Bingfeng Teahouse

via: kidsnewsroom

CCTV interviewed Zong Qinghou sunday night in its Dialogue program. zong is an old-style guy but pretty cool. i just find that he exported his own brand of soda drinks to the states last year. here is the story:

Future Cola is coming to America in June. Where is it coming from? China. The Hangzhou Wahaha Group wants to compete for $64 billion America already spends on soda every year. Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. already own 8 of the top 10 sodas in the U.S. Even in China, Pepsi Co. and Coca-Cola dominate the soda market.

Nevertheless, China is shipping 170,000 bottles of the soda called Future Cola to New York and Los Angeles. What’s the secret? Future Cola is the favored drink of rural China. While Pepsi Co. and Coca-Cola concentrated on the cities, Future Cola reached across China even into Tibet with 620,000 tons of soda. Consistent with its availability to rural areas the name Wahaha simply comes from a children’s folk song. Wahaha means laughing baby.

Can this grassroots, hometown soda from China make it America? If you look for Chinese cola in June, you might find out if Future Cola has the taste for Americans.

it's not a news that china is a giant of exporting mainly low-end products to the states, and the rest of the world as well. but recently i find this mania begins to affect people and friends around me here in shanghai. they come to me and say, “look at this (or that), it's just too cheap, if we can arrange to export them to the U.S., you will get rich”. some of them will compare items they find at my home with similar items in the states, like these:

pottery (altogether 10 yuan = 1.2 USD)

african mask (18 yuan = 2.1 USD)

sofa back cushion (7 yuan = 0.82 USD)

i am surprised to know that my home worth so much in the states, and i ask my friend, “are you suggesting that i export my home to the U.S. and come back to buy a villa in china?”

he laughs out and says, “exactly correct, export your home to the U.S.”

the chief editor of the economic observer  - Mr. Xu Zhiyuan, contributed an editorial to comment on hongkong's free economy tradition and said, “at a moment when hongkong loses its sense of direction, it might be helpful for them to review these figures (of the free economy school)”

Xu cited some of John Cowperthwaite's speeches in the editorial, like this one, “we won't have a future if we can not rely on the judgements made by businessman ... in the long run, even businessman's judgements are proved to be wrong, the damage caused by them are much lighter than the damage caused by the government. ”

Xu seems to be advocating a “small government” in hongkong. while i am not pretty sure that this is the right prescription to hongkong's economic narcoma, i think that Xu should spend some time to look at shanghai's potential problems in terms of its economic growth pattern.

related links:

this is the logo of blogchina.com, the slogan says: NO. 1 BLOG PORTAL OF THE WORLD

blog china is one of my favorites, but i'm not sure it is the world's No. 1 (perhaps that's only their corporate mission statement).

via: shanghaidiaries, the link is: here

this “get a chinese name”tool is funny. just try it.

the chinese name for GW Bush is "bei gong-ren", and that page says:

Surname (first character) Bei

Given Name (middle character) Gong respectful, polite, reverent

Given Name (last character): ren benevolent

You were born in the Year of the Dog

Hello, George W. Bush! Above is the Chinese name which was "inspired" by your English name. Chinese uses characters rather than an alphabet, so names cannot be directly translated from English to Chinese. However, Chinese characters can be chosen which approximate the English pronounciation, which is what this program does.

Chinese names generally have 3 characters. The surname, which is usually 1 character, comes first. Next are one or two characters which are chosen by the parents (or the grandparents in traditional Chinese culture). This program chooses the surname and given names according to the spelling of your name and the characteristics you choose. The selection is not unique though. Everytime you use this tool, you will likely get a different name. So if you don't like the first name you get, try again.

This page is mostly created for entertainment. Real Chinese names should be chosen by someone who knows the nuances of Chinese language and culture. Ask a native speaker if you want a Chinese name you will actually use. Also, this tool will not translate Chinese names written in English back to their original Chinese form.

via: china daily, read the article here: No expired food to tsunami-hit nations: China

the news report reminds me a very similar story i have experienced before.

many years ago, a visiting japanese sent my family a gift of japanese sea tangle, packed in a beautiful box. my dad gave it to my grandma because she didn't have many chances to taste japanese food.

grandma called us the next day and told us, “japanese are very bad. the food is already expired, the production date is 1956.10.6”(i can't remember the exact year but it's similar to that)

my dad couldn't believe it and asked me to check why is that.

i found the production date printed on the back of the box is in traditional japanese calendar, so the food was actually produced a few weeks ago.