This book is as fresh and surprising as its title. American Chinese Xiaowei Weng explores the many ways tech is changing rural China, its small towns, agriculture, and work patterns. Essays look at food safety, blockchain chicken-raising, AI on pig farms, and pearl cultivation, among many other fascinating topics. Although they recognize that China is a repressive regime, nevertheless experiments with technology improve the lives of Chinese farmers and villagers—or do they pacify them? “Will a large, lumbering government truly manage to help scale up social trust, given the mistrust people have toward the government already?” Weng asks (44).