Jan Chipchase travelled 7,100km through the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) (“a remote, sparsely populated, mostly Pamiri, Kyrgyz-speaking region of Tajikistan”) with only a small piece of hand luggage, and in those rugged, beautiful mountains, discovered 61 glimpses of the future.
His list is surprisingly good and thought-provoking and many could spawn their own science fiction short stories. See also Bruce Sterling’s Taklamakan, from A Good Old-Fashioned Future.
2. If you’re wondering how long the Chinese economic miracle will last, the answer will probably be found in the bets made on commercial and residential developments in Chinese 3rd to 6th tier cities in Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai and Tibet.5. You no longer need to carry a translation app on your phone. If there’s someone to speak with, they’ll have one on theirs.
12. The premium for buying gasoline in a remote village in the GBAO is 20% more than the nearest town. Gasoline is harder to come by, and more valuable than connectivity.
17. Every time you describe someone in your own country as a terrorist, a freedom is taken away from a person in another country. Every country has its own notion of “terrorism”, and the overuse, and reaction to the term in your country helps legitimise the crack-down of restive populations in other countries.
19. After twenty years of promising to deliver, Chinese solar products are now practical (available for purchase, affordable, sufficiently efficient, robust) for any community on the edge-of-grid, anywhere in the world. Either shared, or sole ownership.
24. There is only one rule for driving in the GBAO: give a lift to every local that wants one, until the car is full. It’s common to travel main thoroughfares for a day and only see a couple of vehicles.
35. One of the more interesting aspects of very high net worth individuals (the financial 0.001%), is the entourage that they attract, and the interrelations between members of that entourage. This is my first time travelling with a spiritual leader (the religious 0.001%), whose entourage included disciples, and members of the financial 0.01% looking for a karmic handout. The behaviour of silicon valley’s nouveau riche is often parodied but when it comes to weirdness, faith trumps money every time. Any bets on the first Silicon Valley billionaire to successfully marry the two? Or vice versa?41. The growing global awareness of “Beijing time”.
42. After the Urumqi riots in 2009 the Chinese government cut of internet connectivity to Xinjiang province for a full year. Today connectivity is so prevalent and integrated into every aspect of Xinjiang society, that cutting it off it would hurt the state’s ability to control the population more than hinder their opposition. There are many parts to the current state strategy is to limit subversion, the most visible of which is access to the means of travel. For example every gas station between Kashi and Urumqi has barbed wire barriers at its gates, and someone checking IDs.
43. TV used to be the primary way for the edge-of-grid have-nots to discover what they want to have. Today it is discovering geotagged images from nearby places, sometimes hundreds of kilometres away.
45. The sooner western companies own up to copying WeChat, the sooner we can get on with acknowledging a significant shift in the global creative center of gravity.
49. The most interesting destinations aren’t geotagged, are not easily geo-taggable. Bonus points if you can figure that one out.
55. Pockets of Chengdu are starting to out-cool Tokyo.
58. If you want to understand where a country is heading pick a 2nd or 3rd tier city and revisit it over many years. Chengdu remains my bellwether 2nd tier Chinese city. It’s inland, has a strong local identity and sub-cultures, and has room to grow. Bonus: its’ only a few hours from some of the best mountain ranges in the world.
59. Japan remains the lead use case for a depopulating society, with 40 million less people in the next 50 years. It has the opportunity to be a world leader in figuring out how to make depopulation work at a societal level. China will lose an estimated 400 million people by 2100, from its peak of 1.4 billion in 2020.
60. The difference between 2.5G and 3G? In the words of a smartphone wielding GBAO teenager on the day 3G data was switched on her town, “I can breathe”.
61 Glimpses of the Future
[Jan Chipchase/Medium]