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Golf in China

As we walked out to the first tee of the Palm Beach golf course in Fengxian, 20 miles outside Shanghai, one of the businessmen I was playing with said casually that he was - as usual - offering 50,000 renminbi,...

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October 26, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

Future Dragons

He is four months old, 16 pounds and he smiles a lot. And Feng Shilong - nicknamed Long-long, "dragon dragon" - was probably born at the best time yet for a Chinese baby. His mother, Hong Lei, works for an...

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October 25, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

A Foreigner in China

It is not often you get to make a decision that will change your life. Sonya Gerber faced one of those moments last year - all of 21 years old, fresh out of Purdue with a degree in hotel management,...

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October 23, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Pull of the Land

Average commuting time from home to work - 70 hours. Such was the case for Wu Guangfu, a 30 year-old from Wushan on the Yangtze in central China. For the past 10 years or so Wu has been working as...

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October 22, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

SWIMMING IN THE CITY OF GHOSTS

Sun Huachuan is an amply proportioned man, whose girth befits a former official from the Food Bureau. He is retired now -- but keeps himself fit by swimming, every day, in the murky waters of the Yangtze. Never mind that...

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October 20, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

THE GOLDEN RING

The ring cost 85,000 renminbi - over $11,000 - from the Trinity series of Cartier jewelry. A double twined gold band encrusted with diamonds - and a hot favorite at Chongqing's Cartier store, opened 6 months ago to serve the...

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October 19, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

MAH JONG FOREVER

Mah jong, they say, is China's national game. There is nothing more evocative of China than the sound of mah jong tiles - originally made of ivory and bamboo, now usually plastic - being shuffled on a table top. Some...

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October 18, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

144 percent proof

72 percent alcohol? He has to be kidding - that is 144 percent proof, about the same level as absinthe which has at best a tenuous relationship with the law. And yet here is Li Qi Chun, an administrative manager...

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October 17, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

THROUGH THE SMOG DARKLY

I am sitting in my hotel room in Hong Kong which has a tremendous view out over Hong Kong Harbor - or at least would have a tremendous view if it were not for the pollution which now hangs heavy...

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October 16, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)