China Over Lightly

OVER LIGHTLY

No state has absolutely impermeable frontiers, but some come pretty close and China was one such for years. Now anyone can go to China, but on their terms. There are the fascinating exceptions: in Peking the U.S. ambassador told me that every now and then he runs into, or perhaps more properly is run over by, an American hippie-type who actually arrives in China—somehow; then sets out with his backpack; knows no Chinese; has some, but usually not much, money. “Damn if some of them don’t get all the way to Lhasa and back.” Lhasa used to be where the Dalai Lama governed by the will of God, until God lost interest, in 1959; and now it is the capital of Tibet, the westernmost province of China.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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OVER LIGHTLY

No state has absolutely impermeable frontiers, but some come pretty close and China was one such for years. Now anyone can go to China, but on their terms. There are the fascinating exceptions: in Peking the U.S. ambassador told me that every now and then he runs into, or perhaps more properly is run over by, an American hippie-type who actually arrives in China—somehow; then sets out with his backpack; knows no Chinese; has some, but usually not much, money. “Damn if some of them don’t get all the way to Lhasa and back.” Lhasa used to be where the Dalai Lama governed by the will of God, until God lost interest, in 1959; and now it is the capital of Tibet, the westernmost province of China.