bout de papier, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1990), pp. 10–12
For most of my working life I have been a professor, but for two years I was metamorphosed into a strange hybrid — the resident sinologist and cultural attaché in the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. I left the tranquillity of academic life to play a variety of roles — expert on China, bureaucrat, diplomat, press officer, hostess, den mother (to Canadian students), ’the doctor’ (to local staff), and, my own favourite, ’the Canadian Embassy’ (for dealings in Chinese on the telephone). I had two of the best years of my life, spent in an organization whose members I came to respect enormously for their intelligence, their professionalism and their humour.
Life in China
Going to work in China usually involves major culture shock. The big shock for me was not China, which I knew already, but the world of the Department and the Embassy. The initial shock was positive — travelling business, living in a huge apartment, having two servants. My bad shock was the pressure of work, The 8:30 a.m. start, and the 9 p.m. finish after a banquet, was heavy duty for someone used to academic hours. I also found it taxing to work for superiors instead of for myself; I had to learn to be a subordinate, after twenty years of autonomy. The technicalities of work were daunting. I floundered for weeks with acronyms, shell combinations and door codes. Shirly Pajunen, my super-professional secretary, prevented me from making too many hideous mistakes — I was dissuaded from putting my name on telegrams, or referring to myself as I’. (When I got home my habit of referring to myself as ’we’ convinced my colleagues that I had got so puffed up that I was seeing myself as the Queen or Mrs. Thatcher). I also found myself doing things I had never dreamt of before — negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding or MOU, arranging a ministerial visit, corraling a press corps, making a demarche. I became an ’expert’ on quite a range of subjects — arts exchanges, telecommunications, the Chinese bureaucracy, Norman Bethune, protocol, film making in China, the Peter Justensen catalogue, Chinese education, human rights, AIDS, modern Chinese painting, traditional porcelain, protest movements etc.
I had read about diplomatic life in Beijing in the pre-communist era, a relaxed round of parties, picnics in the Western Hills, elevated conversations about the origins of man, and serious study of Chinese arts (the greatest expert on Chinese erotica, Robert van Gulik, served for many years in Beijing as the Dutch ambassador), all punctuated occasionally by warlord battles or anti-foreign riots. This was very different from the life of present-day diplomats. We had little time for gracious living. Every day brought sheaths of telexes, invitations, newspapers, phone calls. All we could do was keep just abreast of the most urgent issues (not necessarily the most important ones). The ordinary workload was compounded by “the visits.” During my time in Beijing every important Canadian from the Governor General and Prime Minister to the mayors of small towns visited China.
The visits of important Canadians were interesting, but time-consuming — and also a trial. Our beleaguered feeling helped the growth of a sense of cohesion within the Embassy, which was reinforced by our sense of working for a leader. Our Ambassador, Dick Gorham was demanding, in terms of work, but supportive and infinitely caring of his staff. The staff’s response was loyalty and cohesion. He and Dorrie set a personal style of warmth and generosity which infected the whole staff. (Dick was even magnanimous in defeat, when I took away from him a cherished distinction — that of having the most illegible handwriting in the Department).
The frantic pace of life at the post skewed many aspects of our work. We seldom had time for discussions about policy, or the situation in China, or for travel around China. We had too little time to spend on reporting. The events of June, 1989 revealed to all embassies in Beijing how many gaps there were in their knowledge of the Chinese situation. Part of this lack of information could be ascribed to the amount of time absorbed by the stately formalities of official visits and official life in China. One hesitates to say that this was a deliberate policy on the part of the Chinese authorities, but this was the way the imperial Chinese government managed outsiders: ’barbarians’ from inner Asia were invited to Chengde, and there spent months going to receptions and banquets, before being sent back to their tribal homelands to wait for the next visit.
We also had little time to make Chinese friends (at one of the few periods when this was possible). I was better off than most staffers in that I could speak Chinese, and I already had friends in Beijing. Many people left China after two years without having made any real Chinese friends, or having seen much of the country beyond Beijing and Shanghai.
Diplomat/Bureaucrat
Before I went to Beijing, I had had some administrative experience, but I had never been a bureaucrat. I did not expect to become one either, because I assumed that diplomats were a cut above regular bureaucrats. I discovered that though people might have entered External to serve abroad, they were inevitably caught up in the bureaucratic world of Ottawa. I had to become a bureaucrat too, and to my initial chagrin, I enjoyed it. There was the intellectual challenge of working with very clever people; I often felt I was in a speeded up version of academic life — no waiting for the book to come out for reviews, but instant (veiled) congratulation or criticism on anything one wrote — or worse no response at all. The complexity and subtlety of dealing with the different offices/acronyms at Headquarters brought out a mixture of gamesmanship and competitiveness. One of the first things I learnt was the importance of distribution and info lines. Getting something done could be more a question of strategy than of the merit of the issue. The style of work was fascinating; I appreciated the arch, laconic style of prose of the telegrams. I enjoyed the toning down of language: ’concerned’ equals ’furious’ ’disturbed’ means ’beside myself with rage’ I liked the studied casualness of manner, the ability to seem relaxed while working flat out. I found the speed of work horrifying at first, but then understood that one had to churn one’s way through the mountains of paper, or be buried.
