Have
you ever thought about learning Chinese? Join us on Sunday March 9th
for a FREE two hour Mandarin Crash Course Intro Session in Culver City!
Limited to a class size of 25 attendees.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Reuters: Why U.S. angst over Chinese buyouts is warranted
For some people, Jim Beam may be more American than apple pie. Yet the U.S.
public took it in stride earlier this month when Suntory, a Japanese
conglomerate, bought
the bourbon distillery for $13.6 billion.
This was a sharp contrast to U.S. reaction when a Chinese meat producer sought to buy the ham producer Smithfield Foods last year. The deal came under heavy attack. Shuanghui International Holdings faced formidable opposition on Capitol Hill last summer. Union workers and consumer advocates voiced well-publicized concerns about food safety and security.
By year end, though, Shuanghui was able to close the deal for $4.7 billion, the biggest takeover of a U.S. company by a Chinese group.
But worries about Chinese takeovers of key U.S.
companies are a deepening concern to both policymakers and consumer advocacy
groups. And the American public has reason to be wary of these acquisitions.
It would be folly to dismiss worries about the Smithfield buyout as a cultural misunderstanding or irrational fear. U.S. concerns about Chinese buyouts are not simply déjà vu of the American worries during the Japanese buying spree of the 1980s and ‘90s. Instead, we need to understand China’s rationale behind this acquisition, and examine how it may affect U.S. consumers. We also should explore how this deal fits into the larger picture of Beijing’s overseas asset-buying strategy.
Some now dismiss the current U.S. fear of an insatiable Chinese appetite for all things American as an over-reaction. After all, the argument goes, when Japanese lust for U.S. assets spiked roughly two decades ago — Japan’s buying spree ranged from Rockefeller Center in New York City to the Pebble Beach golf course in California — American hostility toward Japan also surged. But it eased as Japan’s economic fortunes plunged and the Japanese relinquished their hold on some major purchases — many of which had been based on irrational business decisions.
China’s spree, however, is far different. Not only does the Smithfield deal give China’s biggest meat processor a U.S. foothold, it is viewed as a template for many future large-scale buyouts of U.S. companies by Chinese conglomerates.
“Smithfield might be the first acquisition of a major food and agricultural company,” Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee warned last July, “but I doubt it will be the last.”
What sets these Chinese acquisitions apart from most other foreign purchases is that Chinese entities are state-owned — and so driven by national interests as well as economic. Chinese investments in the United States doubled in 2013, according to a recent report on Chinese foreign direct investment trends by the Rhodium Group.
If 2013 marks the first year of a wave of Chinese acquisition of U.S. assets, it may also mark the beginning of Chinese authorities’ strategic maneuvering for U.S. interests.
After the Smithfield buyout, Chinese companies are now better equipped to address the various hurdles that future acquisitions may face. It has allowed Beijing to think through what its real needs are, and to experience the public relations campaigns critical to winning over the U.S. public.
Beijing’s appetite looks strategic — focusing on energy and real estate, as well as food. These economic sectors are key to ensuring China’s domestic growth. Buying out Smithfield or Chesapeake Energy is no vanity purchase, driven by a company’s ego — like so many of Japan’s acquisitions at the height of the 1990s economic bubble. Rather, it reflects Beijing’s longer-term vision for its own national security.
Shuanghui’s determination to buy Smithfield despite the many obstacles demonstrates that the corporation is serious about making this investment yield returns for the entire Chinese economy, not just the company’s bottom line.
Meanwhile, given many Chinese companies’ poor track
record in adhering to food safety standards, U.S. consumers should be worried
about how the new ownership may affect their diet. Though it may increase U.S.
agricultural export opportunities, it could also result in lowered
standards.
Food safety scares are an increasingly serious problem in China. Pesticides are often misused and toxins have been found in many staples, including milk. Perhaps the most notorious incident, the poisoning of baby formula, sparked outrage among Chinese and foreign buyers alike.
Such concerns did not arise from Suntory’s buyout of Beam Inc. After all, Maker’s Mark whisky or Courvoisier cognac are non-essential to the American diet. (Though some may dispute this.)
Moreover, even as worries about Japanese products have increased following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the country still has a high food safety standard.
Most important, the strong U.S.-Japan bilateral ties are military and political as well as economic. The U.S. public indifference toward Suntory’s buyout of Jim Beam reflects the two allies’ close relationship.
Gone are the days when American lawmakers gnashed their teeth against yet another U.S. buyout by Japan Inc. In addition, once the Japanese economic bubble burst, many of the investments were, in turn, sold off. How resilient the Chinese economy is, however, remains to be seen. It’s also unlikely that Chinese investors will relinquish their U.S. purchases so rapidly
read more:http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/01/27/why-u-s-angst-over-chinese-buyouts-is-warranted/
This was a sharp contrast to U.S. reaction when a Chinese meat producer sought to buy the ham producer Smithfield Foods last year. The deal came under heavy attack. Shuanghui International Holdings faced formidable opposition on Capitol Hill last summer. Union workers and consumer advocates voiced well-publicized concerns about food safety and security.
By year end, though, Shuanghui was able to close the deal for $4.7 billion, the biggest takeover of a U.S. company by a Chinese group.
But worries about Chinese takeovers of key U.S.
companies are a deepening concern to both policymakers and consumer advocacy
groups. And the American public has reason to be wary of these acquisitions.It would be folly to dismiss worries about the Smithfield buyout as a cultural misunderstanding or irrational fear. U.S. concerns about Chinese buyouts are not simply déjà vu of the American worries during the Japanese buying spree of the 1980s and ‘90s. Instead, we need to understand China’s rationale behind this acquisition, and examine how it may affect U.S. consumers. We also should explore how this deal fits into the larger picture of Beijing’s overseas asset-buying strategy.
Some now dismiss the current U.S. fear of an insatiable Chinese appetite for all things American as an over-reaction. After all, the argument goes, when Japanese lust for U.S. assets spiked roughly two decades ago — Japan’s buying spree ranged from Rockefeller Center in New York City to the Pebble Beach golf course in California — American hostility toward Japan also surged. But it eased as Japan’s economic fortunes plunged and the Japanese relinquished their hold on some major purchases — many of which had been based on irrational business decisions.
China’s spree, however, is far different. Not only does the Smithfield deal give China’s biggest meat processor a U.S. foothold, it is viewed as a template for many future large-scale buyouts of U.S. companies by Chinese conglomerates.
“Smithfield might be the first acquisition of a major food and agricultural company,” Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee warned last July, “but I doubt it will be the last.”
What sets these Chinese acquisitions apart from most other foreign purchases is that Chinese entities are state-owned — and so driven by national interests as well as economic. Chinese investments in the United States doubled in 2013, according to a recent report on Chinese foreign direct investment trends by the Rhodium Group.
If 2013 marks the first year of a wave of Chinese acquisition of U.S. assets, it may also mark the beginning of Chinese authorities’ strategic maneuvering for U.S. interests.
After the Smithfield buyout, Chinese companies are now better equipped to address the various hurdles that future acquisitions may face. It has allowed Beijing to think through what its real needs are, and to experience the public relations campaigns critical to winning over the U.S. public.
Beijing’s appetite looks strategic — focusing on energy and real estate, as well as food. These economic sectors are key to ensuring China’s domestic growth. Buying out Smithfield or Chesapeake Energy is no vanity purchase, driven by a company’s ego — like so many of Japan’s acquisitions at the height of the 1990s economic bubble. Rather, it reflects Beijing’s longer-term vision for its own national security.
