Busy Year

I just wiki-ed 2008 just to see what else has been happening in 2008 besides the birth of a fantastic baby boy. It seems that this has been such an eventful year. Perhaps it's because I'm living in China and I am seeing the world from a different perspective. Obviously, living in China makes me hyper aware of issues in Asia; things I'd likely overlook if I were back home. Food safety problems in China, protests in Bangkok, military junta taking over Burma...the list goes on. Oh, apparently it's also the Year of Sanitation. Very important.

America looks different from over here, especially when seeing it through the eyes of expats from so many different countries as well as that from the local citizens. Yesterday, I watched the presidential election unfold with dozens of other people, Americans and Chinese. The American Women's Club and the American Chamber of Commerce hosted an election party at one of the hotels here. Essentially, it was a bunch of people watching CNN and eating together. It started at 8am local time and was scheduled until 1pm. I went with Lincoln around 10:30 / 11:00. The results came in earlier than expected:



It's Barack Obama. I confess that I was not at all surprised. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I was expecting Obama to win back in the primaries.



Here president-elect Obama and his opponent John McCain make a special appearance.