Hello everyone, last wee I was telling you about about an un-mistakable smell high in the mountains of northern Bali and those coffee cats. Since then I have been visiting suppliers in Java, spent one day in the city they call the Big Dorian - That's Jakarta - and like the Big Apple it is a modern high rise city, and like a Dorian it can smell disgusting, (but taste great).

The stock from Indonesia is beginning to arrive, and I'm delighted to see is selling very well. See below, for a new world of gifts. More containers coming soon!

Now I have landed back in China, and at the AW base in Yiwu city. I'm happy to be amongst the Chinese already missing the clean air and blue sky of Indonesia.

Yiwu is hot and muggy with a wane sun trying to break through the grey haze that hangs high over the city... Like a meteorological allegory: Exchange rates - the most dire for trade in recent history are starting to bite. I can almost feel it in the air. When the big bosses say that growth has slipped (to an obviously spun) 7% you know this country must be in under a cloud. Who knows what the real truth is. They tell me that trade is down badly , massively and in some industries drying up.

A further cloud is gathering - all the other Asian countries are ganging up. A major trade grouping is emerging, from Singapore to Burma. Including massive Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Philippines. They are busy forming a huge trading block, like Europe but without the mistake of the single currency - and bigger. It will rival China, because that combined area contains resources that China is having to import. You might think that these countries don't have the advantage of the hard working industrious Chinese. You'd be wrong, because as much as 20% of the population of these areas is actually ethnic Chinese and usually the business people. Furthermore where China has choked off a young population with it's one child policy, these countries in ten years will be positively youthful.

As always the world turns, the cards fall and things change. China is a mighty place, but the cards are been reshuffled.

I reported the early signs here earlier. Luxury property at heavenly prices.. all but unsold, but still with monthly rising prices. All a bit Alice in Wonderland.
But under it all are the irrepressible ordinary Chinese people. Honest, hard working and accepting of any hardship. These good people underpin the Chinese economy, whatever happens as the tectonic plates shift you have to wish that they come out of it OK. At Ancient Wisdom we will do our best as elsewhere to support the small family businesses. With your help of course.

Enough.. gathering storms..
Back home as the Olympics kick off.. we have the deals.. Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Take care.

Regards
David (In Yiwu)
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