The Summer Palace is recorded as a stop on a November 3, 1982 bus excursion in Peking. In the diary, the visit belongs to a day of scheduled sightseeing and encounters with fellow Americans; the entry gives no description of the palace itself, but preserves its place in the itinerary and in Warhol’s account of the tour.

Place in the Day’s Itinerary

The group first went to a bird fair, where, as the diary explains, people gathered to sell birds, worms, and spiders. They then boarded a bus for the Summer Palace. This sequence places the palace within a guided day of visits rather than presenting it as an isolated destination.

The Visit

At the Summer Palace, Warhol met Americans he already knew: Lita Vietor, who had been kind to the group in San Francisco, and people from Palm Beach who were traveling on a tour. The entry records the meeting as part of the stop, bringing a familiar social connection into an otherwise organized sightseeing excursion.

The Day’s Wider Account

After the palace visit, the group stopped at the I.M. Pei hotel and photographed it. The diary then recounts a visit to a commune, where children performed songs including God Bless America and Jingle Bells for successive groups of tourists. Warhol described the repeated performance as sad and compared the children’s treatment to that of animals. The entry does not specify the commune’s location in relation to the Summer Palace, but its inclusion makes the palace stop part of a broader account of the day’s tour and its uneasy encounters with staged hospitality.