From 1979-84, Victoria Graham frequently roared up to the Great
Hall of the People on her Chang Jiang motorcycle plus sidecar,
writes Douglas Williams.
As a senior international correspondent for The Associated
Press, Victoria Graham was at the very top of her game.
Victoria Graham and AP
Foreign Editor Nate Polowetzky in early 1980s.
The time was the 1970s and Graham, based out of the New York
headquarters, was spending most of her time on the road chasing the
biggest stories of the day. From the Patty Hearst kidnapping to the
Jim Jones People's Temple mass suicide in Guyana, Graham was on
it.
The call that was to change her life irreversibly came in 1979
from the group president. AP's late great Edwin Keith Fuller was
planning a new Beijing bureau and he wanted Graham to head it up
with veteran China hand John Rodderick.
"My heart leapt," says San Franciscan Graham. "I was over the
moon; writing features was good but ultimately it wasn't satisfying
enough. I just had to go."
Touching down at Beijing International Airport on April 12,
1979, Graham was greeted by a whole new world - China. "I was
astonished, delighted and happy, it was an amazing new chapter in
my life and I had no idea how it would pan out," reveals
Graham.
Graham holding a gun with
young women's militia.
Now, 28 years later, Graham is back in China, back in newspapers
and she has been working as a foreign expert with Shanghai
Daily for the last year and a half.
In the Chinese capital she was tasked with stories about the
basics. "There was a huge appetite for stories about simple things
like how people lived, what their apartments were like, what were
the stores like," says Graham. "It was fairly black and white then
though.
"The 'cultural revolution' (1966-76) had ended, people were wary
of foreigners. Most wore very similar clothes. It was all pretty
gray but fascinating nonetheless."
Her stories went round the globe syndicated to thousands of
media outlets. With all the major news providers setting up shop in
Beijing, the competition to break the biggest story was intense.
"We would all socialize together, there'd be the Reuters guy, the
guy from The New York Times and the London Times'
correspondent, but we'd all be watching what we said about the
stories we were working on," she says.
"One of the 'biggest' stories was the opening of the first
privately owned restaurant in Beijing, until then all restaurants
had been state-owned," she recalls.
Graham and photojournalist
HS Liu in Sri Lanka returning from a trip visiting Trincomalee,
covering civil war.
Graham traveled extensively at that time and her travels brought
her to Shanghai on a number of occasions. She describes the city
then as "dark and gloomy." Returning in 2004 she was "astonished"
at the transformation.
Back during her first sojourn in the Middle Kingdom Graham was
riding around on a Chang Jiang motorbike and sidecar. Although her
Mandarin was limited, it did extend to: "Would you please help me
to restart my motorbike," a phrase that came in handy on numerous
occasions. She was usually in the sidecar.
After four and a half years in China, Graham was transferred to
the AP bureau in New Delhi, India. In her first year there she
covered three enormous stories: The massacre at the Golden Temple,
Amritsar, in which nearly 1,000 people died; the subsequent
assassination of former Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi; and
finally one of the worst industrial accidents ever, the Bhopal
Disaster at the Union Carbide plant that killed around 3,000 people
at the time -- the actual eventual death toll was to be much
higher.
Again Graham spent most of her time on the road. "It was
constant work and I loved it," says Graham. "I never rode any
camels or saw any tigers and if I ever went to Sri Lanka it was
because there had been another massacre, not to lie on the beach."
It was however, she says, a "total blast."
Graham returned to New York where she worked at the United
Nations headquarters. "There was a lot of wringing of hands into
the night as the UN struggled to make a decision, but of course
there were larger issues and it was fascinating to see the inner
working of such an important organization," she says.
In November 1994, having joined UNICEF as a senior
communications officer, Graham was posted to Nairobi, Kenya, and to
East Africa reeling in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide six
months earlier. "I mainly tried to encourage international
correspondents to write stories about women and children, I was on
the other side of the press fence then, poacher turned gamekeeper,"
says Graham.
Graham enjoys a quiet
moment at Beijing's Tian'anmen Square.
The refugee camps in Zaire were "biblical" in scale, according
to Graham. "I felt very privileged to have been there. They
stretched as far as the eye could see, about 800,000 displaced
people in Goma, Zaire, in the shadows of volcanoes, smoggy with
cooking fires, not a tree to be seen anywhere, they'd all been
chopped down for firewood. No picture could convey the enormity of
the suffering."?
Graham describes the Rwanda genocide as an "international
disgrace." Later, with the UN High Commission for Refugees, Graham
was posted to Croatia and Bosnia which were at that time putting
the pieces back together after a bloody civil war. "There were so
many false hopes going around at that time," says Graham. "I don't
really know why I wanted to go to these places, I guess I just
wanted to know it."
Graham landed back in Shanghai in 2004 and was overwhelmed by
the changes. "There's a lot more openness now, but there's also a
great deal of superficiality. I just hope that all this advancement
allows the people to truly be themselves and not just chase after
money all the time," she says.
Graham and a Tibetan
friend, Tashi, in New Delhi.
So far, says Graham, it's too early for her to get a proper
"handle" on Shanghai but the quiet-spoken, hardworking woman
wonders if there's enough "self-cultivation" going on. "I often ask
people what they read, but people here don't seem to be reading
much, and that's too bad -- reading is such a pleasure, there
should always be time for a good book." she says.
Graham in Nepal.
Graham also thinks it's unfair to put so much family pressure on
young women to find a husband and marry. "But that's just my
opinion, from a different culture," says the worldly
pragmatist.
Life in Shanghai is good. "I am enjoying it more and more. I
find it warm and its people are friendly, and engaging. More
importantly, of all the places to be in all the world right now,
Shanghai is most definitely it," she concludes.
Graham interviews Iraqi
clerics in Najaf after the first Gulf War.
Graham in Beijing's
Forbidden City in 1980s after she and her photographer colleague
interviewed Pu Jie, brother of China's last emperor Pu Yi, at
sunset when the crowds had left. Then Graham took a
seat.
Graham, photojournalist HS
Liu (front) and Asian News Editor Richard Pyle onboard AP's Chang
Jiang motorbike that Liu used in assignments.
Graham poses by soldiers at
Beijing's Great Wall.
Victoria Graham
Nationality: USA
Age: 58
Profession: Journalist
Picks and hates
Watching sunset on the Bund, the lights on the Bund, the city
lights are great any time.
Line-jumpers
Favorite way to spend a weekend?
Wandering around the city, there's a lot to explore and savor,
it changes so fast.
What can be done to improve Shanghai?
Leave that to Shanghai
(Shanghai Daily April 17, 2007)
