The Truth —With Chinese Characteristics- Lies in China

China likes to put the label “with Chinese Characteristics” on everything. They say “Communism with Chinese characteristics” “innovation with Chinese characteristics” and so on. I am not sure if its their crazy nationalism or just plane overinflated ego and enormous sense of self that promote them to do so, but it is rampant to hear this phrase when listening to the chicoms (communist party) and all of the propaganda that they spew. For some it may be confusing, for instance, while walking down any street in China you find it easier to buy an illegal copy of a DVD than the real thing, then you hear about “Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement with Chinese characteristics” and you think wtf? So I have devised a cheat sheet of sorts, to help you to understand this labeling scheme: -Truth with Chinese characteristics- blatant lies meant to deceive the 800 000 000 laborers in China -Communism with Chinese characteristics- A dictatorial regime abject of any of the true principles of marxist/lenonist philosophy, or a land grabbing group of crooks , hell bent on stealing as much as possible before its inevitable demise -Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement with Chinese characteristics- if you try to make an illegal copy of a Chinese protected good, you will be hounded and persecuted. Your intellectual property rights, however, are less than zero, you barbaric foreigners do not deserve it, we Chinese, after all invented things like fireworks and chopsticks( I dont understand it either, but thats their rationale) -Beauty with Chinese characteristics-FBUGLY -Soccer with Chinese characteristics- A sport controlled by match-fixing and corruption -Democracy with Chinese characteristics- Dictatorial leaders hiding behind and ancient philosophy -Innovation with Chinese characteristics- give me your technology in a partnership and within three months I will be selling it under my name and protected by a Chinese patent -Honesty with Chinese characteristics- ummm this is not even considered -Law with Chinese characteristics- do what I say , not what I do and dont ask why I did it -Creativity with Chinese characteristics- Hey can I look at what your’e doing? -Research with Chinese characteristics- Shameless copying of western works into Chinese, after all, how many of us read Chinese enough to see if they are plagiarizing our stuff in summary, when you see “with Chinese characteristics” consider it an oxymoron, two things that are incompatible and just skip over it.

Chongqin China

Here is a shot from the highway. You can see hoe smoggy it it.

China in Photos

Catholics and China

excerpt: ROME – The Vatican condemned what it said was a “grave violation of human rights” when authorities in China forced several bishops and priests to attend a meeting of a state-backed church that does not have the pope’s approval. In a statement on Friday, it expressed “profound sorrow” that the body, known as the Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives, was held in Beijing on Dec. 7-9. The Vatican said numerous bishops, priests and lay believers loyal to the pope were forced to attend despite explicit instructions from the church not to do so.

So Many Chinese, So few Jobs

on Chinese unemployment ” “At the same time, the unemployment rate among college-educated Chinese youth is rising. According to a recent paper from the National University of Singapore, 30% of the 6 million graduates who enter China’s job market each year can’t find work. The number of applicants for public servant jobs, for instance, surged from 87,000 in 2003 to 1.4 million in 2009, according to official data.” http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/17/news/international/china_labor_shortage.fortune/?section=magazines_fortune

Super Bugs in China

Shit, just when I thought all I had to worry about inChina is cancer, toxic milk, bad haircuts and fake food, now the bastards have superbugs. Bacteria that are becoming imoissible to kill… ” Chinese health officials confirmed Tuesday that the nation had seen its first infections of a multi-drug-resistant strain of bacteria, and medical experts used the announcement to renew warnings that widespread abuse of antibiotics is making people more prone to “superbugs.” Ni Daxin, an official with the nation’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said at a press conference that two cases involving the New Delhi NDM-1 bacterial strain were detected in samples taken in March by the local CDC in the northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and another case was found in southeastern Fujian Province.”

Chicoms Playing God- Weather Manipulation in China

Chinese are manipulatuing the weather, I hope they do it better than they make milk , cow peas and toys… “”By the mid 21st century, China will be a country short of water, with a per capita water source of 1,700 cubic meters,” Zheng said, “thus we need to control the weather.” Apart from its role in reducing natural disasters, weather modification will be used to explore airborne water resources, improve the ecological environment, and help secure industrial and urban water utilization, according to the CMA. Since 2009, the Chinese Ministry of Finance has arranged special budgets for the CMA’s weather modification. In the first ten months of this year, China spent 762 million yuan (114 million U.S. dollars) for weather modification work, up 19 percent year on year. China resorted to weather modification to prevent the usually unpredictable weather from disrupting major events, such as the 2008 Summer Olympics. Weather modification usually refers to cloud-seeding practices that involve shooting various substances into clouds, such as silver iodide, salts and dry ice, to bring on the formation of larger raindrops and trigger downpours, as well as clear haze and clouds. Source:Xinhua

Meetings in China- What to Do

Just had another meeting and thought i’d share some of my insights. All meetings suck, but Chinese meetings super duper suck…. let me explain…
Chinese are good at talking in circles and it is hard for them to get to the point. In Chinese its actually poetic to communicate as such and they feel its elegant, to a westerner, its maddening.

