Hello Maurice, I arrived in BJ yesterday. Everything seems to be in order in the hotel here in Beijing; very fast broadband, plenty of channel cable TV, heavenly a whole box full of Godiva (72% concentration) dark chocolate wafers, and seemingly lighter than nothing watermelon juice. I have all the basic necessities of a comfortable life.
I actually arrived one day ahead of the rest of my traveling companions, all the better to chill, ruminate, and goof off, before the frenzied meeting schedules in each of the four cities we will tour.
We will stay in Beijing until Tuesday afternoon, Chongqin until Thursday sometime, Shanghai until Sunday, with a day trip to Suzhou on Saturday.
My traveling companions should prepare to be amazed, to experience the orderly chaos of an emerging nation, hear the birthing bustle of a rejuvenating civilization, and to witness the seemingly outrageous dynamism of a supposedly communist society.
I, otoh, will search for telltale signs of some sort of slowdown, landing, and / or collapse.
We will have the opportunity to converse with the bankers, state-owned, and private domestic and international companies, as well as bureaucrats in all four cities.
The four cities may or may not be representative of an economy that supposedly is only 1/11 of the USA, and 1/4 of Japan, but they are home to around 60 mm folks, and so good enough for quickly taking the pulse.
Perhaps the subject matters will veer towards international this and geopolitics that, and if so, I will be sure to give you a synopsis of this and that. I suspect that you, being from the anachronistic school of geo-realities and trapped in a downunder time warp bubble of some unique variety, could use some illuminating on what could more likely be ... it reminds me (and dates me), of those old Triumph TR7 Television advertisements, with the tag line "the shape of things to come".
This is from your roaming reporter on the job logging TeoTwawki to be :0)
Chugs, Jay |
