Chineese Capitalism is the Weirdest. Thing. Ever. From The Great Leap: Scenes from China's Industrial Revolution by Bill McKibben in the December 2005 issue of Harpers.

Before showing me his factory, Bao wanted us to visit the Hua Xin Li Dress Co, Ltd, which was by Chinese standards a venerable firm. It had opened its doors in 1987, right around the time that Deng Xiaoping had begun to allow any such enterprise. From a home factory with five or six employees, it had grown into a medium-sized enterprise with several hundred workers. "'First Quality and Prestige Supreme' is our aim", says the company's brochure; on the day we visited they were churning out slightly garish yellow dress shirts for the Eastern European market. The factory was three stories tall, and on each floor young women, and a few young men, in white company T-shirts sat, four abreast, in front of new sewing machines imported from Japan. It was a hot day, but big fans moved plenty of air around. There was a busy hum, but not a din. The women worked fast, especially the button-sewers at the end of the room, but not frantically. A large red banner hung over the middle of each room reading, in Chinese, "The Customer Is God and the Market Decides Everything".

The whole article is very much worth reading. Gets right past the usual talking points about China and into the real human situation. Fascinating. I envy my friends who have been there.