Quincy Jones loves him some China

We just learned that Quincy Jones was in Shanghai over the weekend. Here you can see some photos of him at JZ on Sunday night -- he hung out for a little while, didn't play.

The 73-year old, who has four more Grammy nominations than he has years lived on Earth (yes, we mean 77), has been in China for a while now (almost two weeks). It's his first time on the Mainland, and the place seems to have really won him over. We're not sure if he had any specific purpose in coming here -- he said he wanted to "see the people, enjoy the music, touch the land, taste the food and even smell the air" in Shenzhen at the International Cultural Industry Fair -- but we have a feeling he'll be back.

For some reason he has been chosen to organize a huge festival next year to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. Events in Beijing and Shanghai will highlight a series of celebrations across the Mainland (and, we suppose, Hong Kong). Q's a cool cat and all, but does he have ties to the region we are not aware of?

And just a few days ago, Jones, so impressed by China's "four thousand years of awesome" culture in his week smelling the air, offered to write the theme song for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Silly us, we didn't even know Olympics had theme songs -- or maybe we did and blocked them from our memory. Did Elton John do one? It's still not certain whether Beijing will take Jones up on the offer, but they should, because the song will no doubt be awesome.

We're sure he hasn't yet penned the lyrics, be we envision lots of references to Chinese food and hot chicks. Here's what Jones thinks is so awesome about China:

"I really love this country, the food, the culture, the beautiful women -- some of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. Whoah! I would like to be one of the people who send out the message to the world about what a country this is."

Sweet.