By chance and by design, I have lived in the middle of several of them: the Texas oil boom of the mid-1970s, Japan’s all-around boom of the late 1980s, and the Seattle and Bay Area Internet bubble of the late 1990s. Inside the boom zone, people don’t spend much time thinking about how the good times began, or asking how long the boom can last. Everyone, everywhere, takes his own prosperity as a sign of cleverness, wise planning, and hard work. From outside, the questions concern the boom’s effects—on culture, on values, on old establishments and traditions. Such questions about China’s boom are unusually compelling, simply because of the country’s scale. What will its growth mean for the global environment? For jobs and prices outside of China? For the military balance of power and the ideological contest of ideas? Right now the very most booming part of generally booming China raises questions like these in a peculiar and intriguing form. This part is the tiny peninsula of Macau—as it spells its name, versus Macao in American usage.
What do You think about Postcards From Tomorrow Square?
