We should understand that the high living standards that the US citizens enjoy are built upon the availability of cheap energy sources.  When the crude oil price soars and trouble appears in Middle East, one often cannot help but wondering not if but when the prosperity will crumble like a house of cards.  Thus it is particularly unfortunate that the Chinese government chose to encourage private auto ownership instead of aggressively developing a sound public transportation system that meets the demand of today's China.  No, I am not arguing that China's ever-increasing appetite for fuel is endangering the well being of the people in the US and beyond.  I am arguing that China should not miss its unique opportunity to learn from the mistakes and weaknesses of the developed country.

People in Beijing have had the chance to breath clean

It’s been hard to bring myself to see the photos of and read about the devastated parents of the perished school children in the Sichuan earthquake.  The parents want an answer, want justice, want to punish the culprits – they want something, something that may just bring a little sense to this madness, something that may explain the unexplainable, something that may help them to let go, to resign, even to start the healing of the unhealable wound...

But nothing, nothing we know that can bring back what they have lost.  Nothing can bring back their shattered lives, gone forever.

Will anyone remember these parents and their children a year from now? Two? Three? Ten years?  Collectively, Chinese seem to have short memories especially for things happened in recent decades.

Beijing has becoming quite an international city now.  Take a look at its architectural and population ensembles.   And the commerce... 

I was in one of the Starbucks stores at CBD one day.  All kinds of people were sitting in and around the café, talking, smoking, spacing out, and WORKING.  A middle-aged man, colonizing a whole table as if it's his office desk with a lap-top and stacks of paper, was loudly conducting multiple phone conversations in English with a British accent, anxious and stressed.  It was a little amusing to contemplate which corners of the world the phone calls had reached; and just how much the receivers of the calls shared his anxiety. 

One world, pulsating together.