The Miracle Workers

Economists call it the Asian economic miracle, and a Miracle it was. Hundreds of millions of Asians who lived in mud huts and barely had enough to eat now dwell in high-rise apartments with stuffed refrigerators. They watch DVDs on plasma TVs, sip Starbucks cappuccinos and chat on mobile phones instead of wading in rice paddies behind ox-drawn plows. Asians were once lucky to complete a basic sixth-grade education; today they have the cash to send their kids to Harvard. And it all happened in one generation. Of all the major trends that have influenced the past half-century in Asia—the rise of democracy, war and revolution, the threat of terrorism—it is the Miracle that has touched the most lives, and been the biggest factor in shaping the Asia we know today. Ulsan was at the heart of the Miracle. Before the factories came along in the mid-1960s, it was a miserable village of clay-and-thatch huts, and most residents were poor rice farmers and fishermen. Read more: www.time.com