With deep blue skies, brilliant sunshine and lush green grassy fields, the Republic of Malawi looks from the pictures like a paradise on earth. But very few tourists go there, unlike neighboring Swaziland, which is known as the Switzerland of Africa. In fact, Malawi is rated "the hardship post par excellence" by our diplomats stationed abroad.

Besides the six members of its embassy, the Republic of China has 38 agricultural technicians in Malawi furthering relations between the two countries. All of them believe that to get by there without hitches three friends are needed--a doctor, a lawyer and an accountant, the doctor being the most important.

"A doctor, for us, is a bodhisattva on earth--someone you can't afford to offend," says Meng Fan-p'eng, the embassy's information director. Malawi is rife with malaria, which not only lowers the average life expectancy to just 45 but also frightens away tourists and visitors.

Parents are particularly perturbed. Mrs. Meng points out that malaria is similar to the flu in its symptoms, so if a child stays sick a little longer than normal, its anxious parents rush it off to the hospital for a blood test, fearing the worst. Mothers are apt to follow their kids around all day long keeping an eye on their every move.

A close look at the homes of foreign service families shows that the windows all have tightly meshed protective screens on them to keep out mosquitos, and the doors are kept firmly shut.

The battle against contagious diseases is a big challenge for our diplomatic corps in Malawi. To remain on good terms with doctors, they regularly send fresh produce from the agricultural mission to their physician friends.

Besides the threat of disease, poor living conditions are another reason the country ranks at the top among overseas hardship posts.

In sparsely populated Malawi, places 100 kilometers apart are considered "nearby" and anywhere within 50 kilometers is "right next door." According to "field research" by Meng Fan-p'eng, the drive from Lilongwe, the capital, to Blantyre, the largest city, takes about five hours, even though there are only five traffic lights along the way. And there are no streetlights or service stations. If the car breaks down, you've had it. So smart people never buy a used car in Malawi.

In Swaziland, which is comparable to South Africa in terms of abundance, you can "eat or get whatever you want." But in Malawi it's a lot tougher: you "eat whatever you can get."

Malawi used to be self-sufficient in food-stuffs, but the more than 700,000 refugees that have swarmed into the country from Mozambique since 1986, along with crop damage from insects and insufficient rainfall, have led to a shortage of grain. The per capita income in 1987 was US$150.

"This is not a place foreign service officers are pleased about coming to," the R.O.C. ambassador to Malawi, Dr. Y.T. Feng frankly admits. Many young people who test into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs don't like serving in the Department of African Affairs, he says, "but Malawi is stable politically, which is better than nothing compared with Liberia."

Africa has long been called the Dark Continent, Ambassador Feng explained in an article, and is highly unfamiliar to most people, who tend to consider it a primitive, uncivilized place and associate it with racial problems, coups, famine, backwardness and poverty. But Malawi, thanks to its political stability and the moderate disposition of its people, is considered to be a model among African nations by the United States, which provides it with large sums of credit. Its people are fond of song and dance and seemingly unaware of the famine and unrest in the world around them, Malawi has acquired the sobriquet of the "warm heart of Africa."

Malawi is located in southeast Africa, bordering on Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the northeast and Mozambique to the east and south. It has an area of 118,500 square kilometers, one fifth of which is covered by lakes. The population totals about 7 million, 95 percent of them native Africans and the rest mainly Europeans and Africans of Indian descent.

Malawi achieved independence in 1964. In foreign policy it followed President N.H.K. Banda's principle of "selective neutrality and alliances." Averse to communism, Malawi maintained close, friendly relations with Great Britain, the United States and other Western countries and generally adopted a Western stance in international affairs.

Malawi established formal diplomatic relations with the R.O.C. in 1966, and President Banda visited Taiwan in August the next year. Even after the R.O.C. withdrew from the United Nations in 1971 and the U.S. established diplomatic relations with mainland China in 1978, the government of Malawi has continually affirmed that it won't alter its friendly relations with the R.O.C.

Besides regular cooperation and interaction between the governments and citizens of both countries, the R.O.C. has sent agricultural missions to Malawi to help develop its agriculture and assisted in training its administrative and diplomatic personnel. In addition, to strengthen bilateral economic and trade ties, the R.O.C. has purchased tobacco from the country since 1977, with more and more purchased each year.

