I was sitting at a table by a lovely lady named Sue. Sue is in her 70's, very intelligent, and a wonderful conversationalist. She said to me, "Are you learning Chinese?" I said, "No, I am not learning Chinese. Why do you ask?" Sue said, "Everyone I know is learning Chinese." She then asked me what courses in Chinese we had. I told her that we sold Pimsleur Chinese Mandarin Courses and Pimsleur Chinese Cantonese Courses. She wanted to know whether we sold more Cantonese or Mandarin and the conversation continued on.

In our conversation I asked her why everyone she knew was learning Chinese and she went on to tell me that some were going to China on a vacation trip, others were starting to do business with Chinese firms and another couple just wanted to learn Chinese. But to her it seemed that everyone she talked to was learning Chinese.

I was in China last year and found it a fascinating place. One of the places I visited was a candy factory. It was very clean and immaculate. The people that worked at the facility lived in apartments supplied by the owners of the company. They signed contracts each year and were given their jobs, food and living quarters.

They made all kinds of candy with intricate details on the candy. It was like watching an artist paint to watch them decorate the candies.

From my hotel room I could see large cranes as far as the eye could see all putting up tall buildings. I found that China leases the majority of cranes in the world. They are a country on the move and very industrious.

Shanghai has some of the most beautiful buildings I have seen. They have a bullet train that goes up to 250 miles per hour. I talked to a couple from Israel that has lived there for many years that love living there. I asked them when they would move back home and they told me they were not sure that they would ever move back. They loved living in Shanghai and had a very nice style of living.

As I think about it and the experiences I had in China