Archive for February, 2007
February 24, 2007 at 2:26 am · Filed under Uncategorized
To become a London cabbie, you have to learn what is called the Knowledge: the location of every street within a 10km (six-mile) radius of the centre. This takes years of part-time study. If you fail the exam, you do not get a license. — The Economist
What a great idea! I wish that was the true in Shanghai. Maybe then the confused, lost laowai passenger wouldn’t be giving directions to the cab or wondering why the cab driver left him off 2 blocks away from where he wanted to go. Everyone would get to their destination. I think that would be a great way to solve the problem of cab drivers who can’t figure out how to get to my apt when its only 5 blocks away.
But the flip side is that if they screened cab drivers that strongly, few would pass and then there would be less cabs to be had at all. This would be a big problem. I think everyone has at one point spent more than 20 minutes looking for a taxi, particularly in the rain. Some people, myself included have spent over 1 hour looking for a taxi and finally ended up having to walk or take the bus. How ridiculous! Well, then I think it would be worse to have fewer taxis than to have more competent drivers.
Perhaps the Shanghai city government can require ongoing study and memorization of Shanghai city streets for cab drivers to keep their licenses. Every 3 years or so they must take the city streets test and demonstrate greater proficiency than the previous time to keep their license. Sounds like a good plan to me! Perhaps they can do the same thing with English proficiency, especially leading up to 2010 World Expo…
February 20, 2007 at 6:48 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Traveling
Part 2 of my entries to CN photo contest of memorable moments in travel. Here are my next entries. Take a look at them and then vote 5* for them! Thanks! More photos to come
An Angel Above
Luminous Laos
The tourists’ break
My Venetian Art
Portrait of a Butterfly
Watching, waiting, readying
What I realized when looking at these photos is that my composition and use of subject matter is quite good. I fill the lens fairly well and I include a lot of color (which I love). However the lighting is terrible. Any other feedback on my photos is much appreciated, as I’m always looking to improve.
February 19, 2007 at 2:47 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Tourism, Traveling
People ask me where should we stay in Shanghai or elsewhere in China. While I’m partial to my hotel in Shanghai, if our hotel is full or for other locations in China, TripAdvisor.com is a great site for reading traveler reviews to help you pick the best hotel. Once you’ve selected your hotel, check out Hotel Reservations for availability and very competitive rates. They have a good selection of Mainland China and Hong Kong hotels. Online distribution of hotel rooms in Mainland China is not as developed as elsewhere, but yet this site does have a solid selection of both local and international hotels in cities as far apart as Chengdu, Sanya, and Dalian. If China’s not your destination, sad for me, but no worries, they have hotels in other countries as well. 
If you’re not even ready to book hotels and are still trying to figure out flights or choose a vacation package, Hotel Reservations has online booking for those as well–both inbound and outbound China flights, so you can still come visit me in Shanghai. Cars and vacation rentals are also available on this site. Now, if only they had cruises…
But perhaps the 2 best features of site: 1) If you’re averse to booking online, you can call their hotel experts toll free in Europe, USA, Canada, or globally for additional information and help booking. What great news for people not exactly adept at using the internet, or too impatient to enter all their information online, or just afraid to enter their credit card number online. 2) They have a price guarantee for their “Special Internet Rate.” That means if you find some place else online after you’ve booked your room, they’ll refund you the difference. What a novel concept, its like price matching or accepting a competitors coupons–you generate more business because people don’t have to shop around, they are guaranteed the best price at your location.
Hey! Works for me, now let’s see, where can I imagine going…
February 18, 2007 at 4:48 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Enjoying the New Years dinner with my friend and her family was a fabulous experience, trying to get home was not.
As I mentioned, New Years is also like the 4th of July–that’s because of the fireworks. Though fireworks are technically illegal in China, that doesn’t seem to stop anyone from trying to scare the spirits away. Chinese tradition believed that dragons and other monstrous spirits would come on New Years to take away their luck and so to scare them away, the Chinese launched firecrackers believing the noise and bright light flashes would frighten them off. Now they just do it because they’re fireworks and fireworks are fun.
