Still in China… I find it quite amazing that at the markets I’ve visited there are hoards of salespersons trying to sell me “ipods” that are almost exclusively all fakes. The fake/real ratio must be something like 20:1 or so!

While here, I’ve enjoyed a talk/lecture by a man called Fredrik Härén who lives here in Bejing. He talked about how China is developing at a marvelous pace and that we in the western world have “settled down” and if we don’t wake up and realize how things actually are, we are going to be overtaken by the asians a few years ahead. I think I’m quite prepared to agree with Fredrik on that. The Chinese are all hungry, eager and developing. We are full, laid back and more eager to teach others about how good we are…

Bejing is currently one gigantic construction area . They build countless skyskrapers, buildings, centers, streets, houses in preparation for the olympic games that will take off here in August next year. They also seem to more or less build the entire olympic setup: arenas and buildings etc from scratch. People who were in Bejing 10+ ago witness about how nothing is the same anymore. And quite frankly: Bejing is just another modern city with large buildings, streets and concrete. There are hardly any signs of anything Chinese, asian or eastern left in the city. I bet you can fool anyone that this is New York or Singapore or any other no-cultural-aura-left-world-city for quite some time if you’d just take a city tour. Amazing, but a bit boring. Impressive skyskrapers. I’ll love to see how the CCTV buildings will look like when they’re ready – two leaning towers currently under construction meant to be ready before the olympics.