Fifth Week In Beijing
This week, I am posting early. I'm going to visit a my friend Yoshie Maeda, a former William and Mary L.L.M. student, in Tokyo this weekend so I wanted to update everyone before I start packing, leave and lose internet access.
At work this week, I have researched an interesting assortment of projects. One project was to find the book Animal Farm in Beijing. Essentially, during a conversation with the Director I mentioned how "something" had reminded me of the book Animal Farm. He became determined to read the book and appointed me the task of finding it. It was surprisingly readily availabe.
In addition to my book hunting, I've spent most of the week researching the rural property and government takings laws and policies of developing Asian countries. It has been interesting. During this project I have discovered that researching the countries' laws is not an accurate depiction of the actual state of property rights in rural communities. Some governments have laws on the books that are not enforced in practice. It feels wrong to name names. I now must go attend a meeting where I and two other interns will compare our research. I analyzed Asia, and they looked at Africa and South American countries.
Sorry this is a little short. I'll make up for it next week.