The other day I read a piece of news online, reporting a famous hard-liquore manufacturer in Shanxi province( Fen Jiu Group, to be exact) held an auction last week for their 20 bottles of liquor, made of part of their treasured stock said to have been brewed for around 60 years ( wow, that was the time when New China was founded!).With a floor price of RMB95,000, the concluded price of the first bottle finally sky-rocketed to 2.03M!Finally, all the 20 bottles had been auctioned with a total amount of nearly RMB35M！

What I could do was a bitter smile. For these past two or three years, China's real estate market is having a serious fever and most people are waiting for its cool-down, only to see it soaring higher and higher. I am lucky to have bought my apartment in 2004 , just before the housing price was to flare up.

Here's a piece of news about my hometown, not a pleasant one, however.   A young man surnamed Teng from a poor peasant's family was rejected by the famous local university (Lanzhou University) although he ranked the top in both written exam and comprehensive marks in the university's entrance exams.  The reason given by the university is that the young man is mentally and morally unqualified though he scored highest in the exams.

The only s