China '73--A World Different From Anything You Could Imagine

In 1973, newly-hired Philadelphia Orchestra violinist Davyd Booth was called to sub for an ill colleague on a tour to China. This was not just any tour. It was the first ever American symphony tour in Communist China.

China, which had been closed off to the world since 1949, was not a very known entity—“like going to Mars,” Davyd said. (See post one.)

Davyd remembered this landing “on Mars,” as if it were yesterday. “Especially when compared to today, China was absolutely primitive.  In Beijing, which we now see as an enormous, enormous city—there was still a lot of farm country. And there were very few buildings, especially no tall skyscrapers.

“I mean now it’s almost incredibly overwhelmingly massive and huge.  The city (of Beijing back then) was full of farmers. And there were no automobiles except what was given to the government people…

“I never saw so many bicycles in my life. It wasn’t like hundreds of thousands. It was like a million bicycles. At certain times of the day there would be nothing but this unbelievable sea of bicycles.

"Everybody dressed alike." Photo WSJ

“The other thing is everybody—they all dressed alike. The same color. The Mao coats. There was this cap that they wore. Everything was the same color. Everyone’s hair style-whether they were male or female—was pretty much the same, the same length. It was so different at that time from anything you could possibly imagine, especially coming from this side of the world.”

Maestro Ormandy on tour of Great Wall.

Davyd was impressed by the vastly different way of life, but also by the sheer size of the country. During down-times, they were given a tour of the Great Wall and the surrounding areas of Beijing and Shanghai. “I think everybody was struck by just the size and scope of the country, even at that time when it was still not anywhere remotely as developed as it is today.”

(To be continued. Next: Landing on the Cultural Revolution.)