F: Ah? Studying what, may I ask?

B: Chinese Law and Track and Field.

F: Very good. And the rest of you?

DEBOREE: Sir, the rest of us are journalists.

F: Please. The years have made me somewhat deaf.

D: The rest of us are journalists! Here covering the big race! The Beijing Invitational Marathon? It happens tomorrow. Paul there is the editor of our periodical; Brian is the photographer. I am the writer.

F: Ah. A sportswriter…

D: Not really. Fiction, usually. Stories, novels. Actually, back home, I'm quite a big-time writer.

This evokes muffled Yankee snorts: Oh boy, will ya listen to that? Big-time Writer back home.

D: Also, I am a very big fan of the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes. I have been consulting the Ching oracle religiously for more than ten years, throwing it every day.

More snorts, low and inside: My, my, him also Big-time Ching Thrower, too.

D: But what I essentially came to China for, actually, was to find out what has become of you, Doctor. Perhaps you are not aware of it but for many years in our country, scholars of philosophy have been wondering, "What has become of Dr. Fung Yu-lan? What is Dr. Fung Yu-lan doing now?" I mean, those of us who have been seriously influenced by your work… have been wondering -

This is mercifully interrupted by the sound of the door swinging back open and the tinkle of the tea service.

AMERICANS: Thank you. This is very nice. You bet. Just what we needed…

F: You are all welcome.

Fidgeting. Sipping. Clink of china on china. And a kind of patient, silent amusement.

D: So, ah, here we are. How are you then, Doctor? I mean, what have you been doing all this time?

F: I have been working.

D: Teaching?

F: No. I have been working on my book.

D: Very good. And what book have you been working on?

Again, that subtle moment of amused silence.

F: I have been working on my History of Chinese Philosophy. As always. On what else would I be working?

D: Oh. Of course. I guess what I meant was on what aspect. A revision? For a new edition?

F: No. Not a revision, a continuation. Volume five. It is an attempt to examine the Cultural Revolution, a task for which I fear I am woefully inadequate. But I feel that these last fifteen years must be examined and understood.

D: These last fifteen years? I should say! Boy, we will all be very interested in reading that. That's terrific. Isn't that terrific, you guys?

Much agreement, and more slurping of tea and rattling of cups on saucers. Then more silence.

D: This tea is very good. What kind of tea is it, anyway?

F: Chinese.

See? Embarrassing. Disquieting, even before this chance to review the tape. Back at the hotel that very evening the Big-time Writer couldn't get the humiliating encounter off his mind. Unable to sleep, he dug the borrowed book from the bottom of his luggage. He opened it beneath a bed lamp and found himself immediately captured by the clarity of the prose; it had been swept as clean as that bald yard…

Two hours later, the Big-time Writer lays the book down and bows his head, finally beginning to get some inkling of the stature of the mind he had found in this far-off keep.

He discerned that Philosopher Fung had arbitrarily fashioned four views of man, as a means of observing the gradations of evolving ethical human awareness. These four views, or "realms" as Fung calls them, are (1) The unself-conscious or "natural" realm, (2) The self-conscious or "utilitarian" realm, (3) The other-conscious or "moral" realm, and (4) The all-conscious or "universal" realm.

The first two realms, according to Dr. Fung's canon, are "gifts of nature," while the second two are realized only as "creations of the spirit." That these two conditions must sometimes necessarily be in conflict was taken for granted by the old Doctor; that either side should ever completely triumph over the other was considered the most dangerous of folly.

The writer looked up from the closed book, recalling the walk through blighted Berkeley and the question to the minister concerning the old man's pertinence. Here was how he pertained, this teak-jawed Chinaman, to the Telegraph of today as well as to last season's idealism. Wasn't he trying to light up the very dilemma the sixties had stumbled over? the problem of how to go with the holy flow and at the same time take care of basic biz? Sure, you can to thine own cells be true and liberate parking lots from the pigs, but how do you keep them free of future swine without turning into something of a cop yourself? There was the block that had stumbled a mighty movement, and Fung Yu-lan pertained because he had tried to light it with his intellect, without bias, from all sides. And is still trying, bright as ever. How does he manage it, in this dim comer? How does he keep the faith and keep ahead of the ax at the same time? And for so many years?

The Sharp Old Fox would have had answers to such pertinent questions, had the subjects ever been touched on, but all our Big-time Writer could think to ask were things like "What kind of tea?" Embarrassing…

It is only at the end of the tape, after the visitors have slurped their way to the meeting's end and are once again outside in the shifting Chinese twilight, that he asked a question that was remotely close:

D: One more thing, Doctor. There are some pretty grisly – I mean we've heard a lot of accounts, stories, about how quite a lot of teachers and intellectuals were… I mean how did you get through that dreadful time of turmoil?

F (shrugging): I have been a student of Chinese philosophy for more than three quarters of a century. Thus – (he shrugs again, flashing such a jaunty, devil-may-care grin that one might almost expect him to say, It was a piece of cake. Except for a sharpness that one senses beneath that jaunty flash, a carnivorous quality that suggests the toothy old smiler is not only capable of biting off and swallowing any time of turmoil -- any period of upheaval or downfall brought about by any single dictator or by any Gang of Force with their rinky-dink revolution whether cultural or dreadful -- but that he can thrive on it! As though the turmoil had not only been a piece of cake, easily downed and digested, it had been savored as well) -- I have become very broadminded.

RUN INTO GREAT WALL

Verses appearing here are from the Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu. An older contemporary of Confucius (551-479 B.C.), Lao-tzu was the Chinese historian in charge of archives at the royal court of the Chou dynasty. He wrote nothing of his own but taught by example and parable. When the famous sage was at last departing his homeland for the mountains of his end, the keeper of the mountain pass detained him.

"Master, my duties as sentry of this remote outpost have made it impossible for me to visit your teachings. As you are about to leave the world behind, could you not also leave behind a few words for my sake?"

Whereupon Lao-tzu sat down and filled two small books with 81 short verses, less than some 5,000 characters, and then departed. No one ever heard where he went.