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An American in China

Archive for the ‘Prices in China’ Category

Problems When Dealing With Chinese Suppliers

Posted by w_thames_the_d on November 15, 2014


If you are going to dance with the devil, you will get burnt. Read the following in order to minimize your ‘China stupidity’ exposure, or better yet, just go elsewhere with your production.

Excerpt

If you have experience in importing from Chinese suppliers, you know it’s very common that quotes are not handled with precision.
There are some basic yet deep-rooted reasons why suppliers in China quote incorrectly.
Precision: Suppliers in China do not quote with precision. The mindset is that the initial quote is not something that is going to make or break the project. The quote is viewed as sort of the starting point of discussion.
Details and specifications are not something firm that can readily be concreted and confirmed. Facts are “loose” and require back-and-forth.
Western buyer thinks: the quote needs to be as exact as possible so I can quote my buyer or rock n’ roll on these numbers so that we can close the job. Let’s get this right and get moving!
Chinese supplier thinks: here’s the quote and if it’s not exact or if you find any mistakes, holler back at me and we’ll get you fixed up.
From the suppliers’ mindset, nothing rides on that first quote. Whether or not you come back isn’t based on their quoting method.
The concept of going through an inquiry “with a fine-tooth comb” is not a common practice with suppliers in China.
The salesperson you work with from the supply company or factory doesn’t spend much time proofreading the quote or assuring they are quoting as per your specifications.
Continue here

Posted in China Fact, Counterfeits and such, Cultural oddities, Let me educate you..., Prices in China, Product Quality, Ranting in general, Uncategorized, Video, Working and Living in China | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Tales from the Crypt- Mao’s Rotting Corpse and Soul-less Chinese, Working in China

Posted by w_thames_the_d on November 2, 2014


I read some book by a lady with a name too long to pronounce and hard-coded with far too many consonants to remember, but that book is a primer on China. In a while I will dig up her name but lets talk about the PRC first.

I never wanted to go to China, Asia was not my thing. My uni had a few China-philes but we didn’t run together. My preference was for all things Spanish. Their zest for life, the colors, the language, music, their inner being.

It was with not a little sadness that I flew the coop on a supposed one-year stint in China, which was to be capped off with a thorough body wash and then return to all things civil. One thing lead to another and Days turned to weeks and suddenly the calendar was replacing ‘0’s with 1’s and my 365 year gig had septupled.

The words ‘love’ and ‘passion’ were not associated with my stay there. In fact, ‘morbid curiosity’ and ‘masochism’ are more likely candidates for anything I felt. The simple fact is that China has a tar black hole in its inner-most being which most people associate with the complete and utter absence of good and humanity. Perhaps I should explain…

Headings go here..
To keep myself from wandering, I will slap headings before my rant. These will also let you keep track of which path my ADD enhanced mind currently rambles down.

Chinese are soulless
Referring back to the book whose name I cannot recall, I would like to say that Chinese are cruel. No, not in that ‘fat school kid who always got picked on’ way, but that deep down cruelty exposing an excess of depravity that only thousands of years of hatred and grief could create. The People in China are the most soulless i have ever met.

Lets reflect on that sentiment for a moment.

My job has taken me to some pretty rough places and my natural charm and endearing way has put me in the path of some very strange people. I’ve guns pulled on me by Mexican cops, been robbed by the law in Brazil too. Those men were tender compared to the Rio mulatto who tried to separate my internal organs for me just to get at the coin in my pocket.

