quora网友：目睹中国过去十到十五年间的剧烈变化是什么感觉？ [美国媒体]

What has it been like to watch China change so drastically in the last 10-15 years?

quora网友：目睹中国过去十到十五年间的剧烈变化是什么感觉？





David Abrahamson， Across China from 2001-2011(2001-2011年间走遍中国）
Below are a couple of anecdotes that come to mind when I think about my experience in China. I moved to China in 2001 and returned to the US in 2011. My first visit in 2001 was a trip to Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong (if that counts). I lived in Beijing for a year from the fall of 2001, from 2002 to 2006 I lived in Yunnan and from 2006 to 2011 I lived in Guangdong. My work and travels took me to other cities and the countryside, so I experienced China's growth from a couple of different angels. I agree with above comments that the rate of change, economically, culturally and politically is what made living in China during this period an exciting and dynamic experience., and is a big reason that kept me around. If I go back to my hometown of Chapel Hill one year from now, two years from now, or ten years from now, I will not expect much change. There will be some new restaurants, a new shopping mall or some expanded highways, but all in all the US is pretty static. China on the other hand, year to year, underwent dramatic changes, rendering parts of the cities I lived in completely unrecognizable from their previous self. 
As an example, one day in Kunming in 2004, I left my house to visit one of my favorite restaurants. Not only was my target restaurant closed down, but all of the restaurants on that bit of road for a city block were closed. They had just closed, the workers were siting on stools out in the street wondering what to do as the entire row of buildings was being demolished where only a day before was bustling activity. No winding down of activity as restaurants relocated and shuttered, no warning of demolishing in the weeks leading up to this day, but just a sudden change in the street scene. A few months later a new apartment building stood in its place. Experiences like this were a typical part of living in China the past decade. You never knew when a part of the city you knew would just be torn down and replaced with something unfamiliar. 
When I revisited Beijing in 2005 after leaving in 2002, the feeling was disorienting. I went to the streets I used to jog on in Chaoyang on the way to visit my old school. When I got out of the subway I wondered if I was in the right place; I didn't recognize any of the structures around me. The signs confirmed my location and I tried to find my old route, but the stalls I used to buy snacks from were nowhere to be seen, the buildings that were familiar landmarks could not be found. As I got closer to my school, walking in presumably the right direction, I spotted something I recognized, the university guesthouse. My mind bended in disorientation as I suddenly gained my bearings. I was walking down my old route alright, but everything had changed. Where previously was construction were now colorful buildings, the dilapidated alleyways I used to run down were now modern structures along newly paved roads. It was quite a strange sensation.
In the countryside and in other cities, the changes were similarly dramatic. I remember a pile of rubble that stretched for a city block in Suzhou on my first trip to China in 2001. It looked like something out of a war movie, but a few years later I would feel such scenes were common place. The sleepy Chengdu I visited in 2001 no longer exists and on subsequent visits I have felt no familiar feeling of "revisiting" a place I'd been before, but instead just the unfamiliar (the Chendu food however, is still familiar and welcome). 
Among the people the changes have also been dramatic. How Chinese view this change can be vary markedly depending whether they were born in 1990 or 1985, or grew up in Guangzhou versus the Yunnan countryside. My students in Beijing remember what China was like in the 1980s and 1990s and witnessed a dramatic increase in wealth. By contrast some of my younger colleagues in Shenzhen had grown up in relative prosperity in one of China's most modern cities, and almost took for granted the current state of prosperity. 

当我回想我在中国的经历时，曾经的一些趣事就慢慢的浮现心头。我2001年移居中国，2011年返回美国。如果没记错的话，我2001年首次访问中国去的是成都、北京、上海和香港。从2001年秋天开始，我在北京住了一年，从2002年到2006年，我住在云南，从2006年到2011年，我住在广东。我在工作和旅行中去了其他一些城市和乡村，所以我亲历了中国许多方面的成长。我同意其他评论者的看法，即在这个时期，中国的经济、文化和政治的变化速度是令人兴奋和充满活力的。这种变化也是让我流连忘返一个重要原因。如果一年、两年或者十年以后我回到我的家乡教堂山，我也不会期待有太多的改变。可能会新一些餐馆，一个新的购物中心或扩展几条高速公路，要知道在美国所有地方的所有事物都是相当静态的。另一方面，年复一年，中国经历着翻天覆地的变化，使得我曾经生活过的城市的很多地方变得跟原来截然不同。

举个例子，2004年，昆明，有一天我离开家去了我最喜欢的一家餐馆。不仅我想去的那个餐厅被关闭了，所有在这条街上的餐馆都被关闭了。他们刚刚关了门，工人们坐在街边的凳子上无所事事，整排的建筑都在被拆除中，而就在一天前这里还在熙熙攘攘的营业。餐馆的搬迁和关闭，没有任何预兆，在那天之前的几周里，没有任何关于拆除的警告，然后街道上突然发生了变化。几个月后，一幢新的公寓大楼矗立在那里。在过去的十年里，像这样的经历是过去十年来中国生活的特色之一。你永远不会知道，你所熟悉的城市的某一部分何时会被拆毁，然后一些陌生的事物取而代之。

