Know Your Enemy

As a country, we rather cycle our “enemies” in and out of fashion.  The list is ever-changing, if not fickle.  Some countries on the list (Iran) make perfect sense to me.  At the same time, some not making the list (Saudi Arabia, I am talking to you), I am less certain about.

And there was that time—pretty much the entire time I was growing up—when Red China was one of our most looming enemies.  But in the late 1970’s our stance softened considerably.  In the 1980’s the first tourists from the United States were welcomed into China.  In 1985, I and my buddy, Kevin St. Clair, traveled to Mainland China to see it for ourselves.

I took a bunch of photographs, too.

In recent years, China sems to be clawing back up to enemy status.  This is, for lack of a better word, unfortunate.  I enjoyed China and liked the people I met there.

Just to be informative, I thought I might post a couple images from July 9, 1985.  Kevin and I were in Huaxi, China, at the time.  This, my dear friends and family, is what our enemy looks like up-close.

—Mitchell Hegman