The Road to China by Ray and Gayle Massey The Road to China is only a twenty-two hour flight out of New York these days. Poring through reference books, over 17th-century charts, studying ships' logs from such as the Peabody and the China Trade Museum and the libraries of New York and Boston, should have been the end of my preparation for painting a series of pictures of the American China trade. My mental map was complete. However, the more I perused this map, the more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle seemed to be missing. What color was the Pearl River? What was the lay of the land at Whampoa? How could I paint the entrance to Macau from a 17th-century map? My sketches for the paintings set in Chinese ports revealed an infuriating vagueness about the landscapes. Ship details were as accurate as possible, and ships' logs and newspapers had given me the times of day and weather conditions for when they set sail. But what did China look like? On August 19, 1983 I asked Gayle if she'd like to go to China. Her answer was a vague "Yes." I probed her lack of
enthusiasm and she asked, "When do you want to go to China?" I answered, "Next week." She smiled indulgently. "Be serious," she said. "No one can plan a trip to China and get tickets on four days notice!" And off she went to a fourday family reunion. When she returned, I handed her an envelope with our flight tickets and Hong Kong reservations. She packed. We left New York August 23 on Korean Airlines flight 007. After an hour stopover at Anchorage, we arrived in Seoul, South Korea, switched planes and landed in Hong Kong. With no advance visas we headed directly from the airport to the travel bureau of the Peoples Republic of China, looking a bit red-eyed after forty hours in transit from Buffalo. We had only one week and getting to Canton and down the Pearl River was top priority. Unfortunately for us, it was a Chinese festival week, and every Hong Kong Chinese who could, was going to Canton to visit relatives and take gifts. There were no available seats on any mode of transportation
and certainly no accommodations for us in Canton. I felt doomed. To have come this far only to be frustrated at the doorway of China was unbearable. The travel agent sensed my desolation and told us to return in a half hour. When we returned, our stem Red Chinese travel agent told us he had tacked us on to a tour leaving the Kowloon territories the following day, which would get us across the border into the Peoples Republic at Shenzhen. From there we had the last seats available on the train to Canton. They could not get any hotel accommodations for us and told us to inquire at the train station on arrival in Canton. Our train at the border was modern by Chinese standards-lace curtains and seats mounted on swivels circa 1950 Russia. Through our window we photographed the Chinese disembarking barefoot from the box-car train that had brought them to the free market of the border town, Shenzhen. They staggered under bamboo yokes, men and women alike, with loads that seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds. The three-hour train
"The Empress of China Arriving at Whampoa in 1784" oil on canvas , 50 x 36. The 104-foot Empress of China left New York on February 2, 1784 shortly after the British evacuated the city in December at the end of the American Revolution. The first vessel of the young republic to sail to China, she is escorted by two war junks and greeted by the salutes of British , Dutch , French, Swedish and Danish traders.