Field Trip

I spent most of last week out of town in a small city (pop. 120,000) southeast of Beijing. I was with a team of urban planners working on a new detailed plan for the city government, and we spent a couple days walking all around the city checking out existing land uses. Among the interesting things I saw was a government compound with these characters painted on the wall on either side of the entrance. The compound houses the offices of the city's Salt Administration. The salt administration must have been one of the many government offices that was quite active once upon a time in the era of the planned economy. Nowadays, I don't think all that much happens inside these walls -- and yet, it still exists and it still employs a staff. For my class on reform-era China last year I read a book about how some of these old government bureaus are transforming themselves into private sector businesses -- housing departments becoming real estate developers, etc. I'm not sure if any of the salt admin. people are now getting into the salt-for-profit business.

Oh, I almost forgot. The characters say, "Strengthen Salt Administration Supervision. Provide Up-to-Standard Iodine Salt."  I suppose I could think of a more elegant translation, but I think these government slogans are more powerful in the original Chinese.