INTERVIEW Interview with Tom Pattinson of Time Out Beijing March, 2006 issue (this is the unedited transcript) You and China You lived in Hong Kong, did you spend much time on the mainland and in Beijing? If so what were you doing and what were your impressions? When was the last time you were here and what are you looking forward to about coming back to the country. The first time I was in China was as a tourist in 1978, which is also the last time I was in Shanghai. The city was plastered with big posters of Chariman Mao and everyone was dressed in blue. I stopped on a street corner to change film at one point and gathered a crowd of some hundred or more people who wanted to watch. I will finally revisit Shanghai on this trip and I imagine it will seem like a different planet. I was also in Beijing on that trip, but I have been back since, although not since 1993. One of the things that has most fascinated me about China over the years is how it has changed and developed. This will be the longest I have gone between visits to anywhere in China, so I am looking forward to seeing the changes. History is one of my major interests, and of course China provides plenty of that, but change and development in the modern world is an even greater interest and China these days provides more of that than anywhere else. Having not been back in about ten years, I'm really looking forward to comparing and contrasting the things that have stayed the same and the new things that I expect to astound me. During the years I lived in Hong Kong—1986-1997—I did spend a fair amount of time in the PRC, most of it in the south. I was editor of Executive magazine and associate editor of Asian Finance magazine, then later deputy editor of Asian Business magazine, and my beat included Guangdong, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Hainan. I mostly travelled to those areas for work, writing stories about economic development and investment. Although, I would go with some frequency to Shenzhen to eat at Sichuan restaurants—they were much better than the ones in Hong Kong. I also went to Taiwan about once a year for work—as well as to eat. The cooking in Hong Kong can be rather Canto-centric and I wanted greater variety. I did go to Beijing several times, but always as a tourist, never for work. My main impression of China during the years I lived in the neighborhood, was of a country in a total uproar—in both good ways and bad. The stresses of development were duking it out with the pressures of tradition and I found observing what little part of it I could was very exciting. You said you wrote the relationship column for a Chinese magazine. Who was that for, how was it and what sort of things did people write to you about? That was when I first arrived in Hong Kong, for Style magazine, a fashion magazine. I was an associate editor at Thomson Press and worked on five of their publications. It was a lot of fun and my work with the Chinese staff of the magazine, especially a couple of the translators, and mingling with the magazine's readers, were a great introduction to Hong Kong. Unfortunately we didn't get very many real letters. I had to make up most of them. The editor allowed me to have fun with half of them and then the other half had to be cosmetics and fashion questions. One of my favorite letters—that I made up—was from a young woman who had a pet parrot and a boyfriend. The parrot was jealous and whenever she and her boyfriend would start to make love the bird would fly off its perch and sink its claws and beak into the boyfriend's butt. (This was based on the true experience of an actress friend of mine.) The woman didn't want to give up either the bird or the boyfriend. What to do? I told her that she either had to get a larger apartment with at least two rooms, or perhaps she needed to be on top when they made love. We did get several real letters complimenting the column. You obviously have an interest in Asia, is there anything specific about China that appeals to you? What interests me most about anywhere is the contrast between old and new; the chaos of development and the hope and despair that is caused by that; and history and culture. China has an abundance of all that, and it's mostly out in the open where you can get a strong sense of it simply walking around. The politics of the place also fascinate me. I was a student, anti-Vietnam War radical in the 1960s and early 1970s and like a lot of radicals flirted heavily with communist ideology. I've read the books, used to have the posters on my walls, got suspended from high school once for wearing a lapel pin with Chairman Mao's face on it. Getting to know China better, having lived in close proximity to it, having watched it change over the years, has been a significant factor in the evolution of my own political beliefs. And I love the food. I've always loved the food. I learned to use chopsticks when I was about seven years old. What are the main changes that you have seen (specifically literary changes) in china over the years? I can't read Chinese. The work I did with translators back in my Style magazine days convinced me that translations from Chinese to English or vice versa, are at best interpretations. So, when I read Chinese literature in English, I figure I'm getting a limited picture. That said, what I have liked in recent years is the freedom and openness of literary expression, at least in the "interpreted" books I can get in the U.S. Because of political realities, the books I've read have used cultural, social, artistic and sexual themes to comment on the bigger economic and political picture—the old 'the personal is political' trick. (It's something I also try to do with my own fiction