THE bold idea of late reformer Deng Xiaoping to choose the border town of Shenzhen (then Bao'an County) to be his laboratory for a vast experiment -- of making it China's first export-oriented special zone -- was taken as a joke by many Western journalists, who, in 1980, visited what is now Luohu District.
| The rocky start of transformation |
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| DATA： 2008-06-23 |
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| Dongmen in a 1980 file photo. |
Melinda Liu, one of U.S. magazine Newsweek's most experienced foreign correspondents, was among a group of Western reporters invited to a groundbreaking ceremony in Luohu just across the border from Hong Kong.
"Most of us looked askance at the patch of mud that was supposed to be China's future. Many thought the idea was a joke," Liu said in a memoir published recently.
Thirty years later Shenzhen is a metropolis of 12 million people, and still growing fast. The huts have been replaced by office blocks.
The magic of Shenzhen has far exceeded the world's expectations. But few people know the inside stories of the city's development, and the bumpy path of its transformation.
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