I first came to Beijing in the summer of 1978, in one of the first tour groups that entered the newly opened country. My sister Sheila and I joined our mother, her friends and their children, in the tour organized by Mrs. Nadia Camacho, who came with her two youngest sons.

At that time, Mao had already died, and the vicious Gang of Four who plunged the country in a murderous Cultural Revolution against all “capitalist roaders” had been purged. Former foreign minister Zhou Enlai had succeeded in restoring diplomatic ties with the non-communist world, and Deng Xiaoping who took over Mao’s post as premier was slowly liberalizing the economy. But it was still the same country of farming collectives and fast-tracked industrialization under a centrally planned economy that Mao had built before his death. Bicycles ruled the wide streets. People wore the same spartan “Mao” jackets and caps with the red star. Tourists shopped at the Friendship Store in Beijing. And the highlight of our trip outside of the capital was a dusty bus trip to the country’s foremost model commune in Xian province, followed by a peep into the newly unearthed terracotta warriors.

Thirty-one years later, Beijing is a sprawling metropolis with high-end malls and classy dining places catering to upwardly mobile locals and expats. Fashionable clothes and shoes are retailed in the markets. Shiny cars and buses have taken over the main streets, while the bicycles have been sidelined to the smaller, outer lanes. The Bird’s Nest complex where the Olympics Games were opened in 2008 is the latest edifice that marks the glory of the new China.

Mao still rests in his mausoleum in Tiananmen but he is no longer the icon that he was to the generation of student activists in the late 1960s and 1970s. Mao pins and the little red books that collected quotes from his writings can still be found in stalls lining up tourist sites. The huge Chinese characters that read “Loyalty to Chairman Mao” on one slope along the Great Wall has not been removed. But the Maoist era is now a relic.

A fancy version of that past can be enjoyed in one hutong (a family compound with a courtyard in the center) that has been transformed into a restaurant called the Red Capital. Our friend Omar Mendoza, who runs an IT business in the city took my husband and I and our traveling companions Daphne and Manny Bate to the place for dinner. The restaurant has an interesting collection of Mao memorabilia, including a full military suit in a glass case studded with different kinds of Mao pins. The long black limousine used by Jiang Qing, his ambitious wife who led the Gang of Four, is parked outside the narrow road. Mao’s favorite pork dish is on the menu.

But while much of Mao’s Beijing has given way to the new economy, many aspects of social and political life have only slightly changed. The strict one-child policy has been liberalized just a little bit. Rural couples are allowed two children. However, when these children with a sibling get married, they are entitled to only one child. All young people here grew up not knowing what it’s like to have a biological brother or sister.

The internet is strictly monitored, and websites like the Youtube are banned. Traveling outside the country is difficult. It takes some six months to secure a visa and a lot of money to get a travel permit. Upon check-in at hotels, tourists’ passports are scanned and emailed to the police. The republic, whose celebration last October of its 60 anniversary engendered more precautionary security measures, remains firmly under one-party rule..

In the wave of democratization that ushered the post-Cold War period, China was one of the very few socialist countries whose communist leaderships have not been overthrown by a popular uprising or the unraveling of the top-heavy system. Like Vietnam, China has liberalized the economy far ahead of politics. While the shift to the market economy created pressure to similarly democratize the political system, the communist parties in both Asian countries have remained on top of the game.

To the young people in their 20s we talked to here in Beijing, the demands of the students at Tiananmen in 1989 were laudable and the massacre was unfortunate. But the stability that followed was necessary to allow for the momentum in the economic aspect to take its course.

It seems that China’s young people are tuned in to the rest of the world, making sure they don’t miss out on opportunities that it can offer. They know that the restrictions limit their dreams, but they remain very patient for all the changes that have yet but will surely come.

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A combined walking-biking tour of the Schicha lake area north of the Forbidden City led us to the former residence of Song Qing Ling, wife of Sun Yat-Sen, founding president of the first Republic of China. Song Qing Ling was an early feminist who fought side-by-side her husband in the struggle for a China free from imperial yoke. She and her husband favored an alliance with the communists, but the right-wing faction of the Koumintang broke away from this policy and engaged the other in a civil war. After WWII and the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Song Qing Ling returned from self-exile to become the vice-chair of the new regime.

Qing Ling’s two sisters also played distinguished roles in modern China’s history. Sister Mei-ling married Chiang Kai Shek, whose Koumintang troops were forced to retreat to Taiwan where they founded the Republic of Taiwan, which China does not recognize. Older sister Ai-ling was married to a rich businessman who became pre-war China’s finance minister. Ai-ling devoted her life to social work, treating wounded soldiers and aiding refugees.

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Excerpt from the “Safety Precaution for Guests Accommodation” issued by the Beijing Police Bureau and posted at our room: “Do not live in with strangers, do not eat or drink any food or beverage offered by the stranger, do not play cards with the stranger, do not let massager enter your room. …”
E-mail: mcf178@yahoo.com