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China in the 80s. PICS!

Locut0s

Locut0s

Lifer
So I think I've mentioned more than a few times that I'm 1/2 Chinese and that I lived in Asia for 4 years when I was really young. From the age of 2 to 6 roughly. We lived in Malaysia, Taiwan and China. My mother is Chinese and my Father is white. My father speaks fluent Chinese though and teaches Chinese at a local college. Well in the 80s, 84 to 85/86 my father and mother went to China to teach (English) and brought me along. This is basically why I learned to speak Chinese, both talking to my mother and those around me there.

Anyway recently I've taken upon myself a huge project to scan in ALL of my family's photos over the generations, we are talking thousands of shots. I've got about 600 or so done and the other day I came across a negative roll sitting in a box. Here's the result. Unfortunately there are lots of scratches on these photos despite using hardware/software scratch removal (I didn't want to destroy the photos so I didn't go crazy on that). Still these are a priceless look into China of this time. The fact that these are black and white and have scratches make it loo older than it really is (remember this is just the mid 80s) but China really WAS just opening up to the west back then and looked quite undeveloped.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v333/Locut0s/80s China/

If your curious here's me as a kid in one of the shots:

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For those who aren't interested in browsing the album above here are a few highlights:

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Heh. Not too obvious, but many things still carry the Soviet Union influence despite the whole fallout between China and USSR. For example, the numbers on the back of the truck in the 3rd photo use the same font as the Soviet military trucks. The uniforms, of course, are of the same style. The architecture on the 5th and 6th photo are reminiscent of the Stalin's Empire style.

Very interesting to take a look at.
 
Interesting. My parents would have been in high school/university then, but their families were too poor to afford a camera or anything.
 
Very cool. I especially like photo2 with the horses. It looks like a completely different time, from before such clear photos could be taken :^)
 
paulney said:
Heh. Not too obvious, but many things still carry the Soviet Union influence despite the whole fallout between China and USSR. For example, the numbers on the back of the truck in the 3rd photo use the same font as the Soviet military trucks. The uniforms, of course, are of the same style. The architecture on the 5th and 6th photo are reminiscent of the Stalin's Empire style.

Very interesting to take a look at.
Click to expand...

True. For others there are only a couple of shots with soldiers wearing uniforms here. The rest of the people are just redressed in very plain cloths.
 
lxskllr said:
Very cool. I especially like photo2 with the horses. It looks like a completely different time, from before such clear photos could be taken :^)
Click to expand...

Indeed. I don't remember this period that well, you can see I was like 3 years old at the time. However I remember the period just before we left when I was 5 much better. Course to me it didn't seem unusual. One of the interesting things was that this was not long after China began to open up to the west (late 70s I think) so you DID start to see some western influence. Everyone rode bikes for example and no one owned a car yet BUT people did start to want some western products. It started to become something of a status symbol to own things like a washing machine, a GOOD bike etc.. And there were other smaller touches of the west you saw as well. But the cities still did have a very strong old communist china look and feel.
 
Locut0s said:
One of the interesting things was that this was not long after China began to open up to the west (late 70s I think) so you DID start to see some western influence.
Click to expand...

Nixon visited China in 1972 and I remember it surprised a lot of people. One of the few smart things he did.

Thanks, cool pics. A window into another world.
 
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