QUOTE : Zhang thought about how quickly the face of his country had changed. . . . In a very short time, buildings hundreds of years old that had borne witness to the past had disappeared . . . Razed to the ground as though they had never existed. At times like these, it seemed to him that this untrammeled building frenzy and the incredible rate of change were a desperate attempt to flee from history, and the new high-rise buildings, roads, highways, airports, and factories were not so much signs of progress as giant memorials to the desire to forget. As if you could brick up memories. As if you could leave your shadow behind if you only walked fast enough