Chinese do spend overseas

A weekend visit to any of the downtown hotels' conference centers is enough to learn what the well-to-do Chinese are up to - especially those who are running some businesses and already owned properties before they went skyrocketing last year.

The conference which I visited was divided into three large activities - except for a journalists' forum on low-carbon development, where I was invited to give a talk, occupying a distant small corner.

Of the three activities, there was an exhibition of overseas schools ready to take in Chinese students; a presentation on emigration opportunities for Chinese; and one show, which occupied ball rooms on two floors, of historical artifacts soon to be auctioned to collectors, institutional and private, with sales staff standing in the hallway passing out catalogs about still more art auctions to be held soon in other cities.