What all those people had in commom, for the most part, was a sense of humanity. Sure that guy in Rio did not look like a saint as he gashed at my innards so I would stop pummeling him with blows, but before it all went down, his eyes flashed human. He was merely a homeless person with friends and family to feed. Had I given him cash he would have had no reason to attack me. I did not and he did. Lucky for me it ended in a draw. He and his buddies got the equivalent of $0.50 and I got away unharmed. But as I said, inside he was human

Chinese are cruel
It may sound a little less than politically correct to say this, but Chinese are inhumanly cruel. As you may have figured out, ‘trouble’ and ‘your humble author’ are pretty good friends. It does not follow me, but for some reason I pursue it with a vigor. My day job taxes my boredom bone which leaves me empty. Chasing danger fills a need which sitting on my ass for eight hours at a time cannot. The benefit of this hobby is that it has enabled me to peer into the souls of the most depraved people one could meet. But almost without exception, in all that depravity I saw a spark, a smidgeon of goodness. That quick glimpse of humanity quickly covered over by grief, greed or madness. Nonetheless, inside there was something human with which I could relate.

And then came China
China is famous for its ‘kill all but one child’ policy, but to those people it is nothing new. In fact, baby killing or infanticide is as old as China. A couple thousand years ago some pig-faced emperor declared that starving families could dine on their child, as long as it was a girl.

When these people were not noshing on female femurs, they were tossing them off cliffs. The Chinese had a custom of discarding unwanted baby girls into a pile on the outskirts of town. This started before China proper itself, and is still happening today.

The Chinese are inhumanly cruel

But what does this have to do with working in China?
Dragging my liberated brain back to the subject matter, I contend that thousands of years of inhumanity have deformed the mainland DNA. Sure, there are great people in China, but that layer of sickness pervades. You see it in the way they treat each other, their kids, animals and especially you. The Chinese are inhumanly cruel.

The book written by the woman whose name has too many consonants spoke about this, tangentially at least. She writes about a Canadian woman who came to China not long after I did. That woman was looking to be a model and lit in Shanghai. After doing bar gigs she found herself on the wrong end of some steel and was filleted by some local. The poor woman never even saw it coming.

Chinese will lie
This woman, like most of us, probably thought China was no different than anyplace else. Of course it may be rough, but the Chinese were human, right?

Her innocence lead her into the steaming bowels of inhumanity that typifies Chinese business today. In a country which predicates the permitted murder of infants on their perceived ability to generate wealth, civility is stuffed in the trunk. China is to society what ‘Oz’ was to prisons, a perfect storm of neurosis, predation and opportunity which lead to the dehumanization of everyone. In China it is truly a dog-eat-dog world.

Just the facts sir
Back to the woman and the book with a name. I now recall, ‘the City Swallowed Them’. The author describes this poor Canadian who was brought to China under false pretenses, which aptly describes just about anyone who has worked there.

Jobs in China and people pimping them abound, and they all share one common theme. If you work in China, you are going to get fuked. It is the nature of the beast.

Chinese worship cash
Perhaps its the thousand year history of monetizing the suffering of others or some latent gene sprung to the fore by a controlled gene pool, but the Chinese often lack that which the rest of the world would call humanity. They think nothing of twisting truths and luring people from 6000 miles away and then abusing them as if they were chattle. Lies, treachery, manipulation, the grease enabling China’s economic rise.

In my life I have never been cheated out of a day’s wage, with the exception of China. In that country I have never not been cheated, with the exception of helping friends, there were no exceptions.

The difference between the Canadian woman who was killed in Shanghai and so many gullible westerners and me is that I came prepared. I’ve danced with the darkness, and knew what to expect. In China its every man for himself, a thing which is readily apparent. You pick up quickly on that and up your game, or you bitch and leave. China leaves no middle ground, you either attack or become tomorrow’s lunch.

This trait seemed to be common in the foreigners I met there. They were either ‘deer in headlights’ townies whose frustration had them calling daddy within months or those who merely rode the wave. They sealed themselves off from the subhuman vacuum and minimized contact with China. They stuck to their clique, worked gigs recommended by friends and saw China for what it is.

