ABSS-B-WE'RE-TWINS 1998 

City of Shantou, Guangdong, PRC, June 1996. With the Mayor of The City of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and an official of The City of Shantou,  PRC. After the ceremony of signing a letter of intent to twin both cities. Although Shantpu is a southern coastal city and one of the Five Special Economic Zones in China, however, due to the central government's strategy for economic reform, it was the last of the SEZ being developed intensively. Such that in 1996, there were still very few westerners in the city comparing to major cities, such as Shanghai and Beijing. I was being told that some of the locals actually thought the Mayor of Saint John was the Queen of England ( probably because of the color of her hair). I have also discovered that although Saint John has a population of about 120,000 and Shantou has a population of more than 4,000,000; however there are many similarities between both cities. Such as, both Saint John and Shantou are coastal cities located at the south-eastern part of their respective countries. On the municipal maps, not only they show that both cities are divided by a waterway in similar shapes at the general area of their central district, by coincidences, their downtown cores, airports, universities and a major parkland are all located at the similar area on their respective maps. On the maps, the two cities are practically 'identical twins'. I guess God sometimes does work in his mysterious ways.

ABSS-B-LIFE-4-JOB 1998

Nanyau District, Shanzhen Special Economic Zone, PRC, April, 1995. This evening, while we were having dinner at a local restaurant, we were being told that on the highway we just used, shortly after we passed-by, two out-of-province young female laborers working in a local factory were killed while trying to cross the highway. In some parts of China, it is common to see pedestrians crossing highways with traffics rushing-by in speeds exceeding 120 km/hr.

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