showing sturdy figures with chins uplifted in that “who cut one?” marxist pose. The woman in the booth pointed to the date on the poster, 1966, and wrote the price on the back of her hand: 100 yuan (or renmimbi, “people’s money,” as the yuan is now called)— about $12.50. A small and bent old man walked up. He had a few teeth and thick glasses. “Would you like a translation?” he said. The poster headline reads: REVOLUTIONARY STUDENTS MUST UNITE WITH REVOLUTIONARY FARMERS AND PARTICIPATE TOGETHER IN PLURAL CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN THE COUNTRYSIDE . With the same results, we know now, as the sugarcane harvesting I saw in Cuba. I gave the woman in the booth 100 yuan. “No, no,” said the old man. “You should have bargained with her.” “Well,” I said, “it’s guilt money. When that poster was printed, I thought I was for Mao.” The old man laughed, and then he said, “Oh, yes. Because I had been sent to a Japanese school during the occupation, I was exiled to the country.” “That must have been no fun.” “How I suffered,” he said. “But Mao was a great man.” “You really think so?” “But he was dictator too long. He did many harmful things. He did . . .” The old man thought about how to put it and then summed up the entire history of government evil in the realm of economics: “He did too much.” ***** Lippo Group, an Indonesian corporation that made illegal donations to the Clinton presidential campaign. Not one of Clinton’s juicier scandals, unfortunately precluding any “Lippo Grope” puns. ††††† As I mentioned, please don’t read this book to get investment advice—especially not real estate investment advice. Shanghai’s Pudong “New Area” looked soggy, vacant, and pointless in 1997. Today Pudong encompasses 467 square miles and is the most populous district of Shanghai with more than five million inhabitants. Shanghai’s new port facilities are located there as is, among stalagmites of skyscrapers, the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Pudong has its own international airport and, to pile the Ossa of the just plain strange upon the Pelion of strange city planning, a Disney resort.
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online