The way that we examine economic activity, and everything else, for that matter, is not by looking at official statistics, alone, but also at the microscopic data that we come face to face with, on a daily basis.  We are in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, which has been the major area driving the export market.

Over the past year and a half we have reported things, like almost a million businesses closing in Guangdong and over 20 million migrant workers, who worked here losing their jobs and going back to their hometowns, in the north and west.  We also reported about the traffic at the cafés on Xiao Bei Lu, which is a major shopping area for those in the export business.

Our neighborhood is one where many foreigners live or hang out.  Two more indications that we have seen, recently, are: one of our good friend who had a thriving export business for about six years has closed up shop and moved back to his home country.  In our old apartment complex, which has many small stores that cater to Westerns have closed over the past few months, and yesterday, one of our friend at the local wet market, there, which sells fresh meats, seafood, vegetables, and other such goods told us that her business is down eighty percent, just over the last few months.  She told us that the reason is that most of the foreigners who lived there, which we have been noticing over the last year, have moved out and gone back to their own countries.