One way to understand China is to look at the statistics. Real income per person has increased nearly tenfold since 1990. Since the early 1980s, the number of extremely poor people in China has fallen by more than three-quarters of a billion people, more than half the population of the country. China consumed more cement in a recent three-year period than the US used in the entire 20th century.

Even on paper, it is the most dramatic explosion of economic activity in human history. Seeing with your own eyes is another experience entirely.

Nothing in the statistics truly prepared me for a journey across Guangdong, the southern province of China that has been at the forefront of this growth. Start at Hong Kong — the ultimate high-rise city — and walk into its mainland twin, Shenzhen. Then in the shadow of the Ping An skyscraper, which dwarfs the Empire State building, catch a bullet train across the province.