Bingfeng Teahouse

via: sina news

the people first party (PFP) president will visit mainland china in june

the grandson of Chiang Kai-shik will visit mainland china in april

the DPP president says he is willing to visit mainland china

via: andrew

CMW: Bogus books discovered among best-sellers

28/3/2005

Beijing - As Chinese economy and private business grow rapidly, books on western company management and leadership strategies have been on the list of top sellers in many bookstores. However, it is discovered recently that a lot of the best-sellers are bogus books.

Execution Ability, a popular series of seven books written by "famous Harvard professor Paul Thomas", turned out to be bogus. "This professor and his books are now very famous in China," said Jiang Ruxiang, general manager of Beijing Zion Consulting Co., Ltd. Jiang discovered that there is no such a professor Paul Thomas at all.

Another example is a book titled "No excuse", with fake American writer and fake New York Times review as "The most perfect reading for company employee training". It was the best-selling management book in 2004 with sales of 2 million copies.

Jiang and his company has been engaged in fighting bogus books for a year. Earlier in 2005, the company published a list of 100 bogus management books in China. Many famous Chinese publishing houses were found on the list.

To make a bogus book, a company would first choose a topic and outsource the writing to one or two people (very often students) at a very low price (5 dollars for 1,000 words), or just copy from other sources. Then the book is packaged with fake writers and honors and published by publishing houses who trade book numbers at price of around 2,000 dollars. Examples of "honors" include "2003 No. 1 sales on Amazon"; "Endorsed by U.S. Land, Navy and Air Forces."; "Every U.S. government employee has a copy", etc.

talking about fake books, i find this pretty interesting. after <天亮以后就分手> (parting after dawn) became the bestseller, two books named <天亮以后不分手> (no parting after dawn) and <天不亮就分手> (parting before dawn) were launched in the market.

related links:

瞭望东方周刊：万人争读的假书是如何炼出来的

perhaps being moved by this scene, the ministry of education lifts 50-year ban on student marriages:

the student gave every one in that dorm building a coke and some candy to light up a "i love u" sign. guess which city it is ... Hangzhou!

another guy in northeastern part of china writes "i love you" in red cloth and tie them in the trees:

we had a lunch meeting today with an old guy who will retire next year.

talking about his life after retirement, he portraied a rather simple pic to us:

"first of all, restore myself in 1-2 years, i am very tired after so many years hard working"

"then, travel to many places i have never been to"

"coming back home, i will read all the books i bought, you see, my home if full of books and i didn't have time to read them when i work"

"and certainly i will spend some time to practice the calligraphy"

i asked him where he would like to see, he laughed and replied that he planed to do a round-the-world tour. this is really a fashionable old guy.

via: Beijing invites KMT chairman to visit mainland from china daily

tired of competing with taiwan's DPP in demonising mainland china for attracting votes, taiwan's nationalist party KMT seems decide to reposition itself as a political power to promote taiwan-mainland relationship through dialogues and exchanges between the two sides, although this in the short-term will make those secession-intoxicated taiwan voters estranged from KMT.

but there has never been a product in history that becomes great based on a consumer marketing research. by repositioning itself, KMT offers another option to taiwanese people, which is not an option that will make them "excited" but perhaps is an option that will benefit taiwan and the chinese nation as a whole - to bring peace to taiwan and to bring a competing democratic political power to china.

after 10 years, maybe this event will be remembered as the most important moment in mordern chinese history.