Once again the most dreaded moment is nearly upon me. Only eleven days until that fateful day. The birthday. It makes one wish one was born on the 29th of February so it would only happen once every four years. Unfortunately such luck is not bestowed on me. Although I did win 10 RMB scratching fa piao (a sort of receit with a scratch card game built in which you get wherever you can eat) the other day. That probably cost me my supply of luck for the next year.

The one thing that is so ironic about birthdays is that people actually expect you to celebrate becoming a year older. All you are is one year closer to death! Should a birthday not be a day of mourning instead? Instead of congratulations people would offer you their condolances. Imagine all the designers suddenly required to design all these new birthday cards saying: ‘Many condolances on another gloomy birthday!’

You may already have the feeling by now that I don’t have any particular desire to celebrate much. ‘Why this depressing post?’, you wonder. Well, I’ll let you in on it.

Shopping. I went shopping. Now usually I find that quite an enjoyable experience but it was shopping of the wrong kind. Shopping for a birthday present. You see, I’m part of a twin and that means on my birthday it’s also my sister’s birthday. I wanted to get something Chinese which would also be kind of funny yet something useful so not like a crappy statue. So I went to Dong Men shopping center, which is a shopping mall the Chinese way.

Wander through one street and you find a whole street of butchers, turn left and you’re suddenly smack in the middle of a maze-like womens’ shoe temple (which it took me 15 minutes to find the way out of) and take a right and you’re suddenly in the Starbucks (I have developed a sixth sense to finding these unconsciously). And all the while all the sales people see you as a dollar sign with legs or a walking, talking wallet. I seriously don’t need womens shoes (though I did see one lovely pair) or ‘sexy DVDs for sexy boy’ (that one was good for my ego, actually).

All of this was a rather roundabout way of coming to a rather solemn point. Why do people need all of this? China is experiencing the biggest economic growth in the world at the moment but is the nation as a whole becoming happier? I doubt it. I would almost wager on the opposite. You may think that you own a house, have a nice job and lots of wonderful possessions but the fact of the matter is that those things own you. They limit your freedom and cloud your vision. Now I realize that this makes me a little bit of a hypocrite as I also indulge in non vital luxuries but never for the sake of the indulging itself. I suppose being confronted with the gap between rich and poor here that has me thinking seriously about these issues.

I was pondering something while looking at the hordes of people passing by the Starbucks branch. If you gave these people the choice between buying happiness and a new flat screen television which one would they choose?