China

The Forbidden City, located at the center of Beijing municipality, was the seat of power for 24 emperors from 1406 to 1911. It took thousands of artisans and 14 years to complete the colossal complex spread over 720.000 square meters with 9.000 bays of halls and rooms which become a symbol of China’s monarchial grandeur built on the blood and sweat of its toiling peasantry. Significantly, however, the main entrance to the imperial city, Tiananmen or the Gate of Heavenly Peace, connects the past with the present in a curiously fatalistic manner.

Indeed, the wealth gap in Chinese society has increased phenomenally with the difference between the wealthiest and the poorest having risen from as much as four times in 1978 to almost 13 times today.

So, what we have in China today is tremendous economic freedom without political empowerment of the citizenry. Corruption and nepotism are logical outcomes of this situation. And the middle class is too tiny to influence the system. According to one estimate, middle-class groups with income ranging from 2,500 dollars to 10,000 dollars per year constitute less than five percent of the population. By contrast, lower income groups even in wealthier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou do not earn more than 900 dollars a year. About 60 percent of China’s population still lives in the countryside, with per capita income less than 300 dollars per year.

Having said that, one cannot ignore China’s huge population base of 1.3 billion people. Even at five percent, the country’s middle-income segment numbers at 65 million people. These people are the architects of the future China which, many observers predict, will be the major economic powerhouse of the world by the end of the decade. A glimpse of this can be had in Beijing’s scores of multi-storey shopping malls where customers literally trip over each other to move ahead. Its huge and fashionable hotels are crawling with guests, as are its eating houses, bars and discotheques.

And the Forbidden City is not so forbidden anymore. It is one of China’s major tourists’ attractions where hundreds of hawkers accost visitors and shove tourist books in their faces, quoting prices with huge margins for bargain. Finally, China is waking up from decades of slumber.

Lucky Bamboo

If you wish to place on your desk green interior plants that require a minimum of care then the lucky bamboo can be exactly what you are looking for. Despite the name, Lucky Bamboos are not bamboos at all, they just look like ones.

They caring necessities are minimal: all you need to do is provide them with regular cleaning, change the water from their recipient weekly, lots of light but without direct sunlight. You don’t need to reproduce them. Monthly the plant is to be removed from its pot, washed under an water jet – the roots also – and placed back in the pot after it has been itself washed and the water replaced.

The plant has a green segmented body of about half inch width that normally growth vertically and produces one or more additional ramifications with leaves. The body shall be cut at the desired height and sealed with wax, just above one of the ramification. This will stop growth and will be good for the development of ramifications.

By manipulating the light, the lucky bamboos can be determined to grow in a spiral.

In the orient, lucky bamboos already tend to replace flower bouquets. This is because they are also kept in water recipients but their life is long and they keep their decorative aspect for a long time.

Lucky bamboos are offered separated or in special arrangements. The number and the dimension of the plants in the arrangement is not left to hazard because there are precise significations for each type of arrangement.

The meanings of the number of stairs the plants form:
-three stairs bring happiness, health and a long life
-five stairs stimulate the 5th elements of life
-six stairs bring health
-eight stairs bring development and prosperity
-ten stairs symbolize perfection and fulfillment
-twenty-one stairs bring a powerful blessing

So if you want to get them just for you, at home or at the office, or if you want to make a meaningful present, lucky bamboos are a good option. Everyone loves them and they are better than some flowers that will die in a few days. Lucky bamboos last out for months and are easy to please.