[Rick Lee]

While trying out the newest Sichuan place in Phoenix last night, my wife was explaining to me how well gov't. officials have it in China. Her mom's boss treated us to a huge feast in Nanjing a few weeks ago and I asked about one of the guys at the table who seemed to disappear before dinner was over. He was one of the guys who got into sort of a beer and bai jiu drinking contest with me. Turned out he was my MIL's boss's driver and he got too drunk to drive her home. She told him it was no problem and she could drive. But it was unthinkable for a boss to drive the driver home, so he snuck out and took a taxi. It turns out the folks at her level have accounts a lot of nice restaurants and put on these kinds of feasts all the time, paying with some sort of office credit card. My MIL is the person who audits and pays these bills weeks later. That explained a lot once I understood that. So the lady who's the boss of the province's gov't. dept. of quality assurance has a free car, driver and can treat friends and family to lavish dinners on the state dime. She also has several houses and is considered pretty well off. Not bad for a gov't. job.

Oh, and I've read China has almost 20% more men than women, so that's amost 300 million men who will never find wives. Wow. Add to that the number of Chinese women who marry foreign husbands and that's a demographic nightmare.