writing.) Maybe at times that requires a little reading between the lines, but I've been amazed at how blatant some of it has been. Then again, I do enjoy reading between the lines. I spent a lot of time in Indonesia during the last two years of Suharto's reign. The Jakarta Post did a splendid job of writing editorials that on one level seemed to support Suharto, but at the same time made it clear to anyone who cared to read carefully that they were doing the opposite. Their editorials aren't nearly as well written since they've had the freedom to say whatever they want. The most recent Chinese book I've read is "Red Dust" by Ma Jian, which I liked a lot. I also read "Shanghai Baby" by Wei Hui and found it interesting, although I thought the writing was dull—maybe it was the translation. It's not literature, per se, and I actually don't read much poetry, but I do like the "interpreted" lyrics I have read by Cui Jian. I also like his music a lot and he is truly great in concert. (I saw him last year here in Los Angeles.) The book Your book is based in HK and Macau and the underworld around it. How did you research this book? Is this a topic that interests you and why? I have always been fascinated by the "underworld"—crime, prostitution, drugs. I think it is part of my interest in contrasts. Criminals, prostitutes, druggies, are all outside civil society, yet they still have a large impact on it and to some extent have the ability to cross over societal and cultural boundaries at will. Also, being outside the house, so to speak, they sometimes have an interesting perspective looking back in. There's a cynical side of me that thinks a lot of what we regard as polite society, is based on hypocrisy. Writing about people who are outside of that, is a good way—in my mind at least—of pointing out the hypocrisy. So over the years I've read a lot about it, sought out people involved in it who would talk to me, and developed friendships with denizens of it. To be honest, as an expatriate male in Asia, I also succumbed to some of the "underworld's" enticements. I spent plenty of time with prostitutes. Travelling for business in Asia, unless you spend your entire time in meetings and then in the hotel room not answering the phone or the door, prostitution is regularly on offer. And, in many countries, meeting local women any other way is not easy, or even possible. I developed several close friendships with women who I met, shall I say—professionally. I got to know them pretty well and a lot of what I learned from them came in very handy in writing "The Living Room of the Dead." (I also developed friendships with prostitutes who I never knew professionally.) I'm currently working on the third book of the Ray Sharp series. It takes place in Indonesia and two of the characters are based on friends of mine. I met the woman who one character is based on when I caught her trying to pick my pocket in a bar. I made her buy me a drink. We became friends. Later, she introduced me to a friend of hers—a gay hustler who was also a burglar. I don't approve of picking pockets or burgling houses, but I liked them both as people and I was fascinated by the way they looked at the world. There are lots of books about the Italian mafia though fewer about the triads, is this because it is something that people find harder to understand or what other reason? In the U.S. I suppose it's because the Italian mafia has a longer, better understood history. Since the 1920s they've made headlines a lot more frequently than the triads. Maybe the triads are simply better at being discreet. The U.S. has also always been very Euro-centric. It's only recently that the media here have paid much attention at all to Asia, and even still, that's more of a West Coast phenomenon than it is in the rest of the country. The fact that I'm more interested in Asia than in Europe is one of the reasons I prefer living in Los Angeles to New York. How and why did you link people smuggling and the Russian mafia? The links have been well established since the fall of the Soviet Union. In the early 1990s Russian prostitutes began showing up in Macau and they were a very big business. The facts of the Russian mafia involvement in the trade were well documented in a number of newspaper and magazine stories, and more recently in a few books. I also learned a lot from a Ukranian woman who I became good friends with in Macau. She was a doctor but in one night working as a "hostess" at a nightclub in Macau she could make the equivalent of three months salary in Kiev. She'd trafficked herself, she wasn't tricked or forced (other than by economics) into it. I had a very long, very sad conversation with her one night in which she told me about her life. She'd grown up believing she lived in a developed country, feeling sorry for all the poor women in third world countries like Thailand and the Philippines who had to become prostitutes. And now, here she was in Macau doing the same thing. She was happy that her country was now "free," but not happy with what that meant for her. "The Living Room of the Dead" is as much a story of economics and politics as it is a crime story, and the interplay between all those elements is what interests me. Is the book being published in China? Have you had any trouble with the government (or the triads!) with the book. Not so far. I have a foreign rights agent who is working on some deals. I don't know if it could be published in China or not. There are some things in the book that would probably have to be cut out to make it palatable to the government. As for the triads, it's hard for me to imagine that they would care very much. It's a novel, there has been plenty of hard hitting investigative journalism that is much more likely to piss them off. Have you met or come across any real life triads? So far as I know, only in passing. My ex-wife used to run restaurants and bars in Hong Kong and every so often there'd be tables of tattooed guys who wouldn't order anything, they'd just sit there taking up a table and look menacing, hoping someone would pay them to leave. Her policy was to politely ignore them. Living in Hong Kong, hanging out in bars and clubs I'd often see guys who were probably triads—or maybe they were simply triad wannabes. My guess is that the real, tough, effective triads are pretty discreet. It's easier to get their business done that way. Your book is based on a true story. Can you give us any more information about this, and is the book based on a person you know or have met? The book is loosely based on the sad true tale of Gary Alderdice, a British lawyer in Hong Kong. In 1994, Alderdice fell in love with Natalia Samofalova, a Russian prostitute from Vladivostok who he met in Macau. The two of them decided to try and buy her out of her contract with the Russian mafia. They went to Vladivostok with money to do so and were robbed and murdered. So far as I know the crime has never been solved. I didn't know Alderdice, although I knew who he was and would see him around town in Hong Kong on occasion. Several characters in the book are based on people I knew, although most of them are composites of a few different people. Parts of my Ukranian friend are in there. Do you think that organised crime is a big issue in China? Is it growing or shrinking? I think it's a global issue. In developing and totalitarian countries it often works hand in hand with political corruption as a matter of expediency. That usually includes the military because it has the power, control and the reach to take advantage of opportunities. To some extent that is also true in developed and democratic countries like the U.S., but more highly developed legal and economic systems tend to marginalize organized crime. I'm not up to date enough on the current crime situation in China to comment intelligently on whether or not it is growing or shrinking, but I suspect that as China continues to develop and as the legal system continues to solidify its position, organized crime will become more marginalized as it is in the U.S. and Europe. Why is it important for you to come to China with your book? On a practical level—it's important for me to work to sell my book wherever I can and I think there might be some interest in it in China. The fact that I am going to China with it also helps to generate some interest, or at least curiosity, in the U.S. This is also the first book in a series and if the series catches on I may want to set a future book in China. Visiting China will help me figure out what I need to do by way of research to write a convincing novel that takes place in the country. I write fiction, but I want it to ring true. Please tell us more about your book. It is set in Hong Kong, Macau, Zhuhai, an island in the South China Sea and Vladivostok, Russia. Almost all of the locales in which it takes place are real and are accurately described. The one major exception is the island in the South China Sea. The horrifying scenes there are based on rumors that I have long heard about what is available on some of the "pleasure islands" that really do exist in the area near Hong Kong and Macau. To me, the political and economic context of the book is an integral part of the story. The social and economic tensions that existed in Hong Kong and Macau in 1995 due to the impending return to Chinese sovereignty; the furious pace of development in southern China; and the economic collapse of the Soviet Union all come together to make a much bigger story than the simple, ill-fated love affair it's based on. The book is filled with sex and violence, none of which—I think—is gratuitous. It is all in there to help move the story along and to make the characters and their motivations more comprehensible. But, above and beyond all the politics, economics, culture, etc. most reviewers have described it as a "page turner." I take that as a very big compliment. China These questions are going to be tough for me. The last time I was in the PRC was 1996, and then it was only in Shenzhen. I was last in Hong Kong in 2000. So, I feel somewhat out of touch with current developments other than what I read about in the media, books and hear from friends. Some of what I say may also be influenced by the time I spend in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles—a large and rapidly growing, relatively new Chinese community. So, if my answers to these questions seem inadequate, please excuse my ignorance. As someone that has been visiting the area in recent years, culturally what are the main changes you have seen in the country? Of course economically the country has grown but has this been matched culturally? If so in what ways? It seems to me that hand in hand with economic development has come a greater sense of confidence and identity in both traditional and modern Chinese culture. That has expressed itself through art and literature that is modern, but builds on Chinese traditions and forms rather than is derivative of foreign—European and American—traditions and styles. While I haven't had an opportunity to read many recent PRC-based authors work, the little I have read has been harder for me, as a Westerner living in the U.S., to follow than the books by Chinese authors living outside of China. I take that as a good sign. Rather than trying to emulate Western authors, Chinese writers are more confidently exploring the forms of their own culture. I certainly have found