Special Thanks : Ms. Brae Ho, Puyi Optical
Photo : Nick D for precursorprints.com

Simon Jablon – 事实上,北京也是我刚去的前一两年时间才开放起来。我去的时候,麦当劳刚刚开张,是全中国第一间麦当劳。在当时那可是头号新闻。还有友谊商场!你听说过友谊商场吗?一座很老的百货公司,它们有自己的产品线。我的朋友长着一头金发,所以大家都来摸摸他的头发说是可以交好运!这对我来说挺新鲜的!我们去中国的时候还那么小!除了去中国的中国生意人外可能还没有外国小孩去呢。所以看到两个外国小孩对他们来说是很新奇的。这也是很有趣的经验,我很怀念。那是非常真实的中国,自行车随处可见,每个人都骑。整条街边都是自行车停放区…

SPITGAN – What do you remember about it (Beijing)?

Simon Jablon – Well actually the curtain (had) just raised just one or two years before I went there. They just opened McDonald’s when I was there. The first McDonald’s in China. I remember that was big news. The friendship store! You heard about the friendship store? It was like an old department store. They had their own products and things like that. My friend he was blonde, so everyone would come up to him and touch his hair for good luck! It was new! The fact that we were so young! It was like (we were) the first people they saw coming into China that weren’t the middle aged business men. So to see 2 kids turn up was novel to them. It was an experience. Fun. I really liked it. It was more real China. There were bicycles everywhere. Everywhere. There were parking areas of just bicycles, streets long…