The idea behind this saying is that times of rapid change are generally quite painful.  Historically interesting times are those involving wars and revolutions — things where lots of people die.  Growth and improvement have only come through very slow gradual change.  But in today’s China, this is anything but true.  Right now is one of the most interesting times in China’s long history, and for the majority of the country, it’s fantastic.  (If we all work hard, that kind of intersting time might be behind us.)

We read about how the Chinese economy is glowing red hot.  Their sustained GDP growth rate would make any head of a western central bank terrified.  In any established economy, a 9% annual growth rate would last maybe a couple years before it turned into inflation, recession or both.  But a very clever set of communist economists are managing to ride the bleeding edge of rapid growth far longer and further than I think anybody outside the country would have believed possible.  I’ve been reading these cold dry numbers in the same places you have.  But being here in China now, these numbers are very real.

Consider Shenzhen, just across the psuedo-international border with Hongkong.  Today Shenzhen’s greater metropolitan area has over 10 million people.  But just 28 years ago when Deng Xiaoping decided to start developing this city, it had but 25,000.  Imagine that — a city nearly the size of LA or NY that was consciously willed into existence in less then a generation.  It almost defies belief.

Having just left Shenzhen, I’m currently in Xiamen, which is the closest mainland city to Taiwan.  On a clear day like today, you can see outlying islands that are politically controlled by the Republic of China, the Taiwanese government.  There is a large and famous sign here pointed out towards Taiwan that reads "One Country, Two systems, Together One China."  The Taiwanese have a similar sign on the other side.

NPR recently aired a story about the northern border of North Korean.  There’s a theme park that is constantly empty and a small family whose job might be simply to picnic under an umbrella to demonstrate to the outside world how happy and successful the closed communist system in North Korea is.  Possibly for similar reasons, Xiamen also has a theme park on the coast facing Taiwan.  But its big roller coaster is occupied until 4:00 AM every night.  On weekends happy local families fill the beaches with their families.  I came here for a holiday 5.5 years ago during Spring Festival.  There are so many new buildings and bridges and tunnels and freeways that I hardly recognize it now.  Real estate prices boggle the mind in a way that only Manhattenites could imagine.  There is also a huge new "trourist ferry terminal" under construction here.  Its stated plans are for ferry service to Hong Kong and to host cruise ships.  The obvious long-term purpose of this project is in the fulfillment of that big red sign. 

Shenzhen is thriving as a psuedo-port for the reunification of Hong Kong.  I have no doubt that within 10 or 20 years, Xiamen will be doing the same with Taiwan.  All polluting factories have been ordered out of Xiamen in order to clean up the air.  The communists clearly want to make Xiamen attractive.  I used to buy in to the American political ideas that we must protect Taiwan from China’s oppressive government.  Taiwanese certainly used to look at it this way — a friend grew up there singing songs about how they would liberate the mainlanders from the communists.  But taking a longer term view of the situation, if I were a Taiwanese resident today, I would look forward to reunification with the world’s largest economy.

Again, talk about economics can easily obscure what’s really happening here.  Millions of people are graduating from poor subsistance lifestyles up to the comfort and safety of a working class life.  Or up to the relative luxury of a middle-class life.  Or even to the genuine luxury of being able to buy whatever they want — it’s not that uncommon here.  The difference in the quality of life of my friends and the other people I see here is obvious from just 5 years ago — be it having hot water in every room of the house, owning a car, or kite-surfing in their spare time.  These huge cities are physical manifestations of people’s lives being improved on a grand historic scale.  The excitement is palpable.  Positive energy infuses everything.  A note to Naomi Klein: this is what sweat-shops do to people’s lives.  These certainly are interesting times, and I feel priveledged to be able to experience them first-hand.

I think of myself as a dilettante polyglot – I have or have
had a smattering of many languages – Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Japanese,
Russian – but little command of any except English and Mandarin. My friends sometimes tell me that I have a
talent for languages. I think I’m just
determined and study hard. But if I put
my mind to it, I can pick up useful skills in a new language in a couple of
weeks. One of the reasons I love
traveling is this intellectual challenge and the cultural opportunities that
are exposed by overcoming it. So over
the years I’ve consumed a great many books on foreign language self-study. It’s one of the largest sections on my
bookshelf. When I’m studying at home, I
find value in a great variety of tools – thick dictionaries, audio lessons,
conjugation books, children’s books, etc. 

When I’m actually traveling there’s only one book I want
with me: The Rough Guide
Dictionary/Phrasebook. They’re
published for just about every language you might want. These aren’t your typical phrasebook filled
with a collection of pre-selected sentences and mock conversations organized by
subject like “getting a hotel” and “at the train station.” These frustrate me because if finding
something that doesn’t exactly fit into one of their scenarios is nigh
impossible.

In contrast, the majority of each Rough Guide Dictionary/Phrasebook is an English/Foreign
and Foreign/English dictionary. They’re
quite small, but the vocabulary is well chosen, so for most things you want to
say, look it up and it’s there. It’s also
much better than a typical pocket dictionary because Rough Guide tries hard to list just
one translation which is the most useful. This makes study a lot easier than if you have to decide which of the 3
or 4 translations you want to try using and remember. If there is ambiguity they’ll generally use
the word in several example sentences. And for a few key words (like Hotel or Telephone), they will have sample
conversations. One of the only downsides
is that their English is really British, so sometimes I have to do an extra
translation step to find what I want. (i.e. How do you say cookie in British?) 

Each book also include a couple dozen pages of grammatical
reference which are actually enough to get you going from nothing if you have
any experience with linguistics. There’s
usually sections dedicated to menus and signs, but I haven’t found much value
in them personally.

So if you have or want to have even a moderate grasp of a
foreign language, cast off that Lonely Planet or Berlitz pulp – grab a Rough
Guide Dictionary Phrasebook and you won’t be sad.