My main job site was in Shuifu, Yunnan Province. It was a village with a few mud houses, thatched roofs, no glass in the windows, and a bare single electric bulb hanging from the ceiling. The Chinese were very proud of this electrification. Villagers sold meat sitting in the dirt on the streets covered in flies. Water sanitation was boiling the water. Sewage flowed directly into the Yangtze River. There were no paved streets. There was one vehicle in the village, the bus used to transport the foreign workers from the guest house to the job site. The 40 year transformation is incredible:
That may be the fertilizer plant I worked to the right in the photo. When I was there, barge traffic on the river was hauled by gangs of men pulling tow ropes, not gasoline engines and not even draft animals. Kids about four years old helped unload bricks from the barges in bamboo backpacks.