Shuanghui’s determination to buy Smithfield despite the many obstacles demonstrates that the corporation is serious about making this investment yield returns for the entire Chinese economy, not just the company’s bottom line.
Meanwhile, given many Chinese companies’ poor track
record in adhering to food safety standards, U.S. consumers should be worried
about how the new ownership may affect their diet. Though it may increase U.S.
agricultural export opportunities, it could also result in lowered
standards.Food safety scares are an increasingly serious problem in China. Pesticides are often misused and toxins have been found in many staples, including milk. Perhaps the most notorious incident, the poisoning of baby formula, sparked outrage among Chinese and foreign buyers alike.
Such concerns did not arise from Suntory’s buyout of Beam Inc. After all, Maker’s Mark whisky or Courvoisier cognac are non-essential to the American diet. (Though some may dispute this.)
Moreover, even as worries about Japanese products have increased following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the country still has a high food safety standard.
Most important, the strong U.S.-Japan bilateral ties are military and political as well as economic. The U.S. public indifference toward Suntory’s buyout of Jim Beam reflects the two allies’ close relationship.
Gone are the days when American lawmakers gnashed their teeth against yet another U.S. buyout by Japan Inc. In addition, once the Japanese economic bubble burst, many of the investments were, in turn, sold off. How resilient the Chinese economy is, however, remains to be seen. It’s also unlikely that Chinese investors will relinquish their U.S. purchases so rapidly
read more:http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/01/27/why-u-s-angst-over-chinese-buyouts-is-warranted/
Monday, February 24, 2014
Sexy Beijing: Lost in Translation
Want to travel to China? Learn Chinese at Chinese Language Academy of Los Angeles.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Havard Business Review: Do You Really Want to Bet Against China?
The book Asia Rising was a prescient 1995 forecast of East and South Asia’s continuing rise to economic power, written by the Economist’s
first Asia editor, Jim Rohwer. It is also mostly forgotten because, two
years after its publication, East Asia fell into a deep financial and
economic crisis that seemed to discredit the thesis. And after that,
when China and India’s spectacular growth in the first decade of the new
millennium proved Rohwer right in spades, he wasn’t around to say I told you so because he’d died (in a sailing accident) in 2001.
I knew Rohwer slightly, and I thought of him a lot last week during my first visit to Shanghai, a city that played a central role in his book. He had forecast that it would be the epicenter of the Asian boom, with 27 million inhabitants by 2020 and a place alongside New York and London as one of the world’s top three financial capitals. Rohwer — at the time a resident of Hong Kong — also predicted that he’d be living there, “in a district … that in imperial days was known as the French Concession.”
Obviously, and sadly, that last prediction can’t come true. But one night last week I found myself sitting in the garden of a sturdy old house in the lovely, leafy neighborhood that is again known as the French Concession, drinking excellent wine poured by the China-born executive at a U.S. company who lives there, and concluding that Rohwer really had been on to something. Shanghai stands a good chance of meeting or surpassing his population prediction — it’s already at close to 24 million. It’s not yet quite the financial center Rohwer envisioned, because China so far hasn’t been willing to take the plunge into full, unfettered participation in global financial markets (although a new free-trade zone in Shanghai amounts to a major dipping of toes in the water). It does have the feel of a soon-to-be-inescapable global metropolis, the kind of vibrant, affluent, stylish, bold place that will be setting trends and shaping the world economy for decades to come.
Am I utterly confident in that prediction after four days in Shanghai and just 10 total in China? (I also visited Beijing, where I spent most of my time stuck in traffic, and the port city of Dalian, where I spent most of my time in this crazy-looking new conference center.) No, I’m not, and the superficial impressions of short-term visitors to China should of course be taken with many grains of salt.
But a visit to China, or at least to a few of the big, booming cities on or near its coast, cannot help but reinforce the view that it is the inevitabilists like Rohwer who have gotten Asia in general and China in particular right, while the doubters have gotten things wrong again and again and again over the past couple of decades. Nothing truly is inevitable in this world, and China now faces huge pollution problems, dwindling resources, an aging workforce, and a harder road to economic progress with the potential gains from cheap-labor-driven export growth mostly exploited — not to mention the potential for conflict between a populace growing accustomed to economic freedom and at least partial freedom of expression and a ruling political party determined to stay in control. No country has risen to economic greatness without crises and backward steps along the way. But China’s forward momentum is remarkable, and it is so huge and so far along the road to joining the world’s wealthy nations that from now on its crises and backward steps will likely be ours, too.
A core prediction of Rohwer’s 1995 book was that by 2020 the center of global economic gravity would have shifted from the mid-Atlantic to somewhere in or near Asia — with Asia’s economy bigger than those of Europe and the Americas combined. With only six years to go and Asia still quite a few trillions of GDP dollars behind, that seems like a stretch. But the relative change in fortunes has nonetheless been dramatic, and betting against Rohwer on Asia has generally been a bad idea. If only he were around to collect.
One other superficial impression from my China visit: I’ve long been partial to the argument that India possesses a long-run advantage over China because while its hard infrastructure of highways and railroads and airports and power grids is clearly inferior, its soft infrastructure of laws and politics and a free press is vastly superior to China’s. But China’s physical infrastructure just keeps getting more impressive. (Fun fact, from a fascinating article by Keith Bradsher in Tuesday’s New York Times: “China’s high-speed rail network will handle more passengers by early next year than the 54 million people a month who board domestic flights in the United States.”) And over the past decade, with the rise of social media and an independent business media and the continuing development of its legal system, China has made real progress on the soft stuff—possibly as much as India has in building airports and subways and surely more than India has in improving its electrical grid.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/09/do-you-really-want-to-bet-against-china/
I knew Rohwer slightly, and I thought of him a lot last week during my first visit to Shanghai, a city that played a central role in his book. He had forecast that it would be the epicenter of the Asian boom, with 27 million inhabitants by 2020 and a place alongside New York and London as one of the world’s top three financial capitals. Rohwer — at the time a resident of Hong Kong — also predicted that he’d be living there, “in a district … that in imperial days was known as the French Concession.”
Obviously, and sadly, that last prediction can’t come true. But one night last week I found myself sitting in the garden of a sturdy old house in the lovely, leafy neighborhood that is again known as the French Concession, drinking excellent wine poured by the China-born executive at a U.S. company who lives there, and concluding that Rohwer really had been on to something. Shanghai stands a good chance of meeting or surpassing his population prediction — it’s already at close to 24 million. It’s not yet quite the financial center Rohwer envisioned, because China so far hasn’t been willing to take the plunge into full, unfettered participation in global financial markets (although a new free-trade zone in Shanghai amounts to a major dipping of toes in the water). It does have the feel of a soon-to-be-inescapable global metropolis, the kind of vibrant, affluent, stylish, bold place that will be setting trends and shaping the world economy for decades to come.
Am I utterly confident in that prediction after four days in Shanghai and just 10 total in China? (I also visited Beijing, where I spent most of my time stuck in traffic, and the port city of Dalian, where I spent most of my time in this crazy-looking new conference center.) No, I’m not, and the superficial impressions of short-term visitors to China should of course be taken with many grains of salt.
