The new Beijing beckons

epa03948981 Customers with bags containing first day purchases from a H&M fashion collection designed by French fashion designer Isabel Marant view a window display at a H&M store branch in Beijing, China, 14 November 2013. The collection is called 'Isabel Marant For H&M.' EPA/ROLEX DELA PENA

Here, you are surrounded by optimistic and enthusiastic young people with the zeal to do well not only in China, but in the globalised world.

I JUST took a short trip to Beijing to attend a conference on women. It has been seven years since my last trip and 28 years since my first. In 1985, China was gingerly opening up to the world. People still wore blue Mao jackets and rode around mostly on bicycles. There were few hotels of the standard we were used to in Malaysia.