--- title: Michelle Obama Documents China Trip via Instagram description: The First Lady takes to Instagram to share her travels abroad. canonical: https://time.com/34977/michelle-obama-china-instagram/ author: Joseph C. Lin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-23T22:33:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T06:55:04.889Z article:section: Politics og:title: Michelle Obama Documents China Trip via Instagram og:description: The First Lady takes to Instagram to share her travels abroad. og:url: https://time.com/34977/michelle-obama-china-instagram/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Michelle Obama Documents China Trip via Instagram twitter:description: The First Lady takes to Instagram to share her travels abroad. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Michelle Obama's China Trip As Seen Through Instagram by [Joseph C. Lin](https://time.com/author/joseph-c-lin/) ## Joseph C. Lin Mar 23, 2014 10:33 PM UTC by [Joseph C. Lin](https://time.com/author/joseph-c-lin/) ## Joseph C. Lin Mar 23, 2014 10:33 PM UTC As first lady Michelle Obama embarks on her good-will tour across China, she and her aides have been using photo-sharing platform Instagram to document her travels. She even has her own hashtag for the trip: #FLOTUSinChina. Check out a filtered view of her trip abroad below: First lady Michelle Obama lands in Beijing. The first lady, along with Peng Liyuan, the wife of China’s President, Xi Jinping, stopped by a robotics class at the Beijing Normal School, one of China’s elite high schools. “While we loved our visit to the Forbidden City, we only wish we had more time to see everything. But then again, I’m not sure there could ever be enough time to fully appreciate all of the art and history within this extraordinary place,” said Obama on Instagram. “When it comes to expressing yourself freely and worshiping as you choose and having open access to information, we believe those universal rights — they are universal rights that are the birthright of every person on this planet,” said Obama to Chinese and American students at Peking University. Obama also visited the Summer Palace in Beijing. In response to her first visit to the Great Wall, the first lady said, “Simply breathtaking.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/34977/michelle-obama-china-instagram/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/34977/michelle-obama-china-instagram/"},"headline":"Michelle Obama's China Trip As Seen Through Instagram","datePublished":"2014-03-23T22:33:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T06:55:04.889Z","description":"The First Lady takes to Instagram to share her travels abroad.","url":"https://time.com/34977/michelle-obama-china-instagram/","keywords":["China","Michelle Obama","Instagram"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joseph C. Lin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joseph-c-lin/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/34977/michelle-obama-china-instagram/","name":"Michelle Obama's China Trip As Seen Through Instagram"}}]}] ```