Persist for 100 years
This is a picture of me in front of a billboard in Shenzhen (which means “deep ditch,” I guess), the Special Economic zone just outside of Hong Kong. The billboard, sponsored by the local Communist Party committee, shows Deng Xiaoping, architect of these zones and enjoins viewers to “Persist in the Party’s basic path for 100 years without wavering.” I wonder if anyone thinks that’s likely to happen. Who knows, though.
The picture below shows the view Deng looks out on, which is an incredibly modern city in what was a poor rural area less than 20 years ago. Shenzhen is an interesting and quite beautiful city, with quite a bit of geenery and aggressively modern architecture. I’ve seen TV shows set there for quite some time as I’ve stayed in Beijing, so it was interesting to finally see the place itself. We spent less than 24 hours there, and much of it visiting a “nationalities village” exhibit, so it’s hard to have a very strong feeling about the place, but it is definitely someplace I’d like to see again.
