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Show UNDERGROUND CITIES Chinese pose happily in front of a clothing store that leads to air raid shelter tunneled 75 feet underground. Fear of Soviet bombing rarely leaves Chinese minds. SHIRLEY'S The people of China are convinced that one day the Soviet Union will bomb them. As a result they have been constructing since 1969 an extensive system of underg.ound tunnels and air raid shelters. In Peking the entrances to these tunnels consist of sliding floors in downtown shops. A button is pressed, the floor slides away revealing a staircase which leads to a tunnel 75 feet underground. To avoid traffic jams, two sets of tunnels have been erected under each district of Peking. They are equipped with lavatories, telephones, supplies of water and food, various storehouses and headquarters. In five minutes 80,000 people can descend into their underground district air raid shelters. The tunnels lead to the suburbs of Peking. "They were built," air raid waraccording to Wu Wei-Kuden for the Hsuan-W- u district, "to pro o, TOUR The China Travel Service which handles arrangements for Americans visiting China, invited actress Shirley Mac-Laiand 11 other American women of her choice to tour the People's Republic of China and see how its women work, behave and thrive on sexual equality. Shirley was invited because she is a liberal intellectual with an insatiable curiosity abc- -t places and people and an love for China. From time to time she has expressed this love in Hong Kong where China Travei Service has its headquarters. Over the years Shirley has lived among the Masai in Africa, the Bhutans in the Himalayas, among the Japanese and the Indians. She is an adventurous, type of actress and the author of an intriguing autobiography. Don't Fall Off the Mountain. Shirley arrived in China on April 19.h with the 11 other women, among them ace TV camerawoman Claudia Weill of New York; Joan Weidman, a backup camerawoman from Los Angeles; Nancy Schreiber, a script girl from New York, and photographer Cabell Glickler. In addition, she had with her Rosa Marin, head of social work studies at the University of Puerto Rico; Pat Branson of Port Arthur, Tex.; Margaret Whitman of Manchester, Mass.; Phyllis Kronhausen, a sexologist who runs the Museum of Erotic Art in San Francisco; Ninibah Crawford, a Navajo Indian from Ft. Defiance, Ariz.; Unita Blackwell, a black civil rights champion from Marysville, Miss, and Karen Boutillier, a bold from Concord, Calif., little who had campaigned for Sen. George McGovern in 1972. Said Shirley: "These girls represent a tect us against the designs of socialist imperialism (read Soviet for socialist) and to provide us with some protection in case of bombing attacks. "We realize," he explains, "that these tunnels are not the answer to nuclear bombs, but they do provide some protection against conventional bombs. "The people of each district in Peking chip in and provide the labor for the construction of these shelters. We made tools ourselves, and when we ran out of bricks, we built our own kiln. We lacked experience to begin with and at the start we made our entrances and exits too narrow, but we have learned in time. There are 45 shops in this district, each with its own entrance and exit. "It is regrettable that we have to use our labor on these projects, but the Soviets have massed more than one million of their troops on our border, and we must prepare ourselves for all possible situations. So long as we are prepared we will be able to hold down our losses." era crew they wouid visit hospitals, schools, communes, take part in revolutionary committee meetings, ask the most intimate sexual, medical, and sociological questions. three-wee- k During the course of their visit most of the MacLaine party came down with a variety of illnesses, Two were largely through with pneumonia in Canton hospitalized and Peking, and Shirley existed "mostly on a diet of antibiotics." ne over-fatigu- e. ed "Our Chinese hosts," she said, "could not have been kinder or more cooperative. think we're going to have one of the most spectacular TV spectaculars ever shot in China. We photographed a Chinese woman who was delivered of I a child via Caesarean section. Her anesthesia was a couple of acupuncture needles, and she was eating an apple through the whole delivery. We also interviewed Chinese women on everything from child rearing to health care, and what we've got is not a travelogue but China through the eyes of women, both American and Chinese. It really should be something." In addition to her TV spectacular, Shirley hopes to write a book on her Chinese experiences. "But first," she avers, "I've got to finish the second volume of my autobiography. I've already got 6000 pages of typescript comActress Shirley Maclaine being interviewed before boarding bus. She headed party of 12 American women invited to tour country, plans a book on her experiences. n of American womanhood, one was a delegate at the convention for George Wallace, one is a New England Republican conservative, one is a Ph.D. at least they're my idea of a cross-sectio- cross-section- ." After visits in Canton and Shanghai, Shirley and her troupe were booked into the Minzu Hotel in Peking. Each day for the next three weeks they saw China as few Americans have seen it. Accompanied by interpreters and cam pleted." Activist-actreMacLaine, who also nas a daughter to look after the father is Shirley's husband Steve Parker who lives in Japan most of the time is a true nonpareil. Neither China nor Hollywood has seen many of her kind. She is a delightful, alert, intelligent pixie who lives each day as if it were her last. ss - 5 |