The setting-off of the fireworks started at least a week ago, but New Year’s Eve was certainly the worse night. Throughout dinner we constantly heard loud cracks and booms and explosions as the fireworks would explode literally right outside her apartment window. But even that didn’t prepare me for what I’d experience outside…
When I left my friend’s apartment there were about a half dozen guys in an L-shaped parking lot setting off fireworks between highrise apartment buildings that are no more than 50ft apart from each other. There was no coordination among the pyrotechies, just mass chaos of noise, light, fire, and running.
To get from her apartment building out to the street, I felt like a refugee in a warzone where I had to run past 1 explosion during the reload period and duck behind a car as the firework bombed. The Japanese are coming! The Japanese are coming! After ducking, dodging, plugging my ears, and trying to make it out of there alive I very easily found a taxi. But the taxi had to fight the same battle I’d just fought. Each block had more pyros lighting fireworks in the middle of the street that caused cars to swerve around them while drivers tried to avoid being blinded by the flashing lights.
Returning to my apartment was no relief either. Even though I could see countless fireworks displays from my window, I still felt like I was in Austria during the 1938 German blitzkrieg, with explosions happening so close and so loud and my windows shaking.
The war didn’t finish at or even shortly after midnight either. It started again at 7am and then took a siesta, literally firing itself up again around 4pm today.
When will it stop? I just want to sleep without dreaming of airstrikes over Berlin.
February 18, 2007 at 4:15 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Knowledge and Experiences, Learning through Foreign Cultures, Peace Through Tourism
Saturday marked the start of the Lunar New Year holiday as it was New Year’s Eve. Lunar New Year in China is like Christmas, New Years, and 4th of July all rolled into one massive holiday. Its a very important family time, religious time, and also a time for presents and celebration.
On New Year’s Eve, my friend celebrated with her family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, by having 12 people altogether for dinner. She was kind enough to invite me. It was a real treat, partaking in an authentic Chinese family celebration.
I brought a gift to the host, as is customary. I had asked my other Chinese friends what is an acceptable gift. They suggested fruit, wine, chocolate, or cake. I opted for fruit. Flowers are never an appropriate gift as they are only given as gifts to dead people.
When I arrived she had made a few flower arrangements to brighten up their apartment and her parents were still cooking. My friend had set up an elephant next to oranges, a bit of a curious combination until she explained the Chinese pronunciation, which when put together sounds similar to ‘lucky’ in Chinese and therefore is a way of wishing for luck. There are many many such symbols in Chinese language/culture. Another such example is putting ‘fu’ upside down so that the ‘fu’ (luck or prosperity) comes to you.
Her parents had been cooking all day as was quite apparent by the quantity of dishes that had already been prepared. As appetizers they had an assortment of nuts, fresh fruit, candies, and dried meats. They set up a larger table to accommodate all 13 of us and once the rest of her family arrived we all sat down to dinner.
There seems to be a rule that everyone fit to drink must drink alcohol. Multiple times I was questioned as to whether I had enough alcohol, but fortunately it was in a friendly manner and nowhere near the high pressure gan bei style of the previous week.
The table certainly fit everyone but was barely big enough for all the dishes. I can’t imagine 1 kitchen and 1 family preparing so much good food. It was amazing–seafood, meat, veggies, tofu, & rice dishes. She even remembered my dislike of seafood and then insisted that the dinner not be weighted to heavily on seafood and cooked mapo doufu to satisfy my love of mapo tofu. Then dessert was never ending, 2 different kinds of rice-based cake, spring rolls, tofu rolls, 2 kinds of soup, lots of red bean. Altogether many, many fantastic dishes.
After dinner we watched the CCTV New Year’s special on TV. Her younger cousins received ‘hong bao,’ red envelopes filled with money from their aunts & uncles. Children and college-age students all receive these money packets from older relatives.
It was such a wonderful experience. Never before have I felt so included and been able to so fully partake in Chinese culture. It was such a memorable experience and I hope I can offer the same back to my friend.
