From the Los Angeles Times (free registration required):
When Yong Chen came to California 30 years ago, he left behind a hometown in central China’s Hubei province so mired in poverty that he worried his neighbors wouldn’t have enough to eat. There was little auto traffic because most people rode bicycles. Brown brick government housing units, some without running water, dotted the landscape. Most of his friends and relatives dreamed about owning a television.
Today, Chen’s hometown, Wuhan, is booming: Modern private homes are replacing government apartments. A developer from Hong Kong plans to build a modern theme park. Traffic is snarled for miles because of the explosion of car ownership.
And Chen, now a history professor at UC Irvine, experiences a feeling that many Chinese Americans are coming to know, often to their own surprise: a sense of hope and satisfaction about their native land.
