a case of coke, hurtling between Delhi and Agra in 120 degree heat. When I listen to an Italian opera on our stereo, I can see a vast, enraptured crowd at the Baths of Caracalla, transfixed by the Grand March from Aida, as I was when I first heard it there as a teenager, and my appreciation of the music I am listening to now is immeasurably enhanced as a result.
I felt that way recently visiting the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. My enjoyment was augmented by my connection with some of its works in a different place many years before. The gallery houses a large and important collection of Chinese artifacts, a number of them, incidentally, gifts of Canada’s former ambassador to China, Arthur Menzies, and his family in memory of the Rev. James M. Menzies, Arthur’s father, a Presbyterian missionary in China from the 1910s to the 1930s. The first substantial donation, however, was the Chen King Foh Family Collection. It was critical in launching the gallery on the development of what is today “one of the most distinguished Far Eastern art collections in Canada.” Acquired by the Chens over a period of more than 100 years, it includes ceramics and textiles dating from around 200 BC to 1790. Browsing through the gallery’s Chinese collection, I was disappointed to discover that none of these particular items was currently on display, for I felt very close to them, almost as if they were mine. That is because I had seen a number of them back in 1970, when they were stored in crates at a Catholic orphanage in Jakarta. Indeed, in one of my less noble acts as a Canadian diplomat, I was the one who devised the means by which over 300 pieces in the collection were spirited away to Canada.
Diplomacy, like politics, is, as Otto von Bismarck remarked, “the art of the possible.” Grab what you can, to put it bluntly, when you have a chance. Don’t expect too much, but be alert to every opportunity.
One day, not long after I was posted to Jakarta, a Canadian woman of Chinese origin who was a former citizen of Indonesia visited me in my office. She was short, stocky, and middle-aged, a no-nonsense matriarch accustomed to running both her private and business affairs. She had in her hand a cheque for several thousand dollars made out to the embassy, and she wanted our assistance in arranging for a large proportion of her family’s art collection to be shipped to her home in Canada. There, by prior arrangement, it was to be placed on extended loan in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
“Can’t do it,” I told Mrs. King Foh Chen. “Not for a private collection. We can’t just tell the Indonesian government it’s a bunch of old embassy furniture we’re shipping back to Canada. Some other countries might do that, but not us.”
Not used to encountering obstacles, she looked displeased and we sat there silently while I mulled the matter over. I started thinking about the Trudeau government’s foreign policy review, published just that year. One of its six principal themes was more esoteric than the others, visionary in a way, an echo of Camelot. It was the notion of enhancing reciprocally the well-being of Canadians and other peoples through such things as cultural, educational, scientific and industrial exchanges. The quality of life theme. As I saw it, I had a responsibility to breathe what air I could into this rather deflated aspect of the review. Bringing the remainder of the Chen King Foh Collection to Canada would qualify.
“You know, there is one way we could help you,” I said at last. “If you’re willing to make your collection a gift to Canada, then we would be in a position to approach the Indonesian government for an export permit. We would be asking, in effect, for permission to ship to Canada property of our own government. The Indonesians might find it hard to refuse. … Think it over. Discuss it with your lawyer.”
Mrs. Chen called me back a few days later to confirm she was agreeable to the plan. A deed of gift was duly drafted and signed, donating the Chen King Foh collection to Canada on the understanding that the works would be housed permanently in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Then, I prepared a formal note to the Indonesian foreign ministry, requesting an export permit for the collection – for these valuable works of art now owned by the government of Canada.
Not much later, I was summoned to the cultural affairs branch of the foreign ministry, where I had tea with a kindly civil servant nearing retirement age. He looked at me with a wry, knowing smile and then shook his head. “You Canadians make things very difficult. Why didn’t you deal with these artifacts the way the French would?” He meant, of course, why didn’t we just say we had old embassy furniture we wanted to ship home. “There may be important works of art in this collection that should never leave Indonesia. We can’t let it go without an inspection.”
“That would be difficult,” I responded. “Everything is already stored in crates at an orphanage, ready for shipment. It would be very expensive to have to unpack and repack everything.”
“I’m sorry, we must do an examination.”
“Suppose,” I responded, “you do just a spot check of a few crates. We’ll also give you a complete inventory you can go over.”
Again, he flashed a grin that seemed to say, “Your approach is different. Ingenuous. Superficially honourable perhaps. But at heart you’re no different than the rest.” But then, to my surprise, he nodded his assent, and we arranged a date and time to meet for the inspection.
