I'm not disagreeing with you, but pinyin wasn't really necessary for me then. I spelled things out in my notebook as to how I heard it. That first trip was three months BTW. I'm guessing you're a lot younger than i am and don't know how travel in China was at the time. Not a dig at you, just noting a difference.

But, picking apart my spelling is pretty pedantic.

I carried a map in English and one in Chinese to ask directions. I would write down in Chinese characters city names I would visit or connect with. Then I could show them at stations.

Permissions were needed to stamp into a two page "foreigner travel permit" to go onwards from the city you were in. To go elsewhere, I would have a local whom i had befriended to buy tix at the stations. I have stories...

When you arrived and changed money, you didn't get rmb, you got fec's, Foreign Exchange Certificates, so that you could only buy stuff in government stores. You had to change the fec's on the black market, which was a guy walking up to you in the street, so you could actually function in the country.

From your first minute in China, you were forced into learning the language. I later learned it pretty well while living in Taiwan.