Back For Good

That was the inscription on a t-shirt in the Shanghai crowd this week and
it summed things up for me all at once. Back for good after ten years of
trying. New job starts on August 20 when I move into a dormitory (at age 50!)
with my fellow teachers. Very, very scary. Must learn to stay schtum. "Bob" will have to come later...much later.

The Olympics are of course using up what little oxygen there is here in the Chinese
atmosphere. At high noon yesterday, President Hu Jintao was televised live receiving
a line, a long line, of world leaders and their wives/female escorts for a photo op before
the welcome luncheon. President Bush and First Lady Laura had to wait their turn after
President Bongo of Gabon. Prime Minister Putin looked grumpy, only because I found out
later that the Republic of Georgia had decided to use the Olympics to start a war on Russia's
south border. The opening ceremony did not disappoint - high tech mass spectacle a la
Cirque de Soleil then the parade of world athletes. I had to explain to my geographically
challenged wife and in-laws where places like the Cayman Islands were and what their
claim to fame was (off-shore banking). Finally the Head Bureaucrat opened the games,
the flame was lit, and the pageant was over.

Shanghai gets a small share of Olympic soccer, but people are waiting for what happens
when the circus is over. Gas prices will go up, there is no doubt, and the Shanghai
stock market continues to tank. Food prices have leveled off after a spike this Spring,
but at least they finished the Carrefour in our neighborhood. Still haven't decided what
I am going to do for my 50th birthday on Aug 18th. An austerity budget managed by
my lovely wife reminds me that the fat days blowing yen in Japan are over forever.