Global EditionASIA 中文双语Français
Culture
Home / Culture / Art

In the eyes of the beholders

By Fang Aiqing | China Daily | Updated: 2019-07-06 11:59
Share
Share - WeChat
Women in Beijing wearing sunglasses in April 1980.[Photo by Wang Wenlan/For China Daily]

People crowd around the counter, those standing in the first row resting their elbows on the counter, their eyes fixed on the shop assistant as they listen intently to his sales pitch. However, few of them could seriously consider buying one of these technological marvels.

Each of the television sets cost 200 yuan ($29), Wang says, well beyond the means of most people in the 1980s, and at a time when his salary was just 30 yuan a month. In fact, novelty value apart, there were few good reasons to buy one of these things because the on-screen fare was so thin on the ground anyway.

The other color photo of the pair shows a little girl sitting in a shopping cart staring at an LCD television in a supermarket in Beijing many years later with no one else around. A Peking Opera character appears on several television sets of different brands and types for comparison, with price tags below, ranging from about 10,000 yuan to more than 30,000 yuan.

By 2017, with mobile internet service widely accessible, television seemed a lot less appealing than it did 30 years earlier.

|<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next   >>|
Most Popular
Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US