China Trip 1978

A trip I took to China in May 1978. Places visited were Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Nanning, Wuhan, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Datong and Beijing. This was an extremely interesting time to be in China. It was just opening up to tourism, however most tours were still arranged through close contact with the country. Because we were on a trip arranged by a "friend of China", and we were involved with the Political Economy department at the University of Sydney, we were shown quite a lot of heavy industry, as well as the beautiful sights and communes, schools, children's palaces and so on. One of the members of our party had formerly worked in the Chinese government. The Gang of Four had been deposed, thus ending the Cultural Revolution. There was an air of nascent optimism, as production and education resumed under the banner of the 'Four Modernisations'. Between autumn 1978 and spring 1979, the "Democracy Wall" movement in Beijing was offering hope that newer freedoms might be embraced, before this movement was crushed. Sociology academic, Martha Gimenez travelled to China in 1978. Using the ideological 'line' that was propogated at that time, she examines the transmission of ideology and the uses of propoganda in China and 'western' society. You can read her report at http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Gimenez.Martha/ideology.html At each factory, school or other organised site, we were led through a 'Brief Introduction' by the person in charge of the institution. This invariably included a denunciation of the gang of Four, a salutation to Hua Guo-feng, Mao Zedong's (Mao Tse-tung) successor as Chairman of the Party, and a declaration that Mao was 70% correct, 30% mistaken.