Japanese dream:
Own your own house in Tokyo.
Become the Division Manager at your company.
Have your kids go to Tokyo University (or Meiji, Waseda or Keio, if that’s where you went yourself).
Spend your retirement playing golf in Hawaii.
I’ve got #1 (well, been approved for the loan, anyway. The place won’t be finished until 2005) and #2 is a possibility. I don’t want #3 (the Tokyo U part, not the kids), and I’m undecided on #4 (never tried golf).
I thought the English dream* was ‘a nice cup of tea and a sit down’. It’s not cricket to strive too hard.
Hey I drink tea.
And I get to sit down a fair amount. Things could be worse
the non-winning-the-football-world-cup-final-beating-the-Germans one*.
** or the bloody home ownership thing. Why do we all have own our flipping houses?
The Hong Kong dream is to cover all exterior surfaces with concrete (including the harbour), cover all interior surfaces with cute gonks (Hello Kitty preferred but Disney and Whinnie the Pooh also good) and hold for ever, the world title for mobile-phone penetration.
My Canadian friends tell me the Canadian Dream is similar to the American and Australian dreams; home ownership, although the quarter acre lot is out of the question in Toronto.
Other than that, I think it’s unlimited hockey, curling, Tim Horton donuts, beer and shopping excursions to Buffalo.
No tea cultivation in India was after the fact, started in the 19th century to feed the ever-growing demand. Until that point virtually all tea came out of China. The European market was a very small one, until it opened under Dutch control ( on the European end, obviously ) in the 17th century. By the mid-18th century the British had taken over the dominant position in the tea trade and a huge expansion allowed it to move from a luxury good for the elites to a beverage of choice for the burgeoning middle-class. Demand exploded after 1730 or so and was one of the primary reasons for the unequal trade balance between Europe and China, with silver specie flowing steadily into China until the opium trade revered the trend in the early 19th century. In 1720 12,700 tons of tea were exported from China, by 1830 that figure had risen to 360,000 tons/year.