But a visit to China, or at least to a few of the big, booming cities on or near its coast, cannot help but reinforce the view that it is the inevitabilists like Rohwer who have gotten Asia in general and China in particular right, while the doubters have gotten things wrong again and again and again over the past couple of decades. Nothing truly is inevitable in this world, and China now faces huge pollution problems, dwindling resources, an aging workforce, and a harder road to economic progress with the potential gains from cheap-labor-driven export growth mostly exploited — not to mention the potential for conflict between a populace growing accustomed to economic freedom and at least partial freedom of expression and a ruling political party determined to stay in control. No country has risen to economic greatness without crises and backward steps along the way. But China’s forward momentum is remarkable, and it is so huge and so far along the road to joining the world’s wealthy nations that from now on its crises and backward steps will likely be ours, too.
A core prediction of Rohwer’s 1995 book was that by 2020 the center of global economic gravity would have shifted from the mid-Atlantic to somewhere in or near Asia — with Asia’s economy bigger than those of Europe and the Americas combined. With only six years to go and Asia still quite a few trillions of GDP dollars behind, that seems like a stretch. But the relative change in fortunes has nonetheless been dramatic, and betting against Rohwer on Asia has generally been a bad idea. If only he were around to collect.
One other superficial impression from my China visit: I’ve long been partial to the argument that India possesses a long-run advantage over China because while its hard infrastructure of highways and railroads and airports and power grids is clearly inferior, its soft infrastructure of laws and politics and a free press is vastly superior to China’s. But China’s physical infrastructure just keeps getting more impressive. (Fun fact, from a fascinating article by Keith Bradsher in Tuesday’s New York Times: “China’s high-speed rail network will handle more passengers by early next year than the 54 million people a month who board domestic flights in the United States.”) And over the past decade, with the rise of social media and an independent business media and the continuing development of its legal system, China has made real progress on the soft stuff—possibly as much as India has in building airports and subways and surely more than India has in improving its electrical grid.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/09/do-you-really-want-to-bet-against-china/
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
What’s All The Fuss About WhatsApp? China’s WeChat Is a Worthy Rival Read more: What’s All The Fuss About WhatsApp? China’s WeChat Is a Worthy Rival
The news alert buzzed on my cellphone in Beijing. Facebook had bought messaging service WhatsApp for a gazillion dollars. Personally, I didn’t care.
Because Chinese government censors have blocked so many global social-media and technology services — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, plus any number of media sources — the People’s Republic has nurtured its own unique tech ecosystem. It’s like we’re a Madagascar populated with unearthly lemurs, instead of the usual chattering monkeys. And sometimes those lemurs do really cool tricks.
(MORE: Facebook’s WhatsApp Acquisition Explained)
The reason the WhatsApp news didn’t resonate is that most of us living in China use WeChat (or Weixin, 微信) instead. WeChat is the brainchild of Tencent, one of the largest Internet service providers in China. Westerners may not have heard of Tencent but its Hong Kong-listed arm boasts a market capitalization of $140 billion. As of last fall, WeChat had more than 270 million monthly users, compared to WhatsApp’s 450 million. But WeChat doubled its user base in a year, the kind of growth that should make WhatsApp pay attention to this Chinese monster app. While WhatsApp is popular in the Americas and Europe, WeChat is making inroads into East Asia and Africa. (WeChat is hardly the only Asian mobile messaging service out there, with LINE, Kakao and Viber also gaining fans.)
WeChat combines the best of Facebook and WhatsApp — and then adds a slew of monetizing innovations of its own. (Some ideas have been borrowed from another Chinese Internet giant, Alibaba.) From playing mobile games and hailing taxis to posting video and making online payments, WeChat is an all-you-can-use mobile service. This Chinese New Year, for instance, users delighted in sending and receiving online red packets (红包) of lucky money. A function called “shake” allows WeChat users within a certain radius to find each other by jiggling their cellphones. It sounds silly but walk into a crowded Beijing restaurant, and you’ll see a fair amount of shaking going on.
WeChat also refines the Facebook experience by allowing easy photo posting. A more private comments system includes only those people you’re friends with — not random friends of friends who can clutter your feed. Group chats allow convivial and efficient communication — one high-level Chinese government official I met recently admitted to using group chats to catch up with old university friends.
(MORE: Not Using WeChat Yet? You Might Be Soon)
Because texting in Chinese characters is cumbersome, WeChat allows users to send quick voice messages instead. Indeed, SMS traffic has declined in China because of WeChat. Tencent is rolling out financial-services products that users can tap into via WeChat — imagine mutual funds via mobiles. The parent company, which also runs a popular instant-messaging service, expects revenues topping $1 billion this year. Oh, and unlike WhatsApp, WeChat is free to download for users.
WeChat does have its problems. One is the sticker shop that tenaciously attaches itself to my profile. I have no need for stickers and don’t need an alert every time an emoticon is added to my potential library of cuteness.
But a much larger concern is this: WeChat — like Weibo, the microblogging platform that proliferated in China in the absence of Twitter — is monitored by the Chinese government. For most people, who use WeChat to buy stuff or play games or message Mom or flirt online with suitors across a crowded bar, such official supervision doesn’t matter. But Weibo, which flew to such amazing heights a few months ago, is now slumping amid an overall crackdown on dissent. If WeChat is to really expand beyond China, it will have to convince users not only that it’s cooler and more efficient than WhatsApp, but also that it’s more liberating.
Because Chinese government censors have blocked so many global social-media and technology services — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, plus any number of media sources — the People’s Republic has nurtured its own unique tech ecosystem. It’s like we’re a Madagascar populated with unearthly lemurs, instead of the usual chattering monkeys. And sometimes those lemurs do really cool tricks.
(MORE: Facebook’s WhatsApp Acquisition Explained)
The reason the WhatsApp news didn’t resonate is that most of us living in China use WeChat (or Weixin, 微信) instead. WeChat is the brainchild of Tencent, one of the largest Internet service providers in China. Westerners may not have heard of Tencent but its Hong Kong-listed arm boasts a market capitalization of $140 billion. As of last fall, WeChat had more than 270 million monthly users, compared to WhatsApp’s 450 million. But WeChat doubled its user base in a year, the kind of growth that should make WhatsApp pay attention to this Chinese monster app. While WhatsApp is popular in the Americas and Europe, WeChat is making inroads into East Asia and Africa. (WeChat is hardly the only Asian mobile messaging service out there, with LINE, Kakao and Viber also gaining fans.)
WeChat combines the best of Facebook and WhatsApp — and then adds a slew of monetizing innovations of its own. (Some ideas have been borrowed from another Chinese Internet giant, Alibaba.) From playing mobile games and hailing taxis to posting video and making online payments, WeChat is an all-you-can-use mobile service. This Chinese New Year, for instance, users delighted in sending and receiving online red packets (红包) of lucky money. A function called “shake” allows WeChat users within a certain radius to find each other by jiggling their cellphones. It sounds silly but walk into a crowded Beijing restaurant, and you’ll see a fair amount of shaking going on.
WeChat also refines the Facebook experience by allowing easy photo posting. A more private comments system includes only those people you’re friends with — not random friends of friends who can clutter your feed. Group chats allow convivial and efficient communication — one high-level Chinese government official I met recently admitted to using group chats to catch up with old university friends.
(MORE: Not Using WeChat Yet? You Might Be Soon)
Because texting in Chinese characters is cumbersome, WeChat allows users to send quick voice messages instead. Indeed, SMS traffic has declined in China because of WeChat. Tencent is rolling out financial-services products that users can tap into via WeChat — imagine mutual funds via mobiles. The parent company, which also runs a popular instant-messaging service, expects revenues topping $1 billion this year. Oh, and unlike WhatsApp, WeChat is free to download for users.
WeChat does have its problems. One is the sticker shop that tenaciously attaches itself to my profile. I have no need for stickers and don’t need an alert every time an emoticon is added to my potential library of cuteness.
