I have to make a confession though.  The truth is, even though deep down inside I know its the right thing to do, part of me is still very scared. 

If you had to make a prediction about the future of the US dollar, what would it be? Some people believe that developing countries that were exploited by first world countries will become the exploiters in the future... I hear forecasts of a coming Chinese bubble.  I am not seeing any good news.  There's talk about a real estate bubble in China and it may cause the Chinese economy to slow down.  

 

 So my friend, I went through the emails you wrote, and I copy and paste some of the issues you brought up to the top. I think I have something to share with you. The Peru trip kind of enlightened me in one way or another.

 

Peru, a country that is so far in Central American, yet I found answers to lot of questions.

  

Start with our tour guide Julio in Lima, the capital of Peru. Julio whom the parents witnessed the chaos of Peru in 80’s and fleeted to America, along with them was the 4 years old Julio. Yet 20 some years later, Julio decided to go back and stay in Peru – to pursue his goal of getting the world to know Peru better.

 

Is he a patriotism or idealism? I don’t know…. Peru, a still much slow developing third world country, where the average income for residents living in the capital is only 300 sols per month. My friend, that’s 10 sols per day which is equivalent to US $3 daily.

 

Sitting on the backseat in the taxi and as I glanced forward on the front seat of the passenger side, I saw the face of a  young Peruvian… Was it patriotism or idealism? My friend, I don’t know… I might never fully understood why someone would choose to go back to a much poor country when elsewhere he or she might live more comfortable. But you know why, it doesn’t matter. How many of us are not scare of making the first step out of our daily routine comfort zone?

 

I’m getting little bit lazy and too comfort at my current workplace as well. Scratching from ground zero freaks everyone. But doing something one might likes is worth for everything. Life is long, they said for our generation we might be able to live up to average of 75 years old.

 

Think about it, 75 years is a long period. Working for something you hate - is brutal. Julio might be a stupid idealism or patriotism - whoever people might look at him as, but he is happy.  

 

Peru is definitely a very different experience/trip for me. Set aside the altitude sickness and physical challenge that I have to battle with in this one week trip, it was in Lima – the capital of Peru, I found myself almost like I was traveling in a time machine. Lima brought me back to my childhood of China. China to me, is always a mix feeling. Love or hate, bitter or sweet, I don’t think there was ever a word or sentence can describe my complexity feeling that linked me to my motherland.

 

See, I was born in the 80s, where China opened her door to the outside. I’m the generation that witnessed and benefited from China’s “open door policy”.  Walking in the night market in Lima, it reminded me of my memory as a child where China’s blooming small business just started picking up by then. The streets were packed with people at night, where there were ton and ton of street vendors selling clothing, cuisine/food, and electronic gadgets, and that was a very typical China southern city settings in the era of 1980 – 1990. And here we are, in the year of 2010 in Peru I found a resemblance of 1990 China.

 

I couldn’t help but thinking why it took Peru more than 10 years of lagging time? And then my memory jogged  back the 1989 China’s “Tian-An Man square” incident. I couldn’t help but wondering what is more important? Democracy or a country that constantly in a state of instability like Peru or lot of poor counties has experienced? It was standing in this marvelous beautiful yet poor soil of Peru, I found my answer.   

 

And my friend, to answer your last question, will real estate in China become a bubble?

Have you watched the latest World Cup Brazil vs. North Korea? Or Swiss vs. Spain? Nobody could have predicted Swiss would actually beat down Spain to 1:0 or what are the odd chance North Korea could survive with the match against Brazil.  Will China’s real estate become a bubble? Maybe or maybe not. I don’t know, the water is too deep to predict...

 

It just like when it was before 2000, people were panic about the end of the world. My personal opinion? I think most time newspaper or researcher trend to be pessimistic. A key factor people might overlook is: YET China is still not a totally free market as most of the western countries – government still has more control over market if they want to insert more weight just enough to make/manipulate the direction of the wind to bend.