In 1978 People's Republic of China was still recovering from the effects of the Cultural Revolution. The era, which drove the nation to chaos and lead to death of hundreds of thousands its victims, ended when Chairman Mao Zedong died in 1976. Mao started the Cultural Revolution in 1966 thinking that the Chinese were alienating from the ideals of socialism. The idea was to destroy the old culture and the old ways of thinking. In the following years that lead to the persecutions of intellectuals, scholars and all people that were perceived as class enemies. Invaluable art treasures were destroyed, schools were closed, national economy declined, and the whole nation was on the verge of anarchy.

After Mao's death the regime did not want to accuse him for the crimes of the Cultural Revolution, and so "Gang of Four" was blamed for the events of the era. The Gang of Four consisted of Mao's widow Jiang Qing and three other top Communist Party leaders. A massive media campaign was launched against them, and it was in full swing at the time of my mother's visit.

When the Finnish group visited in a steel factory in Shanghai, they were told about the sabotage, done by the Gang of Four. They have done their evil deeds also in the acrobatic school, and in the ivory carving workshop. In my mother’s recordings, the Gang of four was referred to all the time. The campaign against them could be seen and heard just everywhere. There were also other campaigns at that time. When the group arrived in Beijing there was a campaign going on for planting trees.

The Chinese were always talking about Chairman Mao with great respect, and pictures of him could be seen everywhere. In the kindergarten children were singing beautifully in the honour of Chairman Mao. The same four-year-old kids performed a poem of Fifth People's Conference to the Western visitors.

At that time there was a lot of trust to China's material progress in the future. In an interview, which my mother recorded in the Long March commune in Shanghai, somebody said: "Now each production team only has one television set, but we will try our best to enrich the cultural life of the members of the people's commune. And we will try to have one television set for each household..."