I just read this post in a spanish economy blog regarding the Index of Economic Freedom. Apart from checking where Spain is as the original blogger did. I got surprised for one thing: Hong Kong is the leader of this index… Wait! Isn’t Hong Kong part of China? Yes, politically, but not in an economic sense. Together with Macao, they have a special status named Special Administrative Region, and do not follow many chinese policies, including economic.
So, if Hong Kong is not China, and Hong Kong is the leader, where is China? In the position 132, which is normal based on the lack of correlation between a communist system and economic freedom.
Isn’t it ironic that two parts of the same country have such a big difference? The S.A.R., which gives Hong Kong independence in almost all fields, will be valid for 50 years, and then the idea is to have “one country, one system”, and not “one country, two systems”, as per today. Will this time be enough for reducing the huge gap? In which way will it be reduced?
Today I went to Macau (I will tell you more about it soon) and during the breakfast I had the stupid idea of buying a newspaper to read during the trip… which finally became a good idea, as I spent in the whole day more than 2 hours queuing in immigration lanes (exit and enter HK and Macau). I read this I found it quite funny.
(…)
When I was a fourth-grader in Benson School on the West River Road north of Minneapolis, Mrs. Erickson gave us the essay topic, “What would you do if you had one day left to live?”
We had just read an inspiring story about Helen Keller (…) and Mrs. Erickson wanted us to write something inspiring about smelling flowers and listening to birds sing and watching the sun set, but I wrote that I wanted to get on a plane and fly to Spain.
I had never flown in my life, and we had finished a unit on Spain and learned about bullfighting, which seemed like a very cool thing to do. So it was Spain for me.
Mrs. Erickson told me to choose something else. “Spain is too far,” she said. “It takes almost a day just to get there.”
I stuck with Spain. Even at that tender age, I knew that life is the journey, not the destination. So Mrs. Erickson kept me indoors for recess, which was fine by me – if she wanted to punish me, she should’ve made me play outdoors with other children.
I’ve never been to Spain because I associate it with having only a day left to live.
(…)
Paris a fine place to wait out the big belch, by Garrisson Keillor.
It is not my last day left to live, but the last day of my China tour… and I am not going to Spain, but Tokyo to recover for a couple of weeks of “normal” life there (if we can call it normal).