Wealth In China

I read the details of a story in the Wall Street Journal concerning the murder of many young school children in the small provincial town of Lincheng.

The story is heartbreaking. An embittered man who had leased a building for the local school was angry at not being able to recover use of the house. In spite, he attacked the children and school teacher, hacking them to death, then killed himself.

What struck me, however, was the Journal piece's description of the town as "one of the poorer villages in China."

I can't locate the article, published last Thursday, in the Journal's online site. But it seems, at least to me, to belie the notion of what now constitutes the one of the poorer villages in China.

Centered in the image accompanying the article is a decently-dressed woman chatting on a cellphone. To the right, in the back of the photo, sits a man in a dark blazer, well-coiffed, in a collared shirt and loafers, his face grim. Next to him is a casually dressed woman, her face buried in her hand, in a tasteful, slim pair of jeans and dark top with metal buttons.

Other grieving parents, all waiting in a hospital or medical clinic, are surprisingly well-dressed, -groomed and modern-looking.

They'd put the people in the poorer sections of New York City or Chicago to shame.

I guess economic welfare in China is truly widespread and rising.