Hu Liren witnessed an American diplomat filming the school with a video camera while in middle school in Shanghai
Host Hu Liren recalled that in October 1979, when he was in the first year of junior high in Shanghai, he saw a Shanghai municipal government reception car drive into the school. A young American diplomat was filming the school with a handheld video camera and said it was for his mother to see. This reflected the beginning of the thaw in Sino‑American relations and an early sign of China’s opening to the outside world.