Hemingway and Gellhorn

I glanced over the book “Travels With Myself and Another” by Martha Gellhorn last week and was hit by the author’s condescending attitude when writing about countries of different culture and different people. No wonder the film “Hemingway and Gellhorn” portrayed Chinese people as a kind of idiots. That was the tone Ms. Gellhorn set in her book. She thought she knew China and could make sound judgment on China’s choices of destiny after just several days of visit.

“What fun do people have in China?” That was one of the questions she asked. How pathetic it was to ask a question like this during war time, during probably the worst moment in the history of China? Surprisingly ignorant. Chinese people had never went to nightclubs for fun for sure. I understand that Ms. Gellhorn was brilliant and courageous. She knew a lot about French literature, Russian writers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Spanish civil war, Siege of Khartoum. But it seems to me she had never bothered to learn anything about China, its history, its heritage, its literature. She just went there to show her haughty graciousness.