Daily Lessons from Life 28 July -03 August 2012 - Various

Yes, you guessed it! I was in Shanghai from 28 July to 2 August 2012 without access to the blog!

A catch up over the last few days:

1. Did I mentioned about the 2012 London Olympic earlier? If not, some thoughts on the happening so far:

1.1 Chinese's obsession with Gold medals, or the Authority's obsession - it is a profession really for the athletes involved. Pure and simple. They live, breath and dream Olympic!;

1.2 some Chinese are against this obsession with Gold medals as they voiced their displeasure in the cyberspace with lots of gusto. It is still the minority as NOTHING works like Nationalism in time of pending troubles at home - the widening rich/poor gap, uncertainty in changing the economic growth model from export-led to domestic consumption;

1.3 the big fuzz about the phenomenal performance by a 16-year old girl swimmer who swam faster than Michael Phelp! A loud crying of foul by the American head coach was countered by a lot of neutral, including many Western folks, who said the American had overstepped common decency! Michael Phelp was phenomenal as a 15-year old and NOBODY cried foul!

2. Singapore Table Tennis player won Bronze medal in the woman individual single competition - the 1st in many years for an individual competitor. Yet, I did not feel much joy as the player is a transplanted Chinese player who become a Singapore citizen a few years back. A bit silly I guessed but I feel it will make a difference if we get a locally born and bred player winning! Anyway, just like some of the native Chinese who felt that Olympic should not be all about winning, I have that bit of Romanticism left in me?

3. while in Shanghai, I came across quite a few Chinese who had lived and worked overseas with global companies and came back to live and work. Their qualification are very impressive and there are really making my prediction in 1994-95 while working in Beijing that I will work for some of my colleagues if I continue to work in China! :-)

That's all for now though the Beijing flood might be a more critical look at the tendency of people in authority wanting to show the 'glisttering' high rise and ignore the choked underground waterway, etc!