‘lĒn ‘tĪm[z]: Reluctant Return, or Go East

Long hiatus, Beijing stuff:

This NY Times article about Americans finding employment in China has been making a lot of waves recently. Mostly because it's totally ridiculous. For one thing a lot of the expats I've met here don't have jobs, or at least not the 'real' jobs that this article claims Chinese companies are tripping over themselves to offer young Americans on the strength of being young Americans. Second, the individuals profiled in this article come from prestigious universities and in some cases graduated with half a normal person's starting salary in savings, which means they entered the post-graduate fray with a leg up on anyone, anywhere in the world, not least of which small businesses in a developing country with an extremely low overhead and cost of living. Not hating, as I exactly fit the profile of a career-confused graduate who struck out unanimously in my US job hunt and so took "go west young man" to it's logical conclusion (the Far East) to find work here, but reading the Chinese media backlash is pretty funny and makes me more cautious and aware of this scene I'm just starting to grasp.

Anyway, to spin the focus back around to the home team, I recently read this great article by Camille Paglia on Obama's early term missteps and why Sarah Palin is kind of a media genius. And China:

With the Republican party leaderless and in backbiting disarray following its destruction by the ideologically incoherent George W. Bush, Democrats are apparently eager to join the hara-kiri brigade. What looked like smooth coasting to the 2010 election has now become a nail-biter. Both major parties have become a rats' nest of hypocrisy and incompetence. That, combined with our stratospheric, near-criminal indebtedness to China (which could destroy the dollar overnight), should raise signal flags. Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?

I guess the point is you should seek work in China.

Well I'm pretty much phoning it in with this post but I should be back on my game here soon. For now at least you can enjoy this (no longer very) new Raekwon family reunion-style jam: