Right now, we are in Harbin, north-eastern China, where we settled so that Zac could improve his Chinese by going to a local school, a project we embarked on with close to zero idea of how difficult it would be.
This week China rejected criticism from Japan of a monument unveiled on January 19th in its northern city of Harbin to Ahn Jung-geun, a Korean nationalist executed by Japan in 1910 after he had carried out an assassination in the city.
Mr Zhao says the systems in Harbin and Kunming are unnecessary.Shi Nan of the Academy of Urban Planning and Design in Beijing says it is obvious that "we cannot count on private cars" to get around the big cities.
The divide between Japan and its neighbours appears to be widening.In this section The Xi manifesto The politics of statues ReprintsAhn Jung-geun was a Korean nationalist and independence activist who, on October 26th 1909, shot dead Hirobumi Ito, on a station platform in Harbin.
A statue of him is displayed at the prison in the north-eastern city of Dalian where he was held, now a museum, and Harbin station commemorates the site of the shooting too.
The British engineering group will use proceeds from the sale of its stake in the helicopter firm to pay off debt and to fund acquisitions.See articleSABMiller formally launched a takeover bid for Harbin Brewery, valuing the Chinese beermaker at HK$4.3 billion ($550m).
The court, oddly, was impressed by Miss Su's argument that she had little idea how to drive having obtained her licence illegally.China is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for BMWs, but the average urban resident of Harbin would take 100 years to earn enough to buy one.
America's Anheuser-Busch, the world's biggest brewer by volume, recently saw off the second biggest, the London-based SABMiller, in a fight for Harbin Brewery in China, now the world's biggest beer market by volume.
There is standing-room only in the rush hour and, with tickets at less than a dollar, the metro is revolutionising the way people travel across town.Two other Chinese cities Suzhou and Kunming have also opened their first underground lines in the past year, and the north-eastern city of Harbin is preparing to open one too.
Earlier this year, the management of Harbin Brewery, in which it owned a stake, and Harbin's local city government, also a shareholder, contrived to sell the beer-maker to America's Anheuser-Busch through a murky investment vehicle.There are, of course, overseas firms making good money in China.
The task of winning the battle for Harbin may be complicated by his efforts on a second front: a much larger turf war across the Pacific, where SABMiller competes with Anheuser-Busch in its home territory.
