By: Andrew Wahl
Shanghai, 10:10 a.m.
I had a chuckle this morning, my last in China, at my horoscope in the English-language China Daily newspaper:
Pisces – One of your better assets is your ability to communicate effectively. You’re not only good at gathering facts but also at disseminating them to those who will put them to fruitful uses.
Well, I hope so, since it’s my livelihood. The horoscope was, however, a gentle reminder to post again. The last two days have had very full schedules and my focus has been on my “gathering facts” asset, not the dissemination. But since I have a few hours to kill before riding the super-fast maglev (magnetic levitation) train to the Pudong International Airport, I might as well post some stories.
Besides, after four days of rushing around and shaking many hands, I’m now feeling under the weather. That turn of phrase is a little misleading, though, considering I’m in a hotel room on the 58th floor of the 88-floor Jin Mao Tower—one of the tallest building in all of China, even taller than the Empire State Building in New York, and second only to its new neighbor, the 101-floor, 492-metre World Financial Centre—and Pudong is encased in fog, rain and, judging by my sinuses, pollution. I feel like I’m not so much under the weather as inside the weather.
More to come.