International Law

The China Rich....Are Not Like Us?

By Dan

Just got an email from a long-time loyal reader who is now in England studying law. His email was a combination of updates and thoughts and I just loved one portion of the thoughts. This person spent considerable time in Beijing tutoring children of high level Chinese executives, mostly bankers, and here, word for word, are some of his random, insightful thoughts from that experience:

1) None of them had counterfeit stuff in their houses. Even their DVDs were genuinely bought from Walmart, or HK, unlike most Westerners, whose apartments are full with fakes bought openly in Sanlitun.

2) None of them wanted their kids to go to university in China. They all universally hated China's education system and its high pressures. They all universally pushed their children to top their classes.

3) All of them were getting books banned in China from their frequent trips to HK, or from friends bringing them in. The recent one on WenJiaBao was common, but they also had stuff on Mao, T1a-nanmen etc. They would read and discuss them openly and their kids would read them too.

4) None of them wanted any kind of immediate reform. The best you could get was an admission that the government now was pretty 'arrogant' off how well they'd done in the past 3 years. One said this could be hubristic, others said it was well deserved.

5) The currency trader told me that on the day the government announced to great fanfare they'd allow some appreciation of the RMB, he was called in and told to generally not consider this as significant in his trading decisions.

6) The book industry in Beijing at least, must be doing well. Their book stores are massive emporiums, floor to ceiling on 6 levels of books, and incredibly busy. I asked why people don't go for ereaders. Was told they liked the feeling of choosing the books, and the smell!

The above all jibes with what I have seen with the Chinese lawyers in China with whom my firm works.  

What do you think?

Full post as published by China Law Blog on November 19, 2010 (boomark / email).