Our Beijingologist's reason for existance — aka the Beijing Subway — turns 40 this year, and lately they've been handing out (against a pretty steep fee of CNY 280 a pop) collections of tickets from years gone by.

We thought we'd might let you take a look at this ticket — from 1969. Back in the day, this Subway thing was one secret military project that was clearly inaccessible to the lingering laowai. In fact, even if you were a PRC citizen, you couldn't like visit it when you wanted to do so. You had to be in a whole group — no loitering and no stayin' out all alone!

The first official ticket (this very first one was free!) went on sale for CNY 0.10, which is about the same price as a CNY 2 ticket today (as in how much money could buy you then). Of course, today's buses are a lot cheaper — CNY 0.20 on a student pass and CNY 0.40 for everyone else.

Picture taken from the Subway tickets book.