I have been there, lived in Shanghai for a year working for a design company. It’s easy for an outsider to write it off as a dystopian nightmare but the people that live there wouldn’t agree. They’ve been thru worse and most generations would have only seen growth and progress. We see infringements on American ideals but they never had those ideals in their entire history.

Currently the people are fed, they have employment, they drive cars or ride their amazing public transport system, it’s safe nearly anywhere you go at any time. They could easily look at our situation and think we are the ones living the nightmare. An inept government that fights itself, pathetic transportation, dangerous cities, school shootings. It just depends on what you started with and in 30 years their quality of life has dramatically improved while ours seems to have reached a plateau.