Word: longing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...possible," says Quan. "He showed people that incentives can turn China around. Now that he is out of favor, my friends think I should tear my monument down. No way. I am keeping the faith. Eventually, Zhao will be vindicated. There's no turning back over the long run. The emperors in Beijing won't change the label. They'll still call China Communist. They'll have to do that to keep themselves in power. But we're heading toward capitalism, no matter what they will call it, because finally China is going to opt for what works...
...When this summer's drought threatened to devastate the village's wheat and vegetable crops, Wu proposed that water from the Yellow River -- unused previously because it was so muddy -- be tapped immediately. Within 36 hours, 4,000 Chinese, including Wu, were digging a new irrigation ditch two miles long. The entire job was completed in twelve hours...
...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 on the young, who protest in the name of liberty," said French President Francois Mitterrand after Tiananmen, "has no future...
...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...
...early morning, and along with a score of others, the old man was exercising his birds -- by illusion. The men walked about and swung their birdcages. The movement is said to convince the birds inside that they are free. "We trick them, you know," he said. "How long can they stay fooled? Who knows? Maybe they hope. Like us. We hope. I hope. But you know, in China it is dangerous to hope. Your heart is always being broken." I said I knew...