China in the 80s and 90s

I am reading "Mr.China" , an interesting book written by an English man who came to China in the early 90s and witnessed the changes that has swept China in the past decade. Last Friday in Nanshan, I took a break from skiing, resting and reading this book in the little open tea house on the side of the ski slope. The sun was starting to set in behind the mountains far away, and rays of remaining light painted the sky in orange and red. I always liked the sunset in the winter time when it was clear sky, you get to see the sun in this golden and orange color, hanging in the background of grey skyline and bare trees.

That is the kind of scenary that always touches my heart, making me want to smile and cry at the same time. I was very much intrigued by the storylines in the book as well. The author took me back to the China still under the planned economy, where there is an obvious lacking of resource and free mind. Yet, these were not too long ago from us, and I was in high school and university when China was slowing shifting to the market economy. I still vividly remember the subtle words our professor used in my first year in University, she said "our economy, is no longer a pure planned economy because it is too inflexible, instead now our economy is Planned Market Economy." Great invention, somehow you have to admire the creativity of some of the smartest minds in this country by then. But indeed, how do you plan a market oriented economy?

Well, the answer is I couldn't remember when the market economy was formally accepted and announced as the mechanism in China to the outside world. Sometimes, playing with the word is an art, and indeed, art sometimes is more precise than science! Being a student majored in economics was in the middle of this whole transition fueld by confusion and chaos. I remember the first year in university we learned Karl Marx's "Capital" and "socialism planned economy"as the main courses, then in second year, we were asked to learn how to manage "planned market economy" and also the western accounting practice as main courses also the "Western Economy" (something similar to Macro Economy in the west) as the selective courses. And as a surprise to everyone, one year before graduation, we were informed that there wouldn't be any arrangement of jobs by the University, instead, Job-searching should be two way choice between banks (for the peolple majored in finance) and the graduates. I guess I could say I was the witness of how the planned ecomomy collapsed and was replaced by the market oriented economy and as a result I benefited from the freedom of career choices and development.