China in the 1980s: photos from a time of hope and optimism

The 1980s is known internationally as the decade of MTV, big hair and even bigger shoulder pads, but what was it like in China as the country started peeking out through the Bamboo Curtain?

The decade arrived just two years after former leader Deng Xiaoping set China on its course of opening up and economic reforms, dragging the country out of decades of isolation and giving its people their first glimpses of the outside world.

There was a new-found sense of optimism, particularly among young people, according to photojournalist Adrian Bradshaw, who has collected a number of his striking images from the decade in the photo book The Door Opened: 1980s China.

“The 1980s was when Chinese people could start to take more control over their destiny, choosing not just the clothes and haircuts they wanted but also the jobs and skills they would make their living from,” Bradshaw says. “This was new, optimistic and energetic, and driven to a large extent by demographics: China’s median age was around 25 in the mid-1980s, so it was a youthful population. There was excitement in the air over the new possibilities arriving on a daily basis and because the old controls had been relaxed. Everyone was looking forward to the future.”