In the old days, traveling used to be a luxury. Now however, it’s a new way of living for some Chinese.

Anti-China rhetoric is at an all-time high. However, China does matter to everybody.

Double 11 (November 11th) is by far the world’s biggest online shopping day.

Mijn oog viel vandaag op een artikel van de The Sunday Morning Herald, een Australische krant. Hetzelfde verhaal als EANDIS, maar dan nog een beetje kostelijker.

“Australia discovers cost of blocking China in Ausgrid sale”

The NSW state government announced on Thursday it had sold a 50.4 per cent stake in Ausgrid to two local superannuation funds in a deal valuing the entire company, including debt, at about $20.8 billion (=13 miljard euro). Two months earlier, the federal government barred NSW from accepting an offer from State Grid Corp. of China that was said to value the power network at about $25.1 billion, citing national security concerns.

Just last month my family and I were on a holiday in Toronto, Canada for three weeks. Toronto is one of these places with a large international community, not in the least Chinese. During the holiday we stayed mostly at the house of my wife’s Chinese friend which four brothers and sisters are all living in Toronto. Their parents made their fortune in the textile industry in China and decided that it would be better for their children to live abroad. So they did what all Chinese parents with the necessary means would do: they bought them all a house. And as the family had business connections with Canada and had invested money there, as a way of economic emigr

The Cultural Revolution happened a long time ago, but the effects are still present.

I live partly in a world of expats and executives who stay in China for a few years and then move away again to their next assignment somewhere else in the world. A lot of these expats are living the dream: a driver, international school for the children, an a yi (nanny), and a big house in a neighborhood which is as western as it gets. It's a real western bubble in the Chinese society. Consequently for them it's difficult to know something about how the biggest part of the Chinese citizens live.

My life in China has been completely different. When I came in 2004 to China at the age of 24, I was young, willing to learn new things, and absorb the surroundings. Now 12 years later, I see that my understanding of China is somewhat different than other westerners, because of my different experiences.