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BEIJING, Dec. 1-- It was a cold November when Hugh Peyman, then a journalist with Reuters, made his first visit to China in 1978, a year before foreigners were granted individual tourist visas. Unfortunately, his first impression of the orient nation was quite depressing. Shenzhen was not even known to foreigners at that time. It was just a fishing village surrounded by countryside. "Blink and you would miss it," he recalled. Guangzhou, the provincial capital, was no better. It was described by the British reporter as "a dull, grey town that looks like 1930s Europe." However, Peyman did see one thing that sparked his interest -- the renewed spirit of the Chinese people. The Guangzhou Conservatoire (now the Xinghai Conservatory of Music), had recently reopened, and upon his visit, he met musicians and dancers who in their rehearsals displayed great determination to make up for lost time. Peyman was also captured by a singular, arresting sight in downtown Guilin as he traveled down the fabled Lijiang River to the limestone karst wonderland. People were tirelessly repairing a partially roofless house which had been left exposed to rain and wind for a very long time. "No one had bothered to repair it before," he said. "But now they were." Not long after Peyman's China tour, a great change unveiled on the very vast piece of land as Deng Xiaoping and the economic reformers adopted reform and opening up policies. | 
