Sang's village turned out to be a metaphor for all of China - a showcase for all the progress its people have made, but a stark testament to how far China still has to go before we can truly call it a developed nation. Sang proudly showed me the progress his village had made. The central road of the village of 3000 people now had pavement and streetlights, most of the buildings were "western" instead of traditional Chinese and many had more than one floor. For Sang, this was an indication of the great improvements Chinese people have had since the times of Chairman Mao.
Though Mao himself is still widely revered in China as a man who founded the modern Chinese state, most Chinese acknowledge that his later economic and cultural policies did a lot of harm to Chinese people. This does not diminish their respect for him, however. They are inclined to forgive him for his mistakes. This is compounded by the fact that the official Chinese government narrative about Mao does not allow a completely clear or accurate picture of his life. They don't tell outright lies about him, as many people in the older generations of China remember his policies all too clearly, but neither do they articulate them particularly well to educate the younger generations. As a result, people like Sang absorb a conflicting message to "think of him as a great man, despite all his mistakes".
Despite the improvements that Sang pointed out to me, this was my first true instance of culture shock.
