Uncle Barhen

A little Chinese named Wang Jen-shu arrived in Jakarta five months ago from Peking to be Communist China's first ambassador to the new Republic of Indonesia. Local Reds gave Wang a nickname"Pak Barhen" (Uncle Barhen), Indonesian equivalent of "the common man."

Uncle Barhen was shocked when the Indonesian government informed him that the 2,000,000 Chinese in Indonesia had until the end of 1951 to decide whether or not they wanted to become Indonesian citizens. Uncle Barhen set out to woo his countrymen. But the ambassador was handicapped by a lack of diplomatic dignity and aplomb.

When he presented his credentials to President Soekarno, Peking's man lost face by dropping his papers on the floor, lost some more by scrambling to pick them up, instead of waiting for a flunky. At dinner parties in Chinese homes, he sometimes leaped up shouting, "Down with the Kuomintang! Down with the reactionaries!"

He had a disturbing habit of drinking from a bottle in public, shocked fellow guests at a presidential party by taking a hefty slug when the others were raising their glasses in a toast. He addressed a public meeting with a cigarette dangling from his nether lip. Not to be outdone by U.S. Ambassador H. Merle Cochran, who had a shiny blue 1950 Packard, Uncle Barhen acquired a shiny red 19 50 Packard.

The Chinese ambassador boasted to Indonesians that he had once been a teacher, a writer and a critic, and a secretary to Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. Last week Uncle Barhen's past seemed to be catching up with him. Indonesians had discovered that he was the same Wang Jen-shu who wrote a book in 1948 advocating the overthrow of the Indonesian government on the ground that it did not represent the people. President Soekarno's government has been rounding up copies of the book. It is waiting for the ambassador to make just one more boner before asking Uncle Mao to recall Uncle Barhen.

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