Word: ago
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...public, but many of the Chinese I meet seem to share it. About 1,000 miles from Quan's farm, in Guanxian, a group of excited Chinese tourists is visiting the Dujiangyan irrigation system -- another marvel of China's ancient genius -- built 2,200 years ago. On a misty morning the tourists can barely make out an aging, abandoned hydroelectric plant about a mile upstream. Like much of what was built by the Soviets during the heyday of Sino-Soviet cooperation in the 1950s, this power station too is crumbling. In fact, the plant had been little used; the Soviet...
...what can be called an altered sequence of development. Like much of the rest of the country, Zouping is experiencing the telecommunications and electronics revolution before agricultural mechanization. It is possible to stand in a field in Zouping and watch wheat harvested exactly as it was 2,000 years ago, by sickle, and then to look up and see the giant satellite dish that links the town with Beijing's Central Television -- as incongruous a sight as that of Chinese businessmen furiously pedaling their bikes through the capital as they speak on cellular phones...
...wall of one of the newest buildings in Wu's village is a saying widely heard during the Cultural Revolution two decades ago: PREPARE FOR WAR, PREPARE FOR NATURAL DISASTERS, SERVE THE PEOPLE. Wu makes no apologies. "Of course I know the slogan's origins," he says. "But there is nothing wrong with those words. We should use more of what Mao taught. His themes were self- reliance and sacrifice. I say to our leaders, more of that and less riding around in fancy cars...
...most of the theaters are half empty -- talk through the movie or read. At work, employees protest by increasing their sick leave and slowing their production. At school, the results of an essay competition glorifying the army's role in Tiananmen are supposed to have been made public weeks ago. Perhaps too many entries reflect the view of an eleven-year-old girl whose grandparents I meet. Her short, three-page paper, reflecting the unpopularity of China's conservative Premier, has Li Peng resigning because he is "too stinking." Most significant of all, perhaps, few people seem to have become...
Forty years ago this Sunday, Mao Zedong stood on a balcony overlooking Tiananmen Square and said, "The Chinese people have stood up, and the future of our nation is infinitely brighter." Infinitely messier is closer to the mark today. The economy's course is uncertain. Provincial and municipal governments will surely pursue their own interests despite efforts to restrain them. The party, with its ideology bankrupt, offers only order and is begging for faith -- and not getting it. How long can a government like that retain control and stay in power? "A regime that . . . is forced to fire...