我2002年离开北京，当2005年再次访问北京时，感觉迷失了方向。我去了我以前在朝阳区慢跑的街道去参观我的老学校。当我走出地铁时，我怀疑自己是不是去错了地方;我不认识周围的任何建筑。指示牌确认了我的位置，我试图找到我曾经走过的路线，但是我过去买小吃的摊位无处可寻，那些熟悉的地标建筑也消失无踪。当我走近我的学校，走在可能正确的方向上，我发现了一些我认识的东西，大学宾馆。我的心里一阵恍惚，我突然明白了方向。我沿着老路走着，但一切都变了。以前的建筑现在变得五颜六色，我过去常常跑过的破旧小巷现在变成了现代化的建筑群，街道也焕然一新。这真是一种奇怪的感觉。

在农村和其他城市，这些变化同样引人注目。我记得2001年第一次去中国的时候，在苏州的一个城市街区，有一堆瓦砾。它看起来像战争电影里的东西，但几年后我会觉得这样的场景很常见。我2001年访问过的那个沉寂的成都已经不复存在了，在随后的访问中，我再没有了故地重游的熟悉感，取而代之的是完全的陌生(然而，成都的食物，仍然是熟悉和受欢迎的)。

身处其中的人们，变化也很大。中国人如何看待这种变化，取决于他们是在1990年还是1985年出生的，是在广州长大的还是在云南农村长大的。我在北京的学生还记得上世纪80年代和90年代的中国，并目睹了财富的急剧增长。相比之下，我在深圳的一些年轻同事，在中国最现代化的城市之一，在相对富裕的环境中长大，几乎把目前的繁荣状态视为理所当然。

As an anecdote, a close Chinese friend of mine enrolled in a university in Kunming invited me to his humble village in rural Yunnan. To get there we changed buses twice, caught a ride in the back of truck down the dirt road to a nearby village, then walked the rest of the way to his hovel in the hills. To return days later, we had to walk a couple of miles over a hill (there were no automobiles coming or leaving the nearby village that day) and waited a couple of hours in a slightly larger hovel until a horse-drawn carriage took us to a town with buses. He was the first person from his village to attend university. I thought that he must be a hero in his village, the one who, despite all against him, worked hard and freed himself from poverty. He remarked that this was not the case, as now it is common for students from his village to attend university. Only two years later a paved road, buses and telephone line ran straight to his village.
Kunming received multiple face-lifts during my time there. The biggest was probably in 2001 before I arrived, and the other biggest one occurred leading up to a summit with ASEAN nations. Perfectly fine roads were repaved, the remaining old architecture was torn down and new structures were built left and right. It was distressing in China to see such little government preservation of local heritage, and I would say to myself, at many of the places I visited "wow, if only I'd come a few years earlier I would've seen the old buildings." Photo books of old Kunming only need to look back to 2000 to show a city that still had traditional architecture. This was true in all Chinese cities I visited and during my travels in China, piles of rubble, construction, cranes and heavy machinery almost dominated the roads. 
Guangzhou felt "done" by comparison when I moved there in 2006. As one of the first cities to open up, its path to modernization began twenty years prior. One living in Guangzhou could feel that China was already a modern nation, with little to no evidence of the poverty that remains in parts of Guangdong just a couple of hours a way. But changes did take place. I'll never forget my plane ride into the city, a dim auburn afternoon sun stuck out from within a haze of pollution. There was seldom a true blue sky day in the city. As the factories moved further from urban Guangzhou, and environmental regulations reduced urban pollution, my days playing Frisbee and walking along the river became clearer and clearer in the following two years. There would still be days where it would be hard to see clearly across the Pearl River that bisects the city, but blue sky days did seem to increase. I'm not sure if there was some small improvement during my time there, or maybe I just became inured to the Guangdong air.
So those are a couple of anecdotes. Another aspect about living in such a large, dynamic and diverse place as China is that it is difficult, at a conceptual level, to create for myself an understanding of what China meant. As a curious learner of China, this is something I and many others would naturally try to do. There's so much contradicting news about China, maybe more so before than now, and so many changes that it would be difficult to reconcile, in my head, the culture, disparities, government and rapid changes. Once I felt I had things figured out, something would happen that would put my understanding of China on its head. Now I'm older and wiser, and recognize that attempting to "understand" China is somewhat of a lost cause. While I continue to be excited to learn more about the country, the more I learn, the more I realize how much I do not understand. But I'm fascinated to see what comes next.

讲一件轶事，我的一位中国朋友在昆明读大学，邀请我去他的老家，位于云南农村的一个简陋村庄。为了到达那里，我们换了两次公交车，搭在一辆卡车的后面，一路沿着土路来到附近的一个村庄，然后走完剩下的路到他在山里的小屋。几天后，我们不得不在山上走了几英里(那天没有汽车来或离开附近的村庄)，在一个稍微大一点的小茅屋里等了几个小时，直到一辆马车载着我们来到一个有公共汽车的城镇。他是村里第一个上大学的人。我认为他一定是村里的英雄，他克服了重重困难，努力工作，使自己摆脱了贫困。他说，情况并非如此，因为现在他所在的村子里的学生上大学很常见。仅仅两年后，一条新修的道路、公共汽车和电话线就都通到了他的村子里。

昆明在我居住的那段时间里经历了多次改头换面般的变化。最大一次变化可能是在我去那之前的2001年，而另一次最大的变化则发生在迎接东盟国家峰会那段时间。道路被完美的修复了，存留的旧建筑被拆除了，新建的建筑鳞次栉比。在中国，目睹对当地古建筑遗产的保护并不在意很令人痛心，在我去过的许多地方，我可能会告诉自己：“哇，如果我早几年来，我就会看到那些古老的建筑。”要想看到老昆明的样子只需要回到2000年，就可以看到一个仍有传统建筑的城市。在我访问过和旅行过的所有中国城市中，都是如此。在路上，成堆的瓦砾、建筑、起重机和重型机械几乎占据了所有的道路。

