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1:When I was young, China was in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. Schools were closed and all the young people were sent to the countryside to do menial labor for "re-educa-tion." Those days were tough, but the harsh country life gave me tenacity and sense of tol-erance. 2:In 1978, Mr. Deng Xiaoping, a wise leader of China, led the country into an unprecedented campaign to introduce a market economy. The reform and opening up unleashed such enthu-siasm for economic development, that it has completely transformed China in the last 25years. In 2003, the GDP of China reached 1.4trillion US dollars, which is more than three times that of Australia. But with our population of 1.3 billion, this gives population of 1.3 billion;this gives a per capita GDP of only 1,000 US dollars. It is only 3%-4% that of Australia, but is already a significant historical improvement in China' s Context. 3:China has also grown into a huge market with 80 million Internet users, and the number of cell-phone users now exceeds 300 million.China has also become the largest Asian market for tourism, with over 20 million Chinese citizens travelling overseas last year. 4:Currently, China is carrying out a nationwide debate on the amendment of the Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons. Many people advanced suggestions about how to better safeguard the rights and interests of this com-munity. We are also undertaking a national sur-vey on the disabled community to understand their exact number, geographical distribution,causes of disability, living conditions, rehabilita-tion, education and employment, etc. 5:Xi ' an , the capital of Shanxi Province , to -gether with Athens, Rome and Cairo, are re-garded as the four major ancient capitals of the world. It has a history of over 3,000 years, with thirteen dynasties having their capitals there over a period of about 1,100 years. In ancient times Xi' an was called Chang' an, which means, literally, long lasting peace and security.The city witnessed many major events in China ' s history. Every brick, every object unearthed in that historic city can tell us a fascinating sto-ry. The Shanxi History Museum there has a col-lection of over 370,000 items.