So that's why the ads are in Chinese

Quick update from the wireless on the airplane somewhere over the heartland. I was wondering why some of the ads on the sidelines were in Chinese at the Euro Soccer tournament. Of course this probably indicates that Chinese people are watching lots of soccer. It looks like one Chinese team in a move much like bringing David Beckam to the US has signed Ivory Coast and former English premier league star Didiear Drogba. who will be making several hundred thousand dollars a week to play in China.

Tangentially related This American Life had a good podcast on American living in China. One reporter talked about how to describe China as a place with record economic growth of roughly 10% a year for two decades or a country with still 150 million people living on less than $1 a day.  One thing I have been thinking about is I have heard little about inequality. China's is rising (although we aren't sure how fast because apparently the government won't release the data). Taking estimates from that article and this article with data form Ravallion and Chen two World Bank researchers, it looks like since I have been alive China has gone from one of the most equal countries in the world to approaching one of the most unequal.  Not that this is a bad thing since some people have to get rich for their to be inequality.