Ilooked on with misgivings at the internal dynamics of bureaucracy — the nagging preoccupation with careers, the anxiety over appraisals, the hopes and fears over the next posting. As an outsider with a secluded office, i was sometimes the confidante of ’worried, Beijing’. I came to feel that people were put through far more anxiety than was necessary. The uncertainty over postings was understandable, but the appraisal system struck me as an inefficient and unkind way to evaluate people. The key determinant of a good evaluation seemed to be whether the reviewing officer struck strictly to the rules — in which case a good appraisal was impossible — or bent them, and presented a good, but perhaps misleading one. Either way, the Department was poorly served. Fear of the appraisal encouraged people to minimize risks of making mistakes — a quick way to discourage initiative and creativity.
It was ironic to get my introduction to Canadian bureaucracy in the home of the world’s most ancient, experienced and creaking bureaucracy. The contrasts were more interesting than the similarities, which tended to be depressing. One of the most striking contrasts had to do with specialization. Chinese bureaucrats tend to be highly specialized. They stay with one issue for a long time, and become very expert in it. Canadians are more likely to be generalists. Using generalists may have its advantages, but two work in a country like China, specialized knowledge is important. This is particularly so with language. At best, we had five fluent Chinese speakers in the Embassy. We probably had fewer Chinese speakers than any major western embassy, except the French, certainly far fewer than the Australians, the most nearly comparable embassy. We were critically dependent on interpreters for many aspects of our work — and all of the interpreters were employees of the Chinese government.
Interchange
The job I had was organized through Interchange Canada, an office which encourages professionals to take short-term assignments away from their normal place of work. The programme gives people a chance to change their jobs without risk to their permanent position, to do something new and interesting without leaving security. For me and the other ex-sinologists, the job has been an unbeatable opportunity to spend a long time in China, in the best possible conditions. I did things and met people I could not have done as an academic — being able to say ’I am the Canadian Embassy’ opened many doors. I learnt something about government. I regenerated by intellectual powers, in dealing with a range of new activities. Coming back I felt transformed — my experience and my horizons expanded enormously, but cut off from the normal preoccupations of academics; I had no enthusiasm for tenure battles, or membership in the graduate faculty.
To the Department, the advantage of Interchange is that it brings in people with special knowledge and experience. In the case of the resident sinologist, the programme provides someone who knows China and Chinese, is happy to be in Beijing, and can give in-house advice on almost anything. Besides talking about political and cultural issues, I could give advice about weekend getaways, shopping, entertainment, Chinese festivals and customs. I only drew the line at arranging marriages between Canadians and Chinese, though the requests for the ideal husband came from Chinese acquaintances rather than Canadians.
Another advantage of the programme is that it brings fresh points of view into the Department. The value of these views is enhanced by the fact that they are offered by people who have no career consequences to worry about. People on loan can also be used to fill posts which career officers might feel dubious about — I loved being a cultural attaché, because it allowed me to meet all kinds of people in my own line of work, but for someone on the way up being a cultural attaché might seem a punishment posting. Taking people in for short periods also deals with the problem of expanding the permanent staff – they will be gone in two or three years.
The programme has a major disadvantage — it is time-consuming to manage, with selection and security clearance, and blending the person into the Department. There are potential dangers too. The person may be lazy or incompetent, or unable to stand the pace. The person may not look or act the part. Over twenty years the first three dangers have not materialized — almost all the sinologists have settled in well, worked hard, and made serious contributions. The clothing allowance does a lot to deal with the last danger, though I was surprised to find that few diplomats look like ’real’ diplomats. Pinstriped elegance has gone, a new style has yet to develop. The men of the Canadian Embassy, overly cautious in dress in winter, burst out in summer with raffish safari suits and Filipino see-through shirts. The women did better — so long as we kept away from dressed-for-success tailored suits — and most of us were well kitted out in silks before long in Beijing.
One way in which Interchange could be used to greater advantage would be to loan people from the Department as well as bringing them in. Officers could be sent out to the universities for periods of research, or to the private sector to experience business in real life, or to acquire new skills. Movement out would have to be seen as a serious thing, part of a career progression, not as an oubliette for someone at loose ends, or near retirement. If it were seen as a productive sabbatical, given as a reward, it would allow people in mid-career to regenerate themselves, and come back to the Department with new strengths. My hope is that my former colleagues may benefit from the programme in the way that I did, and get as much from going out of the Department for a while as I did from being an outsider inside.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1990), pp. 10–12. Read the rest of this issue →