But a much larger concern is this: WeChat — like Weibo, the microblogging platform that proliferated in China in the absence of Twitter — is monitored by the Chinese government. For most people, who use WeChat to buy stuff or play games or message Mom or flirt online with suitors across a crowded bar, such official supervision doesn’t matter. But Weibo, which flew to such amazing heights a few months ago, is now slumping amid an overall crackdown on dissent. If WeChat is to really expand beyond China, it will have to convince users not only that it’s cooler and more efficient than WhatsApp, but also that it’s more liberating.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
The Atlantic: Scenes From 21st-Century China
The People's Republic of China, the most populous country, and the
second-largest economy, in the world, is a vast, dynamic nation that
continues to grow and evolve. In this, the latest entry in a
semi-regular series on China, we find a tremendous variety of images,
including an earthquake in Gansu province, a massive rubber duck in
Beijing, a narrow five-story nail house, and a replica of Paris --
complete with an Eiffel Tower. This collection offers only a small view
of people and places across the country over the past few months.
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/09/scenes-from-21st-century-china/100586/
Learn Chinese at Chinese Language Academy of Los Angeles.
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/09/scenes-from-21st-century-china/100586/
Learn Chinese at Chinese Language Academy of Los Angeles.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Ambitious Chinese developers expanded their business adventure in Los Angeles LAtimes:Chinese developer unveils plans for Metropolis project in L.A.
Chinese real estate developer Greenland Group revealed plans Friday
for a quick start on the first phase of its $1-billion Metropolis Los
Angeles project that is expected to redefine the downtown skyline.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-metropolis-plan-20140213,0,466896.story#ixzz2tkFzOHL9
Lean business Chinese at Chinese Language Academy of Los Angeles.
Work is set to begin
shortly on a high-rise hotel and a residential skyscraper on what is now
a vast parking lot along the 110 Freeway north of Staples Center and LA Live. The buildings should be open by 2016.
"Greenland USA is pleased to join the downtown Los Angeles community and to make one of the largest investments in downtown in recent history," Chief Executive Ifei Chang said in a statement.
QUIZ: How much do you know about mortgages?
"Our company has the experience, expertise and leadership to promote the dynamic, urban lifestyle that is growing in downtown Los Angeles," she said. "We look forward to making an immediate impact on its continued revitalization."
Greenland USA is a subsidiary of Greenland Group, a Shanghai developer that bought the 6.3-acre site last month for nearly $150 million.
Previous owners of the property between 8th and 9th streets got city approval for 1.65 million square feet of hotel, condominium, office and retail development on a block that links the financial district with LA Live and Staples Center.
As designed by architecture firm Gensler, the hotel is expected to be 19 stories tall with 350 rooms. Greenland has not identified an operator for the inn, but hopes it will earn a four-star rating. The residential tower is anticipated to be 38 stories high.
Greenland did not say whether the residences would be apartments or condominiums. Apartments are in high demand, but there is a growing shortage of for-sale housing in downtown L.A. Units could also be marketed to mainland Chinese investors.
Greenland Group was formed in 1992 to build green belts around Shanghai and has evolved into a Fortune Global 500 company with major developments in London, Seoul and Sydney, Australia. In December, Greenland agreed to become the majority owner-developer of the $4-billion Atlantic Yards residential complex planned in Brooklyn, N.Y.
"Founded 22 years ago, Greenland Group has expanded to more than 80 cities across China and is known as a leading developer of high-quality, high-rise residential buildings and urban complexes," Chairman Yuliang Zhang said. "International expansion, in particular in the U.S. market, is a strategic priority for us."
"Greenland USA is pleased to join the downtown Los Angeles community and to make one of the largest investments in downtown in recent history," Chief Executive Ifei Chang said in a statement.
QUIZ: How much do you know about mortgages?
"Our company has the experience, expertise and leadership to promote the dynamic, urban lifestyle that is growing in downtown Los Angeles," she said. "We look forward to making an immediate impact on its continued revitalization."
Greenland USA is a subsidiary of Greenland Group, a Shanghai developer that bought the 6.3-acre site last month for nearly $150 million.
Previous owners of the property between 8th and 9th streets got city approval for 1.65 million square feet of hotel, condominium, office and retail development on a block that links the financial district with LA Live and Staples Center.
As designed by architecture firm Gensler, the hotel is expected to be 19 stories tall with 350 rooms. Greenland has not identified an operator for the inn, but hopes it will earn a four-star rating. The residential tower is anticipated to be 38 stories high.
Greenland did not say whether the residences would be apartments or condominiums. Apartments are in high demand, but there is a growing shortage of for-sale housing in downtown L.A. Units could also be marketed to mainland Chinese investors.
Greenland Group was formed in 1992 to build green belts around Shanghai and has evolved into a Fortune Global 500 company with major developments in London, Seoul and Sydney, Australia. In December, Greenland agreed to become the majority owner-developer of the $4-billion Atlantic Yards residential complex planned in Brooklyn, N.Y.
"Founded 22 years ago, Greenland Group has expanded to more than 80 cities across China and is known as a leading developer of high-quality, high-rise residential buildings and urban complexes," Chairman Yuliang Zhang said. "International expansion, in particular in the U.S. market, is a strategic priority for us."
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-metropolis-plan-20140213,0,466896.story#ixzz2tkFzOHL9
Lean business Chinese at Chinese Language Academy of Los Angeles.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Marrying later in life is a very modern trend in China, which worried many parents. This is a senior citizen's response in an interview regarding new laws: "Being 30 and Unmarried Should be Illegal and Punished!"
Starting from July 1st, China’s new filial piety law
took effect. In an attempt to revise the country’s law on the
Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, a clause was
added that “family members living apart from the elderly should
frequently visit or send greetings to the elderly persons.”
Filial piety has been seen as a top virtue in China for thousands of years. As the old saying goes: “Filial piety comes before all virtues.” And in a country where 26% of its entire population is said to be over 65 by the year 2050, it’s understandable why the concept is still relevant.
This is not the first attempt in which the Chinese government tries to revive this traditional value. Back in 2012, China’s National Bureau of Senior Affairs released a list of New 24 Filial Exemplars, giving the thousand-year old concept new applications in today’s China.
The new law has been controversial. Some thought it made sense since the respect of and care for the elderly are generally on the decline in China. Most thought it was ridiculous to regulate something as personal as paying visits to parents. And most of all, how often constitutes frequent anyway?
Youku, China’s Youtube equivalent, recently went out to interview people on the streets about their take on the new law. One elderly man’s answer surprised all viewers and, on purpose or not, brought up another population problem that China is facing now.
When asked about how he felt about the new filial piety law, the old guy said, quietly passionately:
And guess what, it indeed used to be a “violation” of some sort in ancient China. Filial piety is the most important of all virtues, and not having children was seen, for a very long time, as the most severe violation of filial piety. In old times, men can dismiss his wife or keep marring new wives if the original one fails to give birth to a son. Time has changed but adults are still expected to get married and to reproduce. That’s how it works in the Middle Kingdom.
In today’s China in particular, problems of unmarried men and women are hitting headlines everywhere. The infamous “leftover women” (well-educated, well-paid urban working females) has evolved into a cultural phenomenon. On the flip side, China will have over 30 million bachelors by the year 2020, much thanks to the one child policy and a cultural preference of boys. While a lot of the country’s young are actually enjoying their single life, they are no doubt under a lot of pressure to get married when there are parents who think it is a crime to be single at 30.