相比2006年我居住的那个广州，现在的广州让人感觉已经“大功告成”。作为最早开放的城市之一，它的现代化之路始于20年前。一个住在广州的人可能会觉得中国已经是一个现代化的国家，然而有很多任何证据表明这不是真的，几个小时车程外的广东许多地区仍然还保持着贫困的状态。但变化确实发生了。我永远不会忘记我乘坐的飞机进入城市，一缕昏暗的赤褐色的午后阳光从一层污染重重的烟霭中透了出来。在这个城市里很少有真正的蓝天。随着工厂搬迁到离广州市区越来越远的地方，环保法规也有效减少了城市的污染，在接下来的两年里，我玩飞盘和沿河散步的时候，天空越来越清晰。当然仍有一些时日，很难清楚地看穿穿过横跨这座城市的珠江，但蓝天的日子看起来确实在增多。我不确定我在那里居住的那段时间里空气是否有了一点小小的改善，或许我已经习惯了广东的空气了吧。

以上是一些关于中国的轶事。另一方面，在中国这样一个巨大、充满活力和多样性的地方生活，在观念层面上，一个人很难真正理解中国到底意味着什么。作为一个好奇的中国学习者，这是我和许多其他人自然会尝试做的事情。关于中国的新闻有很多自相矛盾的地方，也许那时的矛盾比现在还多，而且在我的头脑里，文化、差异、政府和快速变化都很难调和。一旦我觉得自己有了头绪，就会发生一些事情，让我对中国的理解有所改观。现在我更老了，更聪明了，并且认识到，试图“理解”中国是一个注定失败的事业。当我继续为更多的了解到了这个国家而感到兴奋的时候，我学到的越多，我就越意识到我对中国有多无知。但我依然很想知道接下来会发生些什么。

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Greg Burch, lawyer, "Old China Hand," amateur roboticist
I first came to China in 1979. 
With the baseline of that original experience, seeing China's development in the last few decades has been overwhelming for me.  Based on the formal education I had in the 1970s about China, I would never have imagined back then that I would be seeing what I see now in China.
Sometimes I will be walking down the street or riding in a car or a train in a Chinese "tier 1" city in these days and I will remember what the same scene looked like back in 1979.  There have been times when this has happened and I have literally been dumbstruck by the sheer quantity of change and development I have seen in my life.  Even though I'm "used" to it now, I still have this experience fairly often.
The same thing happens to me even in my present home, Hong Kong, even though HK was much more developed back in the late 1970s.  The other day I was walking along the waterfront in Kowloon and I suddenly remembered that where I was standing had been in the harbor the first time I came to HK.  I looked around to the north and could see the old Kowloon Walled City in my mind's eye, the big planes skimming just above the forest of television antennas on its roofs as they navigated the infamous cross-winds on the approach to Kai Tak.
A few years back, I told an audience I was speaking to that "Never in human history has the economic situation of so many human beings been improved so quickly as has happened in China in the last 30 years.  In a very real sense, it is by far the greatest instance of real progress in the history of the world."  For me, the personal experience of this amazing story has been very real and very personal.

我第一次来中国是在1979年。

在最初的经验基础上，看到中国在随后几十年间的发展对我来说是颠覆性的。基于上世纪70年代我接受的关于中国的正规教育，我从来没有想过我会看到现在在中国看到的东西。

有时候，我会漫步街头，或者在中国的“一线”城市里乘坐一辆车或一辆火车，这时我会回想起得1979年时的情景。这样的情形发生了很多次。这些我一生中目睹的巨大变化和翻天覆地的发展，确实让我目瞪口呆。虽然我现在已经“习惯”了，但我仍然经常有这种体验。

即使在我现在的居住地香港，也发生了同样的事情，尽管香港在20世纪70年代后期更加发达。有一天，我在九龙的海滨散步时，突然想起刚刚我路过的地方正是我第一次来港时站在港口的地方。我朝着北边环视了一下，在我的脑海里浮现出古老的九龙寨城。在接近启德机场的时候，大飞机穿过臭名昭着的侧向风掠过九龙寨城屋顶上密密麻麻的电视天线。

几年前，我曾对一名听众讲到，“人类历史上从来没有哪里能够像中国这样在过去的30年间让如此多的人的经济条件发生如此快速的提升。”实事求是的说，这是迄今为止世界历史上最伟大的发展实例。“对我来说，亲历这个令人惊叹的故事是非常真实和非常独特的。

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Xihan Liu
I was born in 1989 and I think the whole 1990-2010 period in China is golden.
China's economy growth is about 10% annually on average at that time. It means every 7 years its economy had doubled in size.
To be more intuitive, it's like every 7 years you live in a totally different country. Now think about it: when I was in elementry school, people in China were about the same rich as Laos, but by the year I went to college, the income of an average Chinese family was on par with Peru. People in big cities like Beijing or Shanghai are even better: living a standard like an average Greek person.
Despite the enormous benefits we enjoyed, there are also a few problems:
The knowledge/culture gap between generations is huge. For example, in the US, if you take 1990–2010 and assume this 20 years accounts for one generation, the GDP per cap increased from $23954 to $48374 (measured in current USD, according to World Bank), doubling the size. Meanwhile, China grew from $318 to $4561, which is a 14X growth. US took about 40 years/2 generations to grow from $318 to $4561. So the knowledge/culture gap between my mom/dad and me is about the same as the difference between your great grandpa who participated in WWII and the millennials who nowadays twits emojis all the time…This really creates a lot of communication problems and family issues because my parent and I simply thinks in different dimensions and a lot of times don’t even speak the same language (Soviet bureaucratic Chinese dialogue and modern cyber Chinese).

