A Dutch student at Peking University gets ready for haircut at a market in Guanyuan, Beijing, in 1988. [Photo by Wang Wenquan]
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Mao Zedong was indeed prophetic when, in the autumn of 1949, he told the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference: "We are all convinced that our work will go down in the history of mankind, demonstrating that the Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up From now on, our nation will belong to the community of the peace-loving and freedom-loving nations of the world and work courageously and industriously to foster its own civilization and well-being and at the same time to promote world peace and freedom. Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up."