Word: hebei
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...would line up for hours to get to the toilet. But any building of more than 200 sq. ft. had to be approved by line authority at the top, the State Planning Commission in Peking. Should such a committee have to decide about toilets? We had a factory in Hebei that produced good worsteds that people wanted for suits. But the plan called for the mill to produce coarse woolens." So the mill met its quotas in coarse woolens, and they piled up in the warehouses. All over China, Peking set quotas and ignored what the people, the market, demanded...
...flood disaster pales, however, when compared with the results of a two-year drought that is centered in the northern province of Hebei, but has also affected five other neighboring provinces. An estimated 14 million people are living on survival rations. Says a recent visitor: "There are vast areas of parched land where nothing has grown since early last year. Wells are bone dry or terribly low." Contagious diseases are epidemic, and rickets strikes an estimated 11 % of children under 14. The drought shows no sign of ending. Declares an international relief official: "The situation can only deteriorate even further...