Weather and Economics

Today was a really incredible day in Beijing. Yesterday was terrible; the pollution was so bad you couldn't see buildings a block away. No matter how much they tell me so, I will not believe it when the Chinese say this is "fog." It is smog, people--get over it.

At any rate, last night the wind picked up and then it started to rain hard. This morning when I woke up the sky was clear blue and there was still a 20-knot breeze out of the north (aka, Mongolia!). The air had that particular October quality to it, cold but not too much so, and even on the horizon where smog tends to collect, images were crisp. The mountains to the north and west were clearly outlined against the sky, and you could see the Great Wall! This doesn't happen so often.

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Tomorrow we have "presentation lectures"--five minute speech and then 5 minutes answer questions. My topic is, why America deserves to fail economically. Main points of my argument: we are an economic empire that has taken advantage of our power and influence to get ahead. We have lived beyond our means for too long, never considering future consequences but only today's wealth. Without some thought for future stability, and with an indelible belief that our global hegemony will last forever, coupled with our excess consumerism and excess arrogance, perhaps we deserve what we get. If we are so stupid not too take some measure to preserve our prosperity and our influence, and then not to recognize when disaster is upon us, but blindly continue to believe that our empire can never fall, then perhaps we deserve to fail.

I think this will be a popular topic with the teachers, especially the part about exploiting others to get ahead (Cough*cough*). I hope they don't take me too seriously, although there's probably some grains of truth to what I say.

did i mention this is in CHINESE? why am I here??? Oh wait, because I can't get a job at home; there's no work because our economy is failing. So now I'm living in a city that's worse for my health than cigarettes, a million miles away, criticizing my country...A vicious cycle....