A twenty-one year old Frenchman, Serge Dumont-Maliverg, has become one of a still relatively small group of photographers, film makers and writers to make clear what conditions are on the Chinese mainland. Serge, originally a student in the Department of Social Work in Paris, came to Taiwan in February of l980, studied Chinese for a year, then in March of 1981 had an opportunity to make a three week visit to the mainland. In the course of visiting Shanghai, Nanking, Hangchow, and Peiping, he took more than three hundred photographs, talked with many young Chinese, and absorbed many impressions. After his return to Taiwan, he and a Hong Kong artist companion, Shui Ho-tien,
exhibited the results of their camera work on their mainland trip. Shui, Chinese and perhaps more artistic than Maliverg, concentrated on nostalgic scenes demonstrating his love for his homeland, but Serge, a foreigner and a journalist, shot just what came unposed before his camera. "I took pictures of people and things on the mainland without making any judgments," he says. If judgments are to be made, it is up to the viewer.

Seeing the totality of his work, one comes away with a somber feeling.

The first pictures are those of Shanghai, once the leading trade harbor of China and China's most wealthy and prosperous industrial and commercial center. Shanghai was famous around the world for its beauty and bustling international character, but nowadays all that has changed. Bicycles crowd the streets because city bus service is inadequate. Buildings are dilapidated and in need of repair. Shanghai used to be known for its beautiful women and high fashion, but now grays and blues, utilitarian work suits, are dominant. The young no longer dress up themselves to show their youth and exuberance.

Serge was struck by the way young couples openly showed their affection for each other in shady corners of the parks and even along the Bund, Shanghai's waterfront. This untraditional Chinese behavior is not the result of a change in the national character. It is more the result of the housing shortage. Young married couples have to live with their families in terribly overcrowded quarters. With no privacy at home, they have to take to the outdoors to be "alone."

Two days in Shanghai, and Serge and his party left Shanghai for Nanking, the national capital. Nanking proved to be as drab as Shanghai - multitudes of bicycles, crumbling buildings, and outmoded communications. An occasional donkey cart could be seen carrying loads of goods or human excrement. Near the famous Ming Tombs, stone-carved ancient horses stood beside live horses pulling loads of timber. Clothes could be observed drying in the courtyards of old-style houses. Mists from the Grand Canal shrouded weather-beaten and crumbling piers.

What impressed Serge most was the open market. Women and men selling potatoes, vegetables, dried fish and roasted sweet potatoes were snapped by his camera. Salespeople were generally old, their hands and feet wrinkled with age, their eyes dull. All of them wore similar green workers' suits. Before 1979, these markets were state-run. Though the advent of free markets is supposed to have brought improvements in amounts of goods for sale and improved service, the shabby stalls, aged vendors and lack of variety in commodities gave mute evidence of weak purchasing power, low consumption standards, and general poverty. There are supermarkets in Nanking, but they are mostly for foreigners.

Local residents are discouraged from mingling with foreigners even in restaurants. Restaurants for foreigners are better decorated and have a greater variety of food, but Serge and his friends preferred to eat in public dining halls. There they got to know some young men who, having been sent down to the countryside on work projects, had illegally returned to the metropolis. Most of these young men had become beggars. Some proprietors of restaurants even dumped leftovers to dogs rather than to these young men. Sympathetic to the miserable condition of these young men, Maliverg and his friends sometimes ordered some dishes for them. As they were not allowed to eat with foreigners, they would wolf down their meal at the restaurant door. The coldness and indifference in human relationships among mainland people startled and shocked the visiting foreigners.

From Nanking, the tourists arrived at Hangchow, a city noted for its beautiful scenery. Hangchow has been one of the spots opened to foreign visitors in recent years, but it has never regained the liveliness that it used to have, though its natural beauty can never be destroyed. The Lin Yin Temple at Hangchow's West Ling Yin Temple at Hangchow's West Lake houses great numbers of exquisitely carved Buddha statues. Though forbidden to take pictures of these Buddhas to ensure a monopoly on their sale, Serge somehow managed to take several pictures which he now treasures.

Peiping was the last stop on the tour. Here people seemed more lively than in other cities, and many residents seemed to have a passion for learning foreign languages. Here Serge met a daring and hospitable young student of Peking University. Under his guidance, Serge put on a student-type blue suit and mingled with the students to slip into the campus, which is closed to visitors. A warm relationship soon sprang up between the students and young Serge. They seemed to know a lot about Taiwan's agricultural, industrial and social development and tended to believe that the philosophy of Dr. Sun Yat-sen must have helped to guide that development. Most of them felt that the Chinese mainland could never catch up unless its leaders also returned to following the Three Principles of the People. A few felt that socialism was the road for China, but they could hardly say why in view of their bitter experience. Freedom to travel and study abroad was high on the list of student values, and they envied Serge his mobility, but they had little hope that they themselves might some day see the world.