Thank you, Mikthy! 新年快乐！恭喜发财！
February 14, 2007 at 4:39 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Knowledge and Experiences, Entrepreneurship & Business, Learning through Foreign Cultures
(Well here’s a very strange situation…I wrote this Sunday night. It got posted to my website and was even imported into Facebook. But when I looked at my website on Monday, it was gone! Either someone deleted my post or my content management system lost it. I have no idea how either could happen, but I was not happy that I lost an entire post. Then today when I was looking at my FB profile, here it is, saved in FB and not all my writing has been lost! So happy. Now if only the mystery could be solved. Anyway, on to the story…)
Gan Bei
Well last Wednesday was definitely an experience in Chinese culture, specifically Chinese banquets and drinking…
It all started at lunchtime–that’s right, at work, in my uniform, being served by the people I teach English to, lunchtime at the hotel. Out hotel hosted some out-of-town Chinese guests for lunch, about 24 people. Everyone was given a wine glass. My boss made the introductory toast and we finished our first glass of wine. Then the others at the table started 1-by-1 going to my boss and each ‘gan bei-ing,’ ie cheers and then finishing off their glass of wine, followed by tipping their glass to the other person to prove they’d finished it. Not long after, they started coming to me! each 1-by-1 to gan bei–that’s 11 people, including my boss. Then my boss told me to go gan bei with the 12 individuals at the other table, needless to say I thought I might pass out just from shock that he suggested such a thing. Let me remind you, I’m still wearing my uniform, including my name tag, sitting in the middle of my employer’s banquet hall being served by my colleagues. Thankfully the manager of guest company suggested 1 round of gan bei was sufficient for the whole table rather than individual by individual.
Well that was a nice buzz to get me through the afternoon and on to the next gan bei event.
Our company New Year’s party happened to be that evening as well, a total of about 20-22 tables in the largest function hall. The festivities started fine and relaxed, appetizers were served and the many Chinese speeches began. Then some meat dishes were served and after that, it all began again…I started with a nice Spanish drink called tintoria de verano, a mixture of sprite and red wine, and cheered my table, only 1 swallow, no need to finish the whole glass. I thought I’d go to a couple of tables where I personally knew others and do a cheer with the table–maybe 2-3 tables at most. So it starts fine, another swallow of my mixed drink with the front office staff and 1 with the 1st table of housekeepers and 1 with the first table of F&B where I finished my mixed glass. I thought I was done–my glass was empty and I thought I’d gan beied with everyone I knew. Well it seems many other employees recognize me even if I don’t know who they are, which is not surprising given I’m the only white employee. Little did I expect this was only the beginning…But then I was pulled into another table and complained ‘oh my glass is empty,’ no worries, they have an entire bottle of red wine, nearly half of which they poor into my glass. And with this table, it’s not just 1 swallow, its the entire 10-oz glass of red wine. What a painstaking endeavor. As soon as I manage, after about 3-4 tries, to finish that glass, I’m whisked off to another table, which doesn’t offer wine, but rather Maotai, Chinese whiskey. Fortunately, I convince them shot size is enough to gan bei and that goes down without too much pain. And away I go to another table–was it wine they gave me or something else? I don’t even remember, but after that it only got worse. Another full glass of red wine and the manager at the table pours herself 1/4 of what she gives me but expects me to match her in 1 big gulp. My body is starting to resist. The wine won’t pass my throat. It takes me 4 tries, and someone taking a 1/3 of my wine and lots of begging off before I can finish that glass of wine while standing at that table. The next table, another group of F&B people–where did they all come from?!?! pours about 4-oz of maotai in my glass and they expect that to be taken as if in 1 shot–are you kidding me?!? That stuff smells worse than rubbing alcohol! At first I try to take a large gulp, my body fights it but I manage to get it down, hardly made a difference in the level in the glass. Again, same thing. Another time. Each time my sip is getting smaller and smaller until I’m just pretending to open my mouth. Then, with about a 5′2″, 180lb boy, they make me wrap arms (champagne wedding style) to drink to finish the last of it, but of course I can no longer tolerate this in my throat so I merely pretend. Fortunately that was entertainment enough and they don’t seem to notice I didn’t finish my glass.
