kun shan

I stayed two extra days in Xi'An, doing nothing but sucking in the pleasant atmosphere of the aesthetic parks, the bustling downtown, the kited ancient courtyards. When I finally left, it was on an overnight train heading east, back towards Shanghai.
I decided to make an impromptu stop in Kun Shan, which, thanks to a new high-speed train making it a mere eighteen minutes' commute from Shanghai, has now been resorbed as a hefty addition to Shanghai's tumescent metro area. Thomas Friedman called Kun Shan one of China's four or five Silicone Valleys in The World Is Flat; it's a wealthy little suburb of about a million people, boasting miles of manufacturing plants and factories, in which a significant hunk of the world's semi-conductors, computer peripheral parts, cell phones, fiberoptics and solar energy panels are being churned out by propsering Taiwanese-owned-and-operated companies looking for cheaper land and labor than available in flourishing Fomosa. The Chinese nickname for its downtown, rife with business owners' expensive-looking spawn and Taiwanese cuisine, is therefore 'Little Taipei'.
My aunt and uncle, themselves both Taiwanese, own a pair of companies that profitably make and manufacture industrial scales and computer gaskets. They moved to Kun Shan nearly a decade ago to save on operating costs, and, due to the area's rapid growth, have prospected land and labor options in rural China and Southeast Asia. I spent a couple of nights recuperating from satiated wanderlust in their gated community, quiet save for the patter of two boisterous golden retrievers.