Recently, I visited a second tier city in Western China, called Chengdu, with about 5 million population.

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Since moving back to Sonoma in 2010, Ms. Ching and her older daughter regularly Skype with a teacher in Chengdu to maintain their Mandarin.

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They and a number of other luxury companies have opened up new stores with breakneck speed in places like Chengdu, a city in southwestern China, and Hangzhou, a city near Shanghai.

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The roads in the city of Yingjing, on the way to Lushan from Chengdu, were packed with heavy equipment brought in by military and rescue workers, but police were restricting much of the travel.

WSJ: Death Toll From China Quake Rises to 186

Apple said it has established new requirements for firms dealing with combustible dust after the blast in Chengdu and an explosion at another supplier's factory in Shanghai that injured 59.

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Both Chengdu and Chongqing have been experimenting with this.

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The trip begins with four days in China, Beijing, and the southwestern city of Chengdu.

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Houses collapsed and roads buckled when the quake hit, with much of the intensity concentrated in Lushan, a county just southwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu.

WSJ: Death Toll From China Quake Rises to 186