<p>Thanks, Yimei. I’ll tell my daughter she might want to e-mail you before she heads to Shanghai if she has any questions.</p>
<p>She’s excited about Shanghai. I’ve raved to her about experiencing the incredible bustle and
“East meets West” energy in Tokyo and Hong Kong. It appears that Shanghai, the fastest economic growth of any city in the world I think, offers the same kind of experience. It sounds like if you take a nap in Shanghai, you can wake up and find that an entire city block has been razed and replaced with new skyscrapers. I recently read that one quarter of the world’s construction cranes are currently in use in Shanghai. Amazing. </p>
<p>I think that cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai are so vibrant because change is so palpable – especially when the change from traditional cultures to hyper-growth and consumerism is happening at warp-speed. The kind of major social change (from agrarian economies to industrial/consumer economies) that took centuries or more in Europe or the United States is compressed into a generation or two in Asian countries. You can almost feel the electricity in the air. I imagine that your Shanghai is VERY different from that of your grandparents!</p>