Modern cities are odd beings, and each modern nation has its fair share of such oddities, each with its own eccentric touch. The city of Zhengzhou, in China's central Henan Province, has named its streets to put on public display its dogged preoccupation with politics. The paramilitary-guarded Henan provincial government sits at the city's geometric heart; from this ground zero emanate roads and streets each bearing a moniker as dull as the next: Government Street no. 1 (Zhengyi jie), Government Street no. 2 (Zheng'er jie) . . . For the capital seat of a province that lays claim to “five thousand years of human civilization,” the message seems to be that politics, communist in particular, has the power to wipe everything clean and start from a blank slab.
Other cities are fortunately less obscene in their exhibition of confidence. Astrid Møller-Olsen's new book, Sensing the Sinophone...
