Shan-hsi

The Great Plain extends from the Yang-tzŭ River to the mountains which divide Chih-li and Shan-hsi and Manchuria, and supports a population estimated at more than a hundred millions, reminding one in denstiy of inhabitants of the province of Bengal.

Farmers husking corn at the Ming Chien People’s Commune in T’ai-yuan, Shan-hsi, are using their new electrical machine. [...]A mechanical cotton picker has not yet appeared in the Ming Chien People’s Commune in Shan-hsi, so slow hand picking goes on.

Apparently the Russians had complained that tea tasted different when it was shipped in by train, having gotten used to tea saturated with the sweat of camels carrying merchants across the Gobi Desert from Shan-hsi.