The China tour, in which my mother participated, was not an ordinary tourist trip. It was more like a delegation, organised by Finnish-Chinese society. The group consisted of about twenty people. The journey started in Beijing on 23rd of March, 1978 and ended there on 2nd of April.

At that time of the year in Beijing it was still a bit chilly, but in the South, in Guangzhou, was very hot, and cherry trees were in full flower. The group was travelling by car, train and aeroplane. Where ever they went they attracted huge masses of locals, not used in seeing foreign people.

The schedule was extremely tight, and the days were full of action. The group visited factories, a commune, a kindergarten, an old peoples’ home, an acrobat school, handicrafts workshops and a teacher's academy, and so on. Evidently, the program was formulated in such way that it showed the Western visitors the picture of Chinese life, which was in line with the official views.

Chinese interpreter called Yen travelled with the group all the time. The travellers had very little time of their own, mostly only in the mornings before the official program began.

I have done my best to reconstruct the following schedule of the journey. It is based on the notes and recordings that my mother made, and the letters and postcards she send us back to Finland.