To feel the pulse of a city, go house hunting

House hunting is like gambling. Till you're not doing it, you're safe. You can't lose what you don't put in the middle.

I recently completed a year of my life in Beijing. And after one year, I've just begun to feel I live in China, the land that houses the most humans in the world.

The more the people, the more the poor; the more the poor, the more the ones that want to get rich; hence, the more who compete, trying to outplay your sensibilities in order to make your money theirs, trying their best to keep it "legal".