It also was a surprise to Doug and other tech-savvy China hands I know.
In Las Vegas last September, nearly 400 attended one gathering, the fourth and largest ever Old China Hands Reunion.
"We lived our lives with great panache, " says Shanghai-born Mario Machado, a longtime Hollywood broadcaster who organized last year's Old China Hands conference.
Opinions among China hands tend to three scenarios.
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As long as U.S. production growth continues apace, China knows they win hands down when it comes to sourcing larger volumes of energy on a global basis.
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The 350 million smokers in China may also get their hands on it.
As for Congress, Ralph Cossa, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Honolulu, argues for restraint there, to avoid feeding anti-American sentiment in China and playing into the hands of hardliners.
With all due respect to Phelps, the most dominant performance in the pool should come from China's Sun Yang, the hands-down favorite in the men's 400-meter freestyle.
Despite the fact that for the best part of two centuries China came to suffer hugely at the hands of the West, and to lag badly behind the West, the Chinese never stopped believing in themselves.
Thanks to this combination of labour mobility and a preference for young workers, a growing proportion of China's new economy is in the hands of people under 30.
But wait, says nearly everyone, won't cheaper hands in Indonesia and Vietnam eventually take China's jobs?
The rebalancing trick is to get a big share of this buying power into private hands, who will then consume inside China.
People's Daily features a photo of the two leaders shaking hands and the headline: "China firmly supports the just cause of the Palestinian people".
What's more, China's central bank seems to be in professional hands, as skilled as any in heading off debacles.
One district in northern China is famous for producing artists who walk on their hands, juggle tableware and twist themselves into knots in other words, acrobats.
Beijing insists its auto industry needs protection as it forms conglomerates, but there is little sign China's 120 auto-makers want to join hands, linked as many are to local interests.
Instead, China has kept control over its currency and largely out of the hands of speculators, although this can never be done completely.
However, launching the iPhone 4 early in China means that Apple will be able to get the phone into the hands of Chinese early adopters far sooner than in past iPhone sales cycles.
As investors get their hands dirty with this company, more will come out about its ownership structure in China to get a sense of the relative risks involved with the holding company structure.
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China Netcom Group (36, CN) didn't suffer that fate and in fact was in public hands only for the third of those years.
Recently, China's Haier Group made a run at established appliance maker Maytag, which in August ended up in the hands of Whirlpool.
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