Bangkok and "Billions of Entrepreneurs"

I have arrived in Bangkok. After India it just looks like another American city. I had such a wonderful time in India and Korea, that it will be hard for any other country besides the Philippines to meet my high expectations. On the last day in Bangalore Jay took me to meet Vishwanath S. who is from the International Rainwater Catchment Systems Associates. This visit was really great, and Jay and I are thinking of ways that we can get the school in Bangalore to work with Ancona on a water project. Water will be a major problem in the world in the next couple decades, and it is important that people start thinking about it. The ideas I got from this visit were really profound. I will have to write more later.

After that visit we saw a green architect, and this was equally fascinating. The ideas I am getting from these discussions are really worth discusing with my students and other students I meet. Being around Jay and her husband is like being around Reshma. It is truly fun to be able to think!!!

Ashok suggested to me a book that one of his friends just wrote, and at the airport I got it. It is called Billions of Entrepeneurs. It deals with the economic boom that is taking place in India and China. When I read the first paragraph, I felt like he had just stolen an idea that I have had for the last few months. Ha ha. The ignorance that Americans have of Asia is monumental, and it really needs to be remedied. Jay and Ashok were in the US for at least fifteen years, and although they really love India, they really love the wilderness in America and the efforts Americans do try to be fair. We also are capable of making very rapid changes in America, and I am sure if we see ourselves going in the wrong direction, we are capable of turning things around.