Reenita's Wisdom

A couple of years ago I made this video on a whim, mostly to prove to myself that my Sony handycam was worthy of more than recording cutesy moving pictures of the kids for our Friday night entertainment. Little did I realize that once my work of art got onto You Tube, my kids would blatantly flaunt it as their stepping stone to instant fame. [...]

Mayor Bloomberg at Hong Kong's C40 Workshop

Mayors Michael Bloomberg of New York City and David Miller of Toronto tell reporters what most impressed them about the Chinese Mayors’ discussion about increasing sustainability in their cities.

New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the new chair of the C40 Climate Leadership Group, applauded Chinese mayors gathered in Hong Kong last week for taking proactive steps towards building low carbon environments in their cities.

City officials and senior representatives from over 30 cities around the world and 120 officials from cities and provinces of mainland China gathered at a C40 workshop in Hong Kong last week to explore the challenges and opportunities of creating low carbon cities that offer a high quality of life.

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This story was written for the Asian Wall Street Journal’s “China Real Time Report.”

A new survey into consumer behavior in China overturns a commonly held belief: China’s biggest spenders live in big cities…and small towns, too.

Up to now, many global companies, especially luxury brands, have focused first on building a presence in China’s biggest cities such as Beijing and Shanghai — called Tier 1 in marketing-speak — that boast a population of 8 million or more. The thinking? The bigger the city, the higher the earning power and the more money there is to spend on luxury goods.

To read the complete story, please click on this link which will take you to the Asian Wall Street journal: In China, Even Small Cities Spend Big.

Just show up and be bridal, my mother advised. She had been planning this party for years, and would be damned if anyone interfered with what she saw as her ultimate moment of glory.


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I am as guilty as anyone of finding pleasure through chocolate on occasion. In fact, there are certain “feel good” snacks that I associate with my childhood, Kitkat being one of them.

However recent reports of  Nestle’s role in eradicating the Indonesian rainforests, home to the Orangutan, puts perspective on my desire to snack on Kitkat’s “chocky-bickies.”

A Sumatran Orangutan (Src: Sumtran Orangutan Society)

According to this morning’s Sun, Nestle is guilty of purchasing palm oil used in the treat, from a company which allegedly clears Indonesian rainforest lands to develop palm oil plantations instead. Greenpeace says that this has led to the death of more than 1,500 orangutans in a year. [...]