more at http://news.quickfound.net/intl/china_news.html "Life and work of the people who live in Chengtu, located in a valley in western China." Reupload of a previously uploaded film with improved video & sound. Public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu Chengdu (Chinese: 成都; Sichuanese: Cen2du1; pinyin: Chéngdū), formerly transliterated Chengtu, is the capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China. It holds sub-provincial administrative status. The urban area houses 14,047,625 inhabitants: 7,123,697 within the municipality's nine districts and 6,730,749 in the surrounding region. Chengdu is one of the most important economic, transportation, and communication centers in Western China. According to the 2007 Public Appraisal for Best Chinese Cities for Investment, Chengdu was chosen as one of the top ten cities to invest in out of a total of 280 urban centers in China. In 2006, it was named China's 4th-most livable city by China Daily. The fertile Chengdu Plain, on which Chengdu is located, is also known as the "Country of Heaven" (天府之国, Tiānfǔzhiguó), a phrase also often translated as "The Land of Abundance". The discovery of the Jinsha site suggests the area of Chengdu had become the center of the bronze age Sanxingdui culture around the time of the establishment of the state of Shu, prior to its annexation by Qin in 316 BC... As a central city for at least 2000 years, Chengdu's influence has gradually expanded from the Sichuan basin to Western China. At its height, Chengdu was once named "One of the Five Metropolis" in China and was equally famous with Yangzhou in history. During the Three-Kingdom period, Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu kingdom, called Chengdu "the land of abundance". Li Bai, the famous poet during the Tang Dynasty, eulogized the city as "Chengdu lies above empyrean". Su Shi, the eminent writer during the Song Dynasty, hailed Chengdu as "the southwestern metropolis". In the Eastern Han Dynasty, brocade production was advanced here, giving Chengdu the name "the brocade city". During the Latter Shu Kingdom, it got the name "the hibiscus city" since hibiscus trees were planted throughout the city walls, quite a site during their yearly blossom... Chengdu was also the birthplace of the first widely used paper money in the world (Northern Song Dynasty, around 960 AD)... In 1279 the Mongols sacked Chengdu, killing 1.4 million inhabitants in the process. In 1644, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, another rebel leader, Zhang Xianzhong, established a short-lived Daxi (大西) Dynasty in Sichuan with Chengdu, which he renamed Xijing (西京, Western Capital), as the capital. Zhang was said to have massacred large number of people in Sichuan with Chengdu reduced to a virtual ghost town frequented by tigers, and resulted in the resettlement of millions of people from other provinces during the Qing Dynasty. During the Second World War the Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) government under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek fled to Sichuan province to escape the invading Japanese forces. They brought with them businesspeople, workers and academics, who founded many of the industries and cultural institutions which continue to make Chengdu an important center. In 1944 the American XX Bomber Command launched Operation Matterhorn, an ambitious plan to base B-29 Superfortresses in Chengdu and strategically bomb the Japanese Home Islands... During the Chinese Civil War, Chengdu was the last city on the Chinese mainland to be held by the Kuomintang-controlled government... The industrial base is very broad, including light and heavy manufacturing, aluminum smelting and chemicals. The textile industry remains important, with cotton and wool milling added to the traditional manufacturing of silk brocade and satin. Chengdu is the headquarters of the Chengdu Military Region. On May 12, 2008, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck causing damage to the area, killing about 80,000 people and injuring 26,413 as of May 12, 2008. 4,021 of the casualties and most of the property damage were from Dujiangyan and Pengzhou, two cities within the administration of Chengdu, the sub-provincial city. Chengdu did not suffer any discernible damage. The reason why many people died in the surrounding areas had to do with poor construction. Though only 75 kilometres (47 mi) from the epicenter, Chengdu itself was built to earthquake specification, and most buildings there remained intact...

• published: 12 Apr 2016
• views: 98