Word: peasant
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...like that set in Europe." Over five years they sketched out a plot ("except for the ending, which would have been no fun") and divided the novel's many scenes among themselves, with each author rewriting his peers' contributions to maintain a consistent style. By focusing on 16th century peasant revolts and utopian movements, the group was able to make some subtle points consistent with its modern-day beliefs. "A life free of enslavement to money and commodities is a better life," declares the leader of a 1630s Anabaptist community in Antwerp. The real Luther Blissett, now retired to Watford...
...mostly because six in 10 of them have some form of health insurance. Only 10% of rural residents do, and most of them are government employees or live in wealthy coastal areas, where many work in factories. More emblematic are people like Shi Yangxin. The 30-year-old peasant started coughing blood in December but tried to tough it out to save the cost of a hospital visit. He was diagnosed three weeks ago with tuberculosis. He sold his chickens and ducks to buy $20 worth of medicine. At his pine-board house on a hillside in Guangxi, he lays...
...ever-flowing Tsingtao beer was supposed to loosen our tongues. We had been detained while covering peasant riots in the coastal province of Zhejiang, where farmers are terrified that patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, are being quarantined in their midst. Naturally, we didn't want to hand over our notebooks to the irate security officials who could arrest those we'd spoken to for illegally fraternizing with foreign journalists. After a couple hours of unsuccessful interrogation, the local cops changed their tactic: they would forcibly invite us to attend a banquet thrown on our behalf. The copious...
...officials. They thanked us for giving them an opportunity to enjoy such a lavish meal, showed off their new cell phones?"only $360 for this Motorola," said one, citing an amount equivalent to half a year's net income for a Yuhuan farmer?and began to disparage the panicked peasants in their charge. "Local farmers aren't very well educated," said Hu Hong, a director at Yuhuan's Foreign Affairs Office. "We cannot allow every peasant in this area to know the real SARS situation, because they just won't understand...
...that has been largely accepted by a pliant populace. But with a deadly disease potentially exploding in the provinces, some of China's 800 million farmers are finally acting out, threatening the social stability that the nation's leaders have long considered their No. 1 priority. Last week, as peasants learned that outsiders possibly exposed to the SARS virus would be quarantined in their hometowns without the locals' consent or knowledge, riots erupted in various parts of the country, from villages near the northern city of Chengde to those in the central province of Henan. The turmoil is the most...