I have not posted in two weeks because I've been traveling around Asia and I'm now in the USA — been to Omaha, Chicago, and need to be in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Seattle in the next 10 days. Staying now in New York where I just bought into a co-op apartment — if you are working in China, your Chinese yuan has gained about 20-25% of its value against the U.S. dollar (if you also integrate black market prices into that calculation), plus real estate prices have thundered down the last year making real estate a perfect, cheap investment. Sure, New York has not dropped as much as places like Las Vegas, but it's still a great buy — and I worked briefly in Las Vegas in 1997 before moving to China and plan to go there in the next few days for a possible second property purchase. With my small purchases in the USA I feel like Lenovo buying up the American dream (which, btw, reminds me that I hear rumors of a Chinese company that is going to make a move on buying Dell soon).

No, this does not mean I'm moving back to the USA — these are just strategic investments in a cheap market. Even with the added USA tax headaches of being an expatriate in China and owning property in the USA, it's worth the buy. One of my colleagues in China is buying investment property in Southeast Asia, so the China boom is making itself felt in all geographic areas. On the flip side, China real estate is incredibly over-valued right now in the main cities — I should have bought 10 years ago.

But I digress. I was sent this press release for the USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about how dog bites are a top concern for travelers to China during the Olympics. While dog bites are a problem in rural parts of China, with Beijing's final solution over the last decade of cleansing the city of large dogs within certain ring roads, a mosquito can do more harm and cause more aggravation in Beijing than the bite from a puny Canis lupis familiaris. And, hey, if a traveler is bitten, he/she can bite back in one of the restaurants that caters to serving poached puppy. Bottom line: Beijing-bound travelers have little to fear from dog bites.