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DALI, China - 'A typical morning for Lin Liya, a native of Shanghai transplanted to this ancient town in southwest China, goes like this: See her 3-year-old son off to school near the mountains; go for a half-hour run on the shores of Erhai Lake; and browse the local market for fresh vegetables and meat. 'She finished her run one morning beneath cloudless blue skies and sat down with a visitor from Beijing in the lakeside boutique hotel started by her and her husband. '"I think luxury is sunshine, good air and good water," she said. "But in the big city, you can't get those things." 'More than two years ago, Ms. Lin, 34, and her husband gave up comfortable careers in the booming southern city of Guangzhou - she at a Norwegian risk management company, he at an advertising firm that he had founded - to join the growing number of urbanites who have decamped to rural China. One resident here calls them "environmental refugees" or "environmental immigrants."'

DALI, China - 'A typical morning for Lin Liya, a native of Shanghai transplanted to this ancient town in southwest China, goes like this: See her 3-year-old son off to school near the mountains; go for a half-hour run on the shores of Erhai Lake; and browse the local market for fresh vegetables and meat. 'She finished her run one morning beneath cloudless blue skies and sat down with a visitor from Beijing in the lakeside boutique hotel started by her and her husband. '"I think luxury is sunshine, good air and good water," she said. "But in the big city, you can't get those things." 'More than two years ago, Ms. Lin, 34, and her husband gave up comfortable careers in the booming southern city of Guangzhou - she at a Norwegian risk management company, he at an advertising firm that he had founded - to join the growing number of urbanites who have decamped to rural China. One resident here calls them "environmental refugees" or "environmental immigrants."'

But thousands of microbloggers in China have used the juxtaposition of callousness and heroism to fuel a wrenching debate over whether people in their country lack compassion and, if so, why.... Said one commentator about the Hangzhou rescue: "Yesterday Obama had a beer with out-of-work construction workers. Today, I see a story about an American tourist jumping into the water to save someone. I finally realized why America is such a strong country and will continue to be one."

China has nothing comparable to the research, industrial and economic resources of the United States. Yet the Chinese are blowing us away in the technology race to the future

In China, 42 high-speed rail lines have opened or are set to open by 2012; the U.S. hopes to build its first high-speed line by 2014. The Chinese bullet train, which has the world's fastest average speed, travels 664 miles from Guangzhouon the coast to Wuhan, deep in the interior. In a little more than three hours. Travelling the same distance from Boston to southern Virginia, the train takes less time than Amtrak's fastest train, the Acela, takes to go from Boston to New York. By comparison, the United States hopes to build its first high-speed rail line by 2014 - linking only the 84 miles between Tampa and Orlando, Fla.

In a globalized economy, the countries that pay the most and offer the greatest chance for advancement tend to get the top talent. South America's best soccer players generally migrate to Europe, where the salaries are high and the tournaments are glitzier than those in Brazil or Argentina. Many top high-tech workers from India and China move to the United States to work for American companies. And the United States, with its high salaries and technological innovation, is also the world's most powerful magnet for doctors, attracting more every year than Britain, Canada and Australia - the next most popular destinations for migrating doctors - combined.