Beijing Crime Wave - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

That year the annual cicadas came early in April to Beijing, singing, and clicking, before they molted. These creatures were thought by some to resemble in their life cycle the mandarins of the royal court, pure and lofty, once emerging, the insects consuming only dew, and living high in the trees for only a few weeks before they die.
Then in May, bicyclists riding along the streets wrapped their heads in sheer veils to protect their eyes from the relentless, stinging sands blown off the Gobi. The sand covering the sidewalks, and piling up in corners, as if the desert was trying to migrate East. Diminished, the sandstorms finally ended, by the torrential rains that flooded the streets, and the low-lying fields. The cool Spring mornings warmed into hot afternoons, drying out the city.
Each Spring, Beijing repeated these natural phenomena, yet in the 1980s, with Deng Xiao Ping’s economic Open-Door policies, for some, upward mobility and the ability to buy what they wanted, not just what they needed, was fueling new businesses, as it spread across the city. What was also spreading was an increase in alcoholism, suicide, and divorce, with a decrease in marriage, and the most trouble an increase in crime, that some feared would soon turn into a crime wave.

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