this to be the case with the visual art that I have seen in galleries and museums. I also get the impression that China is becoming better able than in the past to import, appreciate and make use of foreign culture without being exploited or dominated by it. And, because of that China has become better at playing around with it, building on it and putting its own mark on it. A metaphoric example of that comes from here in Los Angeles. Several of the new Chinese restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley have chefs who have recently come from China. They often experiment with local and imported ingredients that are not traditionally part of Chinese cuisine. Their food is still distinctly Chinese, but with a playful, international flourish that makes for some very interesting and delicious meals. One of my favorite new Los Angeles restaurants is called New Concept. It is a branch of a Beijing-based restaurant. Are there an increasing number of mainland authors publishing? Do you think many of them are still fearful from publishing in China? And more importantly are any of them any good? I don't know. I have a feeling that there are more publishing. I think some probably are afraid of publishing—at least through proper channels—in China. And, the more people who are publishing, the more likely it is that you'll find some good ones. Many young female authors published books that were very culturally relevant to the country they live in and sexually explicit, such as Shanghai Baby that was well received abroad but burnt in China in the late 90s. Is this something that you see easing in the near future? No idea. There's always going to be a market for sex though, whether it's domestic or foreign. I hope it does ease in the future. I'm not in favor of burning books, any books. Although I have been known to throw a book across the room in disgust if I didn't like it—but that's usually more to do with bad writing than anything to do with content, and never has anything to do with sex. Some argue that China cannot go through a 'cultural revolution' (in the literal sense of the word) until there is more freedom of the press or even a regime change, do you agree with that? I suppose it's a chicken and egg sort of thing. To some extent China already is going through a (literal) cultural revolution because of greater economic freedom—which tends to foster the development of other types of freedom. I do think that an open market—so to speak—of competing ideas (even when they're yelling and screaming at each other) is in the long run good for the development of everything. In politics and economics it can be inefficient, but somehow it always seems to muddle through to reasonably effective conclusions quicker and more sustainably than any other way of going about it. (Command and control, for instance.) Culturally, I think suppression usually leads to stagnation. It makes a culture spend too much time defending itself, rather than developing. In the long run culture is like the proverbial shark: it has to keep moving or it dies. I do think a free press has a vital role to play in keeping things moving. One of my favorite quotes about the press is from H. L. Mencken. He described the role of the press as, "To comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable." I suppose if the leaders in China were willing to good-naturedly accept some affliction from the press, that would prove beneficial. How do you think the internet has advanced Chinese authors? Blogging is very popular here as it is anonymous and hard to track. Is this a good thing or a bad thing for budding authors? I think the internet is helping all authors. I'm all for blogging. I even have my own on my website. I think it's vital for writers to write, and to do it for public consumption. With a blog you can get feedback on your writing almost immediately. You can't do that with a book. It helps in developing your writiing. The more venues for that, the better. The more voices the better. Of course that means there is bound to be a whole lot more crap than in the past. But the good thing about the internet, like TV and radio before it, is that if you don't like what you're reading or seeing, you can change the channel. At least you can if there are a lot of channels. To paraphrase an old Chinese poem quoted by Chairman Mao: "Let a hundred websites bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend." Of course that turned out to be a trap. Hopefully the internet can make good on the poem's original intent. Have you seen a change in trends of Chinese books? Such as new topics and styles? As I said, I'm not that familiar with Chinese books published in China. I have a sense that there is more genre writing such as detective stories, erotica, fantasy, science fiction. I think those are useful forms for writing between the lines and making the personal political. Some of what I write in my books wouldn't command much of a readership if I stuck it into a book of politics, economics or sociology. But integrated into a crime drama with plenty of sex and violence; it is more likely to pass muster as harmless and it is also more likely to be an enjoyable read. There seems to be more Chinese authors in the US than in China, do you think they are playing on the fact they are Chinese and not allowed to write in the homeland or are there some good authors? There's some of each. Some of the good ones also play on the fact that they can't write in their homeland. It's hard selling books these days, us writers have got to work every angle we can to do it. There were nearly 200,000 books published in the U.S. last year. You've got to do something to make you and your book stand out from the herd.