On the last day, the group visited the time-honored Great Wall of China. From those majestic battlements, the visitors could feel the long sweep of Chinese history and ponder its uncertain future.

Back in Taiwan, in addition to their exhibition, Serge and his friends gave an interview on the Chinese Television Service's "60 Minutes" show. As spokesman, Serge said that he tried to stay away from politics and political judgments. His pictures would have to speak for themselves. Nevertheless, the pictures clearly show that on the mainland, life is uncomfortable, dignity as a human being is lacking to people, and both physical movement and ideas are heavily restricted. One wonders how long such a state of affairs can last until low-level dissatisfaction and dissent become full-scale revolt against the regime.

Serge's probe into China mainland conditions of course does not stand alone. In 1974, the famous French director Michaelangelo Antonioni's "La Cina" touched off a stunning shockwave in the western world, largely unaware how bad things were on the mainland. Antonioni's film was followed by an expose of conditions in Shanghai by an American TV reporter called "Shadows of Shanghai."

Writers, too, have helped clarify true conditions on the mainland. In 1976, Hsia Chih-yen's The Coldest Winter in Peiping exposed the ups and downs of the power struggle from the Lin Piao incident years back to the madness of the Cultural Revolution. About the same time, a woman resident, Chen Jo-hsi, left the mainland and wrote Magistrate Yin, a damning account of backwardness, red tape, and the deep poverty of the people. Since the rise of Teng Hsiao-ping, many efforts have been made to discredit the previous leadership and particularly the "Gang of Four," so that horror stories about the Cultural Revolution's excesses have become commonplace. Now the slogan of the day is the "Four Modernizations." But can any country modernize if the people's energies and creative powers are still held down?

[Picture Caption]

Left: Bicycles and donkey carts are major means of transportation in the Communist-ruled city of Nanking. Even though Teng Hsiao-ping has lifted the ban on free market operations, the people have little to sell except for meager food supplies they grow on private plots.

1. People rush to the work posts in the morning by bicycle. 2. Most people live in dilapidated houses such as these. Grays and blues of work suits dominate the street scene. 3. The Grand Canal in Nanking is flanked by weather-beaten and crumbling houses and piers.

Three Pictures (1, 2 & 3) taken by Ms. Rita Jancu of the United States show how the Chinese Communists have allowed the people to salvage building materials from the Great Wall of China. The only man-made structure that can be seen from outer space. Barefooted children roam the Great Wall to harass foreign visitors for money. (4) An old man uses a rusty gasoline tank as an oven to roast sweet potatoes for sale to hungry people. (5) People use every device to try to make a living. The man pictured here sells cups of tea to passers-by.

1. Housing and roads are rarely repaired in Nanking. 2. An old cobbler specializes in repairs to cloth shoes, since few people can afford leather ones. 3. Another old man selling grain at a so-called open market puffs his pipe pensively as he waits for the rare customer.

Bicycles and donkey carts are major means of transportation in the Communist-ruled city of Nanking. Even though Teng Hsiao-ping has lifted the ban on free market operations, the people have little to sell except for meager food supplies they grow on private plots.

People rush to the work posts in the morning by bicycle.

Most people live in dilapidated houses such as these. Grays and blues of work suits dominate the street scene.

The Grand Canal in Nanking is flanked by weather-beaten and crumbling houses and piers.

taken by Ms. Rita Jancu of the United States show how the Chinese Communists have allowed the people to salvage building materials from the Great Wall of China. The only man-made structure that can be seen from outer space. Barefooted children roam the Great Wall to harass foreign visitors for money.

taken by Ms. Rita Jancu of the United States show how the Chinese Communists have allowed the people to salvage building materials from the Great Wall of China. The only man-made structure that can be seen from outer space. Barefooted children roam the Great Wall to harass foreign visitors for money.

taken by Ms. Rita Jancu of the United States show how the Chinese Communists have allowed the people to salvage building materials from the Great Wall of China. The only man-made structure that can be seen from outer space. Barefooted children roam the Great Wall to harass foreign visitors for money.

An old man uses a rusty gasoline tank as an oven to roast sweet potatoes for sale to hungry people.

People use every device to try to make a living. The man pictured here sells cups of tea to passers-by.

Housing and roads are rarely repaired in Nanking.

2. An old cobbler specializes in repairs to cloth shoes, since few people can afford leather ones.

3. Another old man selling grain at a so-called open market puffs his pipe pensively as he waits for the rare customer.