Saturday, 8 July
Fine, sun
At 11.00 a.m. I went with Secretary Qin Diqing (秦滌清) to dentist Burobin to extract a wisdom tooth. The extraction by this dentist was fine and the molar has been filled, so a metal thread came right through the gums. Several days ago, I felt pain in the evening, and pulled off the parts that were loose. So then it was quite difficult to extract and needed several attempts to do so. I needed to have partial anaesthesia twice. The Soviet dental system is divided into three parts. 1) The operation section, which is also called the external section. It specialises in extracting teeth. 2) The filling section. The people there are completely different from the operation section. When I felt pain in my teeth three days ago, the head of the internal section provided slight treatment for it and thought that it should be extracted. So I came back again today, and the head of the external section extracted the molar. I have to go back in a month, and the head of filling section will give me a filling for another tooth. (The said head is currently on vacation.) It is the first time that I have seen a division of dentists like this.
At 4.00 in the afternoon the Italian representative Quaroni visited me. He was transferred here from Afghanistan. He told me that from 1925 – 1928 he was in Moscow, as a result he knows quite a lot about the Soviet situation and he can speak Russian. He stayed in Afghanistan for seven years and had nothing to do. At that time he tried to research the culture and antiques of Middle Asia, so he has some knowledge about Chinese antiques, paintings and calligraphy. Because in the area around Middle Asia, and Iran in particular, during the early Yuan at the time of Genghis Khan, Chinese art was brought into Middle Asia, therefore the styles of Iranian painters (the most famous in Iran) totally imitated the Chinese Sung and Yuan schools. He also said that China has high morals and loves peace, therefore he hopes China can be just when it takes part in the peace conference.
In the evening, the American Ambassador Harriman invited me to a banquet. During the banquet the new Counsellor Kennan talked about matters related to Xinjiang and the Chinese Communist Party. He was far inferior to Hamilton.
The Red Army has occupied Osmiana and Baranowicze and also there has been street fighting in Vilna. If the army advances from here, it is possible that 500,000 German soldiers in Latvia and Lithuania will be cut off. The speed of victory for the Red Army is totally unexpected.