Diane lives in a spacious house in Menlo Park appointed with beautiful objects from a life of travel with her late husband, a Chinese businessman and philanthropist. The couple moved to the Bay Area when he retired, over thirty years ago, and they loved it here-the sunshine, the ocean, the wide- open spaces. Since then, she has watched the area change: “It’s overcrowded now. It used to be lovely, you know-you had space, you had no traffic. Here it was absolutely a gorgeous place. Now it’s heavily populated-buildings are going up everywhere like there’s no tomorrow.
“The money that rolls here is unbelievable,” Diane continues, “and it’s in the hands of very young people now. They have too much money— there’s no spiritual feelings, just materialism. I see it, I really see it. They’ve lost human feeling…. The young people-it comes to them so suddenly, so fast. I’ve seen them when they’ve gone up, and I’ve seen them fall. Then they become humble again.”
