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Hi HN, OP here. I grew up in "Factory 404," a secret nuclear industrial city in the Gobi Desert that officially didn't exist on public maps. This is a memoir a
by Vincent_Yan404 10mo ago
Hi HN, OP here.
I grew up in "Factory 404," a secret nuclear industrial city in the Gobi Desert that officially didn't exist on public maps. This is a memoir about my childhood there.
It was a surreal place: we had elite scientists living next to laborers, a zoo in the middle of the desert, and distinct "communist" welfare, all hidden behind a classified code.
This is Part 1 of the story. I'm happy to answer any questions about life in a Chinese nuclear base!
- jama211 10mo agoAmazing story, thank you for sharing it
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you! I will post the second part on Monday.
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 10mo agoThanks Vincent for submitting, this is really fascinating.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you! I will post the second part soon.
- grumbelbart 10mo agoStupid question, but is 404 the real designator of that city, or a pun towards the HTTP error code? Edit: And what a great read, thank you!
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoNot a stupid question at all! 404 is the real, official designator (Factory 404) established in 1958, long before the web existed. The coincidence with the HTTP error code is purely accidental, yet incredibly poetic—because for decades, this city literally could not be found on any public map.
- netsharc 10mo agoI wonder why 404, any relation to 4 being similar to the word "death" in Chinese?
- embedding-shape 10mo agoMy first guess would be that they at one point decided to use numbers to designate locations instead of names, to make it easier for them to be secret (eg "codenames"). Then at one point someone figured that actually, lets not just thoughtlessly increment the numbers, but pick random numbers between 1-1000 so we add even more confusion. Kind of like Seal Team 6 I guess.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoYes,4 sounds similar to death in Chinese. But 404 was just a coincidence.
- tgv 10mo agoWell written, and interesting. I'm slightly surprised at the detailed memories you have from such an early age.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you! To me, my childhood memories are imprinted in my mind as vivid images. I'm simply using language to describe the pictures that I still see in my head.
- hermitcrab 10mo agoVery interesting, thank you.
- ocfnash 10mo agoThank you for sharing these memories. I'd be very interested to hear any thoughts you might have about Jung Chang's book "Wild Swans". I read this book a year or two ago and learned a lot from it, but I also learned that many people who grew up in China take issue with the author's account. I'd be grateful for any remarks you may be able to share.
- em500 10mo agoWhat are you looking for exactly? And what issues did you hear from others who grew up in China? Most of the historical / political events (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution) are fairly accurate, while personal / family experiences are necessarily subjective. China is a huge, diverse country with a vast range of experiences from people growing up in different regions and eras (just like the US, or Europe), so it's hard to dispute any personal / family experience.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoYou’ve touched on a very sensitive and important point. It’s true that many people who grew up in China have a complicated relationship with narratives that focus on negative historical periods. There is often a defensive reaction, a feeling that such stories are 'smearing' the country's image. However, as a writer, I believe that truth is always more important than a curated image. Authentic memories are often scarce, precisely because they are difficult to tell. My goal with the '404' series is to provide a piece of that missing truth—not to judge, but to document a reality that actually existed. In the long run, I believe a society is better served by facing its complex past than by forgetting it.
- justsomejew 10mo ago[dead]
- avhception 10mo agoHello from Germany, and thanks for the blog post. Fascinating read. I liked how you intertwined the personal point of view with the bigger picture. "Facing a complex past" is a big theme in Germany, too, of course, and I think it's the only proper way to deal with it. Direct witness accounts and retelling are important and add something that a dry history book can't provide. Keep up the good work!
- microtonal 10mo agoI just wanted to say ‘thank you!’. This was a really interesting read, looking forward to the next part!
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you! I will post on Monday.
- saagarjha 10mo agoPlease do share it here :)
- yorwba 10mo agoSince you mention a trip to Beijing, I wonder what the security precautions were to keep the secret base secret. I assume visitors from other cities would need to apply for a travel permit similar to the one still required for some border areas in Xinjiang and Tibet, but were there also restrictions on people leaving?
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThat’s a great question. In the early days, physical travel permits were indeed the norm. But the most effective 'security precaution' was psychological. We had secrecy education (保密教育) starting as early as primary school. We were taught from a very young age that our city didn't exist to the outside world, and we simply didn't talk about it. But when I was a kid ,I didn't know anything about 404.
- sophrosyne42 10mo agoGiven those precautions and your training, was it hard to share about it? Aren't you worried about the Chinese government punishing you for sharing?
