Economist, May 12, 2012

choi

(1) Luxury goods in China  |  Riding the Gilded Tiger; China’s super-rich expect better pampering than the merely well-off.
http://www.economist.com/node/21554550
("The country [China]  is already the largest market for jewellery after America, and for gold after India, and is gaining fast on both leaders. Prada and Gucci owe a third of their global sales to the rich in China")

Note: Based in Hong Kong, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Limited 周大福企業有限公司 was founded in 1929 by CHOW Chi Yuen 周 至元.

(2) Japan’s trading houses  | Resourceful and Energetic; Mitsubishi, Mitsui and their peers have bet boldly on a raw-materials boom.
http://www.economist.com/node/21554552

Note:
(a) sogo shosha  総合商社
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogo_shosha
(b) underfoot (adv): "under the foot especially against the ground <trampled the flowers underfoot>"
(c) Itochu  伊藤忠商事株式会社
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itochu
(It has a common origin with Marubeni Corporation 丸紅株式会社--founded as a kimono retail store in 1858 by Chūbei Itō  伊藤 忠兵衛)
(d) Sumitomo Group  住友グループ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumitomo_Group
(traces its roots to a bookshop in Kyoto founded circa 1615 by a former buddhist priest, Masatomo SUMITOMO  住友政友 [1585 - 1652])

(3) Aviation in China  | Soaring Ambition; Big plans to dominate the skies of the 21st century.
http://www.economist.com/node/21554492
(book review on James Fallows, China Airborne. Pantheon, 2012)

Quote:

"The country [China] hosts more than two-thirds of the airports now under construction around the world.

" Confident predictions of any sort are unwise in a land as full of contradictions as China.

Note: The review said, "The obstacles facing the country’s aviation industry do indeed cut to the heart of China’s economic challenges today."

cut (vi):
"3f:  to make a sudden transition or imaginative leap <the story cuts to 1917>
* * *
5: to advance by skipping or bypassing another <cut to the front of the line>"
www.m-w.com