我出生于1989年，我认为整个1990-2010年的中国都是黄金时期。

中国年均经济增长率约为10%。这意味着每7年经济规模就翻倍。

更直观的说，这就像每过7年你就会生活在一个完全不同的国家。现在想想看:当我在小学的时候，中国人的收入跟老挝差不多，但是到我上大学的时候，一个普通中国家庭的收入与秘鲁相当。像北京或上海这样的大城市的人甚至更好:像一般的希腊人那样生活。

尽管我们享受到巨大的益处，但也存在一些问题:

两代人之间的知识/文化差异巨大。例如，在美国，如果你以1990-2010年为例，假设这20年为一代人，那么人均GDP从23954美元增加到48374美元(根据世界银行的数据，按当前美元计算)，这一数字翻了一番。与此同时，中国从318美元增长到4561美元，这是14倍的增长。我们花了大约40年/2代，从318美元增长到4561美元。所以我和我的妈妈/爸爸之间的知识/文化差异跟你参加过二战的曾祖父和如今用表情符号交流的千禧一代的差距差不多…这真的创造了很多沟通问题和家庭问题,因为我的父母和我在不同的维度思考,很多时候甚至不讲同一种语言(苏联官僚式中国话和现代网络中国话)。

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Julian Mintzis, Education and Business Professional.
Having lived, worked and traveled around china for the past six years, I do have a strong grasp for what goes on, especially as I have been to some of the most remote places in the country as well as the big cities that many non-Chinese seem to go to.  
The massive development is quite amazing. Beijing, for example, is based on highways called ring roads that circle around the city and there are local roads and highways in between each ring road.  All of them surround Tian’anmen Square, the largest square in the world, at the center. 
Officials have announced in the local papers that the seventh ring road will be built and will connect three provinces. This ring road will be less square-like; however, it will be 950 kilometers long.  When I arrived in Beijing they were just finishing the fifth ring road.  
The expansion of the subway system is another amazing project.    When I arrived in Beijing, there was lines 1, and 2, half of line 10, line 4, and 13.  The 10 and 4 had just opened. Now there are lines that will be connecting the far reaching points of the city, making it fast and convenient to travel within the city’s outer and inner limits. 
The fare remains consistent at 2 rmb per journey; however, officials have been talking about raising the fare for a while to that of other cities that have subway systems to be based on the actual distance traveled. 
Life in the big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, can be as international or as local as you want it to be. I think that many non-Chinese live a mix of both. There are some things that they are willing to pay a premium to have which they cannot live without and there are other aspects of life that they are either willing to live without or can live with ‘good enough.’  Mostly this is relating to personal preference.  With this said, there are people that live on the extremes too - a completely internationalized life as they would in their home country or that live a completely Chinese life. 
Insurance does depend on what you are insuring. Chinese in many situations must purchase travel medical insurance for their international trips and many hold some sort of life insurance policy; however, due to the relatively low costs of medical care, most Chinese do not have medical insurance.  If you purchase a property, often times insurance policies do not cover all what is covered in western countries.  
All of this said, much of the future of China has yet to be determined because many things are still new and developing.  

在过去的六年里，我一直在中国生活、工作和旅行，我对在那里发生的事情很了解，尤其是我既去过中国最偏远的一些地方，也去过许多外国人喜欢去的大城市。

巨大的发展令人叹为观止。以北京为例，北京是基于一圈圈环绕着整个城市的高速公路建设的，这些高速公路被称为“环路”，各个环路之间都穿插着当地的街道和高速公路。所有的环路都以天安门广场为中心环绕伸展，这是世界上最大的广场。

官员们在当地报纸上宣布，七环路将被修建，并将连接三个省份。这条环路会比较窄;然而，它将有950公里长。我刚北京的时候，他们刚刚完工五环路。

地铁系统的扩建是另一个令人侧目的项目。当我到达北京的时候，只有一号线，二号线，十号线的一半，四号线，十三号线地铁运营。其中10号线和4号线刚刚开通。现在的线路将城市的各个角落连接了起来，使得在城市内外范围内旅行变得快速便捷。

票价保持不变，每次2元;然而，官员们一直在谈论提高票价，希望像其他城市的地铁系统那样以实际行驶距离为基础收费。

北京、上海、广州等大城市的生活可以像你希望的那样国际化或本土化。我认为许多非中国人都是两者兼而有之。有些事情是他们生活中必不可少的需宁愿多付些钱也要获得，而另外一些方面，他们要么宁愿生活中没有这些，要么能够与之相处得足够好。大多数情况下，这与个人偏好有关。当然，也有些人生活在极端的情况下——他们过着完全国际化的生活，如同在自己的国家里生活一样，或者过着完全跟中国人一样的生活。

保险取决于你投保什么险。在许多情况下，中国人必须购买旅行医疗保险来进行国际旅行，许多人持有某种寿险保单;然而，由于医疗费用相对较低，大多数中国人没有医疗保险。如果你购买房产，通常情况下，保险政策不会涵盖西方国家所有的保险。

所有这一切都表明，中国的未来大部分还有待确定，因为许多事情都还是新鲜事物，都还在发展之中

------------------------

Jie Wang
I was born in the beginning of the 90’s, so not only did I witnessed this dramatic change, as many of my peers, my family was part of it. In addition to much improved living conditions, education opportunities etc. the most impressive thing to me is the inspiring and up-going spirit in the society. Everyone is thriving to get better lives, and their efforts paid off quickly. I got this so deep in my mind that I sometimes felt a little bit anxious and guilty for not working hard as others.
During the 90s and 00s we felt the gradual, quiet but never-stopping change in our lives, and people believed deeply that their efforts really can make a difference. Both of my parents are the first college graduates in their families, and I saw how knowledge changed their lives, and how their hard work could provide for us. My mom used to mention that in her 20s (1980s), her wish was to have a TV. Never could she imagine that she could have her own furnished apartment and car later. Now we are so used to the rapid changes, I worry easily for any slowing down, and that I might not be able to make much improvement for my own family like my parents did for theirs.

