After seven months there, I vowed I'd never go back. Now that so many years have passed, I'm actually curious to return, but with their health problems, that probably is not in the cards.
The closest I've gotten to being back there is co-workers, neighbors and news reports.
The village I first worked in was Shuifu in Yunnan Province. It was a tiny, extremely poor village with a few mud buildings with thatched roofs. The Powers That Be decided to locate a fertilizer factory there and built a Guest House right on the Yangtze River for all the foreign workers. The plant manufactured synthetic ammonia and urea from natural gas. Two years ago production was shut down because the country had a winter shortage of natural gas for heating.
Today the place is a regular city!
That’s a beautiful city! Wow.
Can’t help wondering though how many cities like this were built at the expense of millions of outsourced American jobs.
But aside from that, it’ the best looking communist country I’ve ever seen.
Amazing that some from of capitalism for decades now hasn’t translated into political upheaval.
I figured once you see how fun making money and doing what you want is, communism doesnt seem that appetizing anymore