From Beijing, an unfiltered view on business and economy.
If you think Chinese only copy foreign stuff to rob poor foreigners from their IPR, well, look at this.
I get this publicity openly in the mail. Just in case I need some fake invoices for my taxes.
As openly as the fake DVD in the street. Contact clearly available.
I’d rather stick to the occasional CD or DVD.
Manufacturing parking meters and selling them in large quantities to the Beijing Government must be a golden business. Better than doing Olympic projects.
Simple. They don’t have to work. Some day they are installed (again some people have a job). Then they are never used. After some time most are vandalized and become modern expressions of art. Some, like ones pictured here, seem to be more sturdy and survive longer – and look better than those other ugly plastic ones.
Those meters are bad for employment. Putting poor parking attendants out of a job? Worse, do you expect the police to monitor if people paid?
Sorry Vlad, your cute pandas have fled. They escaped in my versatile bag and are finally able to express themselves freely, see Mr. Panda When accompanied by Mr. Panda Happy and Mr. Panda Sad.
They complained they could show no emotion in your conference rooms.
I feed them daily CRI Easy FM. No bamboo here, sorry.
Durex might be really overly optimistic or there is this guanxi with being an Internet addict (does not bode well for me?!). See here how difficult it can be for women to find a well performing partner. Well, all thanks to China Daily, reporting about the south where I feel Chinese eat the whole day but eat rather poorly. Sorry for being a bit simplistic here, otherwise why are people in the south shorter, have “other” shortcomings (no word play intended) compared to their brothers in the north?
China Daily reports: China Scene: South – 7 November 2007
Tell lonely heart money can’t buy love
A 22-year-old woman has spent more than 300,000 yuan (US$ 40,000) on a lonely hearts advertisement in a local newspaper in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. The woman’s father is thought to be a real-estate tycoon, whose estimated worth is 1 billion yuan (US$ 134 million).
(Information Times)
Men bouncing check of love in Dongguan
A quarter of the male population in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, is suffering from erectile dysfunction, a polite way of saying they are impotent, coming up short, or disappointing Miss Daisy. According to a recent survey, more than 25% of male residents in the prosperous Pearl River Delta city are not rising to the occasion.
Many of the men are so ashamed of their ejectile dysfunction they only seek medical advice after being forced to do so by their sex-deprived wives, who complain of zero copulation growth.
(Southern Metropolitan News)
Must be bad business for Durex down there.
Just very recently I was in one of those meetings where I am supposed to sit with seasoned executives. Oh well. In Brazil we had a famous comedian (Jo Soares) who would say “A ignoráncia desta juventude é um espanto”. Something like “The ignorance of these young people is unbelievable”. Actually untranslatable and difficult to explain if one never saw the program.
Well, for me, many of those executives are the ignorant ones. Or maybe I am just frequenting the wrong crowd.
Many have no clue about a computer, neither about IT in general. They do use their mobiles a lot. (How do they manage that? OK, they do disturb everybody with the loud ringing). They claim to understand China. After 27 years of China I feel I am still in kindergarten myself.
They seem totally clueless about how Beijing will handle the Olympics. They seem well brainwashed by China Daily (not reading well the newspaper). They don’t see the logistical thunderclouds approaching. I just went through days and days of discussions with specialists, foreigners and Chinese and local government and we all agreed we need to “fasten seatbelts”. So, it hurts when my remarks on some risk issues are considered as some silly ideas by those so-called execs. It is actually often unbelievable the amount of rubbish I have to listen to myself.
Well, there is always a lesson somewhere:
– they are execs with probably fatter wallets than me, so what’s the use of my wisdom;
– trying to suggest well-intended plans out of pure idealism is mostly looked up on like “this guy must have a hidden agenda”;
– the wisdom I have, correction, the bits of information I have about the 2008 Olympics & China: I sell myself too cheaply.
As the same famous Brazilian comedian said:
“Cale te boca”.
Read: shut your (big) mouth.
Or another – French – piece of wisdom: “On a tort d’avoir raison” – you are wrong to be right.
With that I need a good whisky.