我出生于90年代初，所以我不仅目睹了这一巨大的变化，我的许多同龄人，我的家庭也都参与其中。
除了生活条件、教育机会等方面的改善，对我来说最令人印象深刻的是社会上鼓舞人心和积极向上的精神。每个人都在茁壮成长，以获得更好的生活，他们的努力很快得到了回报。我在心里深深地感到，我有时会因为不像别人那样努力工作而感到焦虑和内疚。

在90年代和00年代，我们感受到了生活中逐渐的、悄无声息但从未停止的变化，人们深信他们的努力确实能带来改变。我的父母都是家里第一个大学毕业生，我目睹了知识是如何改变了他们的生活，以及他们的辛勤工作能为我们提供什么。我妈妈曾经提到，在她20多岁的时候，她的愿望是有一台电视机。她从来没有想到她会有自己的家具和汽车。现在我们已经习惯了快速的变化，我很容易对任何的缓慢感到焦虑，而且我可能无法像我的父母那样为自己的家庭做出很大的改善。

------------------

Mark Warholak, 洋鬼子（自称）
The bicycles are all gone. Rush hour is just not the same anymore.

自行车都不见了。高峰时刻也跟以前不一样了。
  --------------------
Ryan Wang
If you live in a country where everyting changes drastically in 10-20 years, you basically think the whole world is just like that. You may not realise those changes until you get asked about. Still, you are going to be pissed off on things that didn't change much. Knowing relatively stagnant deveplopment of somewhere else can be a comfort

如果你生活在一个每10-20年发生巨变的国家，你基本上会认为整个世界都是这样的。在被问及之前，你可能不会意识到这些变化。尽管如此，你还是会对那些没什么变化的事情感到生气。知道其他地方相对停滞的发展可以是一种安慰。

-----------------

Joseph Wang
It's been tremendously frightening and awe inspiring.  You have to understand that my parents grew up in a China that was broken and defeated, and to get China to the point that it has gotten was something that would have beyond their imagination.  Though out the last few decades, you had people saying, "well next year is the year that China will fall apart" and it didn't happen to the point that if China now has economic difficulties, they will be seen as a temporary setback.
The question that everyone is now thinking about is now "will China make it?" but "what will China do now that it has reached this level of development?" and that is someone that no one quite has the answer to.  The thing that is most scary is that people have assumed that Chinese development is going to hit a wall, but while there are dozens of challenges, there is no obvious wall ahead.
The thing that I keep thinking about is the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Then he waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding  over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world,  he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something
That's the phase that we are in right now.  The chapter of Chinese history in which my parents grew up in has ended, and we are in the start of the next chapter, and no one knows what that is going to look like.

这是非常可怕和令人敬畏的。你必须明白，我的父母是在一个支离破碎、失败的中国长大的，中国需要明白，它的发展已经超出了人们的想象。虽然在过去的几十年里，总有人说，“明年是中国崩溃的一年”，但这并没有发生，如果中国现在有经济困难，那将会被视为一个暂时的挫折。

现在每个人都在思考的问题是:“中国能做到吗?”但是，“中国现在已经达到了这样的发展水平，接下来要做什么呢?”这是一个没有人能回答的问题。最让人害怕的是，人们想当然地认为中国的发展将会碰壁，事实上尽管有许多挑战，但前方并没有明显的障碍。

