Business Questions about how do deal with a Global China (in Hong Kong) I love to listen to the witty and very knowledgable banter of Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn over at the Sinica Podcast on SupChina. I’ve been listening to these guys for years now—long before they started SupChina when it was still hosted at Pop-up Chinese (and also
Book Reviews Readings and other Conversations Over the last month in Shenzhen not only have I been blessed to have a very cooperative and generous host company allow me to observe their daily work, but I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to interview another 15-20 individuals, foreign and Chinese, about their own personal experiences with
Business What's the Difference Between a Duck? (AKA: Nonessentialized Chinenessness) What’s the Difference Between a Duck?When I was a kid my dad used to always joke around and ask me this question. We’d be in the car or at dinner and he’d get serious and look me in the eyes and then say, without any hint
Business 5 Years Later...Back Home in Shenzhen. After a few years in school, being back in Shenzhen, where I lived for almost a decade, has been an enjoyable readjustment. I moved back into our own home in Futian and now conduct PhD research in an office very close to where my own office was a few years
Uncategorized Singapore as US Values Partner in SEA? I had the very enjoyable opportunity to listen to two US Ambassadors to Singapore, Former Ambassador Steven Green who is a UofM alum and long-time resident of the Miami area, and also current Ambassador Wagar who lived/worked in SFL for a number of years prior to being posted
China Xi vs the Pope President Xi and the Pope both arrived in the US this week. Landing on opposite sides of the country, their arrivals couldn’t have been more different. The Pope, great by President Obama with a bow and hand-kiss at the airport, was welcomed with all the pomp and circumstance
Business Chinese Middle Class Values...anyone? Anyone? This is an older post, from 2015, that I just found in a drafts folder today (2018) and thought I should post anyway. I wondered how much has changed in the ensuing 3 years? One of the things that continues to intrigue me about incredible rise of China is a
Business Ah, the memories; The Made in China Diary Wow. Wish that I'd thought of this! (h/t Wired Magazine) Kudos the to (Swiss) authors/photog's that did though. Great idea. Some really good shots of "what it's really like to manufacture in China;" everything from shops set up in the
Business Is China a Threat? Part 20457948571-048571 Last month I was given a copy of an email from the local head of a national political party in the US with an all too common sentiment—China is a threat! We need to limit our international exposure via govt fiat ASAP. I won’t share the source or
Business When 5%-10% more is a bargin The background on this great idea comes from Wired Magazine. But more than the great idea, and a Utah company to boot, the look into their issues dealing with China are insightful. From the article: Davis has run billion-dollar divisions of global conglomerates with integrated supply chains and the
Uncategorized "Life, uh... finds a way." John Hammond: [as they gather around a baby dinosaur hatching from its egg] I've been present for the birth of every little creature on this island.Dr. Ian Malcolm: Surely not the ones that are bred in the wild?Henry Wu: Actually they can't breed in
Business The more things change... ...the more they stay the same.Shocker: Official and unofficial numbers for China 2012 economy are not the same!!! And, hold your breath…..the official numbers not only aren't accurate they've erred on the side of making last year's downturn less dramatic and the
Business Creativity--It's not that they can't... ...They've just never been asked to do it before.Interesting article in the WSJ about the lack of creativity in Asian graduates. But I think that the article misses the point.The conclusion is that Asian grads aren't creative because they don't have he
Uncategorized Are you performing The Ferrari Test? Don't let the fact that the companies in this article are all large lull you into to thinking you're too small to get ripped or that you're too important a client for your factory to pull these kinds of tricks on you: Despite well-
Business How to get off the negotiations carousel. Great post by Dan over at CLB again today. Talking about the difficulty in getting your supplier/manufacturer to give you and then stick with a fixed price. Basically, it's not going to happen. But there are things that can be done about it to save both your
Uncategorized Why do good companies stumble in China? This is a response to a question by Dan Harris of China Law Blog Fame. why do some companies seem to just coast into China while others stumble in and never recover? What more should we be writing about to help those seeking to do business in China or to
Business Culture of Copy The money quote from Bianca Bosker, the Author of Original Copies, in an interview with the WSJ China Real Times Reporter James T. Areddy: "In the West there is a sense that copy is very taboo. It’s a terrible thing. It’s a sign of a lack of
Uncategorized What happens when the miracle is over? Not sure yet, but it looks like it will be very very bad. And it's coming sooner than many want to believe.From the article: We now know that [rehypothecated assets] has been happening in China with the most critical component of its economic growth miracle: steel. We
Uncategorized Sssshhhhh…. Don't tell anyone From the NYT: "China’s food-safety problems highlight both the collapse of the country’s business ethics and the failure of government regulators to keep pace with the expanding market economy. Yet an excessive focus on poor government oversight often means that the much graver problem of disintegrating
Uncategorized S.N.O.R your way to China – Guide before you go. Guest Blog Post Snoring is a type of action we do when we are not aware of it (hopefully….), it happens when we are unconscious. I want to help fellow entrepreneurs here to get out of this unconsciousness and have a S.N.O.R plan. A VERY conscious 4 step plan to
Business Guanxi and Contracts--A Chinese explaination from the US. Some fantastic opportunities to learn about China are more and more available in the US. While in the US this month I attended a couple of sessions of the UVU Doing Business with China seminar in Utah.First, Andrew Hupert presented a great keynote address on Guanxi. All that needs
Uncategorized "Would you make the same decisions in a foreign language as you would in your native tongue?” “Would you make the same decisions in a foreign language as you would in your native tongue?” asked psychologists led by Boaz Keysar of the University of Chicago in an April 18 Psychological Science study.“It may be intuitive that people would make the same choices regardless of the language
Business Un-Fair! You’re playing with a stacked deck when you go to fairs and trade-shows. It’s best to do some due diligence work beforehand and keep you cards close to your vest while there.Part of the problem is that you likely don’t speak Chinese, and English may
Business Talk with People who really know (i.e. people who are here) Tivo is great. I can watch TV from the US on my computer in China. One of my favorite commercials from the US that I've seen while watching the NCAA Tourney at 4AM list last month is the direct TV commercial that ends, "Don't have
Business Who do you like to work with? Probably who you identify most easily with.A year or so ago my then 5 year-old told me, in all seriousness, "Dad I'm like Kobe, not white like you." Suppressing laughter I responded, "Actually, you're more like Yaoming than Kobe." But
