Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

The Temple of Heaven, probably the supreme achievement of traditional Chinese architecture, he
considered 'very gaudy and more or less crudely done'. The summer palace was 'very cheap as to
workman-ship' and the winter palace was 'not much of a palace in my estimation'.
The Lama temple, closed a few days after their visit by the newly-formed National Government, was
'miserably cold and very shabby . . . The people worshipping have voices like bull-frogs and beat a
drum and play a brass horn to accompany their singing (?).'
As for the Imperial palaces in the Forbidden City, one was 'very trashy-looking' and most of the
others were 'not worth mentioning'. Only the Great Wall of China seemed to fire his imagination and
that mostly because it was 'the only work of man's hand visible from Mars'. If China turned it into a
'rolly coaster', he added, 'it could make millions of dollars every year.'
Neither did the Chinese people endear themselves to the opinionated young American. He found
them shallow, simple-minded, dishonest, lazy and brutal. 'When it comes to the Yellow Races
overrunning the world, you may laugh,' he noted. '. . . [The Chinese] have neither the foresight or
endurance to overrun any white country in any way except by intermarriage. One American marine
could stand off a great many yellowmen without much effort.'
Even the climate failed to please. Winter lasted from October to May, he said, the cold was intense,
and it was so dry that dust formed ankle-deep in the roads and caused 'Peking sore throat', a
formidable complaint that endured all winter.
'I believe that the most startling thing one can see in northern China', he wrote, 'is the number of
camels. These are of a very mean breed but they resist cold and carry burdens which is all the
Chinaman requires of them. Every day in Peking one can see many caravans in the streets. They
have a very stately shamble. They carry their head high; their mean mouths wagging and their
humps lolling from side to side. All my life I have associated camels with Arabs and it strikes a
discordant note with me to see the beasts shepherded by Chinamen.'
The Gold Star stopped at Shanghai and Hong Kong before heading back to Guam, but Ron tired of
further descriptive writing, apart from taking a final swipe at the luckless Chinese race. 'They smell',
he concluded, 'of all the baths they didn't take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks
here.'
On the final leg of the voyage, Ron's devotion to his studies rather appeared to falter, for he began
filling his journal with one-paragraph synopses of short stories that he had either written, or
perhaps intended to write, for magazines like True Confession and Adventure. It was clear from
these entries that he was already thinking of a career as a writer, the Naval Academy
notwithstanding. Indeed, he gave the impression that he had been grinding away at a typewriter for
years, ending one synopsis, titled 'Armies for Rent', with a nonchalant addendum that it would
include the 'usual plot complications'.
Predictably, the Orient was his favourite setting and the hero was invariably a white adventurer, as
in 'Secret Service': 'Adventure. All in a day's work. Casual laddie in Hankow. Saves town. Joins Brit
SS to carry out such orders as "Giovinni in Mukden exciting Communists. Use your own judgement.
C13".'
None of his efforts, it must be said, were startlingly original: 'Love story. Goes to France. Meets
swell broad in Marseilles. She takes him to her sink, bedroom and bath where he lives until
notable citoyens object. He stands them off and takes the next boat for America having received a