Tag: development
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Day Two Hundred Seventy Two, October 21, 2011
A few days ago, we entered the sixth year of our expatriate life in Shanghai and I so wish I was doing a 365 project for every day of those years. Living here is in every way a thrilling adventure, looking daily at the strange canvas of what this culture of contrasts has to offer.…
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Day Two Hundred Sixty Nine, October 18, 2011
Living in this giant expanding metropolis, we sometimes forget how impressive its rapid growth is, until someone visits and we play the role of tour guide only to rediscover and be awed again and again by the speed at which the future is catching up with Shanghai. Everywhere you look, new construction sites are mushrooming…
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Day Two Hundred Sixty Five, October 14, 2011
The long awaited event came today for Lea. She was destined to own her first skateboard at age 7 years, 4 months and 2 weeks. As soon as they finished building her board it at the shop and she held it under her arm, her face was transformed with a strange kind of excitement I…
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Day Two Hundred Sixty, October 9, 2011
At a certain point in our lives, our bodies grow to maximum capacity and from that point on, they begin to deteriorate. The only part of the human that continues to evolve is the head, the spirit and soul that drive it, and what lives in it and around it. That is the only place…
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Day two Hundred Fourty Seven, September 26, 2011
I was looking in a drawer the other day and I came across an old phone (the palm 650), I carried it in my hand and felt stunned at its weight, bulkiness and clumsy appearance. This was my dream phone only 2 years ago because it had a keyboard for writing emails. And I realized…
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Day Two Hundred Eighteen, August 28, 2011
It has become forcefully clear that change is upon us. Hurricanes, volcanos, floods, global warming, waves of animal extinction, earthquakes, tsunami, revolutions, uprisings, new and strange weather trends and even down to people becoming unsettled and unable to cope emotionally with the fast onset of change. But we live on a planet of duality and…
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Day One Hundred Sixteen, July 26, 2011
Shanghai, a city of soaring steel, a Gotham of Asia, a place that races to stamp it’s place in the modern world as a mighty metropolis and uses every resource it has to fulfill its visions of greatness. Every day of the week, of moment of the day and night, workers toil to add more…
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Day One Hundred Fifty Seven, June 28, 2011
You see them every day, at all times of the day, weekdays, weekends, working, toiling, sweating, carrying loads, in construction sites, cleaning streets, selling goods, resting on sides of roads, falling asleep in the shade to catch their breath. They are very important elements in the canvas that is Shanghai, a city rushing towards the…
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Day One Hundred Thirty Two, June 3, 2011
This particular and ancient truth has been quite upfront lately in world affairs. Somehow this ancient lesson is being applied and demonstrated repeatedly in the last few years from events in Iran, to Egypt, to Yemen, and to most recently the current events in Syria. I am normally not someone who is drawn to writing,…
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Day nine, January 31, 2011
Today, the last day of January, and the beginning of the New Year’s hype in Shanghai, I walked around the downtown financial area in Pudong, which happens to be our neighborhood. Pudong is home to the high rises that are the pride of modern China. When we first moved here in 2006, the Jin Mao…