It was a late recessional,1 one of the last in Asia.The consulate in that little town had been necessaryto the American rubber estates,but the rubber treeswere being replaced by oil palms,and most of theAmericans had ...It was a late recessional,1 one of the last in Asia.The consulate in that little town had been necessaryto the American rubber estates,but the rubber treeswere being replaced by oil palms,and most of theAmericans had left.It was my job to^2 phaseout the consulate.In other places the consular taskwas,in the State Department phrase,bridge-building;in Ayer Hitam I was dismantling a bridge—not adifficult^3 job:we had never been very popular withthe Malays.Because I had been told that everything I neededto know was in the files that were kept in the ’box-room’ of the Residence,for a long time I avoidedlooking through them.I had other ideas excited展开更多
文摘It was a late recessional,1 one of the last in Asia.The consulate in that little town had been necessaryto the American rubber estates,but the rubber treeswere being replaced by oil palms,and most of theAmericans had left.It was my job to^2 phaseout the consulate.In other places the consular taskwas,in the State Department phrase,bridge-building;in Ayer Hitam I was dismantling a bridge—not adifficult^3 job:we had never been very popular withthe Malays.Because I had been told that everything I neededto know was in the files that were kept in the ’box-room’ of the Residence,for a long time I avoidedlooking through them.I had other ideas excited
