An ex-pat can expect to field a great variety of questions in their host country, and here in China the questions follow a similar pattern of curiosity. Random characters that we run into every day - taxi-drivers, shop-assistants, etc. - tend to ask the most banal questions, such as “can you use chopsticks?” and “where are you from?”.
More insightful queries tend to come from primary school-kids, acquaintances, and locals that I talk to on MSN or Skype, such as “why are you so hairy?”, and “how long will you stay?” Both those questions stump me every time.
Let’s ignore the contentious matter of hairiness, and tackle the thorny issue of “how long will you stay?” I was asked this just …
I’m not a timid man. Generally speaking I don’t get overtly nervous in most situations. However, any time I see the financial protection services folk, clad in their somewhat comical blue combats, and armed with a tube of a gun, I get shaky.
These guys, whose job it is to protect transfers of money between banks and to guard ATM repairs, look to be fresh off the playground for all their youth, and embody a cold sternness that is chilly to witness.
It’s hard not to see that they take their job quite seriously, but at the same time it’s hard to ignore that they look like kids with guns - and that’s just stupidly dangerous, as Ji Cheng could most certainly …
I was just reading Yale Professor Robert Schiller’s article Thrifty China, Spendthrift America, which explains the apparent discrepancy of the saving rate in America versus what’s occuring in China.
While I cannot provide as indepth an economic analysis as the learned professor has made, I would like to touch upon some of the points he discussed in his article. In doing so, I will be using a wide range of academic journals (to prop up the leg of my somewhat wobbly desk, which I bought in a Chinese market a few months back). I don’t profess to be a China Expert - but I am in China, and that’s gotta count for something, right?
The Professor states:
The saving rate in …
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