Blockchain Chicken Farm summary

China did it first. This triumphant theme comes up again and again in Chinese museums, history books, and in popular culture. And it’s largely true.

The Chinese were the first to create revolutionary products like paper and gunpowder. They were also the first to invent vinegar – the earliest recipe appears in Chinese texts from 1,500 years ago. There’s even evidence that early Chinese farmers were studying genetic variation in domestic animals.

Meet Sun Wei. Wei was born in Anhui, a rural region in central China. His father worked as a mechanic for the local state-owned railway company. And Wei, having only a vocational high school education, was expected to follow in his footsteps.

But Wei took a different path. In his teens, he became fascinated with model planes. Using the internet, he found a whole community of people building and flying them. Soon, he was taking online classes and training to be a drone pilot. Now, at 25, he’s a licensed drone operator. And he’s putting his skills to work in the emerging field of precision agriculture.

Imagine a small knick-knack, toy, or tchotchke – perhaps a disposable plastic figurine or a cheaply made bit of jewelry. Now, think about holding that object in your hand and slowly turning it over. You can already predict what you’ll find underneath: a tiny sticker emblazoned with the words “Made in China.”

In the 1990s, China’s economy boomed. The country’s industrializing cities became powerhouses for manufacturing cheap commodities to be sold in the West. The flood of discount goods soon earned China a reputation for making poor-quality knockoffs.

Your address and phone number. Your last ten online purchases. The exact distance between the inner corners of your eyes. These fragmentary pieces of data are all stored in databases and servers scattered across the globe.

But, what happens when you bring these facts and figures together? Do you get an accurate picture of the real you? Probably not. No facial scan or intricate algorithm can capture your hopes and dreams, your inner thoughts, or your true personality.

Let’s take a trip to Shangdiping, a tiny village of 900 people in the mountainous Guizhou Province. For the first thousand years of its existence, the only route to this community was a meandering footpath through the hills. That all changed in 2018 when a new, paved road was built.

Shangdiping, like many remote villages, is slowly changing. It’s now a patchwork mix of traditional and modern lifestyles. Farm animals still wander the streets, but there’s a flashy new internet cafe. The town’s single restaurant has no signage or set prices, but you can pay your bill with the smartphone app WeChat.

On British television, the cartoon character Peppa Pig is a friendly young piglet who learns important life lessons about growing up. But on the Chinese internet, this animated star has a different persona. This Peppa wears dark sunglasses, smokes cigarettes, and believes in nothing.

What accounts for this drastic shift? In China, Peppa Pig has been adopted as an ironic meme and mascot by shehui ren. Shehui ren, translated as “society person,” is a catch-all term for disillusioned youth who feel discarded and alienated by mainstream life.