2001年底我一直在想的事情是:一场太空漫游。

然后他等待着，整理着他的思绪，想着他仍未测验的力量。虽然他是世界的主人，但他不知道下一步该做什么。但他终归会考虑一些事情。

这就是我们现在所处的阶段。中国历史上我父母成长的那一章已经结束，我们正处于下一章的开始，没有人知道接下来会是什么样子。

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Alfred W Croucher, has lived and worked in China since 1978. His post-graduate thesis was on GPCR.
I came to China on September 3, 1978 as an exchange student who had complete a post-graduate thesis on the Cultural Revolution, but who had not done much advanced Chinese studies. A couple of intensive courses and one year at Sydney Uni. So my obxt was to get up to speed on Chinese and then complete my academic studies. But life rarely goes the way we expect and I struggled with Chinese and in 1980 took a job running the Beijing office of an an Australian trade consultancy. I have been living and working in China ever since.
In the first few years China was still a typical poor socialist country albeit in which social and work relations had been poisoned by the Cultural Revolution during which most had reported on each other doing their best to see that they, or at least their children survived. The emphasis on survival in China seems to be a natural result of five thousand years of war, famine, political strife, poor government, and frequent economic failures. When I spoke to people about socialism or Marxism they looked at me and patiently explained they were only interested one "ism" - survivalism.
A young Marxist, I looked in vain for anyone who had been taught it as an intellectual discipline. Nobody was interested in politics per se, but they were interested in being seen to be politically correct so that when I tried to discuss my superficial understanding of Chinese politics, especially the recent past, they would either shy away or repeat orthodoxy. I was fortunate in those days to have a local roommate, a practice the school abandoned after a while due mainly I think to cultural problems. Of course coming to the school as a graduate in Chinese politics it was thought naturally I must be a government agent (indeed the local students were told we were all government agents) so they gave me the leader of the school's youth group as a companion.
Due to natural inhibition on my part however we rarely if ever discussed politics. Perhaps he made it plain from the beginning. I forget. We did talk a lot, mostly about aspects of Chinese social life, particularly the sex life at the time. My letters were full of fascinating anecdotes of Chinese life at the time which occasionally got him into trouble. ("Don't worry, they're not reading your letters!")
Our school, the Beijing Language Institute (now the Beijing University of Language and Culture) was a pretty simple place with unlined concrete cells big enough for two beds, two small wardrobes and a two desks. Well warned, I brought an electric blanket with me which I used in defiance of the dorm regulations against any electrical appliances after 9pm. The two bar wall heater was turned off at 9pm nd the temperature often dropped to -10 Deg C in winter evenings.
We had four hours of classes each morning and the afternoons were free for study and exercise. We ate in one of two canteens, one for the foreign students, and one for the locals. The local canteen was much cheaper so I saved a lot of my generous allowance from the Chinese government (yuan 110pm) eating corn congee in the morning and rice with cabbage for lunch. We tended to eat out in the evenings. I lost about 10kg in the eighteen months I was there and learned to sleep after lunch.
At the end of the first semester I ran in the inter-school 10,000 metre race and placed about halfway down the field. Not too bad for a 30year old. In the winter however the pollution from burning coal dust briquets cause me to develop asthma as I ran so I had to give it up.
At the end of 1979 I was recruited to run the Beijing office of the Australian trade consultancy so I moved to the Beijing hotel, the most luxurious hotel in China at the time. I lived there for over four years before moving down to Hong Kong in order for my new born son to live in a healthier environment. Pollution levels then were very high and health consciousness very low even in hospitals. 
So I can say I have seen Chinese change from a poor, backward socialist country, into a mid-range developing country in just thirty four years. The difference is profound. The socials ills of the time were healed, but new ones have arisen. The standard of living is incomparable. People who would be complaining then about their 50 square metre rented apartments are now living in apartments three times the size which they own. Where they complained about being stuck in one job for life then; they sometimes change their jobs every year now; where they could never travel overseas before, they now routinely send their children overseas for study and go on overseas trips themselves.
I am so humble to have been here and seen the Chinese people, given the opportunity to enrich themselves, put their heads down, work hard, and in the process begin the process of returning China to being the greatest nation on Earth, which is was for nearly two thousand years.

1978年9月3日，我作为交换生来到中国，完成了一篇关于文化大革命的研究生毕业论文，但我当时并没有修太多的中国预修课。只是在悉尼大学花了一年时间修了两门密集的课程。所以我的目标是快速提高汉语水平，然后完成我的学术研究。但生活很少像我们所期待的那样，后来我一直在和中国人打交道，1980年，我在一家澳大利亚贸易咨询公司的北京办事处工作。从那以后，我一直在中国生活和工作。

在最初的几年里，中国仍然是一个典型的贫穷的社会主义国家，社会和工作关系因文化大革命而受到毒害，大多数人都竭尽全力互相告发说，为了保全自身，或者至少保全他们的孩子。在中国对生存的看重似乎是五千年的战争、饥荒、政治斗争、贫穷和频繁的经济失败的自然结果。当我和人们谈论社会主义或马克思主义时，他们看着我，耐心地解释他们只关心一种“主义”——生存主义。

作为一名年轻的马克思主义者，我徒劳地寻找那些作为知识分子接受了马克思主义思想教育的人。然而没有人对政治感兴趣，他们感兴趣的是让自己看起来被认为是政治正确的，所以当我试图讨论我对中国政治的肤浅了解时，特别是最近的过去，他们要么回避，要么重复正统的答案。当时我很幸运有了一个当地的室友，一段时间后学校就放弃这种安排，我觉得主要是因为文化问题。当然，作为一名中国政治专业的毕业生，大家想当然的认为我会成为一名政府的代理人(事实上，当地的学生都被告知我们这些交换生都是外国政府的代理人)，所以他们给我安排了学校青年团的领袖作为室友。

由于自然的抑制，我们很少讨论政治。也许他从一开始就解释得很清楚了。我忘了。我们谈了很多，主要是关于中国社会生活的方方面面，尤其是当时的性生活。我的信中充满了当时中国生活的趣闻轶事，偶尔也会给他带来麻烦。(“别担心，他们没在读你的信!”)

