After decades of enormous change, one cannot help being astonished - the world is utterly different.
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history
From Mao Zedong's (毛泽东) 1956 ci poem 《水调歌头·游泳》 (Swimming): 神女应无恙，当惊世界殊 - 'The goddess of Wu must still be well, but she would be astonished at how different the world has become,' reflecting on the planned Three Gorges Dam reshaping the Yangtze.
usage
A favorite rhetorical line for anniversaries and retrospectives on modernization. 殊 here means 'different / distinct,' not 'special.' Strongly associated with Mao-era political poetry.