Wandering through the cheery Art Gallery of Greater Victoria discussing the Chen King Foh Collection with Barry Till, the gallery’s curator of Asian art, I felt I was back again in the bleak courtyard of that orphanage in Jakarta. I could see Mrs. Chen, the foreign ministry official, several people from the department of cultural affairs and myself all clustered around a huge pile of heavy crates, fastened with thick, bamboo straps. Randomly, the government officials chose cartons to be opened and, with much sweat and exertion, the bindings were cut away, the tops of the crates pried loose and the packing paper removed. Out poured delicate figurines, vases, bowls, cups and saucers from the Han to the Ch’ing dynasty. Then, from the largest of the containers, they carefully removed long, elegant black screens — room dividers made of ebony with chunks of polished jade liberally embedded in the panels.
I studied the men from cultural affairs closely as they ran their hands over some items and carried others for a closer inspection into a shaft of light that streaked across the flagstone courtyard. Mrs. Chen was impassive, but tense. It seemed like more than an hour went by on each crate, but I suppose it was only minutes. Then, at last, miraculously, the foreign ministry official snorted. “There’s nothing here of interest to us!”
Mrs. Chen and I relaxed. The game of Russian roulette, it seemed, had worked But then the officer rummaged in his pocket for his copy of the full inventory. ’There are, however, two stone Buddha heads listed here that we would like to see. They may be very rare.”
I shook my head. “We can’t do that without opening all the crates. We don’t know what is in each one.”
“We do need to examine them,” he said gently, but insistently.
Trouble, I thought. It wasn’t so much the time and expense of opening everything as it was the risk of exposing valuable works the Indonesians would not let us have. But my diplomatic training had made me persistent and resourceful. “Suppose you let the collection go,” I said. “Once it’s unpacked in Victoria, we’ll have the stone Buddha heads photographed and the prints sent to you. Then, if you decide you want those pieces back, by all means, they’ll be sent. We can draft a written understanding.”
Once more the understanding smile. “T’ll let you know,” the ministry official responded, and we all left the orphanage.
Several days later, my friend at the foreign ministry phoned to say he had secured agreement to let the collection go on condition the stone Buddha heads were returned if requested. There was, however, one remaining hurdle before an export permit could be issued: a security clearance had to be conducted on Mrs. Chen.
“A security clearance?” I was momentarily surprised. How could that in any way be germane? But this was Indonesia. And it was only five years since the country had been wrenched by an abortive communist coup in which thousands of Indonesians of Chinese descent were massacred and the left-leaning, anti-western government of President Sukarno was toppled by General Suharto and his supporters. Suspicion of the Chinese community was still endemic. Besides, I knew that Mrs. Chen’s late husband had been a friend of Sukarno. If there were to be a security check, the situation was hopeless, I thought. We would never get the export permit now.
Throughout this affair, we had been keeping Ottawa informed of our progress with the Chen King Foh Collection. Only now, with this news of a sudden snag, did there come any response. Someone – frustrated ambassadors always envisage a lowly, probationary desk officer with time on his hands — had suddenly remembered the quality of life theme of the Trudeau review. It was supposed to be reciprocal. Of course! What we needed to do was sweeten the Indonesians’ disposition by offering them a collection of Canadian art in return. By telex we were instructed to advise the foreign ministry that, in exchange for the precious Chen King Foh Collection, Indonesia was to receive the following donation of Canadian art: some two dozen Inuit soap stone carvings and a contemporary replica of a British Columbia totem pole. Total estimated value, $3,000! The art of the parsimonious.
Much to our amazement, before we even had an opportunity to advise the Indonesian government of Canada’s munificence, a formal note arrived from the foreign ministry authorizing export of the Chen King Foh Collection to Canada. Somehow, Mrs. Chen had managed to sail through the security check.
Duty bound, we telexed the good news to Ottawa.
I still can’t believe it. But it is true. Almost immediately, we received back a telex advising us that, if we had not yet notified the Indonesian authorities of the gift from Canada, then we should “NOT REPEAT NOT” do so! The government, we were told, had very limited funds available for artistic exchanges.
I left the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria with considerable reluctance. It had transported me back in time and the memories gave added meaning to the art I had much admired. But it was after 2.00 p.m. and the rest of my family was hungry.
We went for lunch in the city’s pristine Chinese quarter. It smells of the sea rather than garlic and rotting vegetables, as if created by an edict of Lee Kuan Yew. “So what happened?” my son-in-law, Tad, asked me, sucking back the noodles in his soup. “Did the Indonesians get our stuff?”
“Yes,” I said. “We never told Ottawa we hadn’t yet informed them about the gift when the telex came withdrawing the offer”
“Good.”
“Still, I’ve always wondered where our pieces ended up. The public galleries were in terrible shape and lacked space as it was. The last thing the Indonesians needed was some Canadian art, especially a fake totem pole.”
“Who knows? Maybe it’s in a rice paddy somewhere,” Tad joked as he raided my daughter’s noodles. “T’ll bet it’s enhanced some farmer’s quality of life!”
“That’s possible,” I laughed. “Possible.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2001) — Spring 2001 // Printemps 2001, pp. 21–23. Read the rest of this issue →
