The area is reasonably attractive, the barbecues are phenomenal, spoken Mandarin is fairly standard, the populace seems very active (lots of stuff going on outside, like fishing at ungodly early hours) – and it has the cachet of being right next to North Korea. As a result, it’s going to be one of the most important places in the world sometime during the next decade. Hard to see beyond the current mess, but there’s bound to be a North Korean bubble sometime this century. Need to get in early.

其实很难说，因为这些情况挺复杂、但是我觉得伟大领袖毛主席会同意美国财政部保尔森霸主的“救市方案”。
(Qí shí hěn nán shuō, yīn wèi zhè xiē qíng kuàng tǐng fù zá, dàn shì wǒ jué de wěi dà lǐng xiù máo zhǔ xí huì tóng yì měi guó cái zhèng bù bǎo ěr sēn bà zhǔ de “jiù shì fāng àn.”)

Dandong is famous for its Mao statue, located right next to the train station. My four day trip went well, aside from being marooned in the Pacific – comfortably so, as it were. Being blisfully out of touch with anything happening in the rest of the world, and duly smitten by the experience, I’ve elected to stop having opinions about anything of import. 

** In all seriousness: a bailout of some form seems necessary? It’s lamentable that we’ve come to this. Remain frightened.