At the Soviet-Chinese frontier at Manchouli, Soviet porters helped us with our luggage. Silently they carried it into the customs station, where one of their representatives sat at a table and charged us a small sum for each piece. There was no asking for or accepting tips, no bowing and scraping. The system protected us and guarded the self-respect of the porters.
Our luggage stamped, we turned to face—the Middle Ages. Through the years I have never forgotten the frozen expression on the face of the dark-eyed Soviet railwayman who stood watching the Chinese coolies take our luggage in charge.
A horde of these men, clothed in rags, scrambling and shouting, threw themselves on our bags and began fighting over each piece. Five or six fell upon my four suitcases and two struggled for my small typewriter— and their action seemed all the more debased because they were as tall and strong as the tallest Americans. Finally two of them carried off my typewriter, and before I could recover from shock, all of them began running with the luggage to the waiting train. Inside, six men crowded about me, holding out their hands and scouting for money. For a moment I was paralyzed, then began to pay them generously to get rid of them. A woman passenger kept warning me that if I overpaid they would demand more. I disregarded her; then the coolies were about me, shouting, shaking their fists, threatening.
A Chinese trainman came through the car, saw the scene, and with a shout began literally to kick the coolies down the aisle and off the train. Grasping their money, they ran like dogs.
I stood frozen. My face must have resembled that of the black-eyed Soviet worker who had watched the scene at the customs house. Perhaps his feeling had been what mine was now: here was humanity abandoned. The victims of every whim of misfortune, these men had grown to manhood like animals, without the slightest sense of responsibility towards each other or of human fellowship. When an opportunity for gain came, they battled one another like beasts, and the losers offered no protest. Here was “rugged individualism” and the “survival of the fittest” in its most primal form.
This scene became for me symptomatic of the social system of China, however disguised and decked out it might be. I saw it repeated in many other settings, often more polite, but always essentially the same—a life- and-death struggle in which the timid and weak went down before the ruthless and strong.
China before liberation, in reality: