Which is the Best Way to Get Arround Chinese Cities?

It was 5:30pm last Sunday and I had just had a relaxing weekend, to be topped off by an excellent meal by the peaceful West Lake to make my final unwind of the weekend. I went to get a taxi at 4:30, hoping to get to the lake early enough for a pre-dinner stroll. By 5:30pm, I had done plenty of strolling and still had no gotten in a taxi. That’s because getting a taxi in Hangzhou between 4:30pm and 6:30pm is often nearly impossible. Not only is it rush hour (and on Sunday, it’s when all the tourists start heading back home), but the taxis are changing shifts at this time. I walked several blocks and eventually took a bus to the lake, but regretted not just getting to dinner by bike.[Read More]

Posted at 12:51AM Mar 12, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[0]

How Is the World Economic Crisis Affecting China? (iiiii)

3) No more false expectations

In late 2007, everyone I knew was talking about stocks. Even during my dawn walks by the lake, the elderly women would be talking about stocks. Lines formed outside the bank as everyone went to cash in on the stock market. Even the post offices had a special stock-buying line where you could go and transfer all your savings into mutual funds. Many of the people buying these stocks never even really knew what they were buying, just that they would at least make as much as putting the money into a savings account and had the potential to make millionaires overnight. It was pretty much common belief that the stock market would keep going up, at least until the Olympics.

Those who got into the stock market about a year ago have probably lost about half of their money from the market high by now. It has been a quick crash course in wise investing. More importantly, nowhere is safe now. Real estate is going bust, opening your own company is difficult in this environment, and of course the stock market has become a lot more risky. Where are the wealthy going to put all their money? They can’t just keep buying Audis, either, because the recent downturn has taught them how quickly wealth can disappear in a matter of days. In my opinion, this is all a good thing. It represents a correction. My grandmother used to always make sure we ate all of our dinner and never wasted a single morsel of food, a habit she had held since the Great Depression. Many Chinese have only experienced increased development, increased wealth and increased opportunity over the past 30 years. Any among them, many had come to expect this ride to continue. This reality check will, as the Chinese saying goes, let them “pay tuition” for the lesson that one should avoid risks when investing. It should also help the stability of the stock market in China as a whole, as this market has been known to be one of the more volatile and emotional among the world’s markets.

4) What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger

Someone once told me that I was smart to try to do business in China, saying “If you can handle doing business here, then you can be successful doing business in any other country in the world”. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I do think that “if a company can last through the current economic crisis, then they can last forever”.

Actually, Yoyoor is the perfect example here. I am not involved in Yoyoor’s marketing, but its obvious to anyone that the current financial crisis and relatively empty airplanes must be hurting rentals. Fortunately, the sign of a healthy company is not how well it performs in a constricted market amidst factors beyond the company’s control. The sign of a healthy company is innovative products, new services, experienced management, supplying products for a unique demand and huge market potential. Yoyoor has all of these. After the economic crisis ends and travelers and businessmen start coming to China en masse again, Yoyoor’s market potential will not have changed. It is just a matter of getting through the current crisis.

Posted at 05:28PM Feb 12, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[0]

How Is the World Economic Crisis Affecting China? (iiii)

2) Restructuring

One of the cons of China’s rapid development is that it has been difficult to institute policies to accurately reflect the constantly-changing situation on the ground. Pollution is an obvious example. It is easy to say that China’s pollution has gotten out of hand over the past 10 years and that something should be done to address the issue, but how quickly can you institute effective laws to deal with such a severe nationwide problem? By developing nation standards, China is strictly addressing the pollution issue, but the problem is that these standards go out of date as soon as they are instituted. If one third of Chinese factories close down in the next year, it will be like rewinding back 10 years in the development of China’s manufacturing industry. The government has a change to learn from previous mistakes as it starts over again with better foresight.

Posted at 03:55PM Feb 11, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[0]

How Is the World Economic Crisis Affecting China? (iii)

As feelings of pessimism start to set in here in China, I am trying to look at things on the bright side. As I mentioned in the previous article, you cannot say the Chinese for “crisis” without including the character for “opportunity”. In that light, here are some of the benefits of the China economic crisis:

In that light, here are some of the benefits of the China economic crisis:

1) Factories will be happy to see me again

Posted at 04:54PM Feb 10, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[1]

How Is the World Economic Crisis Affecting China? (ii)

It looks like the crisis itself is going to last much longer than I had expected last year when I wrote my earlier article, but I think I am still about right on when the panic will really hit. The Chinese New Year holiday has been an important harbinger of what’s to come. From September to January is usually the busiest season for China’s factories and other enterprises in the country’s major business sectors. In January, most Chinese could not be bothered with news that entire industrial zones were shutting down and entire export markets were lost because they were too busy filling orders before the holiday. Ironically, it was not until we ushered in the year of the bull that the bear became more obvious. A new year means a new start, but for many idle Chinese factories, no one can be sure when this new start will actually take place.

Posted at 04:03PM Feb 09, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[1]

China Challenge: Proper Planning Pre-Holidays ii

The reason I am mentioning the above is not only because I have had a particularly unproductive January, but because coordinating a work system with both customers (in the US) and Chinese partners (in my case, suppliers), is one of the biggest challenges of doing work here. Almost 40 percent of the year is taken up by holidays and weekends when China isn't working, the west isn't working or neither side is working. Combine that with time differences and it's no wonder most everyone here in China starts to feel pressure just before a holiday starts.