China is a swamp
Which brings me to the conclusion of this rant. China’s spiritual pestilence has a stultifying effect on one’s soul. In a country where random acts of ‘kindness’ are replaced with ‘treachery’ hardens one’s heart. Like I said above, this means you either get with it or get out, the thing to remember is that in China nothing is for free. Think about it like this…

If you are truly thinking of going to China, read a book or two. Try anything from the mid 19th century and you will have a good idea of what the. PRC is all about. Any country which condones the consumption of its children is not a good place. Remember I said that this was a holdover from antiquity, well I failed to state that it is still alive and well. In fact, there are still Chinese padding the streets with infant blood on their hands, during the late 1950’s and up the the late 60’s, Mao’s madness threw China into chaos and famine. In order to survive, the Chinese literally ate their youth. Jasper Becker can tell you all about it, just run an Amazon search on his name.

Now consider, if a people will go so far as to feast on the flesh of their own, what will they do to you?

Think about that as you consider that fantastic Teaching job in China or guided tour there. The Chinese are inhumanly cruel. Why else would the face of the world’s most prolific murderer adorn each and every banknote they have?

China should be treated with the same pestilence that it treats its youth and its livestock. Consider it the Ebola of humanity and cordon it off from your life.

Posted in China Fact, Cultural oddities, Food, Jobs, Let me educate you..., News From China- Whats hot, People, Photos, Prices in China, Product Quality, Subway, Traffic, Uncategorized, Video | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Rent Increases in Hell- aka China

Posted by w_thames_the_d on July 8, 2012


China has a lot of people. actually this is an understatement its like saying ‘rotten eggs smell bad’. Sure they do, but the word ‘bad’ cannot fully comprehend what their odor does to one’s senses.

In any event, the rent in hell aka China, has gone up dramatically. In some areas of hell, notably Beijing Shanghai and Guangzhou, rent has gone up over 10% in one month alone.

I guess I should look at the bright side. For this ten percent increase in housing price, one is guaranteed of living in a beaten down, dilapidated death trap which will crumble at the  mere signs of an earthquake. Setting this aside, one can also be assured that, absent a slight tremor, the little hunk of fecal matter that we call homes will be in a horrible state of disrepair within months of moving in.

In your typical Chinese gulag, the water pipes are the first thing to give up the ghost and then its the walls, followed by plumbing in general. All this is the China price, that cost we all pay for the privilege of living in one of the most repressive regimes on the planet….

Excerpt

“Prices rose most in Beijing, where prices rose by 13.86% from May, followed by Shenzhen, 7.56%; Guangzhou, 6.84%; and Shanghai, 6.48%, according to data released by real estate market researcher the China Index Academy.”

From here

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1102&MainCatID=&id=20120709000009

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China’s Hack Addiction- CCTV Hacks a Scene From Top Gun

Posted by w_thames_the_d on January 31, 2011


In an attempt to build her credibility around the world, CCTV has allegedly shanzai’ed some footage from the movie Top Gun and claim it as their own. How sad is it when you have to hack fighter scenes from the 80’s….

Click the link to see the video, how hilarious…

from here

On Jan. 23, China’s state broadcaster, CCTV, ran a story about an air force training exercise that contained some suspicious footage.

Around the segment’s one minute 12 seconds mark (see above), as the China-U.S.-oriented blog Ministry of Tofu pointed out, “the way a target was hit by the air-to-air missile fired by a J-10 fighter aircraft and exploded looks almost identical to a cinema scene from the Hollywood film Top Gun.”

Viewers were led to believe that what they were seeing was a live fire exercise. But according to Ministry of Tofu: “A net user who went by the name “刘毅” (Liu Yi) pointed out that the jet that the J-10 ‘hit’ is an F-5, a US fighter jet. In Top Gun, what the leading actor Tom Cruise pilots an F-14 to bring down is exactly an F-5. Looking at the screenshots juxtaposition, one cannot fail to find that even flame, smoke and the way the splinters fly look the same.”

Not convinced? The Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report put the videos side-by-side.
http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/main.swf

The seemingly doctored footage has been removed from CCTV’s website. But Real Time China Report notes that Chinese media has in the past been caught red-handed lifting fictional U.S. material in news reports.

