This Day, That Year

Item from March 16, 1992, in China Daily: Instead of whiling away an evening in a dance hall or a karaoke room, Victor Huang, a government clerk, now finds it more exhilarating to spend time with weightlifting machines in the Jianlibao Gymnasium.

Huang is just one of the estimated 100,000 residents of Guangzhou going for bodybuilding sessions in the capital of Guangdong province ...

In the early 1990s, bodybuilding was still a new activity for most people in the country. It was considered a "luxury indulged in only by the rich" of the West.