On the flight from Beijing to Hong Kong I sat next to a gentleman who struck up a conversation based on my Chinese studies. He was a Russian diplomat stationed in Hong Kong who spoke Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, English and a bit of Portuguese. he lived in mainland China for 13 years and was in Beijing during the Tianamen Square incident. He claims 203 people were killed and mostly not in the main square. He also felt the students had no idea what they were doing and had no hope of getting anywhere that day. He was reading a Chinese magazine with an article by a Chinese political science professor at Columbia University about what will happen next year when the new leaders take power. No one seems to be overly worried about the transition since the goal is always a "harmonious society". It's a good thing China doesn't compete for the Stanley Cup.
On Saturday night I dressed up and headed for Lan Kwai Fong to see who I'd meet. I ended up chatting with two Frenchmen who were on their way home after a visit to their factory in Shenzhen (just across the border in Mainland China). One had lived in Miami for 20 years and spoke fluent English, the other knew high school level English and got roped into a bachelorette party where the girls were all wearing pink wigs and the bride to be was in purple. They introduced him to Jello shots and it did not seem to matter that they could not really speak the same language.
Today I took a trip to Macau and met an Austrian with a Norweigen name, living in Switzerland and working in Lichtenstein. He was in Hong Kong to meet with clients and this was his second trip to Macau. All his clients are fleeing to gold, the real stuff, none of those ETFs. God help us if we end up losing complete faith in the dollar and the Euro. Maybe I should buy more RMB while my money is still worth something...or maybe I'll just buy some more clothes. I do love Shanghai Tang.
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