Bamboo shoots

2 Q figures are showing a Chinese recovery, with growth at 6.9 percent.

Wow!

The US and EU are all hoping for some green shoots, but in the East, we are seeing Bamboo Shoots.

I remember reading Harvey Cox’s Turning East as a part of my college assignments.

The author dismissed in conclusion that any “infiltration” of the Buddhist cults (people mostly saw Hari Krishna in the airports) wouldn’t do a dent to the entrenched Christian country i.e. the US during pre-moral-majority decades.

30 years later, we found that it’s not spiritual matters which are worth discussing when it comes to Turning East.

It’s their manufacturing and domestic consumption base. China  has been leapfrogging, from pedaling to driving,

from steam trains to space ships (not sure where the espionage case of an Orange County, California Chinese-born engineer would end up, but with evidence of Rockwell and Boeing sensitive rocket materials at home, he apparently signed the NDA, but his DNA are still Chinese).

While the Beijing Olympic events were to show case China’s strength (and mask its problems: pollution,  bad loans and regional unrest), it’s turning the corner in the current recession tells the true story of a resilient people. Mayor Daley of Chicago was quite a foresight when advocating Mandarin language classes in Chicago (along with turning the Second City greener. No more Sears tower, nor Mrs Leary’ cow). Windy City, turbo mecca?

Back to the China economic miracle.

What can we learn from its recovery? Both countries try to dig deep into its Treasury. Both apparently save more and spend less. And both are driving more and more, reinforcing Al Gore’s “inconvenient truth”.

I hope the UT governor is doing a good job representing the US over there, but mostly, what can he tell us during his tour, I am sure, sampling the multiple dumpling placed in front of him, the way Nixon was back in 72.

I am sure one of the dishes served before our ambassador would be bamboo shoots. Bamboo stands for resiliency, capable of withstanding hurricane pressures, and will bounce back after bending, but not breaking. I wish I had learned Mandarin, just to be able to say “congratulations” in their language “for turning the corner”, for making us Turning East.