Then another table wants me, I beg off, promising to comeback after I settle down. I go back to my own table to rest and get something to wash my mouth out and my new manager says ‘ahh let’s gan bei now that she’s back!’ But first he looks in my glass and goes, ‘you can’t drink sprite, that’s not real gan bei.’ I let him have a whiff and he reels backward not expecting a nose-full of pure alcohol. He decides maybe I don’t need to finish the remaining 1.5-oz in 1 large shot and let’s me off easy–thank god. I pour the rest out and look around to my sales colleagues for sympathy. It’s there.
Not more than 5minutes later, someone else that I can’t recall ever having seen in my life comes to the table and asks if I’d do the honor of gan bei-ing with them. How can I refuse? It would be downright rude. And there’s a bit of shock and admiration from my sales colleagues and cheers from the table who I’d accepted their invitation. I finish a small glass of wine with them and think, well, that wasn’t too bad after the maotai, but haha they had other ideas. They decided that that wasn’t enough and they were going to add a full glass of beer on top. I don’t drink beer, absolutely not. Therefore, at that point, I’d simply had enough. No matter what invitations to other tables I was offered, I was not drinking anymore. It was certainly not one of my drunkest nights but not a pleasant experience by any means. Who ever thought drinking terrible Chinese wine (or whiskey) was a good plan?
That was my day of gan bei. 1 finished glass after another. I’ve lived the experience of the Chinese drinking culture and I will be happy not to have to do it again. The next day, the China Daily featured a survey claiming that nearly 70% of Chinese don’t like the high-pressure, finished glass, gan bei style of drinking. Hear Hear to that!
February 10, 2007 at 4:28 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Entrepreneurship & Business, Tourism, Business Climate
As I mentioned in the blog below, there are certainly issues that need to be worked out in China’s travel/tourism industry. In the following article, these are elaborated on, even to the point of suggesting they are real problems that could undermine China’s ability to grow its tourism industry.
Tourism Skills Shortage in China
onrec.com
As a long time resident in China I have had the dubious privilege of watching the tourism and travel industries develop rapidly over the last decade. The development is the good news but the pre-development stage was a bit of a struggle for us all.
Over the last week I have read a number of articles indicating that China is going to move from being the world’s 4th largest tourism destination, with 124 million inbound tourists per year, to the world’s 2nd largest tourist destination, with countless more. This will happen over the next 10 years and it is great to hear. It means real change in people’s lives; overseas travel for people in China and the arrival of literally millions of tourists for upcoming events like the Beijing Olympics(2008) and the World Fair in Shanghai (2010). The downside is that there will be an inevitable shortage of skills in the tourism and hospitality sectors because the growth is massive and exponential. Businesses will suffer, and in fact are suffering right now because the growth has already started. Hiring volumes are huge and the cost of candidate identification and assessment is high when the salaries on offer are below the average for all other industries. At present there is a clear shortage of Travel Consultants in China. This stems from the exponential growth of the travel industry and the fact that so few people in China have actually been abroad in the past. In an exponentially growing industry the number of people with 10 years experience tends towards zero, and the travel industry certainly follows this path. It is very difficult in China to find someone who knows about the difficulties experienced by travellers who arrive at Heathrow(London) or JFK(New York). This is simply because so few people have actually been to either of these airports. Go back only a few years and it wasn’t even possible for someone in China to get a visa to go to either location. So, for example, it is very difficult for local Travel Consultants to really understand that you need 4 hours transit time when changing terminals at Heathrow. It’s hard to even envisage when your comparison is the small airport in your local city. And more importantly, it’s hard to effectively advise your clients when their travel plans involve multiple locations and different time zones. In effect we are looking at a skills shortage that can never be solved with simple training. The hospitality industry is a little different because it has been growing strongly for more than 10 years. So strongly in fact that it is often seen as a great training ground for other industries like sales, marketing, advertising, PR etc. Hotel people are much sought after because their