Word: changsha
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Like many young people in Changsha, Mao Ce has great difficulty discussing his future. "I feel that my life is like a wind, blowing quickly and changing direction often," he says. "I have no plan for my future, and I don't want one. I never think about my future." Twenty-four-year-old Mao's comments are not reflective of some melancholic post-teen pouting - his feelings of resentment and despair are commonplace among the young adults of Changsha...
...warren of hastily built cement blocks sliced by grand new boulevards and glass high-rises, Changsha - China's 19th largest metropolis - is immersed in the din of construction and the grey pallet of soot and smoke common to the cities of a booming China. Mao Ce's city is a rough and tumble place, and he and his cohort occupy a unique place in modern Chinese history. Products of China's vigorously enforced one-child policy, twenty-somethings like Mao feel that they've been left to shoulder the mistakes of their government even as they adapt to a society...
...friends, along with many of the other young people of Changsha, remain in a state of postponed adulthood. Unemployed and disaffected, they have embraced a kind of blissful ambivalence towards life as they float between parties, drugs, and a sexual freedom unknown to their elders. Some run small businesses - DIY music venues, tattoo parlors, head shops. Mao Ce himself occasionally gigs as a DJ, but in a city as localized and provincial as Changsha, he has few prospects for making a career of it. "I have no wishes or dreams", he says. "When I was young I had dreams...
...officials are trying to ease the crisis. The main China Central Television channel regularly airs a special program called "Battling the Blizzard." An often repeated news clip shows Premier Wen Jiabao picking up a bullhorn and apologizing to a crowd of disgruntled travelers trapped in the train station in Changsha, the icy capital of Hunan province. (Even the Premier was inconvenienced by the weather: his plane couldn't land in Changsha and was forced to divert to Wuhan, 180 miles away. Wen arrived in the capital by train.) "I'm very sorry that you are stranded and not able...
...wonder the younger generation looks upon Shenzhen as the land of opportunity. Take Chen Li and her husband Wu Nianxing. Until a few months ago, Chen, 25, taught at a language institute and Wu, 27, worked as an industrial designer in the Hunan city of Changsha. Unhappy with their prospects, they began taking seriously stories about Shenzhen, about the wealth of jobs, high salaries and ample living quarters. Wu traveled 450 miles by train to Shenzhen and quickly found a job in an electronics plant. His wife, fluent in English, was hired by the same company as an interpreter. This...