[photo - Adventure and exploration were a way of life for young Ron. Through them he came to experience and better understand the world he lived in and its peoples.]

On his arrival in the East, he made his way to the China coast and then inland to Peking. There, he befriended among others, the regional head of British Intelligence and the last in the line of royal magicians from the court of Kublai Kahn. In many respects, Ron could not have a chosen a more alien land; for China in those days was still very much a feudal nation with clashing warlords, itinerant bandits, slavery and mystics. Yet at the same time this China was also most fitting, for it was here that so much of the world’s great philosophy had been born.

There were essentially two primary strains of philosophic thought in the China that Ron explored. The first, imported from India, was Buddhist and as Ron noted, it embraced the notion that, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts."

The second was purely Chinese and descended from Lao-Tze and stressed, "the spiritual side of life." There was also, of course, Confucianism, but Ron noted, "Confucius was mainly interested in reforming government, not the individual."

Inherent in these Oriental philosophies was a sense of fatalism that obviously conflicted with the Western pioneering spirit of Ron’s youth. Thus, for example, when he observed that pitiful coolie seated by the open grave, he naturally was very taken aback. In his later reflections, Ron noted: "I didn’t believe it, even when I saw it." Being practical and down-to-earth, Ron could not help but ask why, in this land of wisdom, was the misery so great that a man would simply sit down and will himself to die?

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