At that time, the Second Ring Road wasn’t as wide as it is in later years, and there were certainly no overpasses or interchanges—just an ordinary road, with wooden utility poles on both sides, coated in pitch-black asphalt for waterproofing and preservation. Beyond the Second Ring Road was the city moat, and just like the road, the moat back then didn’t have any concrete embankments—just a shabby ditch, less than a meter deep, with huge willow trees on both banks, each one so big it would take two people to wrap their arms around it. The trees stood a few meters apart, stretching along the riverbank as far as the eye could see.

These willows were called “official willows” by the elders. At first, Brian Carter called them that too, just following along. Later, when he grew up, he happened to recall the name and even looked it up online. Only then did he realize that “official willow” wasn’t actually a species or a real name for willows, but rather a colloquial term for willows planted by the government or in large batches. Supposedly, the origin of this name can be traced back to the Jin Dynasty.

Ditan Park was just outside the Second Ring Road. Back then, it wasn’t even called a park—just Ditan, the Altar of Earth, a place where the Qing imperial family worshipped the God of Earth. After liberation, it was turned into a park, but unlike Beihai, Zhongshan Park, or the Summer Palace, it wasn’t recognized by Beijing residents as a real park. Basically, no one came here, and there were no tickets for sale. It was just a big, wild garden, surrounded by high brick walls, and anyone could come and go as they pleased. Outside the south gate of the park was an open space, with military barracks on both sides, and a small iron bridge built right here, directly facing the south gate of Ditan Park.

People back then didn’t have the habit of morning exercise. Most had to get up early for work, and those who stayed home were either old men, old women, or children. Plus, in those days, people had only just started to have enough to eat—there wasn’t much oil or fat in their diets, and no one worried about getting “rich people’s diseases” like diabetes, gout, or high cholesterol. There were hardly any overweight people, either.

As for getting up early to jog, practice martial arts, or dance—well, it wasn’t that no one did it, but it was extremely rare. The more you exercised, the hungrier you’d get, and there weren’t any snacks at home. Most families had just three meals a day, and every meal was eaten clean. Unless it was a holiday or New Year’s, there was nothing extra to eat, so very few people would go to the park to exercise just for fun.

But that doesn’t mean people back then didn’t care about physical fitness. On the contrary, they were even more enthusiastic about sports than people are now. As long as it was a proper work unit—whether a government office, factory, mine, or school—the first thing everyone did after starting work was to go out to the playground or open space and do radio calisthenics. Every day, around 8 a.m., you’d hear it: the music for radio calisthenics playing everywhere on the radio.

And back then, the labor unions didn’t just hand out movie tickets and women’s products. They organized all kinds of sports competitions—within the system, between neighborhoods, between police and civilians, between military and civilians. Every work unit had teams for table tennis, badminton, basketball, volleyball, and soccer, and the level of play wasn’t low. In the 1980s, many national team members were selected from these work units and factories—put them together, and you had a national team. That was what you’d call nationwide fitness.

This year, Ditan Park is bustling. Before you even reach the main gate, you can see people coming and going at the entrance—of all kinds, of all ages. These people aren’t here to exercise; their homes are actually in the park. Or, more accurately, their temporary homes—or what were called earthquake shelters.

Anyone born in Beijing in the 1970s will remember the term “earthquake shelter” clearly, because it was a feature of the city in that era. Why were they called earthquake shelters? Because the Tangshan earthquake in 1976 also affected Beijing. Although there were few cases of houses collapsing and people being killed, many old buildings developed cracks. The city government, worried about aftershocks, allocated lots of timber, roofing felt, and other building materials, and the neighborhood committees organized the construction of temporary housing in open areas. People were told to move into these shelters for a while, until the aftershocks had completely passed.

Since the earthquake happened in July, right in the middle of summer, the shelters didn’t need to be complicated. A few wooden beams or pine poles stuck in the ground, a tarp thrown over the top, tied down with ropes and weighed with bricks—that was enough. The main thing was to keep out the rain, not the cold.

Back then, there were hardly any high-rises in Beijing, and plenty of open spaces. Each neighborhood built its earthquake shelters nearby. Brian Carter’s family lived close to Ditan Park, which was about as open as it could get, so their neighborhood’s earthquake shelters were set up right inside Ditan Park. Brian Carter still remembers that as a child, he loved staying in the earthquake shelters, because Ditan Park was so much fun. There were big trees everywhere, and it wasn’t hot if you hid in the shade during the day. Plus, there were all kinds of toys for kids—like dragonflies flying everywhere, cicadas buzzing from morning till night, magpies and crows nesting in the trees, crickets in the cracks of the walls, grasshoppers in the grass, and so on.