China 1982

In December 1982, I traveled with the Australia China Friendship Society, on a three week  educational tour of China. It was six years after the death of  Chairman Mao and the end of the Cultural Revolution, as China was emerging from a largely agrarian society into a developing industrial nation. Strict  control of what Westerner's could see and where they could go was still in place. In the 1980s China began opening up to the west as trade became an important focus and over the past 30 years it has become the world's fastest growing economy. I feel privileged to have seen China before its embrace of consumerism.