China in 1978, a Slideshow

December 30, 2010 by admin

I had the honor of leading the second China Study Association tour of 50 American educators to mainland China in 1978. Nixon's historic visit to China happened in 1972 and by 1978 China was just starting to open up to western tourist. As such, we were given first class treatment. We flew into Beijing via Belgrade on July 14th. We spent 8 days in Peking, we still called it Peking in those days and stayed at the best hotel in the city, the Peking Hotel. We had breakfast on the train to the Great Wall and were given a banquet by Mr. Pi of the China Travel Association at Pei Hai.

After a week in Beijing, we traveled around a bit. In fact we became the first western tourist to visit Harbin in the north and Shenyang in the west. All too soon our time in China was over and we exited via Hong Kong at the end of July and a few days later took the big bird back to America.

While I was there, I took lots of pictures. I shot 35mm color slide film on a Leica G3 in those days and afterwards I put together a slide show of 80 of the best slides about the trip. Because tourists were very rare in China in those days, I have often thought that these photos of China some 32 years ago, half-way between its revolution in 1949 and where it is now, might be of some general interest and value. One of the projects I have been meaning to get to forever has been get those slides out of the box and up on flickr were they might be of some value. Now I have actually done it. So, I present to you my 1978 China trip in pictures...