我们的学校，北京语言学院(现在是北京语言文化大学)是一个非常简单的地方，有没有内衬的混凝土，大到可以容纳两张床，两个小衣橱和两张桌子。我带了一条电热毯，虽然宿舍规章规定晚上9点以后不能使用任何电器，我还是无视规定的使用。晚上9点墙边的两个暖气片会被关停，在冬天的晚上，温度经常下降到零下10摄氏度。

我们每天早上有四个小时的课，下午可以自由学习和锻炼。我们在两个食堂里吃饭，一个给外国学生，一个给当地人。当地的食堂更便宜，早上吃玉米粥，午餐吃米饭，所以我省下了很多中国政府赞助的慷慨补贴。我们往往在晚上出去吃饭。我在那里的18个月里瘦了10公斤，还学会了午饭后睡午觉。

在第一学期结束的时候，我参加了校内一万米长跑比赛，并在球场的半路上跑了下来。对一个30岁的人来说这不算太坏。然而冬天燃烧煤尘带来的污染使我在跑步时患上了哮喘，所以我不得不放弃了。
1979年底，我被聘运营澳大利亚贸易咨询公司的北京办事处，所以我搬到了当时中国最豪华的北京饭店。我在那里住了四年多，后来才搬到香港，为的是让我的新出生的儿子生活在一个更健康的环境中。当时的污染水平很高，即使在医院里，健康意识也很低。

因此，我可以说，我看到了中国从一个贫穷落后的社会主义国家，在仅仅34年的时间里，变成了一个中等规模的发展中国家。这些变化意义深远。当时社会的弊病已被治愈，但新的弊端已经出现。生活的标准不可同日而语。那些会抱怨他们租住的50平米公寓的人现在住的公寓的面积是当初的三倍。他们那时抱怨自己被困在一份工作中;如今他们有时每年都换工作;他们以前从未到过海外旅行，现在他们经常把孩子送到国外学习，自己出国旅行。

我很谦卑地来到这里，亲眼目睹中国人民，抓住机会充实自己，低下头，努力工作，在这个过程中开始了中国成为世界上最伟大的国家的进程，而这个最伟大的位置，他们曾经保持了近两千年。

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Chris Hemmings, works at Five Trillion Trees
Interesting to have gone from megaconsumer to megaproducer country and for us to hear how China has the consumption bug, too!
Me, I want environmental repair now as in Five Trillion Trees to be planted to bring marginal land back into an active ecosystem, capture carbon and rescue biodiversity. A whole host of reasons, in fact.
The work does go on but it's too slow and too rare. However, my researches show that top of the league by far is China, where a respectable 49 billion trees have been planted over the last 20 - 30 years. This is more than the rest of the world all put together! I'm working to come and view all this in twelve months time but, before then, I am researching further and will try to learn some Mandarin. 

有趣的是，中国从消费型国家变成生产型国家，同时，我们也可以听到中国的消费行为造成的错误!

我希望现在的环境得到修复，在“五万亿棵树”项目下进行种植，以将边际土地重新变成一个活跃的生态系统，捕捉碳元素并拯救生物多样性。事实上，还有一系列的原因。

工作还在继续，但是太慢了，太少了。然而，我的研究显示，到目前为止，中国是这个联盟里的第一名，在过去的20 - 30年间，中国已经种植了490亿棵树。这比世界上其他地方的总和还要多!在12个月的时间里，我一直在努力考察学习这一切，在此之前，我在做进一步的研究，并尝试学习一些普通话。

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Robert Delaney, works at The Globe and Mail
I lived in China from 1992 to 2007. I went back in 2009 as part of the press corps covering Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's state visit and again last month to escort good friends from Philadelphia, whohad always wanted to see Beijing. During the most recent visit, I had a drink with my friends at a Beijing Park Hyatt bar overlooking the city.I told my friends that I was going to use the gents, but found a dark corner of the bar instead because I was a bit overwhelmed and couldn't explain to them what was going through my head.
Over the next few days, as I shuttled my charges around town... Forbidden City, Silk Market, Summer Palace, Panjiayuan, etc., I thought about what happened to me at the bar.
As part of a group of friends that included a mix of "expats" and local Mainland Chinese, I felt connected to whatever was happening in town,whether it was good, (China's appointment as an Olympic host city), bad,(SARS), or ugly, (China's failure to score a goal in the World Cup). I either had first-hand knowledge as part of my work as a journalist, or one of my friends would be involved somehow with whatever people were buzzing about.
During last month's trip, though, it was clear from day one that my presence in the city was completely insignificant. Maybe it always was, but I never felt like that when I lived there. Anyway, I looked down from the Hyatt to see that my old neighborhood, an ordinary residential district "just outside the downtown area" while I lived there, had developed intoa new part of the downtown that seemed just as big as the city I grew up in –– Philadelphia. Not only that, the architecture as well as the shopping and dining options suggested a leap in sophistication that probably took decades to achieve in Philly.  
That comparison troubled me. I gave up Philadelphia to live in China. After so many years in China, I considered it more or less my home. Now neither place is my home.

我从1992年到2007年一直住在中国。2009年，我作为记者团的一员，采访了加拿大总理史蒂芬·哈珀(Stephen Harper)的国事访问，并在上个月再次接待了来自费城的好朋友，他们一直想看看北京。在最近的一次接待中，我和我的朋友们在北京柏悦酒店喝了一杯，俯瞰着这座城市。我告诉我的朋友们我要去上厕所，但却被朋友们在酒吧的一个黑暗角落里发现了我，我有点喝蒙了，无法向他们解释我脑子里想的是什么。

在接下来的几天里，当我计算旅游花费时。。故宫、丝绸市场、颐和园、潘家园等等，我回想了一下在酒吧发生的事。

作为一群“外籍人士”和中国本土华人的朋友，我觉得自己与城里发生的一切有关，不管是好是坏(中国被任命为奥运主办城市)、糟糕的(SARS)，还是丑陋的(中国未能在世界杯上打入一球)。我要么作为一名记者获取第一手的资料，要么作为我的朋友中的一员，大家无论何时何地都在忙忙碌碌。

