Rico thought the Chinese were civilized

From an article in this weeks' Time, about the Dalai Lama and the troubles in Tibet: "In July of 2006 Chinese authorities intensified what the Dalai Lama calls 'demographic aggression' by launching a high-speed train linking Lhasa to Beijing and other Chinese cities, thus allowing 6,000 more Han Chinese to flood into the Tibetan capital every day. (Rico says China births way more than that every six hours, so they're not even drawing down their own population.) Lhasa, sometimes known as an 'abode of the gods' has turned from the small, traditional settlement (the author) first saw in 1985 into an Eastern Las Vegas, with a population of 300,000 (two out of every three of those Chinese). On the main streets alone, by one Western scholar's count, there are 238 dance halls and karaoke parlors and 658 brothels, and the Potala Palace— for centuries a symbol of a culture whose people were ruled by a monk and home to nine Dalai Lamas— is mow mockingly surrounded by an amusement park.

Rico says he knew he should have gone to Tibet back in the 70s, before all this started. But 658 brothels? Who's going there? Surely not the Tibetans... Who's working there? Surely not the Chinese... Rico can't wait for the undercover television shows during the Olympics that reveal all this to a worldwide audience...