At age 40, Greg and Heidi Rhodes kept a rash promise to each other made 17 years earlier, when the naive, mortgage-free expats swore to return to China with their own children. Arriving back in the Middle Kingdom in 2005, they were surprised to find their former home city, Chengdu, unrecognizable. Familiar landmarks and expectations had been swept away by China's rushing tide of progress, replaced by glass skyscrapers, McDonald's restaurants, and a frenetic scramble to get ahead.