A Journey Through China “Why China?” Growing up in the 1960s, The People’s Republic of China was Red China, a strange and dangerous country shrouded in mystery and secrecy that was locked tightly behind the Bamboo Curtain. It was the place you’d end up if you dug a hole through the center of the Earth. “For all the tea in China” was a common expression. But mostly, it was a place and culture we knew very little about. Our stereotype of China was a poor, backward country led by a communist who was a danger to all of us in America. His little red book was carried by a monolithic mass of farmers and workers who depended on the Big Brother Soviet Union. It was a godless place where the state had replaced religion.
But, in 1971 China was also a sleeping giant about to awaken on the world scene and shatter that stereotype. It started with ping pong. When the US table tennis team visited China suddenly the floodgates opened, filling our TV screens and magazines with images of The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, Emperor’s Palaces and other places of great beauty and grandeur. Less than 50 years ago China was an inaccessible place torn by Cultural Revolutions, famine and The Great Leap Forward. Today, China is still a place of mystery and intrigue, but now it was open for me to experience. Finally, I could follow in the steps of those ping pong players.
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