Photo: Xinhua

Quotes from around China this week

 “We didn’t want to kneel down, but our knees were shattered. We gnashed our teeth and knelt down one time.”
-A person said to work at Beijing News. Financial Times

“If gaming revenues continue to surge this year [2012]… it’s a safe bet that corrupt officials and savvy businesspeople are feeling fearful about the future and are getting their money out.”
- Week in China, a Hong Kong online news magazine, made this prediction early last year. Indeed, Macao’s gambling revenue did surge to its highest levels ever in 2012. International Herald Tribune

"It was a great location, with a rooftop garden. I'd live with a ghost for that price."
- Aaron Bleasdale, a lawyer, once rented a two-floor penthouse in one of Hong Kong's most-coveted neighborhoods at a 40 percent discount because the previous tenant had died unnaturally. However, these ghostly discounts are now drying up in Hong Kong. Wall Street Journal

“This change in law would further cloud an opaque paper trail of ill- gotten gains that find their way into Hong Kong’s first-world financial system. It isn’t mainland peasants, after all, who are speculating on Hong Kong property, but political heavies trying to hide their assets.”
- Bloomberg View on a proposal to block access to personal data on company directors in Hong Kong.

"Watches and liquor have been influenced by government policies and have been pulled down by a change in leadership. It's traditionally been that in government there are people who can influence policy in your favor."
- Hurun founder Rupert Hoogewerf on falling sales of certain luxury items. Reuters

“The current situation wasn’t created in one or two days, it accumulated over a long time. Solving this problem will also be a long-term process.”
- Li Keqiang on Beijing’s air pollution problem. Bloomberg

"At 48 I am no longer 'young' for the Internet business […] I believe that doing what makes oneself happy, staying within one's own limits and being a good partner to one's more capable colleagues, is the right thing for me to do."
- Alibaba Founder Jack Ma in his letter to employees announcing that he’ll step down as the company’s CEO on May 11. Alizila