Word: ago
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...long, exactly? The Chinese live in a cage. Some farsighted policies have expanded the cage beyond what anyone would have imagined a decade ago. But it is still a cage, and even if it continues to expand, how long will an increasingly modern nation be content to live behind bars...
...strapping six-footer, Bi "got into the weight-lifting craze about two years ago, when it was big." He still pumps iron each morning before breakfast, which he takes at a local restaurant with four colleagues. Eating out is actually cheaper than cooking at home for Bi, since coal is very expensive. Besides, Bi is saving for new eyeglasses. He hates his thick lenses and believes he would not need them if he had grown up in the West. "Until about five years ago, we didn't have electricity," he says. "I read by candlelight till then. My eyes...
...Even so, for the next four years Bi must get by on $12 less each month. Five dollars is deducted automatically because the cash-starved government insists that state employees buy bonds. The other $7 represents a fine for the second child he and his wife had three years ago -- one child over Beijing's limit...
...from the Lun Feng factory, on the main road to Guangzhou, is an example of how economic freedom can energize a population. Shops full of sofas, chairs and beds stretch as far as the eye can see. "Furniture Mile" began several years ago when a few local farmers decided that after meeting their government-mandated crop quotas, they would rather augment their income by making furniture than by growing more vegetables. Soon, farmers throughout the area followed suit. Today anyone with wheels stops to load as much furniture as he can carry, then resells his wares later in whatever market...
Viet Nam represents a great jagged gash in the fabric of American history, an ugly tear in a tapestry that people once believed had been woven out of high ideals and simple decency. A few years ago, when it became obvious that it was time to repair that rent, our popular culture took on something of the air of a vast quilting bee, with writers, filmmakers and TV producers bending over their restorative needlework...