I’m deeply impressed by My Paradise, a new book authored by He Jianming. It took the author three years to finish this 550,000-character reportage, from brewing to interviewing and then to its completion. With rich connotations and unique characteristics, the works features both solemnity of a historical record and sweetness of a poem. Based on Suzhou’s substantial changes during the three decades after China’s reform and opening up policy as well as the historical transition, the book displays to the world an entirely new Suzhou that emerged in the ages of reform and opening up. Suzhou is the epitome of modern China. Amid the miraculous tremendous changes, we can see the infinite vitality and hope of the Chinese people, and the promising future of a rising great nation.
Suzhou’s GDP in 2008 was 45 times that in 1978 (the figure for the entire nation in the same period was 15 times), which is to say that today’s Suzhou is equivalent to 45 Suzhous 30 years ago.
Suzhou Industrial Park is a world-level high-tech industrial park set up after the 1990s. With an area of 70-plus square km only, the park is called New Suzhou. Featuring exuberant trees, singing birds and fragrant flowers, the industrial park is like a scenic garden. It is unimaginable that such a small place generates 270 million yuan of GDP and creates 100 million yuan of financial revenue everyday.
Suzhou’s Kunshan County, which used to be the most depressed area, is now famous nationwide and tops among China’s 2,000-plus counties. Besides, Suzhou’s five county-level cities always rank among the nation’s top 10. Such a small county of Kunshan, with a population of only 650,000 and an area of 927 sq km, rakes in financial revenue of about 2.02 billion yuan a year, equivalent to full-year revenue of some provinces in western China.
I think a lot of and cite these data here because they are miraculous and convincing. Behind these dry data, there are numerous moving stories and legendary figures that are so heart-stirring.
The success of My Paradise lies in that the book is not a memorabilia but provides a large array of legendary figures and vividly depicts quite some business founders. For instance, the tailor-turned entrepreneur Gao Dekang created Bosideng as a world-renowned brand; Qian Yuebao, who used to be an embroiderer, developed Menglan into a bedding brand famous across China; and amazing examples also include Shen Wenrong, who was either a farmer or a quiet young man, finally became the King of Steel.
The emergence of “the Miracle of Suzhou” again well proves that “reform and opening up” was the only right decision made by the Chinese people after they went through twists and turns and paid a huge price. The biggest advance is the liberation of human beings, which set people free from tangible and intangible shackles. Only in this way can seemingly ordinary people become great ones and can there be books about the entirely new history. In the book, it seems to talk about the boom of Suzhou, but is actually about the transformation of and wonders created by people.(By Lei Da)
|
