Chinese travels

It was when he was coming to the end of a five-year stint as a BBC correspondent in Beijing that Michael Bristow decided he would like to write a book about his experiences in China.

He didn’t want to write a dry tome on the history, politics and economics of a country he has grown to love, rather he sought a way of conveying a human story.

“I wanted to introduce to people some areas of China and Chinese life that they don’t necessarily know about,” says Bristow who is now Asia Pacific Editor for the BBC World Service and based in York. “The Chinese are very humorous and fun, that doesn’t always come across in the media. And as a journalist you often have to write things that are very taut, you don’t often have the time to get to the heart of something or explore something in more depth.”

He has been trying to learn Mandarin for many years – a task he notes wryly in his biog that has taken ‘most of his adult life’ – and it struck him that his Chinese teacher, who had become a good friend, would make the ideal subject for his book.

“We would meet up a couple of times a week and I got to know his life story,” says Bristow. “He was funny, witty thoughtful and educated. He seemed to encapsulate the ups and downs of China. He has lived through the good times and the bad times.”

Bristow’s teacher was born in 1951 two years after the Chinese Communist Party came to power, so his life covers the historical path of China’s struggles – many as a result of some of the more controversial policies of Chairman Mao’s reign – right through to its emergence in the 21st century as a major global economic power.

The teacher was pleased with the idea and they began their joint project. What Bristow didn’t know until later was that his teacher was a cross-dresser. That revelation came when the pair were on one of their many trips together away from Beijing visiting various significant places in the teacher’s life and the older man arrived for dinner one evening “wearing a smile and a full outfit of women’s clothes.” Bristow admits that initially it was a shock and created some tension as the teacher didn’t want him to refer to this aspect of his life. “I told him I couldn’t tell half a story and eventually he agreed to allow me to write about him as long as I didn’t use his name.” The book, China in Drag: Travels with a cross-dresser, is published by Sandstone Press next week and it’s a hugely engaging, informative read, underpinned by Bristow’s journalistic rigour and specialist knowledge. It is also a very touching tribute to a special friendship. “In China people are usually very friendly towards strangers, but it’s difficult to move to another level of friendship, there always remains a bit of a suspicion of foreigners, so I feel quite proud that we were able to do that,” says Bristow. “When you spend long periods of time together on train journeys you have conversations which can evolve over a period of days and weeks and I got to know more about him and like him more as a person. I was so honoured that he revealed all that to me.”

China in Drag, £8.99, will be launched at Waterstones, York on September 21 at 7pm.