In addition, Chinese will not make decisions on your terms, so consider each meeting to be exploratory, they take forever to trust you. (this is not true if you are buying online of course, in Guganzhou, many firms are more familiar with the est and are quick to accommodate you, but beware of them. I would consider those who take more time, then less time to be a better option. If they move too quickly, its because they dont understand what you want, or are desperate.
Now, on to the meetings.
Firstly, to be fair to your Chinese counterparts, offer than a clear idea of what the meeting is about, the goals etc. The Chinese never do this, but you should as it will allow them to save face and allow your meating to be productive (especially when doing it in Chinese).The reasons for this are that, in order to be fair, you should allow the other time to prepare their English for the talks. This may sound benign or harmless, but trust me, if you spring a meeting on the Chinese and they do not understand the context or the vocabulary, you will get no where fast and frustrate them potentially causing harm to the relationship.
The reasons is that Chinese hate surprises. In the west I can walk up to Bob, plunk a document on his desk, ask him to analyze it and in 5 minutes we will discuss. The Chinese cannot and will not do this. To them face is so important that they must over-prepare before discussion almost anything. In addition, they are poor at making decisions and dont like to take sides. For instance, you can ask them if they prefer A or B and you will be met with an open mouthed stare, then they will tell the good and bad of both, they love to sit on the fence.
Chinese also do not like to sound as if they do not understand the subject matter, they feel as if they need to be an expert , to know it all, especially the boss. If the boss does not know the answer he will lose face, so if you feel he does not know it, dont push it.
Also, anyone over 40 will probably have pretty crappy English, but will understand China much better than you ever will. Their pronunciation will suck, but they know how to move within the system. This is the person you must impress, they will bring along a twenty year old one-child policy person who did nothing more than study English at the uni but has no idea of business. The problem is that if you do not make the boss understand you, then the one-child policy person will be forced to interpret your words and desires, and this person will be poorly equipped to do so. Many of the older Chinese leaders rely on these 20somtings to explain whats going on and thus you dont want to put your future in the hands of some guy who learned English from watching “Friends”. Thus, give the older guy the material and time to brush up on his vocabulary, pronunciation, and try to talk to him before hand. try to get a handle on his accent, so you dont embarrass him nor yourself during the meeting.

Lastly, DONT HIRE AN INTERPRETER but DO BRING YOUR OWN CHINESE PERSON to the meeting.
the reason, as alluded to above, is that the interpreter, (and here I work with a ton of them and they all suck. The best I have seen are actually at Huawei (they are actually translators) but still are not up to the level of the west). A translator knows nothing more than how to construct a good SVO sentence and has good pronunciation, but you want to make money not listen to their pretty English. What you can do is hire a recent grad form Tshinghua or Renmin, for a month or two. Hire a recent grad in engineering, or business, anything but languages, and you will get a two-fer. Most of the people I ahve seen from those schools are bright, and irrespective of the fact that they have never left china, have a good level of English. To me, the worst are the ones who studied overseas and have returned to china. typically they were unable to garner a good job overseas due to poor grades, or they were not that bright. They abound in china and many local companies swoon to them. We have had no success with this group and thus are looking at people who come from the better unis’ here.

-have fun when you come

China Issues Bribery Warning-LMFAO

File this excerpt under lmfao! China is warning teachers and schools not to take bribes before the Chinese New Year. Does this mean my friend who just paid about U$33,000 in bribes to get her son in school can get a refund? excerpt: ” BEIJING, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) — China’s Ministry of Education has warned schools and teachers not to take bribe and misuse public money ahead of the coming New Year and Spring Festival. Teachers are banned from accepting money, securities and other costly gifts from students and their parents, said a circular issued by the ministry on Friday. They must not ask for gifts from students or indicate bribery, the document said.