In the steppes of Procrustes

Procrustes in China ... But first he has to get through Australian airport security ... Confiscation of shaving cream and deodorant ... He tears himself away from the Peking duck to report on his trip to the theatre ... Apologies to Ogden Nash ... Travels with the Jade Princess 

Australian political metaphor playing out at the Red Theatre

MY trip to central Asia required an overnight in Hong Kong, so I packed the usual items and accompanying toiletries. 

This put me in a prime position to see Australian officialdom in action as various uniformed functionaries stripped the shaving cream, deodorant and toothpaste from the in-flight bag. 

It never fails to amaze me how thuggishly Australian functionaries behave when armed with a modicum of arbitrary power. 

One mustachioed gent barked orders to remove the offending items, informing me that everyone knew about these restrictions. 

He held up the card in Bahasa to make his point.

Moments later I was accosted by another functionary bearing a card. 

Did Procrustes agree to comply? Difficult, as the card was upside down. On it being upended, the message was the usual wormwood. Agreement or disagreement must be indicated to have this disagreeable individual go the grope. 

In fact, this was no choice at all. Agree or don't fly. 

The uniform now squirmed with pleasure. I reached for my pen and began amending the offending card. 

That did not go down well. 

Which junior idiot in the AGS came up with this fig leaf against an assault action? 

Cathay got the toiletries to Beijing (and your scribe just had to make do in Hong Kong). 

*   *   *

TWO days later, armed with my sedan chair, canvas bath and my companion, the Jade Princess, I was in Lanzhou, gateway to western China - as Dubbo is gateway to the central west of NSW. 

The difference is about three million people. 

Just how bad the officialdom can get was brought home in a peculiar fashion. 

Walking in Lanzhou, ghostlike from 1970, we heard the Carpenters singing some tripe: 

Every shalala, every ding aling ling ...  

The Jade Princess looked wistful and stopped to take it in. She explained: 

"This is the only western pop music we were allowed to listen to." 

Oh dear - imagine a childhood without the Rolling Stones?

The fear of such regimes is palpable, and I'm reminded of an occasion, long ago, when my Hungarian refo ironing lady accosted me after a win for some residents against a State government minister hell bent on destroying their local amenity. 

The Hungarian said: 

"I saw you on TV, you won against the government. Not possible where I come from." 

It was a salutary moment in the making of a then young Procrustes.

Lanzhou is a chaotic and heaving mass compared with the calm flow of Beijing's eight lane avenues and superb underground. 

The Jade Princess jumped the chance on the first night to demand attendance at the Red Theatre to see the Kung Fu Show. 

I expected some interesting gymnastics, but no, it was the whole 70s rigmarole without actually referencing the Grasshopper. 

Little did I realise, as the ancient ceremonial horns blared, that an Australian political metaphor would now play out on stage. 

The principal protagonist, as small boy, is delivered by his parents to an institution run by an old man with the most amazing eyebrows. 

He is schooled in the ways of the monastery to make him a hardened warrior and ascetic, but, shock-horror, he goes off the rails for what the program euphemistically called his "inner vision", but which on stage was a well endowed young beauty. 

There goes the ball game, the audience thought, but no - our hero pulls himself together and again devotes himself to hardness and asceticism, and as the power of the Old Man wanes, the once small boy is now ready to assume his place of leadership in the monastery, as The Abbott.

There, you have it, but by way of explanation and with apologies to Ogden Nash:

The one t abbot, he's a priest,
The two t abbott, he's a beast,
But I will bet you a brown monk's habit,
That there is no three t abbottt.