Volume 32, Number 16 · October 24, 1985
China: How Much Freedom?
By Judith Shapiro, Liang Heng
From the middle of January this year to the end of March, we traveled freely in China, making a large circle through seven of the central provinces: Hunan, Guangdong, Guizhou, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei. We spoke with a great many people, including peasants in poor and in prosperous areas, workers, artists, writers, journalists, engineers, scientists, students, professors, dissidents, beggars, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and the unemployed. We lived, most of the time, as the Chinese do and visited regions few foreigners have seen, traveling in crowded and sometimes dangerous vehicles, and staying often in hotels intended for Chinese only. For one of us, Liang Heng, who grew up in China, this was the first visit since he left in 1981.
Feature, 3700 words
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