The Xiaogang village story

In 1978, 18 farmers in Xiaogang village, in east Anhui Province, signed a secret agreement to divide communally owned farmland into individual pieces called household contracts, thus inadvertently lighting the torch for China's rural revolution. Today they are considering pooling their farmland again to create an even more efficient economy.

Related Stories

Huaxi Village: everyone lives in a villa

Twenty-five-year-old college graduate owns a 3-story, 600-square meter European-style villa The 3-story, detached, European-style villa measures 600 square meters in size, and comes with its own swimming pool and large garden. It has a large 50-square meter living room, 30 -square meter luxury master bedroom, magnificently decorated study, dining room, gym, central air conditioning, satellite TV, rear projection TV, massage bathtub ... everything one could possibly want.

Backgrounder

Yuan Longping -- Father of Hybrid Rice

"I saw rice plants as tall as Chinese sorghum," said Yuan Longping of a dream he once had, "each ear of rice as big as a broom and each grain of rice as huge as a peanut. I could hide in the shadow of the rice crops with a friend." Yuan was just awarded 5-million-yuan State Supreme Science and Technology Prize for his high yield hybrid rice species. This award is viewed as "Chinese Nobel Prize".

Related Stories

Migrant workers' life under city roofs in China

"You must know him," says Yang Weidong, pointing to a smiling face among many pictures of migrant workers, "He was beaten to death in a detention center for failing to provide urban temporary residence permit...I always feel he died for us."

Related Stories

Poor resident's dream of living

63-year-old Guo Jijian, from a low-income family in Jinshui District of Zhengzhou city, has moved from a small room, with an area of about only 10 square meters, in Miaoli Village to a 61-square-meter apartment in Jinziyiyuan Community provided by the government.

Backgrounder

China's first private restaurant owner

The single-storey Yuebin Restaurant is hidden in a shabby hutong- a typical lane in the center of Beijing, which sharply contrasts with the fancy shops around it. But anyone who judges the place based on appearances alone would be making a mistake. The first private restaurant in China, it still has a daily turnover of 10,000 yuan, or more than 1,400 US dollars.

Its 76-year-old owner Liu Guixian remembers the scene when the restaurant was opened 28 years ago.

Backgrounder

The air is not as "dirty" as before

Since the falling of winter, Xu Guangxin, a resident in Xinyuan Community, Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province feels pretty good.

"Heating is in full supply, the outside air is clear and not as dirty as before," Said Xu Guangxin.

What brings the good mood to Xu Guangxin is the project of energy saving and emission reduction.

Backgrounder

Worker Lu: How can I drive my car without opening up?

"Without reform and opening-up, how can I come to Beijing? How can I drive my own car?" Lu He, talked about his own experience.

Lu He works at a car sales company in Beijing. Prior to that, he had worked as a security guard for a couple of years. It is very accurate to say he grows with the reform.

Backgrounder

Booming in China

China, without doubt, presents enormous opportunity for most multinationals. However it is a formidable challenge for many, especially for the consumer brands, due to the country's geographic diversity.

Proctor & Gamble, since its entry into China in 1988, has long been a big winner. It's now one of the best-known brands in China, virtually in almost every corner from the metropolitan centers to the vast countryside.

Backgrounder

No assurance of success

Han Lin, a 39-year-old Chinese insurance worker, has become increasingly concerned about her job lately. But her worries don't particularly stem from her duties. She is concerned because of fears that one of the partners in a joint venture with the company she works for is about to leave.

And Han is not alone. Joint venture divorces affect many and these ventures have a tendency to split, usually due to irreconcilable differences.

Backgrounder

McDonald's growing in China

During the Olympic month, when eating in McDonald's, you could hear the song, "China wins, we win" broadcast repeatedly.

Jim Skinner, vice-chairman and CEO of the world's largest fast-food company, says he appreciates the slogan.

Actually, he has reason to mean what he says, since setting up the first McDonald's in China in Shenzhen in 1990, the Western restaurant chain has been expanding steadily and successfully.

Backgrounder

Venture capital woos the nation

When Robert Theleen set up his China-focused private equity fund in 1982, the American venture capitalist was faced with a dilemma: there were few Chinese entrepreneurs with whom to make a deal on the mainland.

The reason was simple: a planned economy simply needed no entrepreneurs. And following Deng Xiaoping's move to reform the economy in 1978, the first group of private businesses were still struggling to accumulate their first fortunes.

