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Man walking down a relatively quiet street in Zigong, China |
Two years ago I spent about 10 days in Zigong--a city in Southwest China's Sichuan province. Zigong was where I perused a
dinosaur museum with a "romantic scene", saw more of the
various mobile phones for sale in China, watched a
Mother's Day fashion show, met a
friendly family in a neighborhood of older homes, and chatted with another
friendly group of people at a restaurant. It's also where I found examples useful for contrasting the online lives of
students in mainland China and Taiwan, comparing Google's, Baidu's, and later Bing's online map services (
here and
here), and showing how a global online social networking service such as
Facebook could potentially address unmet needs in China.
Like almost everywhere else I have been in China, there is more I could say than what I have already expressed here. And soon I will share another another aspect of Zigong which caught my eyes. But first, I want to bring attention to the reason Zigong came to mind today. China correspondent Rob Schmitz first went to Zigong in 1996 as a Peace Corps Volunteer and recently made a return visit. In an article on
Marketplace he shares some of the
changes he saw in the city and his acquaintances there:
Zeng picks me up in the provincial capital of Chengdu in his brand new Volkswagon bug. Each day, this city limits traffic to certain numbered license plates to curb air pollution. To get around that, Zeng simply bought five cars – one for every day of the week. He’s on the move. At 29 years old, he’s now one of China’s top young artists. "When I was young, I played with toy cars, but I never imagined I’d ever be able to buy one," Zeng tells me as we speed down the expressway.
Schmitz's account reminds me of the changes I've seen since I first set food in China only 8 years ago, whether while living in Shanghai or from revisiting cities such Kunming, Quanzhou, and Changchun. And it makes me wonder what changes I would notice in Zigong after a little more than 2 years. For example, Schmitz notes Zigong's relatively new Walmart, which I saw when I visited (shown in the
mobile phone post), but I wonder if the Mall-mart (shown in the
Mother's day post) on the other side of the river is still there. What became of the student (mentioned in the
Facebook post) who felt "crushed" by the limitations of his college and degree? And has the
home of the friendly family I met continued to survive China's relentless development?
I don't know. Although Zigong is on a list of places I would like to revisit in China, the list is long and there is always more to see. Making return visits such as Schmitz's can be incredible, especially in a country changing at a remarkably fast pace. I recommend reading Schmitz's full article
here for a taste of those changes.