language skills are developed, they have excellent presentation and they understand customer service in a very deep way. They can transition easily to selling advertising space or managing PR events for corporate clients. Unfortunately, the hospitality industry is now growing at a rate where training cannot keep up with the buildout of new hotels. Occupancy rates in hotels in China are thought to be over 70% and in many cities it is hard to get a hotel room, even when there is no major event going on in that city. Room rates have gone up significantly too. The tourism industry in China is already racking up over US$300 billion a year in turnover. It employs about 17 million people and is growing at about 9% per year. So the logical consequence of this is an ongoing struggle to recruit, retain and motivate staff. A struggle that will only get worse in the short term. The danger is that if this problem is not solved, the industry will not reach its potential. This has huge consequences when travel and tourism combined currently employ about 10% of the entire China workforce. Having the tallest hotel in the world is good, but filling it with qualified staff is much better.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the issues discussed in this article, I just don’t see them posing as big of problems as he makes them out to be. China’s churning out the tourism/hospitality students at a rapid rate and the ones I know and work with are fantastic people, with excellent English and service skills. If they come straight out of undergrad this smart and well-trained, I’m sure they can learn and develop great management skills as well. As such, headhunting those truly capable tourism/travel middle and senior-level managers may just be great business idea.
February 10, 2007 at 4:06 am · Filed under Entrepreneurship & Business, Tourism, Entrepreneurship, Business Climate
Check out this report from the UNWTO:
WTO: China Will Become The Largest Travel Destination By 2020
February 5, 2007
The World Tourism Organization says that by 2010 China will exceed Spain and become the world’s second most popular travel country, and by 2020 it will become the largest travel destination in the world.
The Madrid-based organization says that despite the appreciation of RMB value in 2006, China’s inbound tourists increased by 6% in the year and reached 49.6 million.
WTO Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli and Marketing Information and Promotion Department director Johann Kestner both estimate that China will see faster growth and will exceed Spain in the next four years.
Frangialli says that China, which has abundant capacity in tourist reception facilities, will probably surpass France by 2020 and become the most popular travel destination in the world.
WTO statistics show that China’s outbound tourists increased from 20 million in 2003 to 31 million in 2005.
Wow! With so much growth, that means there’s a huge opportunity. And I’m already in China! Especially in China, where the industry is not nearly as developed as in the US or Europe, there are so many issues yet to be worked out, such as service, transportation, language difficulties, the intimidation factor, etc. So now the question is, what is a good business plan to take advantage of that report?
The problem with businesses in the travel/tourism industry is the margin is tiny. People start businesses and work in the travel/tourism industry for the sheer love of travel and helping others to travel. The barriers to entry in this field are quite low, buyers power is high (brand recognition is low), and the threat of substitutes is high. (Porter’s 5 Forces.) These factors combine to keep margins in this industry quite small.
Nonetheless, I, like so many others want to start a business in the travel/tourism industry, particularly related to China. I’m starting to brainstorm and have a couple of ideas, but I welcome any others however wacky they may be. Feel free to offer suggestions or business ideas in the comments below.
February 3, 2007 at 5:49 pm · Filed under Uncategorized, Knowledge and Experiences, Learning through Foreign Cultures
Although Beijing is reputed to be a chatty city, I find that the Shanghainese like to talk a lot as well. The Chinese just like to talk…well as least my colleagues do. The Chinese leader does the talking in interviews, in meetings, and in sales meetings. I find this very counterintuitive to Western ideas. In interviews in the West, the general philosophy is to let the interviewee do most of the talking to paint a favorable picture of herself and convey to the interviewer why she is the best candidate. In interviews in China the candidate still needs to be prepared, however, she needs to be prepared to spend the majority of the time listening. The Chinese manager will carry the weight in the interview and do the majority of the talking and in doing so, the candidate will have a preview of what all meetings will be like in that Chinese company.
