This morning I called my boss, you go on a trip! First stop the Franco-German school (awesome meals from 1000 units), then to the Metro to organize an event. We turn in the car, and obviously we lose a little ', and less so among subjects working we start talking of Pudong, the Shanghai area beyond the river Pu (yes exactly, is the Pu River, Dong means east) . Just 15 years ago it was open countryside, there is now a quarter of Shanghai, financial center, airport and two ports included. Speaking of the tremendous growth in recent years, tells me some interesting anecdotes from a few years ago.
School: in 1985 was still taught in schools that capitalism was pure evil, because it favored the social differences between rich and poor. Socialism was cool, because everyone was equal. Characters most studied, of course, Marx, Lenin, and Mao company sacred red flag will triumph.
Restaurants: If you could call it, was still interesting bureaucracy below. Every person, every day had provided a note that said he was entitled to the rice. Of course, various age groups. When, for example, was accomplished 12 years had to be applied to the offices for "upgrading" of rice, increased by receiving the electronic stickers. Returning to the restaurant, not only was paid, but you must also give the slip of paper, otherwise nisba.
Durable goods: this is nice, try to tell me when the average Chinese has received the first appliance and appliance that is. Three, two, one. It was 1985 and we talk about television in black and white. A few years later came the refrigerator (yes, before TV, then the refrigerator). And then the advent of color television in 1989 and about more or less over the years have engaged more and more innovations (computers in particular).
Now, by measuring with my age, if at birth I had shown a light bulb that lit up more no than yes the house, three had to bring the note to the rice and there was nothing to buy, give me a five-tv, to seven with a mini ice cream and color TV, Ten play with my friends with Nintendo to "Pong", at thirteen I can not just go by "casoìn" (venice, vendor prototti dairy), but I do not I miss the note asks, and then at 18 my father bought the car for the family and the university with me here ... in less than 20 years have passed from our 40s to 2007! No wonder then that, in general, we do not mark you as a very special human rights, press freedom and other trifles. If it's fate, they will come, and enjoy while waiting for the new age of consumption.
Thus, the country where until last (and to some extent so far) socialism (communism) has defended his being has become one of the places in the world where capitalism is more wild, where they often care is taken to become more rich and show wealth (the horn is not a means, it is a status symbol: I car, you walk). And if you wonder what happened, the answer is simple, after Mao was a man he managed to play his game, with his followers: that of change (against the hard-core). Deng Xiaoping, newly elected, left Beijing and the arrogance of the capital, and was made a little trip in the south (ipersintetica story, excuse the vagueness). He planted a tree and said: "Black cat or white cat, is good if you take the mouse, now begins the change" ... That no matter by what means, but you have to develop and grow. So, after adding "wealth is good," he went back to Beijing with the expectations of most of the "places that matter", and the fanciful notion of "market socialism". What I wonder is whether it will be good enough to run a country than political words and tries to go in one direction, and in fact and behaviors are becoming more open and tend to copy one of the most extreme models of Western capitalism.