When women turn 30 and are still single, they shop and spend. But when millions of 30-year-old men stay unmarried, on top of a dim job market, there will be social problems. We will probably soon see “Get married before 30” be written in law, as the elderly guy wished. And believe it or not, life sentence (无期徒刑, wu qi tu xing) is pronounced exactly the same as no wife sentence (无妻徒刑, wu qi tu xing) in Chinese.
The video clip has been watched over 65k times after only 11 hours, and started to make waves on Weibo, China’s Twitter like microblog service. Comments by the elderly guy starts at 2’39”.
http://offbeatchina.com/an-elderly-chinese-mans-take-on-new-filial-piety-law-those-who-are-still-single-at-the-age-of-30-should-be-sentenced
Filial piety has been seen as a top virtue in China for thousands of years. As the old saying goes: “Filial piety comes before all virtues.” And in a country where 26% of its entire population is said to be over 65 by the year 2050, it’s understandable why the concept is still relevant.
This is not the first attempt in which the Chinese government tries to revive this traditional value. Back in 2012, China’s National Bureau of Senior Affairs released a list of New 24 Filial Exemplars, giving the thousand-year old concept new applications in today’s China.
The new law has been controversial. Some thought it made sense since the respect of and care for the elderly are generally on the decline in China. Most thought it was ridiculous to regulate something as personal as paying visits to parents. And most of all, how often constitutes frequent anyway?
Youku, China’s Youtube equivalent, recently went out to interview people on the streets about their take on the new law. One elderly man’s answer surprised all viewers and, on purpose or not, brought up another population problem that China is facing now.
When asked about how he felt about the new filial piety law, the old guy said, quietly passionately:
“My kids shouldn’t be treated as a violator of any law if they don’t’ visit me frequently. Instead, [if they are] 30 years old and still unmarried, now that should be treated as a violation of law. They should be sentenced.”
And guess what, it indeed used to be a “violation” of some sort in ancient China. Filial piety is the most important of all virtues, and not having children was seen, for a very long time, as the most severe violation of filial piety. In old times, men can dismiss his wife or keep marring new wives if the original one fails to give birth to a son. Time has changed but adults are still expected to get married and to reproduce. That’s how it works in the Middle Kingdom.
In today’s China in particular, problems of unmarried men and women are hitting headlines everywhere. The infamous “leftover women” (well-educated, well-paid urban working females) has evolved into a cultural phenomenon. On the flip side, China will have over 30 million bachelors by the year 2020, much thanks to the one child policy and a cultural preference of boys. While a lot of the country’s young are actually enjoying their single life, they are no doubt under a lot of pressure to get married when there are parents who think it is a crime to be single at 30.
When women turn 30 and are still single, they shop and spend. But when millions of 30-year-old men stay unmarried, on top of a dim job market, there will be social problems. We will probably soon see “Get married before 30” be written in law, as the elderly guy wished. And believe it or not, life sentence (无期徒刑, wu qi tu xing) is pronounced exactly the same as no wife sentence (无妻徒刑, wu qi tu xing) in Chinese.
The video clip has been watched over 65k times after only 11 hours, and started to make waves on Weibo, China’s Twitter like microblog service. Comments by the elderly guy starts at 2’39”.
http://offbeatchina.com/an-elderly-chinese-mans-take-on-new-filial-piety-law-those-who-are-still-single-at-the-age-of-30-should-be-sentenced
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Chinese visitors turning San Gabriel into a boomtown
Chen Si, 35, and her husband visited Los Angeles from Shanghai for
the first time in December, excited about local attractions like
Disneyland and Hollywood.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-san-gabriel-20140213,0,6495861.story#ixzz2tREKxDnr
They were less enthused
about the idea of American food. They booked a room in San Gabriel,
where friends said they could find "acceptable" Chinese food in the
surrounding neighborhood, Si said.
The once-quiet suburb about 12 miles east of downtown Los Angeles is in the midst of a transformation built on the growing international reputation of its Chinese food and services.
FOR THE RECORD:
San Gabriel tourism: In the Feb. 13 Section A, an article about development and tourism on Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel misstated the location of two proposed hotels. Developer Sunny Chen has proposed a hotel at the site of a closed Norm's restaurant near the intersection of Valley Boulevard and Del Mar Avenue, not the property next to it, which contains a closed furniture store. The Crowne Plaza hotel is slated for a property a block east from the site of the old Norm's restaurant, not the restaurant site itself. —
These are boom times for Chinese tourism, and statistics show that about a third of those who travel to the United States spend at least some time in Los Angeles. But some are shunning coastal resorts and Beverly Hills opulence in favor of San Gabriel, a city of 40,000 best known for its historic mission.
"San Gabriel is famous in China," said David Lee, chief executive of Hing Wa Lee Group, which recently opened a flagship jewelry store in San Gabriel a few hundred feet from a Hilton hotel, where many Chinese tourists stay. "It has become a brand name destination."
The tourism boom has helped spark new development. A 316-room Crowne Plaza Hotel is slated to open next door to the Hilton in 2015, taking over an overgrown lot that once housed a Norm's restaurant. Hilton developer Sunny Chen is applying to build another hotel right next to that at the site of an old furniture store.
With no beaches, no major landmarks and few A-list shops or restaurants, San Gabriel is an unlikely tourist destination. But the city has a Chinese-style five-star hotel within walking distance of a thriving community of Chinese restaurants, Asian banks and multilingual travel agencies. Visitors to San Gabriel sometimes use the city as a home base for trips throughout the Southland, returning to Valley Boulevard to eat.
"No matter where Chinese people go, no matter where they are from, they cannot change their appetite," said Steve Chiang, a Chinese newspaper publisher and president of the Rosemead Chamber of Commerce.
On a recent weekday, a driving drumbeat off Valley Boulevard signaled the opening of a new business.
A Monterey Park lion dance troupe performed on a sidewalk bristling with cameras and reporters from the Chinese language media, kicking off the opening reception for Lee's largest jewelry store. It's a softly lighted domed building with Swiss architectural flourishes, located on a small parcel carved from the parking lot of the 99 Ranch grocery store.
Inside, a guest list of politicians and luxury watch brand presidents sat down to a 10-course meal at tables set with gold cloths, napkins and chair ribbons. Lang Lang, a Chinese pianist who recently performed with Metallica at the Grammys, provided the entertainment from an elevated grand piano.
Lee says he's trying to cater to Chinese nationals, who form about 70% of his business. Chinese travelers spend about $3,000 on each trip to California, more than visitors from any other nation, according to data from the U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism Industries. Here they find cheaper prices for name brand products like watches and iPhones, and it's more likely that they'll be genuine in America, Lee said.
San Gabriel's "name recognition has become luxury," said Julie Tang, general manager of Park Place International, a San Gabriel travel agency. "And it has become so Chinese. That's the reason it's been successful."
When waves of Chinese immigrants settled in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1980s, Monterey Park was declared the first suburban Chinatown. But the epicenter of the community has been moving east ever since. The San Gabriel Square, a 219,000-square-foot retail development known colloquially as the Great Mall of China, has drawn huge numbers of Chinese from throughout the Southland since the 1990s. The Hilton's arrival on Valley Boulevard in 2004 funneled a stream of wealthy Chinese nationals to San Gabriel, and luxury businesses followed.
Now it's almost impossible to get a room at the Hilton, which is about 90% occupied year-round. On this section of Valley Boulevard, the familiar $15 foot massage is giving way to $100 muscle treatments and billboards advertising $12,000 watches. Nearly 100 restaurants, 36 jewelry stores, 20 travel and tour bus businesses and 12 banks are crammed into a series of two-story strip malls.