In her new position in that Chinese company, she will learn that Chinese organizations are run from the top-down. The senior managers will make the decisions; decisions are always made by the top group and then handed down. That’s why they have so many senior-level managers, because a single one can’t make the decision himself. It’s group decision making at the top level. In progressive cities in China, like Shanghai, the managers may call for a meeting of the staff and ask the staff to prepare and present their ideas. However, the managers will most likely not listen during much of the staff presentation; they will be too busy thinking of their own speech to inform the staff of the decisions that have already been made by the group at the top. After just one of these meetings, the foreigner will learn to be prepared for that opportunity to present but also to know, it will not matter much because the management will have already made its decision.
Again, in a manner seemingly completely backward to the West, this is also the way sales are done in China. The customer will come in, choose 1 of 4 or 5 pre-set choices and then the salesperson will spend the next 20-30minutes rattling off the details. If the customer is lucky, they may be able to ask a couple of questions. Sales are essentially done by the telling the customer what is available and then letting him choose whether to take it or leave it. There is no customization. Because of this method of selling, the product must be near perfect to begin with and the salesperson must have their presentation down to a T. The concepts of ‘listening to the customer’ or seeking out the customer’s needs and then trying to solve those needs with the salespersons array of products just do not yet exist in China. In China, customers go to salespeople to listen, not the other way around as in the West. But somehow, this method works for Chinese people. They buy the standard product, no assessment of their needs required. Especially for the generation that came of age during the Cultural Revolution, having even 1 choice is far better than having no choices, so letting someone tell them what they want is fine. With the Chinese mindset of group decision-making and top-down decisions, its much easier to be told what you want and can have, than risk making your own decision. Therefore, this sales strategy just works in China.
The Chinese affinity for group decision-making and top-down decisions is rooted in their culture. China, like Japan and the rest of East Asia, has always been high on the communal scale, and low on the independence side. This societal trait is further evidenced in schools, particularly in Hong Kong where students must discuss every response before it is presented out loud. This also explains the prevalence of cheating and group projects. An individual can be wrong and be blamed; a group can take collective responsibility, which is easier to bear. Groups make better decisions. Top-down decision-making is also a formalized characteristic of Chinese society. Hierarchy, government over individual, boss over subordinate, father over son, older brother over younger brother, man over woman is deeply ingrained in the Chinese philosophy. This is why all ideas and decisions in China flow from the very top down.
These characteristics, when applied in the hospitality industry can certainly rub foreigners the wrong way. At a basic level, any question about why something happens is met with the standard response, ‘that’s policy,’ meaning, ‘my boss informed me of the decision however misguided it is and I must follow it. I don’t think for myself and I can’t make my own decisions; I am just a cog in the wheel that relays information.’ But what about sales? A foreign potential customer walks into the sales office hoping to thoroughly explain his needs and seek a satisfying outcome. However, he finds a salesperson talking on and on offering only a multiple-choice test of 5 very limited options. The salesperson thinks, ‘ah I will tell him what we can give him. He should be very happy with our 5 choices because in old China there were no choices.’ The customer, on the other hand thinks, ‘what the heck is this stuff? None of this will work for me. Why doesn’t this person care what I want?’ Ahh…the disconnect between Chinese and Western philosophies/attitudes.
February 3, 2007 at 8:40 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Tourism, Traveling
A new photo contest from CN encourages people to upload photos of memorable moments in travel. Here are the details
Upload a “memorable travel moment” – a photograph that you took, along with a brief explanation of what you’re sharing and what makes it special. You’ll be one step closer to winning a $20,000 dream trip to ANYWHERE in the world.
So far I’ve uploaded 5 photos with captions. Take a look at them and then vote for them! Thanks! More photos to come
Statue of Liberty
In Discussion - Singapore
Stairs to the Heavens
Marching On
Women Dancing in Paradise
Digg/USCfemme
Flickr/tofflerann
Facebook/Toffler
Linkedin/Toffler
Twitter/TofflerAnn
YouTube/USCfemme
italki.com/Toffler