然而，在上个月的旅行中，从第一天起我就清楚地知道，我在这个城市的存在是完全无关紧要的。也许一直都是这样，但当我住在那里时，我从来没有这样的感觉。无论如何，我从凯悦酒店往下看，看到我住在那里的老街坊，一个普通的住宅区，当初我住在那里时，那里“就在市中心的外面”，如今已经发展成了市中心的一个新的部分，这里看起来就像我长大的那个城市费城一样大。不仅如此，建筑以及购物和用餐的选择都暗示了一种复杂的飞跃，这些可能需要几十年的时间才能在费城实现。

这种比较令我感到困惑。我放弃了费城，住在中国。在中国呆了这么多年后，我认为它或多或少是我的家。现在这两个地方都不是我的家。

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David Parmer
I think the problem is lots of people HAVEN'T been watching China change in the last 10 - 15 years. They have been watching their own movie. And the movie seems to be a weird version of a North Korean May Day parade.
Modern China is stunning. Amazing. But you can't see it if  you are looking in the rear view mirror or at that DPRK May Day parade in your head.
Recently CNN's program "On China" had China Internet as a topic, and the only thing the presenter and two of the panelists could talk about was "censorship." Yes, there is the Great Firewall. OK, but there is also an AMAZING Chinese Internet out there with the likes of Jack Ma, Pony Ma, Robin Li, etc. etc. And scores of other players and innovaters. AND an amazing e-commerce infrastructure. The only panelist who had any insight or logic was SINOCISM's Bill Bishop. 
If you want your mind sufficiently blown, do some research on the Pearl River Delta, one of the greatest mega-cities on Earth. (And there is another coming in the Beijing-Tianjin area) Check out the Bohai Sea economic zone.
Holy Moly! Amazing stuff is happening in China, and will continue to happen. 
Finally someone (And I think it was photographer Chase Jarvis) said
"Every American should go to Shanghai and look across the river at Pudong."
Indeed. 

我认为问题是很多人在过去的10 - 15年里没有看到中国的变化。他们一直在看自己的电影。他们看的电影似乎是朝鲜五一游行的怪异版本。

现代中国令人叹为观止。令人惊叹。但如果你一直盯着后视镜或者盯着你脑海中浮现的朝鲜五一游行，你是看不到这种变化的。

最近CNN的节目“在中国”把中国互联网作为一个话题，主持人和两个小组成员唯一可以谈论的事情就是“审查”。“是的，有防火长城。”好的，但是还是有一个很棒的中国互联网，那里有马云，马化腾，李彦宏等等，还有很多其他的玩家和创新者。还有一个惊人的电子商务架构。唯一具有洞察力或逻辑性的专家是SINOCISM的比尔•毕晓普。

如果你真的想大开眼界，那就做一些关于珠江三角洲的研究，这是地球上最大的巨型城市群之一。(京津地区还有另一个巨型城市群)再研究一下环渤海经济带。

天呐!中国正在发生令人惊奇的变化，并将继续发生。
终于有人(我想是摄影师蔡斯·贾维斯)说。
“每个美国人都应该去上海，看看浦东的对岸。”

确实如此。

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Suresh Balchandani
Chinese miracle has been possible due to a central governments over the last 60 years that have been dedicated to uplift the Chinese people and gain a stature of a great nation for China. These governments have gone about relentlessly putting systems and processes in place to achieve these goals while all along, firmly dealing with any internal and external opposition to their policies. The world may criticize cultural revolution, mass trials, one child policies, pollution and other draconian policies but the results are there for everyone to see. During a certain 15 year period Chinese lifted 200 million people out of poverty that took Europe 200 years to do. Chinese have become a giant manufacturing machinery of the world providing high quality affordable products to the world. It is heading to be a leader in green technology. For a controlled experiment over the last 60 years, please look at next door India, where poverty, corruption, pollution, chaos and overall helplessness of the common man seems to be the norm due to a string of incompetent, self centered, lacking in vision, backward looking, parochial and enormously corrupt & criminal governments. I have visited many many countries but have never been to a country that is so difficult on your eyes and senses as India and it's because of the poor governance at every level. In conclusion, I would say that the recent Chinese governments may be considered the best ever governments in entire human existence based on their achievements that have never been accomplished by any other governments due to the enormous magnitude of their achievements, the huge number of people it's affected within their borders and it's impact worldwide.

在过去的60年里，中国一直致力于提升中国人民的生活水平，并为中国赢得了一个伟大国家的地位，这是中国的奇迹。中国一直都在不遗余力地为实现这些目标而建立系统和程序，坚决处理任何内部和外部对其政策的反对。世界可能会批评文化大革命、大规模审判、一孩政策、污染和其他严厉的政策，但结果却是每个人都能看到的。在短短15年的时间里，中国让2亿人摆脱了贫困，而欧洲为此花了200年的时间。中国已经成为一个巨大的制造机械，为世界提供高质量的可负担产品。它将成为绿色科技的领导者。作为在过去60年里的一个对照试验,请看看隔壁印度,那里贫穷、腐败、污染、混乱和整体无助的普通人似乎归咎于一连串的无能,以自我为中心,缺乏远见,倒退,狭隘和巨大的政府腐败和犯罪。我曾游历过许多国家，但从未到过像印度这样令人无论观、感都很糟糕的国家，因为每一层面的治理都很糟糕。总之,我想说,从来没有任何其他政府能够取得如他们所取得的成就，由于他们的成就规模如此巨大,在其境内影响到的人口数量如此众多,以及它的世界性影响，最近的中国政府可能会被视为整个人类史上最好的政府。