In the mornings, cars jostle with dozens of tour buses ferrying visitors to casinos, Disneyland and other local attractions. Long lines form at Chinese restaurants and grocery stores in the evenings.
It's a lifestyle that is appealing to an increasing number of Chinese nationals, who worry about the environmental and economic future of their country. According to the Hurun Report, a publication chronicling Chinese wealth, more than 60% of Chinese millionaires are considering emigration, with the U.S. as a primary destination.
The once-quiet suburb about 12 miles east of downtown Los Angeles is in the midst of a transformation built on the growing international reputation of its Chinese food and services.
FOR THE RECORD:
San Gabriel tourism: In the Feb. 13 Section A, an article about development and tourism on Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel misstated the location of two proposed hotels. Developer Sunny Chen has proposed a hotel at the site of a closed Norm's restaurant near the intersection of Valley Boulevard and Del Mar Avenue, not the property next to it, which contains a closed furniture store. The Crowne Plaza hotel is slated for a property a block east from the site of the old Norm's restaurant, not the restaurant site itself. —
These are boom times for Chinese tourism, and statistics show that about a third of those who travel to the United States spend at least some time in Los Angeles. But some are shunning coastal resorts and Beverly Hills opulence in favor of San Gabriel, a city of 40,000 best known for its historic mission.
"San Gabriel is famous in China," said David Lee, chief executive of Hing Wa Lee Group, which recently opened a flagship jewelry store in San Gabriel a few hundred feet from a Hilton hotel, where many Chinese tourists stay. "It has become a brand name destination."
The tourism boom has helped spark new development. A 316-room Crowne Plaza Hotel is slated to open next door to the Hilton in 2015, taking over an overgrown lot that once housed a Norm's restaurant. Hilton developer Sunny Chen is applying to build another hotel right next to that at the site of an old furniture store.
With no beaches, no major landmarks and few A-list shops or restaurants, San Gabriel is an unlikely tourist destination. But the city has a Chinese-style five-star hotel within walking distance of a thriving community of Chinese restaurants, Asian banks and multilingual travel agencies. Visitors to San Gabriel sometimes use the city as a home base for trips throughout the Southland, returning to Valley Boulevard to eat.
"No matter where Chinese people go, no matter where they are from, they cannot change their appetite," said Steve Chiang, a Chinese newspaper publisher and president of the Rosemead Chamber of Commerce.
On a recent weekday, a driving drumbeat off Valley Boulevard signaled the opening of a new business.
A Monterey Park lion dance troupe performed on a sidewalk bristling with cameras and reporters from the Chinese language media, kicking off the opening reception for Lee's largest jewelry store. It's a softly lighted domed building with Swiss architectural flourishes, located on a small parcel carved from the parking lot of the 99 Ranch grocery store.
Inside, a guest list of politicians and luxury watch brand presidents sat down to a 10-course meal at tables set with gold cloths, napkins and chair ribbons. Lang Lang, a Chinese pianist who recently performed with Metallica at the Grammys, provided the entertainment from an elevated grand piano.
Lee says he's trying to cater to Chinese nationals, who form about 70% of his business. Chinese travelers spend about $3,000 on each trip to California, more than visitors from any other nation, according to data from the U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism Industries. Here they find cheaper prices for name brand products like watches and iPhones, and it's more likely that they'll be genuine in America, Lee said.
San Gabriel's "name recognition has become luxury," said Julie Tang, general manager of Park Place International, a San Gabriel travel agency. "And it has become so Chinese. That's the reason it's been successful."
When waves of Chinese immigrants settled in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1980s, Monterey Park was declared the first suburban Chinatown. But the epicenter of the community has been moving east ever since. The San Gabriel Square, a 219,000-square-foot retail development known colloquially as the Great Mall of China, has drawn huge numbers of Chinese from throughout the Southland since the 1990s. The Hilton's arrival on Valley Boulevard in 2004 funneled a stream of wealthy Chinese nationals to San Gabriel, and luxury businesses followed.
Now it's almost impossible to get a room at the Hilton, which is about 90% occupied year-round. On this section of Valley Boulevard, the familiar $15 foot massage is giving way to $100 muscle treatments and billboards advertising $12,000 watches. Nearly 100 restaurants, 36 jewelry stores, 20 travel and tour bus businesses and 12 banks are crammed into a series of two-story strip malls.
In the mornings, cars jostle with dozens of tour buses ferrying visitors to casinos, Disneyland and other local attractions. Long lines form at Chinese restaurants and grocery stores in the evenings.
It's a lifestyle that is appealing to an increasing number of Chinese nationals, who worry about the environmental and economic future of their country. According to the Hurun Report, a publication chronicling Chinese wealth, more than 60% of Chinese millionaires are considering emigration, with the U.S. as a primary destination.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-san-gabriel-20140213,0,6495861.story#ixzz2tREKxDnr
Friday, February 14, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
26 Years of Growth: Shanghai Then and Now
Reuters photographer Carlos Barria recently spent time in Shanghai,
China, the fastest-growing city in the world. A week ago, he took this
amazing shot, recreating the same framing and perspective as a
photograph taken in 1987, showing what a difference 26 years can make.
The setting is Shanghai's financial district of Pudong, dominated by the
Oriental Pearl Tower at left, and the new 125-story Shanghai Tower,
China's tallest building and the world's second tallest skyscraper, at
632 meters (2,073 ft) high, scheduled to finish by the end of 2014.
Shanghai, the largest city by population in the world, has been growing
at a rate of about 10 percent a year the past 20 years, and now is home
to 23.5 million people -- nearly double what it was back in 1987. This
entry is focused on this single photo pairing, with several ways to
compare the two.
http://m.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/08/26-years-of-growth-shanghai-then-and-now/100569/
http://m.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/08/26-years-of-growth-shanghai-then-and-now/100569/
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
China Rising | Institute of Politics
Jon Huntsman, former U.S. Ambassador to China, and Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia, along with Keith Richburg, former Washington Post Bureau Chief and China correspondent discussed the rise of China at Harvard.
Monday, February 10, 2014
"wikipedia" for Chinese grammar resource
John Pasden, a China expat founded a
"wikipedia" for Chinese grammar resource. The platform is
learner-friendly and accessible to all. Do a search to see if you can
find the answers!
http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Main_Page
http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Main_Page
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Chinese New Year!
Friday, February 7, 2014
On the Chinese vs. foreigner language wars
After my last post for Lost Laowai, where I expressed my annoyance with the irritating and pointless public announcements in Chinese public transport, I will now move on to another aspect of life in China which I find irritating: the tendency of the Chinese to address foreigners in English even when it would be easier for both to speak Chinese.
This particular irritation is perhaps not shared by all the foreigners who reside in China, but I think those who have learnt Chinese will know what I am talking about. The others are probably just relieved when they find someone who speaks enough English to communicate.
Any foreign-looking person in China who speaks decent Chinese will have had this experience: you walk into a restaurant, usually in an area of a Chinese city where lots of foreigners reside, and you address the waiter or waitress in Chinese. The waiter understands, nods, and replies in shaky English, which although understandable is not nearly as good as your Chinese. This leaves you with a conundrum: do you stick to your ground and go on replying in Chinese, ignoring their attempts to speak to you English? Or do you switch to English yourself?
On the one hand, according to the unwritten rules of international communication, it is really the waiter who should have stuck to Chinese. While it might be understandable that they should greet you English before you open your mouth, once you have spoken to them in Chinese it is another matter. After all, you are in China, you have made it clear that you know Chinese, your Chinese is clearly superior to their English, and the only reason the waiter is speaking to you in a different language from the other customers is because of your skin colour.
