American Beauty, Chinese Ingenuity
Where: China
China--it's not just a rising superpower, but a rising soccer-power. The country is rocketing up the world rankings, and it stands to reason that amongst those 1.2 billion people there a few pairs of fancy feet. There are also plenty of people looking to make a quick buck, just like at all the other soccer-crazed nations worldwide.
One Chinese "entrepreneur" in particular is trying to sell World Cup Air. For 50 yuan ($6) you can become the proud owner of a plastic bag full of air "packed at the World Cup venues while the workers were cutting the grass before matches", according to the proud vendor, Li Jie.
With the 2007 Women's World Cup due to take place in China, soccer fever seems to be affecting everyone's brains there. Unfortunately, Li Jie might have to wait until then to really start to get rich, because he's already run into some mid-air hiccups; of the 25 bags of air imported to China from Germany, he admitted that the magic air leaked out of four of them in transit. At least he's an honest crooked capitalist.
[Image via Miss Shelley/Flickr]
Related stories:
Sweet Smell of World Cup air [The Australian]
Chinese Team Profile [FIFA]
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