Backgrounder

Overseas fever of Tsingtao Beer

"At 10 o'clock, when the number '168' flashed up on the big electronic board, the trading hall of the Hong Kong exchange suddenly broke into unceasing applause," reported the Shanghai Securities Journal in describing a mainland company's debut on the Hong Kong market on July 15, 1993.

Backgrounder

China's first Sino-foreign joint venture

On May 1, 1980, Beijing Air Catering Co., Ltd. (BACL) officially opened its business.

After nearly 30 years of development, BACL has become a modern air-catering company with a daily catering capacity of 80,000 meals, providing air-catering services to nearly 400 airplanes

Backgrounder

China's first private enterprise

When Jiang Wei was transferred from the army and returned to his hometown in Dalian City, Liaoning, in 1980, he took the 400 yuan his younger sister had earned and opened 'Zhaozhaokan' photography booth outside the entrance of the Dalian Zoo.

Backgrounder

Shenzhen Zen

If the grandeur that is New York - or Hong Kong - wasn't built in a day, how about within 50 years?

No matter what the answer, South China's glittering Shenzhen in Guangdong province is already beginning to realize that grand ambition only three decades after its humble origin as an obscure fishing village.

Backgrounder

Story about Xiamen Special Economic Zone

This is a photo that has been kept as a memento for 27 years. If you didn't tell them, perhaps no one would recognize the location.

On October 2, 1981, Xinhua News Agency's photographer Li Kaiyuan filled with emotion took this photo of this historical moment. "At that time, the whole Huli District in Xiamen was still a vast stretch of barren land. Looking around, you saw no buildings at all. I remembered when I took this photo the leaders including Wang Yishi and Zou Erjun were discussing the project in a potato field."

Backgrounder

Hainan: China's Special Economic Province

Since reform and opening-up, Hainan has borne the ideals of countless people as the biggest testing field for development.

After 20 years of rapid change, Hainan has become a stage for dreams.

Haikou native, Li Lan, remember Haikou as a small and old town. There were few pedestrians on the road, and once in a while you could see a few rickshaws passing by, but you would barely see the trace of a car.

"Zhuhai Special Economic Zone is great"

In 1984, Deng Xiaoping toured southern China.

On the road to Zhuhai's urban area, Deng Xiaoping saw crisscrossing streets and avenues, rows upon rows of high-rises, factory buildings, and a constant flow of automobile traffic…

Deng was delighted and smiled. He expressed his appreciation of Zhuhai's urban planning.

Changes in Shantou

As one of the six members of the preparatory work group of the Shantou Special Economic Zone, Wang Ruizhong is the most direct witness of the 30 years of tremendous changes that have taken place in Shantou.

As an amateur photographer, he recorded the development and changes in the city landscape of Shantou over the past decades.

China's first internet user- Prof. Qian Tianbai of Peking University

Prof. Qian Tianbai of Peking University sent China's first email.

The email "crossing the Great Wall to the world" was sent to University Karlsruhe in Germany is an epoch making for the Chinese internet.

In 1990, Prof. Qian, on behalf of China, registered the top domain name.cn.

Backgrounder

First China-made laptop-Legend Zhaoynang S5100

Before 1995, foreign laptop brand Toshiba dominated the Chinese market.

Due to restrictions in technology and experiences, developing and manufacturing is like a mission impossible for the Chinese companies.

After long-term accumulation and research, Legend company released the first Chinese brand laptop- Legend Zhaoyang S5100 in 1995.

Backgrounder

First China-developed cell phone

The first China-developed cell phone is about 20 cm in height and 10 cm in width, with YD 9100 printed on the body. The occurrence of YD9100 forced foreign branded cell phones to lower prices.

Backgrounder

First China-made PC- Great Wall 0520CH

In 1983, the computer bureau earmarked 300,000 yuan as special fund for a group of young technical experts to develop the micro computer.

In 1985 April, the team had to moved to a hotel in basement. The first Great Wall 052CH computer was tested here. The image on the screen and Chinese characters made the experts beast into tears.

Backgrounder

First China-madedigital camera Seagull DC33

The first China made digital camera Seagull DC33 came to the world in August 1999, breaking the monopoly of foreign products in the industry. The camera offers 300,000 pixel images.

Backgrounder