You might not be from an English-speaking country, and not even know English that well yourself. You might even belong to the tiny minority of people with foreign parents born and raised in China. But still, just because of the way you look, you have been singled out to be addressed in English, when it is clearly easier for both to just use Chinese.
At the same time, try and see it from the waiter’s point of view: they have probably never travelled abroad, they have not grown up in an even remotely multicultural environment, and they don’t have the slightest clue about the rules of international communication. The idea that making assumptions about you and singling you out from the other customers because of your skin colour might not be right hasn’t even crossed their minds. They are proud that they can speak a bit of English, and want to show it off to you.
Perhaps they also want a chance to practice their language skills. They have no way of understanding that you find it annoying; in fact, they genuinely think that they are doing you a favour and pleasing you by speaking to you in “your” language (because in their mind, any person who doesn’t look Chinese or Asian certainly speaks English as a mother tongue). By sticking to Chinese, it might seem like you are not appreciating their effort; it might even seem like you are telling them that effectively their English is rubbish.
In fact, for foreigners who have gone to the trouble of learning Chinese (and it really is a lot of trouble) and have lived in China for years, such behaviour can become quite irritating. The irritation isn’t just to do with the fact that it would be genuinely easier to communicate in Chinese. It is something deeper: it is as if you were being told that, no matter how much you try, you are always nothing but a foreigner who might as well be fresh off the boat, and never just another individual in Chinese society. You can live in China for thirty years and speak Chinese like Dashan, but you will still get waiters addressing you in rubbishy English just because you look like a waiguoren.
And if I find it annoying, I cannot imagine how it must be for the handful of white foreigners in China, often Russians, who don’t really speak English and still get people trying to speak to them in it all the time. The obvious unfairness is also glaring: Koreans, Japanese and Chinese-Americans who can’t speak much Chinese at all still get addressed in Chinese every time, even when they don’t want to, just because they look Chinese or at least East Asian.
One of the most frustrating things about the Chinese speaking to you in English is that usually, like I argued, you just can’t really blame them for it. Naivety and misplaced helpfulness are probably the best words to describe their attitude. They may get very few chances to ever practice their English with a foreigner. They think it is entirely normal to make assumptions about nationality based on skin colour; and after all, the number of white or black people born and raised in China (excluding Hong Kong) is infinitesimal, and the number who hold a Chinese passport much smaller still. Never having lived abroad, they cannot imagine that constantly having people address you in a broken version of your own language is nothing but irritating, and in fact can make you feel unwelcome rather than welcome.
Of course, one also has to be aware of when it really is the time to speak English. When you are dealing with a Chinese colleague who speaks English much better than you speak Chinese, insisting on communicating with them in garbled Chinese may come off as patronizing, and as wasting everyone’s time. My current boss has got a PhD from an American university, and speaks fluent (although far from flawless) English, which is definitely superior to my Chinese. If I insisted on talking to her in Chinese, I think she would find it either ridiculous or annoying.
http://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/expat-stuff/china-expat-rants/on-the-chinese-vs-foreigner-language-wars/
Learn Chinese at Chinese Language Academy of Los Angeles.
This particular irritation is perhaps not shared by all the foreigners who reside in China, but I think those who have learnt Chinese will know what I am talking about. The others are probably just relieved when they find someone who speaks enough English to communicate.
Any foreign-looking person in China who speaks decent Chinese will have had this experience: you walk into a restaurant, usually in an area of a Chinese city where lots of foreigners reside, and you address the waiter or waitress in Chinese. The waiter understands, nods, and replies in shaky English, which although understandable is not nearly as good as your Chinese. This leaves you with a conundrum: do you stick to your ground and go on replying in Chinese, ignoring their attempts to speak to you English? Or do you switch to English yourself?
On the one hand, according to the unwritten rules of international communication, it is really the waiter who should have stuck to Chinese. While it might be understandable that they should greet you English before you open your mouth, once you have spoken to them in Chinese it is another matter. After all, you are in China, you have made it clear that you know Chinese, your Chinese is clearly superior to their English, and the only reason the waiter is speaking to you in a different language from the other customers is because of your skin colour.
You might not be from an English-speaking country, and not even know English that well yourself. You might even belong to the tiny minority of people with foreign parents born and raised in China. But still, just because of the way you look, you have been singled out to be addressed in English, when it is clearly easier for both to just use Chinese.
At the same time, try and see it from the waiter’s point of view: they have probably never travelled abroad, they have not grown up in an even remotely multicultural environment, and they don’t have the slightest clue about the rules of international communication. The idea that making assumptions about you and singling you out from the other customers because of your skin colour might not be right hasn’t even crossed their minds. They are proud that they can speak a bit of English, and want to show it off to you.
Perhaps they also want a chance to practice their language skills. They have no way of understanding that you find it annoying; in fact, they genuinely think that they are doing you a favour and pleasing you by speaking to you in “your” language (because in their mind, any person who doesn’t look Chinese or Asian certainly speaks English as a mother tongue). By sticking to Chinese, it might seem like you are not appreciating their effort; it might even seem like you are telling them that effectively their English is rubbish.
In fact, for foreigners who have gone to the trouble of learning Chinese (and it really is a lot of trouble) and have lived in China for years, such behaviour can become quite irritating. The irritation isn’t just to do with the fact that it would be genuinely easier to communicate in Chinese. It is something deeper: it is as if you were being told that, no matter how much you try, you are always nothing but a foreigner who might as well be fresh off the boat, and never just another individual in Chinese society. You can live in China for thirty years and speak Chinese like Dashan, but you will still get waiters addressing you in rubbishy English just because you look like a waiguoren.
And if I find it annoying, I cannot imagine how it must be for the handful of white foreigners in China, often Russians, who don’t really speak English and still get people trying to speak to them in it all the time. The obvious unfairness is also glaring: Koreans, Japanese and Chinese-Americans who can’t speak much Chinese at all still get addressed in Chinese every time, even when they don’t want to, just because they look Chinese or at least East Asian.
One of the most frustrating things about the Chinese speaking to you in English is that usually, like I argued, you just can’t really blame them for it. Naivety and misplaced helpfulness are probably the best words to describe their attitude. They may get very few chances to ever practice their English with a foreigner. They think it is entirely normal to make assumptions about nationality based on skin colour; and after all, the number of white or black people born and raised in China (excluding Hong Kong) is infinitesimal, and the number who hold a Chinese passport much smaller still. Never having lived abroad, they cannot imagine that constantly having people address you in a broken version of your own language is nothing but irritating, and in fact can make you feel unwelcome rather than welcome.
Of course, one also has to be aware of when it really is the time to speak English. When you are dealing with a Chinese colleague who speaks English much better than you speak Chinese, insisting on communicating with them in garbled Chinese may come off as patronizing, and as wasting everyone’s time. My current boss has got a PhD from an American university, and speaks fluent (although far from flawless) English, which is definitely superior to my Chinese. If I insisted on talking to her in Chinese, I think she would find it either ridiculous or annoying.
http://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/expat-stuff/china-expat-rants/on-the-chinese-vs-foreigner-language-wars/
Learn Chinese at Chinese Language Academy of Los Angeles.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Basics of the Chinese Zodiac
The Chinese Zodiac, or in Chinese shēngxiào, relates each year in a 12-year cycle to an animal and somewhat anthropomorphic attributes connected to that animal.
