How the Items Were Obtained

During the Cultural Revolution, in January of 1972, 12 members of the Committee for a New China Policy were invited by the Chinese Peoples Institute for Foreign Affairs to visit China as their guests for one month. We visited people’s communes, historical sites, a May 7^th farm, factories, the Museum of the Revolution, the Anti-Imperialist Hospital, Beijing University, factories, a Children’s Palace and various other places. The highlight of our visit was an early morning conversation in the Great Hall of the People with Premier Zhou En-lai.

As we traveled from place to place, I bought samples of the revolutionary art which had been inspired by the social realist art of the Soviet Union. As it was produced for the masses, it was very inexpensive.

The following year, my former husband and I were guests of President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan on the inaugural flight of Pakistan International Airlines from Islamabad to Beijing. At that time I was again able to purchase more pieces of inexpensive revolutionary art.

Other items were obtained during my English teaching stints in various parts of China between 1980 and 2004. Many I bought in flea markets and a few in tourist shops. Additional items were given me by my students. A few posters were purchased from China Books and Periodicals.

While visiting my son in Singapore, I was able to buy porcelain objects which I’d not seen in China. The shop owners had purchased them from dealers in Hong Kong.

My collection of Mao badges, which now numbers over 700 different ones, has come from many parts of China. Chinese friends in both China and the United States have also given me their collections which they had at one time treasured, but which they’d kept for too long in little boxes under their beds.

Most surprisingly of all, however, were the items given me by a young man who’d read of my exhibit at the Brecht Forum in New York City. He’d brought his little box of treasures with him from China and wanted to pass them on to me. He told me the story behind the badges which his best friend had given him as he started off for his stint in the countryside. In the box, among other items, were tiny black and white photos of Mao and Zhou and a couple of early issues of reminbi.