Posted at 03:14PM Feb 06, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[1]

China Challenge: Proper Planning Pre-Holidays I

Chinese New Year came earlier than usual this year— at the end of January. For those of us doing business in China, this created a slight hurdle. Would we be able to come back from Christmas break in early January and expect to get anything done in time for Chinese New Year? I have a friend who does the 3 weeks in China, 3 weeks in the US routine. Before he went home for Christmas, I suggested that he just stay home for the entire month of January. If he had projects to do in January that had not been started yet, he would have no luck getting them started before Chinese New Year.[Read More]

Posted at 05:27PM Feb 03, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[1]

Chinese New Year: The Best Way to Get Through the Winter (ii)

It notoriously rains for most of February in Hangzhou, so much so that there were more fireworks on the Lantern Festival than on the actual New Years’ Eve due to the rain on NYE. I also only like fireworks for their visual aspect, not for the noise they make, but it seems noise is the goal more than appearance around here. We always try to go to the lake area where the army bases and wealthier citizens live to watch them light off the more aesthetic (and expensive) fireworks. Still, I appreciate the holiday and am especially lucky this year to get Christmas in the US and Chinese New Year in China. 

Posted at 01:52PM Jan 20, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[2]

Chinese New Year: The Best Way to Get Through the Winter (i)

I went to college in Upstate NY, and the winters got rough with all the lake-effect snow. This is one of the reasons my school and a bunch of other schools in the Northeast arranged things like a one-month term in January to basically research a hobby, and a winter carnival with concerts and parties to warm things up at the peak of winter.

Posted at 04:41PM Jan 19, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[1]

Be a Savvy Traveler- Coping with Jet Lag (ii)

Once the flight is over, you only have a small window of time to ensure you have avoided the most severe and frustrating jet lag, as it will set in within about 24 hours of your arrival. The best way to avoid jet lag is to stop at Hainan on the way over to China and rest there for 3 or 4 days. This is not a very realistic option, but there are still some things to do to keep the jet lag at bay.

Posted at 03:06PM Jan 14, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[2]

Reverse Culture Shock: An Expat Goes Home for the Holidays (ii)

This is just a small example, but you can imagine what it’s like to be here over Christmas after a 5 year absence. I tried watching the NFL playoffs on TV without having a clue what happened in the regular season. I went to church for Christmas and did not recognize the priest, nor could I get used to the newly repaired church with a new floor and walls. Most popular radio stations are playing a bunch of songs I have never heard before, even though they are counting down the “Most Popular Songs of 2008” for the end of the year. I bumped into my friend’s father downtown and did not even recognize him until he mentioned his daughter. I ran into my friend at a party and did not even recognize him at first either!

Posted at 05:12PM Jan 06, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[2]

Reverse Culture Shock: An Expat Goes Home for the Holidays (i)

My wife and I are back in the US for the holiday season this year. It is my wife’s first time in the US during the holidays and my first Christmas at home since 2004. I have only been home a few times over the past 5 years and it shows by how out of touch I am here now. The feelings I have can only be described as “reverse culture shock,” a problem that must afflict many expats when they return home and probably only gets worse the more time one spends overseas.

I remember when I first arrived in Beijing a few years ago and was walking around the city with my new roommate, who had already been in the capital studying for almost a year. The topic of culture shock came up in our conversation, and I mentioned how my arrival had not been nearly as “shocking” as I had expected it to be nor as bad as others has warned it would be. He agreed that culture shock was overrated, especially now that Beijing was so modern and one could easily escape into the restaurant of a Western hotel or surf the New York Times online if he felt too homesick. But he mentioned to me how he had met many expats who had been in China for several years and “could never return back home.” Those who spend many years overseas do so either because they are disillusioned with their home country’s society or because they have become too comfortable in their new environment overseas, or both. Like the old many who is released from prison in Shawshank Redemption, the longer they stay in China, the harder it is to return to their previous lives.

Posted at 11:16AM Jan 05, 2009 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[2]

From Outsider to Insider-Introduction on Some Serious Readings about China (iii)

5) Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin

Posted at 10:40AM Dec 17, 2008 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[2]

From outsider to insider-Introduction on Some Serious Readings about China(ii)

3) The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

This one is a classic, and yet many often forget to add it to their China book library. Besides being a good read, this book was important historically, as it was a best-seller in the 1930s and helped American readers consider the Chinese as allies in the upcoming war with Japan. Even though it takes place in the 1930s, the book describes Chinese village life and culture in detail, and many of these cultural intricacies are still important in China today, especially in the countryside. Then again, the theme that wealth erodes our traditions is also a theme that we can see in present-day China’s cities. This theme and other themes in the book (such as man’s reliance on the earth) are timeless. There is a movie version out too for those who want to cheat.   

Posted at 02:44PM Dec 16, 2008 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[2]

From Outsider to Insider-Introduction on Some Serious Readings about China (i)

As I mentioned in a previous article, China is a bottomless put of interesting history. Just look at the past century in China— an epic historical event transpired pretty much every decade. Coupled with the fact that if your high school was anything like mine was and barely scratched the surface of Chinese history, there is a lot one can learn about this country. This is why for the past 3 years almost all of the books I have read have been about China. So, without further ado, below I mention “review” some of the books that come to mind when I think about books about China I have read recently.

1) Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara W. Tuchman

Posted at 01:19PM Dec 15, 2008 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[2]