- saltwatercowboy 10mo agoHe sells a storytelling course... perhaps this is meant to be a 'gotcha' where he reveals the con after the fact? My guess is there are people reading this who know something isn't quite right.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoI can personally guarantee that this piece is 100% non-fiction.My course also focuses on narrative writing techniques.Does 'Storytelling' have to imply fiction?In Chinese "story(故事）" just things happened, it can be real or fiction .
- schoen 10mo ago
- thenthenthen 10mo agoThank you for sharing. I have been researching this topic for about ten years now and no first hand accounts like to talk or are they alive anymore, this is a very important story, especially in contrast the the dominant Western narratives, thank you!
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you for this profound comment. It is incredibly humbling to hear this from someone who has spent a decade researching the topic. You are right—the generation that built '404' is aging, and many of their stories are fading into silence. One of my primary motivations for writing this was the realization that if I didn't document these memories now, they might be lost forever. I hope my first-hand account can provide a more nuanced, human layer to the historical data you've gathered. There is so much more to tell beyond the official records.
- panic 10mo ago[flagged]
- embedding-shape 10mo agoWhile reading through the post, I too felt it being similar to LLM generated text, but the stories and the perspective is uniquely human, or is there something specific that sticks out as inhuman from the text? Specific parts that sounds implausible? It obvious that something was used to do the translation, but it doesn't feel worse than any other machine-translated texts, as long as I get the gist and the overall idea of what the author is trying to communicate, I feel like it's good enough.
- panic 10mo agoThe fact that OP was a new account communicating completely via LLM made me suspicious. He does seem legit though based on his more recent comments.
- 10mo ago
- viktorcode 10mo agoJust wanted to say thank you for sharing this view into entirely different world for many of us!
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you for the kind words! It’s been an incredible experience sharing this 'different world' with the HN community today.
- moffers 10mo agoWas there anything you can recall that 404 maybe had but the rest of China might not have because of its special status? Access to newer consumer technologies, or something like that? Just was curious if there was something “better” about living in a government secret beyond long train rides and melting neighbors.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoExactly. To give you some concrete examples that I’ll dive deeper into in Part 2: Soviet Architecture: Many of our residential and administrative buildings were designed and built by Soviet experts, giving the city a distinct 'Stalinist empire' aesthetic that felt very grand compared to the surrounding desert. Elite Salaries: The wage levels in our factory were on par with those in Beijing, which was extraordinary given our remote location. The 'Post-Scarcity' Bubble: For many families, daily expenses were minimal because the 'unit' (Danwei) provided almost everything. We regularly received rations of high-quality rice, flour, and oil as part of our work benefits, so we rarely had to spend money on basic survival. In a country that was still struggling with scarcity, living in 404 felt like living in a futuristic, well-provisioned fortress. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll talk more about this 'gilded' lifestyle.
- eastbound 10mo agoYou’ve written more words in answers than in the original article. Thank you very much for giving us this privilege and providing “support” for details of your writings.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you for your kindness,I feel exciting to communicate with people from different culture.
- crazygringo 10mo ago> 404 is a classified code for a nuclear industrial base. Can you expand? A code under what system? What were some other code numbers and what (unclassified) things did they refer to? Did each code refer to a specific city or specific factory? Or were all cities/factories dedicated to a certain type of industry or military objective classified under the same code? Why did they teach you this code number growing up? I'm really fascinated by this. Fantastic story overall, can't wait for part 2!
- jdietrich 10mo agoMost things in the Chinese military system are numbered rather than named. Military units are numbered twice - a public cover designator and a private true unit designator, originally four and later five digits. Factories got a three digit number - 296 for the small arms factory in Jiangshe, 816 for the uranium enrichment plant in Fuling and so on. Everyone in and around Factory 404 would have known it as such, but the mere existence of Factory 404 was a state secret. The existence of such a large and conspicuous secret might seem bizarre to the post-cold-war mind, but it was fairly common in the West too. For example, the British Telecom Tower in central London stands at 189 metres tall and had a revolving restaurant that was open to the public, but was also a designated site under the Official Secrets Act.
- eastbound 10mo agoIs it victim of the enumeration vulnerability, ie between 403 and 405 you can guess what they were busy with and therefore identify the activity? Or do they randomize the numbers, but then just 3 digits seems little for such a big country?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoI don't know the code system, for me they are random 3 numbers(like Plant 504 : A uranium enrichment facility.)Thank you liking it, I will post the second part on Monday.
- ElijahLynn 10mo agoThank you so much for sharing your experience!
- quakeguy 10mo agoGreat article, thx for sharing it! What i want to know, where exactly is this city? I mean geographically, i even could not locate it on GMaps or the like?? I mean, i get it, thats the whole point isnt it? Still curious.
