Mao/Jobs

CHINA-1981

I was talking with a woman I work with about some time she spent in China working for the American Institute for Foreign Studies in the early 80's.
She described China,The Peoples Republic of China,the way it was then, as a Communist Country, in the Cold War sense of the term,everybody,
rode bicycles, one child policies,old people doing Tai Chi in the parks,everybody wearing Mao Jackets.OK Mao Jackets.The population of China in
1981 was over a Billion people, that's a thousand million to you and me.How the fuck do you get a BILLION people to wear the same fucking coat every
fucking day!!?Is this even conceivable today?Were the youth of 1980 China secretly wearing those Led Zeppelin The Song Remains The Same Swan Song
T-Shirts underneath the Mao Suits?Or were they allowed to wear checker print vans with the Mao Suits?I guess I could see one generation of Chinese
wearing the same thing,but,everybody!?How the fuck do you get a country of over a billion people on the same page like that?The fact that I was
alive to see something like this is pretty remarkable.The thought of Americans being unified on anything these days is a radical concept,let
alone dressing alike.
But then I glanced outside where I noticed two teenagers walking by on the sidewalk, they were both wearing Led Zeppelin The Song Remains The Same
Swan Song T-Shirts,checkered print Vans, identically colored Ipods with identical earbuds, while texting each other on their identical IPhone 4gs.
Steve Jobs and Chairman Mao would have been proud.