The Youtube video below, titled China 1972 — a Visual Memoir, was uploaded by Kevin Murphy who accompanied his father as part of the Canadian Government’s first trade exposition in Beijing, held in the second two weeks of August 1972.
Murphy explains a little more about the clip:
I shot the film (super 8) myself and it was pretty much unwatchable in its raw state until I had the benefit of digital editing software which made it possible to edit out the bumpy bits and making the scene transitions less jagged.
As you can appreciate, this was “early days” — just under six months after Nixon’s visit in February. Canada had recently established a mission in Peking and was somewhat ahead of other western powers in that regard.
I was allowed to go because my father paid the cost of my trip and I worked for part of the time as a gopher for the Canadian Trade Exposition helping with sorting luggage, printing press badges, running messages.
The Canadian delegation consisted of three chartered Canadian Pacific jets loaded with press, bureaucrats, ministerial entourage (led by then Secretary of State for External Affairs Mitchell Sharp) and about 200 senior executives from some Canadian subsidiaries of U.S. corporations.
The Chinese did not ring up too many purchases. They were very inquisitive, lining up as early as 6 a.m. in the great plaza outside the exposition centre. They kept very close tabs on us. If the movie has the feel of an amateur surveillance film at points it’s because I took the official admonitions seriously that we were not to film “sensitive” locales.
The opening scenes show part of the Friendship Guest House compound and gate and some of the street traffic and Maoist signage. The Great Wall footage speaks for itself but I was not aware at the time that in the same period of our visit, the Red Army nearby had “borrowed” vast amounts of the ruined portions to revamp their army barracks.
The entrance to the Ming Tomb is briefly shown and the remainder of the footage is of our two-day train trip from Peking to Canton.