- lamek 10mo ago40.230000,97.360000
- AlotOfReading 10mo agohttps://www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B013'48.0%22N+97%C2%B021'39.6%22E https://www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B013'48.0%22N+97%C2%...
- quakeguy 10mo agoDamn, that looks awful, those tailings alone…
- pixl97 10mo agoAnd it looks like they have their own dedicated coal powerplant.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoYes，and I feel it's the sweetest home for many years.
- r58lf 10mo agothat's the work site. The residential town is about 10km SW of that marker.
- allan_s 10mo agoThanks a lot, I really first thought "404" was just a geek reference and not the actual code name ! I have some very good friends which are Chinese but are not able to read English, do you mind if I do a AI translation, and if you can check it to see if it translate what you're trying to convey ? (I propose that as I think it would be too much to ask to ask to redo the text in Chinese) Edit: haha I see you actually did the reverse ! Do you mind sharing also the original CHinese script ? That would also help me with my own mandarin learning !
- oofbey 10mo agoIs it just a coincidence that the HTTP code for “not found” became the same as the code name for this city?
- marssaxman 10mo agoI find it hard to imagine otherwise. HTTP codes are based on the server return code system used in FTP, first published in 1971, where each of the three digits had a specific role and the values simply counted up from 0-9 as different meanings were assigned. HTTP is a little looser about the syntax, but it's the same general idea. Given the scheme, something was going to be code 404.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoYes，it's just a coincidence.
- flybit 10mo ago[dead]
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThat’s so kind of you! I did write and publish this story in Chinese first. You don't need an AI translation for them; the original text exists and has been quite popular in the Chinese corner of the internet.You can search for it using the title:《我在404长大》
- jl6 10mo agoHi OP, as a side question, are you using an LLM like ChatGPT to translate or write your comments here?
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoYes，English is not my first langue, I have to use AI translate for now.
- edgineer 10mo agoWhat would you say to someone who has long been fascinated by nuclear weaponry and hopes to one day witness a test explosion? I see even China hasn't tested in decades and so my chances of doing this are close to nil, but I ask because your answer could tell more how you feel about the technology and its future. My physics professor told me to study supernovae instead.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoTo be honest, for me, nuclear explosions only exist in the imagery of propaganda and documentaries. I am not a physicist; I don't understand nuclear physics on a technical level. My perspective on 'the nuclear' is purely emotional and sensory—I simply find it terrifying. I resonate much more with the raw, human suffering described in Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl than I do with the scientific future of nuclear power.
- SilverElfin 10mo ago> During the “Three Years of Hardship” (1959–1961), when more than 30 million people across China starved to death, our factory area faced a desperate crisis. At one point, there were only a few days’ worth of rations left in the warehouses, and workers began to suffer from severe edema due to malnutrition. I was curious about this part and lingering perspectives among Chinese citizens. How do they regard the past mass starvations and deaths in the 1900s? Are these events well known? Are they seen as a catastrophe? Do they blame someone (like the government) or is it seen as the cost of progress or a natural disaster? Do old and young people see these events differently from each other? Thanks for writing and sharing!
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoI think it's well known, cause that generation are still alive.In the Northern China, the situation was often more dire because the land is unforgiving. In the South, people at least had the chance to supplement their rations by fishing in the rivers.While the official term often points to 'natural disasters,'it is widely recognized as a man-made catastrophe. I remember when I was 4 or 5 years old, my mother told me stories about those years. As a child, I didn't understand the historical context; I thought mass starvation was something that happened cyclically, like the seasons. I vividly remember asking her: 'Does this happen every few years? Should we start stockpiling food now just in case?' Even today, you will see older Chinese people who cannot bear to see a single grain of rice left on a plate. It’s not just frugality; it’s a ghost from 1959. A common criticism of Chinese people is that they 'eat everything,' but a major reason for this is that China has endured more famines than almost any other nation in human history.
- zerofor_conduct 10mo agoFascinating and well told - many thanks!
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you!
- sgnelson 10mo agoDid you interview Yuan Gongpu or was this part from another source? I'm interested in the laborers who did the work, not just the scientists who designed everything. Thanks for your story.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoSorry I didn't，his Chinese name is 原公浦，you can search this and there and many articles about him.
- simonw 10mo agoThis was fascinating, and a compelling story. Thanks for sharing it.
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoThank you for liking it!
- Vincent_Yan404 10mo agoUpdate: Part 2 is out now on my Substack. I will submit it as a separate post on HN later today once this thread cools down, to avoid spamming the front page. But for those asking, here is the direct link: https://substack.com/home/post/p-182824207 https://substack.com/home/post/p-182824207
- JakeSc 10mo agoGreat memoirs! One question: You mentioned that sports activities were organized by the units in 404. Which sports were played?