A Young Woman from China by Bruce Grant

Author:Bruce Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780992551414
Publisher: BookPOD
Published: 2014-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

The Zhang family had also inherited from Urumchi a connection with the Soviet Union, which in a roundabout way had brought Jian to Melbourne. A White Russian family escaping from the Bolsheviks had settled in their neighbourhood, among all the other immigrants from north, south, east and west – Tartars, Kasakhs, Uzbeks, Kirghiz, Mongols, Sibos and Tibetans, not to mention the Han people like the Zhangs who came in droves from China proper, promoted by the authorities in Beijing to keep the foreigners under control. The Popovs became friends of the Zhangs. When the Popovs eventually moved to Harbin and then migrated to Australia, the two families kept in touch and it was partly because of the connection that Jian decided to do his post-graduate studies in Australia.

The Popovs had prospered in Australia. Arriving at the time that ablebodied men were enlisted in the construction of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, they had worked their way through years of rising affluence, untroubled by the political and industrial tensions of the Cold War, and were now, in three generations, solid residents of Melbourne’s outer suburban sprawl, commuting to each other from Croydon, Werribee and Knoxfield.

Jian had only the address of the grandfather of the clan, who was alive and well in Croydon. He trapped Jian for hours on his first visit in an argument about the merits of the Chinese case for the right to navigate the Amur river on the China-Soviet border, which had evidently been the big issue in Harbin when he was “in those parts”. On his next visit he took Renfei with him, partly to impress her, partly to protect himself.

In the presence of a charming young lady, all was forgiven. Grandpa Popov had aged agreeably and was not disposed to chastise his young visitors for China’s sins, past or present. He asked about the Zhang family, reminisced about their time together, made a few polite enquiries about Jian’s scholarly progress in Australia, then settled down for a tour de horizon of what interested him. He viewed China’s recent and dramatic ascent in the world, while poor old Russia struggled to put together the shattered bits and pieces of the old Czarist-Communist empire, as a historic reversal of power in the crowded northern hemisphere. A true perspective on mankind’s future could only be gained from looking out (he was definite it was “out” and not “up”) from the greatest country in the world for ordinary people, the working man and woman. Australia.

“A young couple like you should set up in Australia,” he announced, oblivious to the confusion in their faces.

Australia had got it absolutely right, while the rest of the world argued and fought over bits of land and imagined interests and prospects. “Amourpropre,” he said derisively, slurring his French in the Russian manner, as if affected by alcohol. Look at the Middle East, for God’s sake! Land you wouldn’t bother to bid for in Australia being contested as if it were a matter of life and death, because thousands of years ago some forebear may or may not have lived there.

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