“In 2002, the popular Beijing Evening News tabloid translated and published as genuine a satirical news article by The Onion about U.S. Congress threatening to leave Washington D.C. unless the city built them a new building with a retractable roof,” writes Josh Chin. “Five years later, the state-run Xinhua news agency infamously used an x-ray image of Homer Simpson’s head to illustrate a story about the discovery of a genetic link to multiple sclerosis.”

CCTV has declined to comment in media reports.

Posted in Big brother..., China, China Fact, China What they are commenting online, Chinese sayings, Counterfeits and such, Cultural oddities, Food, Jobs, Let me educate you..., News From China- Whats hot, People, Photos, Prices in China, Product Quality, Quotes From Mao, Ranting in general, Subway, Traffic, Uncategorized, Video, Working and Living in China | Leave a Comment »

America Say Goodbye To Your Pensions-20% of Chinese Companies Listed in USA Stock Market Accused of Fraud

Posted by w_thames_the_d on December 14, 2010


Many Americans are betting their retirement and pensions on the stock market. China now has companies listed in the American Stock Market and being Chinese, they may do things different-they have a different definition of morals, ethics and cheating. More than 20% of all Chinese companies listed in the USA stock exchange have been accused of fraud.
I say kudos to them, we dont really need our hard earned money do we? This is pretty scary and if we allow it, then we are fools and deserve it.
China does not play by the same rules, check your portfolio, talk to your brokers….

excerpt:
“More than 20 of the Chinese companies listed on the United State’s exchanges have been accused of fraud, China Business News reported Monday.

About 80 percent of Chinese companies listed on the US market meet the nation’s standards, but 10-20 percent of the firms provided false information, the report said, citing Stephen Paul Monticelli, president of Mosaic Investments LLC, a San Francisco-based company that has invested in Chinese firms over the past five years.”

Posted in Big brother..., China, China Fact, China What they are commenting online, Chinese sayings, Counterfeits and such, Cultural oddities, Food, Jobs, Let me educate you..., News From China- Whats hot, People, Photos, Prices in China, Product Quality, Quotes From Mao, Ranting in general, Subway, Traffic, Uncategorized, Video, Working and Living in China | 2 Comments »

Prices in China

Posted by w_thames_the_d on April 1, 2010


Use 7 RMB to the dollar to make it easy.

18 mo. gym membership decent part of town 1800 rmb= 250U$

personal trainer- 100 rmb per hour= 15U$

red bull- 6.0  rmb = .90U$

chuanr snack 7rmb= 1.00 U$

flight Beijing to Shangahi 2600rmb= 380 U$ (2 hour flight)

Posted in Prices in China | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

Winter Olympics 2010

Posted by w_thames_the_d on February 9, 2010


The Winter Olympics are coming and to commemorate the event, I will be staging an Olympics of my own, stay tuned……

Posted in Big brother..., China, China Fact, Counterfeits and such, Cultural oddities, Food, Let me educate you..., People, Photos, Prices in China, Product Quality, Ranting in general, Subway, Traffic, Uncategorized, Video | 2 Comments »

Hair Cuts in China- Cheap and Good

Posted by w_thames_the_d on February 3, 2010


Whatever you say about Chiuna, you cant knock the food nor the prices. The other day I got my hair cut and it wasnt the traditional bowl cut that adorn the pate of many. The place had the feel of a German night club and the guy was exceptional, I got the new ‘do for about 8U$.

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Selling Innocence- Cultural Divide We Cant Imagine

Posted by w_thames_the_d on January 27, 2010


I watched this great show last night on CNBC- I think. It was about child prostitution in Laos Cambodia etc. and one man’s fight against it. What struck me was that they in Southeast Asia have identical notions of childhood fidelity to the family as Chinese in China- I will explain later. But the essence of this show was that prostitution and selling of children is a huge global problem.

