@ Silverboy: On the high speed trains I got to hand it to them. The newer train stations and high speed rail links are really impressive both in performance and time they were finished. Only France, Japan and soon Spain (not yet completed!), have high speed rail, but I don't feel the Chinese deserve too much praise for this. After all, it was learnt from Germany and Japan, their problem is one of a lack of innovation, but excelling at imitation. This caused a lot of problems when Siemens were doing business with the Chinese, who wanted the know how, but millions of rmb can't buy years of R and D.

And I would rather have clean drinking and shower water, comprehensive welfare, unpolluted environment, than high speed trains, and the kudos of putting two men into space...didn't a little old place called the USA put men on the moon some decades ago? And didn't some cold former communist northern country put a man and a dog in space in the past:)

At least when the Japanese were being self congratulatory with their back patting we had to tolerate it, because fair play to them they innovated and developed remarkably well after the war.

What can be given can be taken away. Mexico is a prime example. Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach him, and......

Cheers
VS