Will Shanghai take over Chicago as the next alpha world city? (tax, standard of living)

[lincolnparker]

Kunming did not host the world fair. It hosted the international garden expo.So shanghai is still going to be the first to host the world fair in china

Originally Posted by outsider1

Second. Kunming hosted it in 1999. Kunming is China, southwest of where the big earthquake hit earlier this year.

[tcubed]

Fried bugs?!! In Shanghai?!!! A few months before the Olympics, I spent a month touring the major Eastern Chinese cities: Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Xian, etc.. They are all major metropolises, filled with busy, hardworking people, and dedicated students. The Chinese government is actively engaged in upgrading the urban and supporting infrastructures--new highways, power transmission lines, airports, rapid transit. Far from being backward areas that US citizens should dread to visit, they are amazingly modern, embarrassingly so when compared to the decaying infrastructure of even relatively prosperous US cities (e.g. Minneapolis). Impressive modern architecture is everywhere. And celebrations! China is great for them. Shanghai has a phenomenal light show along the waterfront every night.

China has changed a lot in the last couple of years. Don't rely on tall tales from the neighborhood Vietnam vet. Take a community college conversational mandarin class, get a phrasebook, and get over there yourself. You will find that the people are decent, the subways are clean, and the food is delicious. One caveat: in Shanghai, there is a classic scam in which cute girls approach isolated white people "to practice their English" (which is actually pretty good). Their trick is to keep the victim engaged in conversation long enough to suggest, in an offhand way, that they know a nice place to relax and have a snack. The restaurant is in on the scam, and takes the victim for a big overpriced meal tab.
HTH

[bluenoter]

India has about 12 mega cities nobody can name. Shanghai will be completely impoverished if economy remains bad. China is still communist, but america may overtake it.

[HRTplz]

Originally Posted by Avengerfire

You should see the pics my Aunt took of the roaches from when she lived in China.

I know a couple of people really well that have lived in China, Japan, and Korea. The stories are so horrid I do not think I even want to visit any of those places.

There are some parts of asia that are dirty, and some that are clean. While some people eat bugs I doubt most people do, and I doubt it's a delicacy.

What a stereotype - and you guys get all pissy when people talk abut the midwest as flyover country...

[hsw]

Back in '80s, Japan was supposed to take over world...smart people back then asked why they had encountered so few smart financiers/engineers/businessmen in Tokyo...

Over last 10yrs, a running joke on trading desks has been to ask why there's so little IQ in London, comparing their best trading desks vs US' best....stock and debt markets seem to revolve around a lot of rather sharp hedgies and private equity guys in towns like Manhattan, Greenwich, SF, BeverlyHills and Chicago....

Many Indians will be first to comment that the sharpest kids coming out of India's IITs have emigrated to US for grad school at Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, U-IL, Carnegie-Mellon, etc...and have never left US....and this migration has been on-going for some 40yrs....

Really should ask, to where do smartest, most industrious kids on planet want to emigrate?...to predict which regions are likely to dominate in future...

Skyscrapers, Olympics, sports teams, etc are the most laughable evidence of regions "trying too hard" to be taken seriously....nearly all the billionaires in SiliconValley and BeverlyHills work in nondescript, suburban office parks; perhaps 30-40% of the billionaires in NYC region work in suburban office parks in Greenwich area; and most Manhattan billionaires work in POS 40 yr-old skyscrapers in Midtown that most towers in Loop dwarf in elegance and amenities....

As Japan has shown, being a lower-cost, low-IQ producer of underwear, shoes, cars...or doing low-end IT outsourcing (as in case of India)...only goes so far in advancing any economy and living standards...esp when smartest people in 3rdWorld (and EU and Japan) seem to continue to want to migrate to the ole US....Darwinian selection...talent easily flows across borders to where people want to live and work, not necessarily where they might have been born...

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by hugoshi

There are some parts of asia that are dirty, and some that are clean. While some people eat bugs I doubt most people do, and I doubt it's a delicacy.

What a stereotype - and you guys get all pissy when people talk abut the midwest as flyover country...

Thanks for singling only me out. Try reading all the pages in the thread next time before commenting.

I never said anything about people eating bugs.

When I was referring to roaches, I was relating the stories (of a few people I know really well) about the average persons living quarters in a couple cities in Korea,China, and Japan. All the people that told me about the roaches lived in those places a year or more.

Stick that in your pipe.

[HRTplz]

Your right, I didn't mean to single you out, yours was just the post that I hit the quote button on.

But you know what, you guys go wah wah when east and west coast ppl talk about the midwest as flyover country, and you dismiss entire countries cause they have roaches, countries that you're pretty ignorant about.

Yea asia has roaches, so do we, and we also have a rat problem, wasn't whole foods shut down cause of that? Whatever, I'm not going to try to argue or quantify which regions are more dirty. My point is that some of y'all that are talking about this are very ignorant about asia and still making generalizations about it.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by hugoshi

...and you dismiss entire countries cause they have roaches, countries that you're pretty ignorant about.

I do not dismiss Asian countries. I really have no desire to live in any of them however. I would be open to visiting some of them-but alas I do not have that kind of money. I do not think reservations about style/type/standard of living,etc, in Asia means I dislike the cultures or peoples of Asia.

Furthermore, I would rather not go to any of the communist countries in Asia (or anywhere else for that matter) at all.

[bluenoter]

What is the present day definition of Communism?

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by bluenoter

What is the present day definition of Communism?

When we banish you from the Chicago forum?