One of the reasons, is that the parents actually will sell their children, to pay off debts or to gain things. To anyone in the west or most of the world, this is deplorable. The idea of the sanctity of an innocent child and protection of his or her rights are inviolable- unfortunately in Asia this must not be the case.

Let me explain. In China, they have something called xiao (means small), or the 24 books of xiao ( I believe this is a useful link). And what this convention means is that the child must do whatever is possible to SUPPORT his family- he must aspire to make their lives better. Contrast this to the west where it is vice-versa, we try to provide them a better life, but this is not so in China. In China, the child MUST provide for his folks, I have found this to be true in practice as well.

The impact of xiao, as I was told, and the show Selling innocence touched on, was that children will be sold by their parents or will submit themselves to servitude or act as sex workers, just so their parents have money. The children see this as a noble or honorable task. Take a moment to let that sink in…

A child here feels that it is a noble thing to sell himself so that his parents can live…

Some may argue that in China the parents do much for the kids, we have all heard of the little emperors who want for nothing. I would submit, that this is not inconsistent with what I have said before. In China, they have no real social security system, and by 2020 they will have about 500 million people of retirement age. That is 1.6 times the population of America, or 3 times the population of Brazil- all over 55. This is a huge drain on the social welfare system, and basically they have none. So the solution is xiao- the children. It is culturally demanded that the children support their folks in thier old age. Now remember that their folks must support their folks (the kids grandparents)so the modern burden is not only ones parents, but to support grandparents as well. Thus, according to almost all my chinese friends, these ‘acts of kindness’ meted to the children are nothing more than a form of social security. Give a child a chance (good English, math skills) and he can travel, get a better job. The kids should give around 20% of their salary to their folks, so it is in the parents best interest to see the child obtain as much wealth as he can.

Sound jaded, like I am blowing smoke, how about this… PKU (Bei DA- Peking University) has just made the notion of xiao a part of thier acceptance policies- not an obediant son, cant get in. It is a different world here, you can magnify what you hear by a factor of 2 or 3 and still not really understand- I am just doing my part.

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Prices of Goods in China

Posted by w_thames_the_d on January 8, 2010


Life is cheap, as in abundantly cheap in China. I will now tell you just how cheap it is, and remember, these prices are from Beijing, the second most costly city in the mainland..

The exchange rate at present is about 6.88 RMB to the dollar

Meal for 12, 8 meat dishes 6 vegetable dishes- local cuisine, 344 rmb or ~ 48U$ at nanlishulu road

bowl of rice 1 to 5 rmb ~ $.14 to $.7

Mercedes station wagon 280 000 RMB ~ $41,000

photo copy 5 jiao (jiao is half of 1  mao, mao is 1/10 of rmb) ~ $.01 (for instance if one were so inclined they could copy a 2100 page book for about 127 rmb) or 20 US…

Seafood for 2 at great restaurant (3 small crab, snails, 2 sides, rice) 350 rmb  ~ 52$

Meal at Mexican joint – chimichangas, fajitas, nacho entree, 2 cokes 180 rmb ~ $28

cheap shirt 20 rmb ~ 3 $

cheap jacket 60 rmb ~ $8.80

cheap knock of f cell 200 rmb  ~ 28$

snickers candy bar 4 rmb ~ $ .6

Red bull 6 rmb ~ $ .89

cigs 6 to 8 rmb ~ $.8  – 1.1

massage foot, 60 minutes 60 rmb ~ $8.3

Massage foot and body 2 hours total 188 rmb (expensive place) ~ 28.6 $

hair cut 4 rmb to 1600 (innludes extensions) ~ $ .6 to 250

Apple 5 rmb ~ $ .7

Starbucks biggest cup, forget the damned name  36 rmb ~ $5.25

McDonalds lunch special 15 to 21 Rmb ~ $2.2 to 3.1

Subway spicey Italian  18 rmb ~ $2.80

living in China

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