It is similar to the Western Zodiac in that it uses a 12-part cycle (though years, not months) and it connects attributes of that cycle to a person based on the time of their birth. Unlike the Western Zodiac, however, the Chinese Zodiac has no association with constellations.
If you don’t know what Chinese Zodiac animal you are, check this chart.
Chinese zodiac signs represent twelve different types of personalities. The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, and there are many stories about the origins of the Chinese Zodiac which explain why this is so (see below). The following are the twelve zodiac signs in order and their characteristics.
To sum it up, while a person might appear to be a dragon because they were born in the year of the dragon, they might also be a snake internally and an ox secretively. In total, this makes for 8,640 possible combinations (60 year cycle (5 elements x 12 animals) x 12 months x 12 times of day) that a person might be. These are all considered critical for the proper use of Chinese astrology
http://www.lostlaowai.com/chinese-culture/basics-chinese-zodiac/
It is similar to the Western Zodiac in that it uses a 12-part cycle (though years, not months) and it connects attributes of that cycle to a person based on the time of their birth. Unlike the Western Zodiac, however, the Chinese Zodiac has no association with constellations.
If you don’t know what Chinese Zodiac animal you are, check this chart.
Chinese zodiac signs represent twelve different types of personalities. The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, and there are many stories about the origins of the Chinese Zodiac which explain why this is so (see below). The following are the twelve zodiac signs in order and their characteristics.
- Rat – 鼠 (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Water): Forthright, tenacious, intense, meticulous, charismatic, sensitive, hardworking, industrious, charming, eloquent, sociable, artistic, shrewd. Can be manipulative, vindictive, self-destructive, mendacious, venal, obstinate, critical, over-ambitious, ruthless, intolerant, scheming.
- Ox – 牛 (Water buffalo in Vietnam) (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Water): Dependable, ambitious, calm, methodical, born leader, patient, hardworking, conventional, steady, modest, logical, resolute, tenacious. Can be stubborn, narrow-minded, materialistic, rigid, demanding.
- Tiger – 虎 (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Wood): Unpredictable, rebellious, colorful, powerful, passionate, daring, impulsive, vigorous, stimulating, sincere, affectionate, humanitarian, generous. Can be restless, reckless, impatient, quick-tempered, obstinate, selfish, aggressive, moody.
- Rabbit – 兔 (Cat in Vietnam) (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Wood): Gracious, good friend, kind, sensitive, soft-spoken, amiable, elegant, reserved, cautious, artistic, thorough, tender, self-assured, shy, astute, compassionate, lucky, flexible. Can be moody, detached, superficial, self-indulgent, opportunistic, stubborn.
- Dragon – 龍 (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Wood): Magnanimous, stately, vigorous, strong, self-assured, proud, noble, direct, dignified, eccentric, intellectual, fiery, passionate, decisive, pioneering, artistic, generous, loyal. Can be tactless, arrogant, imperious, tyrannical, demanding, intolerant, dogmatic, violent, impetuous, brash.
- Snake – 蛇 (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Fire): Deep thinker, wise, mystic, graceful, soft-spoken, sensual, creative, prudent, shrewd, elegant, cautious, responsible, calm, strong, constant, purposeful. Can be loner, bad communicator, possessive, hedonistic, self-doubting, distrustful, mendacious, suffocating, cold.
- Horse – 馬 (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Fire): Cheerful, popular, quick-witted, changeable, earthy, perceptive, talkative, agile—mentally and physically, magnetic, intelligent, astute, flexible, open-minded. Can be fickle, arrogant, childish, anxious, rude, gullible, stubborn.
- Sheep, Goat, or Ram – 羊 (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Fire): Righteous, sincere, sympathetic, mild-mannered, shy, artistic, creative, gentle, compassionate, understanding, mothering, peaceful, generous, seeks security. Can be moody, indecisive, over-passive, worrier, pessimistic, over-sensitive, complainer, weak-willed.
- Monkey – 猴 (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Metal): Inventor, motivator, improviser, quick-witted, inquisitive, flexible, innovative, problem solver, self-assured, sociable, artistic, polite, dignified, competitive, objective, factual, intellectual. Can be egotistical, vain, arrogant, selfish, reckless, snobbish, deceptive, manipulative, cunning, jealous, suspicious.
- Rooster – 雞 (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Metal): Acute, neat, meticulous, organized, self-assured, decisive, conservative, critical, perfectionist, alert, zealous, practical, scientific, responsible. Can be over zealous and critical, puritanical, egotistical, abrasive, proud, opinionated, given to empty bravado.
- Dog – 狗 (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Metal): Honest, intelligent, straightforward, loyal, sense of justice and fair play, attractive, amicable, unpretentious, sociable, open-minded, idealistic, moralistic, practical, affectionate, sensitive, easy going. Can be cynical, lazy, cold, judgmental, pessimistic, worrier, stubborn, quarrelsome.
- Pig – 猪 (Boar in Japan and Elephant in Northern Thailand) (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Water): Honest, gallant, sturdy, sociable, peace-loving, patient, loyal, hard-working, trusting, sincere, calm, understanding, thoughtful, scrupulous, passionate, intelligent. Can be naïve, over-reliant, self-indulgent, gullible, fatalistic, materialistic.
To sum it up, while a person might appear to be a dragon because they were born in the year of the dragon, they might also be a snake internally and an ox secretively. In total, this makes for 8,640 possible combinations (60 year cycle (5 elements x 12 animals) x 12 months x 12 times of day) that a person might be. These are all considered critical for the proper use of Chinese astrology
http://www.lostlaowai.com/chinese-culture/basics-chinese-zodiac/
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
CSSA celebrates Chinese New Year through culture night
The sounds of rhythmic drumming filled Royce Hall Sunday night as students dressed in red danced gracefully and powerfully to the beat.
The performance was part of this year’s Chinese Culture Night, put on by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. The event was meant to celebrate this Chinese New Year, which fell on Friday and marked the Year of the Horse.
This year was the first time the annual event was hosted in Royce Hall, says Liyizhi Kou, president of CSSA. Royce Hall accommodated about 1,600 audience members who attended the two-hour event, Kousaid.
Sunday’s show featured Chinese ballroom dancing and a traditional Chinese dance, as well as songs and videos, performed in Chinese, which related to the Year of the Horse.
Student singers and comedians also took the stage at the event, making the audience laugh and cheer. The performances transitioned between traditional dances to comedic songs and skits. One performer sang and performed pop and rock songs in Chinese, and videos provided visual imagery of landscapes and chinese characters.
Junwei Wang, a first-year international psychology student, said Chinese New Year reminds him of when his relatives would travel from different cities and gather in his hometown to share experiences and stories.
He said he thinks the culture night event brings students together for the holiday and creates a sense of home for those who can’t spend the new year with their families.
“International students cannot go home (for Chinese New Year), so the event creates an environment like a big family,” Wang said.
The CSSA provides information to incoming international students about how to navigate the university, Wang said.
Performers and staff have been preparing for the event since June of last year, Kou said. The event cost the CSSA about $27,000.
Fang Jing , a member of the CSSA and a first-year economics and math student, said she celebrates Chinese New Year by spending time with her friends after studying for midterms.
In past years, when she was with her family in China during the holiday, she celebrated by having a large meal with relatives, playing with cousins and watching celebratory performances on television.
Jing said that for her, Chinese New Year is not about the food and the performances she watches, it is about spending time with her family.
http://dailybruin.com/2014/02/03/cssa-celebrates-chinese-new-year-through-culture-night/
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)