The agricultural missions have especially won favor there. The R.O.C. began sending agricultural teams to Malawi in 1965, and they were highly prized by President Banda, the government and the people. The president personally wrote to the R.O.C. to ask for more team members.

Malawi is an agriculturally based country that mainly relies on loans and foreign aid for its construction and development projects, but because of its good relations with the advanced countries of Europe and North America, the funds keep rolling in.

When President Banda visited Taiwan in 1967, he asked the R.O.C. government to expand its cooperation in agricultural technology. In response, the R.O.C. not only set up model farms and expanded its cultivation areas but also trained local farmers and youth teams there. In addition, Malawi has sent some 60 agricultural technicians to Taiwan over the years to attend training classes for African agricultural personnel. John Wu, the current head of the agricultural mission, indicates that the teams have assisted Malawi in opening up 15 cultivation areas with a total area of around 2,000 hectares. President Banda constantly praised the teams' drive and initiative and publicly expressed his thanks at mass rallies.

The agricultural mission not only helps Malawi develop agriculture but also serves our foreign service community there by providing them with fresh produce and playing the role of general jacks-of-all-trades and Mr. Fix-it's.

If the car breaks down, if it has a flat tire, if the screen door's stuck, if you need some styrofoam or nylon cord for packing, if you're short a blanket and pillow for a guest . . . just track down a team member and you're sure to come away satisfied.

The team's achievements are a constant source of pride to our foreign service personnel. Chang Lung-hsiung is a team member who was hired to stay on and teach as a lecturer in the Buman College of Agriculture at the University of Malawi because of his expertise. Even though he has no formal teaching credentials, he earns a good salary, and his accommodations are professor-class.

Lilongwe and Taipei became sister cities in 1984. In a park in front of the city's five-star hotel, the Capital, stands an ancient-looking Chinese pavilion that was a gift of the city of Taipei and was praised lavishly by the Malawi Daily Times for its classic, elegant appearance. People often go there to take snapshots or to stop and rest, and it practically ranks as a a tourist attraction. And in the industrial and commercial city of Blantyre, to the south, is a Kaohsiung Road, specially named to commemorate its sister city.

What's it like to carry out diplomatic work in a country that has such good relations with us?

"When I first got here, I thought I would look have a look around and then get ready to go back any time!" one foreign service officer says, revealing that he really thought about calling it quits the first couple of months he was there.

Besides the threat of malaria, what makes people want to return home the most is the lack of material comforts.

Transportation with the outside world is difficult. Surface freight used to be shipped through the ports of Beira and Nacala in Mozambique, but because of guerrilla sabotage of the transportation system there in recent years, Malawi has switched to shipping through South Africa, which is more costly. For our diplomatic personnel, that means that books, newspapers and magazines from home often arrive out of date, and imported goods are expensive and hard to come by.

The saying "shopping's like hunting!" is no exaggeration in Malawi. As a result, our foreign service personnel all have big storage rooms in their homes to stock up on daily commodities "just like a grocery store," Meng Fan-p'eng says, "because you don't know how long it will be before the next shipment of goods comes in!"

Sugar, powdered milk, toothpicks and toilet paper are all major storage room items, and Chinese sundries have to be bought from Taiwan or South Africa. Whenever people have a chance to leave the country, they have to make the most of it. "We lived off what we bought in South Africa for six months and nearly used it up, but we went back to Taiwan recently and stocked up on new supplies," Mrs. Meng smiles, "so we can get by for another half year."

The sign-in book at the embassy's memorial service for President Chiang Ching-kuo was purchased in from South Africa. Name cards are flown in from Taiwan. There aren't any cigarette lighters in Malawi: if you bring along a NT$10 lighter as a gift, it's sure to be welcome.

Malawi has no television stations, and you can't buy a TV set. Foreign service personnel who want to watch videotapes have to mail order a TV from overseas. And you have to be careful using the set. If it breaks down you'll have to write it off as a total loss, because there's no such thing as aftersales service.

In an environment without movie theaters, entertainment facilities or amusement spots, "you feel pretty lonely sometimes!" a foreign service officer sighs.

Adapting is even more of a challenge for the families.

"When you buy pork on Taiwan, the stores process it for you," Mrs. Meng remarks. "But here you have to bring the pig home and chop it up yourself!"

