The blog at 130 "countries"--Las Vegas east

• 2-14--Palestine
• 5-14--El Salvador
• 8-14-Albania
• 8-14--Liechtenstein
• 10-3--Macau

I am continually amazed at the people around the world who click on this blog--I wish I knew who they were, and their stories. More than a year ago, I started running short posts about those countries, with brief histories, maps, stories and photos, but got "blogged" down.

And frankly, being a goal-oriented type A journalist, I slacked off because I assumed I'd about reached the limit of reach for Coffee with Clark.
I do check the stats on the blog almost daily, and have been meaning to write about more readership from Ukraine and Hong Kong, those places where freedom is under attack from authoritarian despots and brave people are risking their lives for what we Americans take for granted. More on that later.
But this week, a reader from Macau, the former Portuguese colony near Honk Kong, became someone from the 130th  country to at list click on the blog. Macau, a former hell-hole of sin, was ceded back to China in 1999 the same year Britain give up Hong Kong, which is only 64 kilometers east of it.

Macau's flag

It, with Hong Kong, is one of the two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China. With an estimated population of around 624,000 in an area of 31 square kilometers, it is the most densely populated region on the planet.
It is also the richest, and in 2006 became the world's largest gambling center, dwarfing Las Vegas.
Communist authoritarian China leaves it alone, at least so far, because of the the money (as it has Hong Kong until the current crisis.) Under the policy of "one country, two systems," China is responsible for the defense and foreign affairs, while Macau maintains its own legal system, police force, monetary system, customs policy, and immigration policy.
At the top of this post are the other countries where citizens have clicked on the blog for the first time this year--Palestine (another area of suffering), El Salvador, Albania and Liechtenstein.
If you're interested, here is my earlier post on Hong Kong from March a year ago.