DS: Tell us about your experience with Asia, particularly China.

JW: I first headed East in 1978 when I was 29. I loitered around Thailand for a few weeks -- an experience that eventually fed through into my first and eminently forgettable novel, Paradise For Hire. As the title suggests, my interests at that time were less than pure or serious. But East Asia entered my soul, and the historian in me slowly took over. Two adventure travel books followed: Heat Treatment and Romancing Vietnam, then a history of the Vietnamese wars and most recently my biography of the Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
 
I only began visiting China in the late 1990s, keeping the best for last you might say. While others are drawn to the great eastern Chinese cities, I find greater challenges in Yunnan, Sichuan and other inland provinces, where the pace of change is slower and something still remains of ‘old China’ - which tells you perhaps I am still something of a romantic at heart.
 
DS: What do you think about Chinese people? Are they different from other nationalities in any way?

JW: I would hesitate to make any generalisations about the Chinese or any other people. Once decoded, human character and human motivation are pretty much the same the whole world over. On the surface Beijingers are quite different from Shanghainese who in turn are quite different from the Cantonese. The common denominator is the Han identity, though of course there are plenty of non-Han Chinese as well.
 
What perhaps distinguishes the Han Chinese is their great industriousness. They are good at setting themselves goals, then achieving them. This is apparent in and explained by China’s long history. Particularly at the beginning of a new dynasty -- Tang, Song, Ming, Qing -- China becomes galvanised, usually with spectacular results, as it endeavours to live up its own received notions about the glories of its past.
 
DS: What do you think about the future of China – in terms of political, economical and social developments?
 
JW: The present situation is analogous to the early stages of a new dynasty, even through the emperor system has been abandoned. For all his faults, Mao Zedong can be seen as a great restorer, while Deng Xiaoping began realising the potential of the recovered nation. In the last twenty years change has been extraordinarily swift and extraordinarily high-powered, but in China’s long history there is nothing very new about that.

While the economy is set to continue growing exponentially for at least the next decade, and with it China’s emergent consumer class, political reform is likely to lag behind, if indeed ‘reform’ in the Western sense will happen at all. China is so big and so diverse that maybe it can only be held together by a strong, even authoritarian government. In that context, I am fascinated by the concept of the ‘mandate of heaven’. There is and always has been a sense in which China’s rulers are ultimately beholden to the Chinese people. In the last few years there has been a resurgence of ‘Confucian values’, encouraged even by some in the Communist Party.  There’s some spin involved in this of course, with the emphasis on ‘harmony’, but the government is responding to a modernised environment where it can no longer expect or hope to control the flow of information and opinion in the way it did under previous regimes.
 
DS: What do you appreciate the most in Chinese cultures, if any?

JW: So much. The food, of course, which is wondrously various and inventive, and generally much healthier than Western cuisines. Otherwise, it’s a matter of looking through the long menu of China’s cultural achievements and picking out those ‘dishes’ of particular personal appeal. Tang dynasty ceramics and Tang dynasty poetry, Song dynasty porcelain and Song dynasty brushwork art, Ming dynasty architecture and jade artefacts of almost any period, including the ancient Shang and Zhou dynasties, are staples of my Chinese diet. And then there’s the prose literature, Confucius included, but also the Daoist tradition. More recently Chinese cinema has got into its stride. Gong Li invariably leaves me breathless.
 
DS: What is your proudest moment in life?

JW: There have been a few, though never enough. The very proudest? Maybe Christmas Day 1989 when in the early afternoon I hand delivered a card from the then British ambassador in Hanoi, Emrys Davies, to General Vo Nguyen Giap, the victor of Dienbienphu. A mere messenger I may have been, but it was the moment when my interests in diplomacy and Southeast Asian politics began to fuse.

But the things I am proudest of are not momentary. Looking after my mother’s finances for 25 years in accordance with my father’s wishes after he died, for example, yields an enduring satisfaction -- a private or family matter, not a public display. And that’s what people should set their true store by perhaps. Long live Confucius and all of that!
 
DS: Tell us about your next book.

JW: A book about the Far East with China at its core, a chance to distil all that I have learned and witnessed east of Calcutta over 30 years in one writing.
 
DS: Who has been your main source of inspiration for your writing journey?

JW: I dislike the word ‘journey’ because it implies a destination, and I never set out with a particular destination in mind except in the most literal sense. But naturally I have been guided by my reading especially, at least by some of it.

The historian Edward Gibbon, with his sweep and wicked sense of humour, is a constant companion. Early on I was mesmerised by Joseph Conrad, who wrote so evocatively about the Far East. It is his African tale, The Heart of Darkness, however that I most regularly return to. I re-read it every two years, always with fresh insights. It’s a story about mindless colonialism. The last time round it evoked the grim figure of George Bush Jnr for me. Then I remembered it provided the inspiration for Apocalypse Now, Frank Coppola’s masterpiece movie about the American war in Vietnam, so no surprise there.
 
DS: How would you describe yourself in just three words?
JW: Five feet nine.
 
DS: What are your wisdom words to those who aspire to be an author?

JW: Given that the great age of the print media is in eclipse, I’d say: don’t give up your day job unless you are 150% committed. Beyond that it’s difficult. Every successful writer finds his or her own unique way -- that’s integral to the profession. There’s no common pattern or motive. But I would advise any aspirant writer to read, read, read, and respect criticism when criticism is sincerely offered. Learn how to be your own harshest critic, and eschew vanity.
 
DS: What do you like about being an author?

JW: The absolute freedom to overcome one’s own limitations. Lose sight of that and you may as well take up accountancy. Or become an estate agent. Any institutionalised occupation in fact that will dull awareness of one’s own shortcomings.
 
DS: Please recommend a book to DimSum’s readers.
JW: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. It is quite, quite hilarious.