"It's all new", said the shirtless man who shared a small quadrant of shade with me behind our bus. He was pointing with his cigarette at a series of white three story buildings directly in front of us. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and a sweltering sun beat down unmercifully upon our vulnerable position on the side of the road. This was the third time that our bus had broken down in just a few hours and I was starting to wonder if I would make it back to Chengdu that day. "What was it like before?" I...