"I mentioned several days ago that, according to a recent Pew poll, 44% of the U.S. public thinks that China is the "world's leading economic power." OK, I can understand why some people might think so -- what with the trillions of dollars of U.S. debt to our Chinese overlords, the ubiquity of "Made in China" products wherever you shop, and the precision and scale of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Still, people who think this are wrong. When reading the Pew poll, I immediately thought of a scene, from Gansu province, that gives an idea of how hundreds of millions of people get by in today's "all-conquering" modern China:" - Christopher Chung