Let's put it this way. China is a good place for a loser. I don't work in China but while I am here I manage to save money in England- in fact the flat I have bought here will get covered by what I save in UK and that's even allowing for expenses like council tax I still have in UK because I didn't rent out our property. Where the loser comes into it is that I live a pretty negative existence in China- I am merely treading water and have ceased to advance in life. Beer is a good price and I have found a reasonable wine for 19.80 a bottle.

Well, loser is always subjective, there are those with wife, kids, mortgage on a number of houses, credit card debts, receding hairline, in the bankrupt crime riddled UK and they might probably envy your lifestyle over there in China. I am merely treading water also, because I have no job, wife, or family of my own in old age. At least you have a wife and a child, so you see, it's all different things to different blokes, I would reckon you are doing OK....and at the end of the day, unless you plan on being a pharoah (not sure if I have spelt/typed that right), you can't take it all with you anyway. The sewer lines run under the rich mans houses also, we are all in it together, and we all don't get out alive, sad to say.

I should be able to make enough currency swapping money to pay for us all to holiday somewhere for a week during Spring Festival. Maybe Turnoi will allow us to stay in his bamboo beach house?????

I keep hearing about this beach house, bamboo? So is this somewhere in China then?