A Hong Kong friend who had just moved to Shanghai told me she was shocked by the high prices. I guess she's just not very adventurous, shopping for imported foods at high-end supermarkets and eating out at fancy restaurants.

Having worked and lived in a number of developing countries in the region, I learned long ago that if I had insisted on maintaining the same lifestyle that I'd had in Hong Kong, I'd have to pay dearly for it. That's true to some extent even in Shanghai, where a cup of cappuccino at Starbucks costs more than it does in Hong Kong.

Unreasonable as that may seem, there are many Starbucks outlets in Shanghai, and many of them appear to be doing well. There are many people here who don't seem to mind paying the price for the luxury they believe they deserve. That's the free market in action, and it is hard to understand why the pricing of foreign brands, ranging from coffee at Starbucks to automobiles from Germany, has become such a big issue on the mainland.