(Photo opposite: Changchun Times Square Mall) A couple of days ago, I went on a shopping spree in Changchun. I needed proper clothes for the upcoming winter in Northeastern China. The business is sorted out now, fortunately. Shopping doesn’t even remotely signify fun for me. On the contrary. Shopping implies work and stress for me. Never mind. I had quite precise ideas what I wanted. That’s exactly what I went for and got.

A number of students offered to give me a hand in getting it done. They reckoned that they know their way around in that respect a little better than I do. Even though they may have a point, I declined the offer. After all, I’m plentifully too independent to put up with a babysitter. On top of it, there weren’t plenty of doubts where in Changchun I wanted to do the shopping thing.

There are loads of rather smallish shops in Changchun where you can bargain with the shopkeeper. I can’t be bothered to haggle about that sort of thing. Just for the hell of it, I did so during my stint in South Africa. When I was about to work for a management consultancy in Johannesburg, I needed some sets of formal clothes. Even though Durban comes across as the Indian stronghold in South Africa, there are also a pile of Indians living in the city of gold. There’s even an Indian shopping mall in Jo’burg. That’s where yours truly purchased his formal clothes and did some bartering. Heaps of years down the track, I can’t be bothered.

Instead, Changchun can boast with a few shopping malls that are quite up to scratch by global standards. You can easily get your hands there on all international brands that ring a bell. Across the board, many a price for items in China looks plenty inexpensive. Yet international brands that are imported form the exception to the rule. They tend to be pricier than in western nations. Be that as it may. I don’t give a row of beans. When hard pressed between going for quality or being a bean counter, going for quality gets the upper hand with me. Being stingy never plays out. At the end of the day, I’m now geared up for winter in Changchun.

Shifting Balance of Power

It looks as if diddling in dodgy debt didn’t gear up financial institutions in western nations in terms of generating profits for the long term. Most of the outfits involved in it cut the mustard for short term investors. Even worse, they operate on group think. By contrast, have a blush at sovereign wealth funds. Most of them are based in the Middle East and Asia. They’re often accused of trying to meddle in politics.

The credit crunch may be the right time to reconsider and tone down a little. Numerous sovereign wealth funds have forged deals with and beefed up western financial institutions teetering on the brink. Sovereign wealth funds so far broadly thrive because they focus on generating decent returns on their money. In particular Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek seems to have an edge in terms of hoovering up promising investments.

Finally, you can stumble across a whole load of hypocrisy towards sovereign wealth funds in western nations. At present, these outfits acquire assets for a song. During the Asian crisis a decade ago or so American banks took stakes in Asian financial institutions. All the while, things have changed a little. The balance of power is shifting eastwards. I sit and watch from the East.

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