In Taiwan she was a typical professional woman, but since coming to Malawi she's become a wearer of many hats. She teaches the children Chinese, accompanies her husband on state dinners and bustles about with her housework, besides which she has become a "management expert," supervising the gardener and the maid with the laundry and cooking.

On the positive side, workers are cheap in Malawi so that every family can hire several servants to help relieve the burden of housework on the wives. The absence of industrial pollution and the broad-vistaed spaces are also advantages that can't be enjoyed at home.

"You can gripe about everything here but the weather!" a foreign service officer in Malawi says. In July, when it's hot and muggy in Taiwan, it's winter in Malawi. Nights are cool, and the days are warm and pleasant, with a bright sun and a refreshing breeze. People from Taiwan all praise Malawi's climate.

Owing to Lake Malawi and the high altitude, average temperatures outside the bottom of valleys and gorges remain between 14 and 18 degrees centigrade--very pleasant.

The fine weather and the wide-open spaces make outdoor exercise an important leisure activity for foreign service officers, and tuning up their golf game is one of the perks of serving there.

"In Taiwan you can't even find time for a cup of tea or coffee, but here you've got nothing but." Meng Fan-p'eng says that in Taiwan his coworkers rarely saw one another after work, but in Malawi the families are all very close. When the wives get together, if they don't talk about their children's education then it's their successes in avoiding malaria.

In fact, the children's education is a headache for all of them. Most parents send their children to an expensive English-language school and teach them Chinese themselves.

Ambassador Feng, who often rallies his colleagues with the words, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," hopes that they'll take a philosophical view of things. After all, everyone has a chance of being rotated sometime, and coming here might not be a bad form of training and experience.

"Diplomats are like missionaries. We're not afraid of going anywhere." Given our country's current international predicament, the ambassador often asks himself, what country in the world is easy street for a diplomat? "Nowhere!" So what's so bad about Malawi?

Ambassador Feng is the most senior diplomatic officer in Malawi and has been dean of the diplomatic corps for six years, but the only countries with embassies there that the R.O.C. maintains diplomatic relations with are South Africa and South Korea. "If I show up as the dean of the diplomatic corps, the ambassadors all want to come over and talk to me, but if I come as the R.O.C. ambassador, most of them keep their distance because they're afraid of annoying the Chinese Communists," he says with resignation.

The R.O.C. and Saudi Arabia broke diplomatic relations during our visit. The news was disturbing to our foreign service officers, but they quickly admonished one other: Instead of being frustrated at the break in relations with Saudi Arabia, they would do better to firm up our friendship with Malawi. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

[Picture Caption]

The owner of this rice mill is a Chinese who brought his diligent work ethic with him to Malawi.

The Chinese pavilion that the R.O.C. donated to Malawi is a favorite rest stop for the locals.

(Left) There's a Kaohsiung Road in Blantyre, the country's largest city.

A Malawi grocery store? Nope. It's the pantry of one of our diplomatic officers. They have to stock up like this because replacing supplies is difficult and some of the items are indispensable for banquets.

(Left) Chang Lung-hsiung is a former member of the agricultural mission who teaches at the University of Malawi, receiving "professor-class" treatment and pay.

R.O.C. Ambassador Y. T. Feng has been the dean of the foreign diplomatic corps in Malawi for six years now.

(Left) Golf is a prime leisure activity for our diplomatic personnel in Malawi and a good way for them to make friends.

Giving a man a fish is not as good as teaching him how to catch them. The agricultural mission has spent a lot of effort teaching Malawi farmers "how to fish."

（Left） There's a Kaohsiung Road in Blantyre, the country's largest city.

The Chinese pavilion that the R.O.C. donated to Malawi is a favorite rest stop for the locals.

（Left） Chang Lung-hsiung is a former member of the agricultural mission who teaches at the University of Malawi, receiving "professor-class" treatment and pay.

A Malawi grocery store? Nope. It's the pantry of one of our diplomatic officers. They have to stock up like this because replacing supplies is difficult and some of the items are indispensable for banquets.

（Left） Golf is a prime leisure activity for our diplomatic personnel in Malawi and a good way for them to make friends.

R.O.C. Ambassador Y. T. Feng has been the dean of the foreign diplomatic corps in Malawi for six years now.

Giving a man a fish is not as good as teaching him how to catch them. The agricultural mission has spent a lot of effort teaching Malawi farmers "how to fish.".