Years of Poems and Spirits

Shanghai stock exchange dropped for the 2nd day in a row. I am kind of surprised that the stamp tax actually worth double digits.

Now the question is where all the money will go next? Or do they even go after the same target?

When people pull money out of domestic stock market, there are couple of immediate alternatives: real estate and foreign stock markets. But the first is under close watch for fear of upsetting some kind of social equilibrium, and the latter is as tightly controlled albeit for different reasons.

What else? Commercial real estate? Antiques? Luxury goods? Travel?

Ideally, all the money will go to upper tiers of consumption pyramid. The worst case is the extra money goes to things like rice and pork.

It is kind of ironic that I am writing this entry on the 18th anniversary of 1989.6.4. Some school friends in 1990 had a clever way to commemorate the event by announcing on stage that, “I can’t sing too loudly today since I have not ate anything the whole day.” And I was printing flyers in the field that day too. It was hot and humid. I had a terrible leg cramp playing soccer that night. But I had help. Yaochun allowed me to use his lab’s computer and printer. Tan Feifei put the flyers in girls dorm. Li Ya was with me the whole day.

Yeah. I still remember.

I just wanted to try riding in the dark the other night. I came off class after 9:30 and rode home first along the Burke-Gilman trail, then on Juanita Drive.

The golden, warm street lights along the trail were spotty and far apart. In between the lights, there was moon light. The scene reminded me of Bejing where I grew up. Once I turned from the campus on to the trail, it was as if entering through a portal to a time and space in the past. It was a heart-pumping kind of wonder.

Yet I doubt I’d do it again any time soon … The foliage is pretty dense now, so there are stretches of road where it was pitch dark–my feeble head lamp wouldn’t do it. And the ass-splitting bumps and pot-holes on the trail … ouch!