What does poor really mean?

Never really venturing outside of the United States before it was hard to imagine what life is like on the outside. While there are many aspects of life that vary from country to country, right now I want to focus on wealth. A typical soft drink in America costs about $1.60 and in Shanghai it costs about $0.40. A typical music player in America costs about $300 and in Shanghai it costs about $300. How is it possible? While you would expect a music player to cost about $75 in China such is not the case. It appears that anything that could potentially be a necessity meets the standard of living price adjustment while anything considered a luxury does not. For the people of Shanghai this means that vacations abroad, fancy electronics, and nice cars are reserved for the elite few. Now this doesn’t seem so bad but consider the fact that Shanghai is one of the most expensive cities in China. This means that there is many areas of the country that are much poorer. But this is China, and China is doing rather well.  However, if we continue along this train of thought, we can imagine the best cities in places like Africa might rival some of the lesser parts of China. I know I'll never be able to walk a mile in the poorest shoes, because such shoes are nonexistent, but I'm slowly starting to understand how truly lucky we are to be brought up in such good conditions.