As I embark upon starting another business, this time with my friend Rola, it seems time for another entry on entrepreneurship. When I think of entrepreneurship in China or am asked why are you here or asked how long will you be here, I recall a brief quote from The Wall Street Journal. (The WSJ […]
For the past week, I played tour guide to my mom and grandparents as they were visiting Shanghai
As you may have guessed, I’ve been very busy recently. I had a strange work schedule for awhile and during my off time was working on my report for work and my other projects. Then this week my mom and grandparents have been in town so I’ve been showing them around. Anyway, I’ll have a […]
By ‘attending’ 6 weddings over three days I was offered an additional insight into Chinese culture by watching this key cultural component of any society. Chinese weddings in recent years have become more Western. Traditionally the bride would wear red to symbolize prosperity and happiness; however with the interest in Western culture, modern brides in […]
Having read numerous books and articles on contract negotiations in China, I thought I had a good familiarity with the process…until it came time to negotiate my own (employment) contract. A common theme among literature discussing contract negotiations in China is after all the issues had been discussed and settled, the Chinese partner comes back […]
China is almost totally a cash-based society. This is particularly true in rural and western China where they lack the banking infrastructure to process any kind of transactions other than cash. This is slightly less true in Shanghai. As a society so heavily reliant upon cash, a number of things amuse or annoy me: Why […]
My uncle just sent me an online article quoting a Chinese official asserting that they don’t censor the internet in China and I didn’t find the Chinese official’s comments all that surprising and the article was even less interesting. But what I did find interesting are the ridiculous comments that people wrote in reaction to […]