I used to subscribe National Geographic long ago, not any more.  I didn't have enough time to read those magazines all when I was still employed; besides, to be frank with you, I had difficulties to comprehend the contents of such a high-levelled magazine like it.(I still have difficulties now.  You know, I divide the English readers and newspapers into three tiers according to their readability to me: tier one, National Geographic, Time, News Week; tier two, New York Times, The Ecomomist; tier three Reader's Digest.  Never mind the toughest one: New Yorker.) 

By the way, recently I found an edtion of National Geographic of March 1994 in my book storage.  The cover story of it was: Shanghai, exactly two decades ago, of course.  When I first read the article 20 years ago, Shanghai, the biggest city of modern China history, was a laggard metropolitan compared with her counterparts in the world, even with Taipei: drove of cyclists occupied most part of streets due to the main transportation for average commuters then was bicycle; some people, especially seniors, were still clad in Maoist attire; uncomfortable housing condition and cramped living space; the famous Yangpu Bridge was being under construction; and so on. 

The report anticipated a booming Shanghai would be coming soon.  But I bet the author, as well as all readers then, would never think of witnessing such a sea change had occurred to Shanghai and brought it to what it is now in just twenty years.

P.S. The amazing high-speed rails(see my last posting) and the magnificient Shanghai have been undoubtedly the great achievements of all people of China, and the CCP government as well.  But we should not be reluctant to give some credits to the main executives 劉志軍 and 陳良宇 who had been imprisioned due to the conviction of corruption when they were in the office.  Should we exonerate their charges from corruption because of their merits?  Certainly not; however, they really did something remarkable in spite of their inexcusable crimes.  By contrast, how about our good-for-nothing A-bian or our clean-handed President Ma, did they do anything good to Taiwan?