About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

Imagine a conversation like this:

Lee (Chinese): Eric, which university did you go to?
Eric (American): I went to UC Berkeley.
Lee: oh, I didn’t know it. Where is it?
Eric: ….

Elliott brought up an idea called”Cultural literacy” the other day as our colleagues in Uptake were very surprised at he telling everybody that he didn’t know about “Liu Xiang” (刘翔), “Lu Xun” (鲁迅) or “Zhe Jiang University” (浙江大学) which is a a top university constantly ranked at top 10 in China. It is the same scenario that a Chinese is asking an American what is “UC Berkeley” while maybe all well-educated American assume people have some knowledge about US will also know about “UC Berkeley”.

Definition of “cultural literacy” from wikipedia:

Cultural literacy is the ability to converse fluently in the idioms, allusions and informal content which creates and constitutes a dominant culture. From being familiar with street signs to knowing historical reference to understanding the most recent slang, literacy demands interaction with the culture and reflection of it. A knowledge of a canonical set of literature is not valuable when engaging with others in a society if the knowledge stops at the end of the text - as life is interwoven with art, expression, history and experience, cultural literacy requires the broad range of trivia and the use of that trivia in the creation of a communal language and a collective knowledge. Cultural literacy stresses the knowledge of those pieces of information which content creators will assume the audience already possesses.

I hope the following list of Chinese University Ranking can help you out of embarrassment from the conversation at the beginning, when your Chinese friends expect you to know they are from big names but all you have to say is “I don’t know about it.” This list is from a <2008中国大学评价> (2008 China University Review) by Wu Shulian (武书连).Wu is leading a group to evaluate universities in China Academy of Management Science (中国管理科学研究院). This review and ranking has been running for 12 years in 2008. The completed list is published as a guidebook for high school students to choose colleges every year.

As in the West, there are many different ranking every year, each ranking has different approach or measurement. Knowing university in No. 10 or No. 15 is less important than having the idea that it is a pretty well-known top 20 U.

Top 30 China Universities in 2008

1. Tsinghua University (清华大学): Beijing
2. Beijing University (北京大学): Beijing
3. Zhejiang University (浙江大学): Hanzhou, Zhejiang
4. Shanghai Jiaotong University (上海交通大学): Shanghai
5. Nanjing Univerity (南京大学): Nanjing, Jiangsu
6. Fudan University (复旦大学): Shanghai
7. University of Science and Technology of China (中国科学技术大学): Hefei, Anhui
8. Huazhong University of Science and Technology (华中科技大学):Wuhan, Hubei
9. Wuhan University (武汉大学):Wuhan, Hubei
10. Xi’an Jiaotong University (西安交通大学): Xi’an, Shanxi
11. Jilin University (吉林大学): Changchun, Jilin
12. Zhongshan University (中山大学)：Guangzhou, Guangdong
13. Sichuan University (四川大学): Chengdu, Sichuan
14. Harbin Institute of Technology (哈尔滨工业大学): Harbin, Heilongjiang
15. Shandong University (山东大学):Jinan, Shandong
16. Nankai University (南开大学): Tianjin
17. Tianjin University (天津大学): Tianjin
18. Beijing Normal University (北京师范大学): Beijing
19. Central South University (中南大学): Changsha, Hunan
20. Southeast Unversity (东南大学) : Nanjing, Jiangsu
21. Xiamen University (厦门大学): Xiamen, Fujian
22. Renmin University (中国人民大学): Beijing
23. Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics (北京航空航天大学): Beijing
24. Dalian University of Technology (大连理工大学): Dalian, Liaoning
25. Northwest Polytechnical University (西北工业大学): Xi’an, Shanxi
26. Tongji University (同济大学): Shanghai
27. South China University of Technology (华南理工大学): Guangzhou, Guangdong
28. Chongqing University (重庆大学): Chongqing
29. East China Normal University (华东师范大学): Shanghai
30. Lanzhou University (兰州大学): Lanzhou, Gansu

There is almost at least one top university in the provinces along our coast line, from Liaoning to Guangdong, except of Guangxi and Hainan (which was part of Guangdong). Xian and Nanjing were the capital cities for many dynasties in China history. The advantages in politics and economy attracts more talents for these areas.

One defect of this ranking is that it didn’t include the specialized universities for language, medical and law, etc. And the private colleges are not included either. It’s more focus on the “research capability” of a university.　But all the above 30 universities with other 20 universities are “the universities that Education Dept. invests directly to build and development” (教育部重点建设高校) which I understand as “these 50 universities get more funding from the government”. And a freshgraduate from the top 50 universities will have a greater chance to get a Shanghai Hukou (户口) according the Hukou application score system.

Check out here to visit the websites of these universities.

复旦光华, from West Lake in Hangzhou.

Sichuan team bit beat Japan team and won the male 4×100 relay.

Olympic Torch is in Shanghai now. The torch relay will restart after the national mourning period for Wenchuan earthquake (May 19-21). Originally, it was planned on May 20 and 21. I got this notice about traffic control on May 23 and 24 in Shanghai via an email. It might be helpful for you.

Day 1, May 23 2008 (530 -1600)

• Huangpu (黄浦区): People’s Square -> The Bund
• Luwan (卢湾区): Xingye Rd (around Xintiandi area) to Fuxing Rd. & Xizang Rd. intersection
• Yangpu (杨浦区)：Yingao Rd to Jiangwan Rd. to Guofan Rd.
• Pudong (浦东新区)：Huamu Rd (around Century Park, and Yincheng Rd (around Lujiazhui, Oriental Pearl Tower, Jinmao Tower)

IMPORTANT: Metro Line 2: none stop at Nanjin Dong Rd. station from 730 - 930 am.

Day 2, May 24 2008

• Xuhui (徐汇区): Chaoqi Rd (around Xujiahui center) to the Shanghai Stadium
• Minhang (闵行区): Jianchuan Rd to Dong Chuan Rd. (around Shanghai Jiaotong University Minhang campus)
• Jiading (嘉定区)：Moyu Rd & Caoan Rd

Century Park(世纪公园), Shanghai Scence & Technology Museum (上海科技馆) will be closed on May 23. Oriental Green Boat (东方绿洲), a park, will be closed till 2:30pm on May 24.

This is an route map published in July 2007 (green for day 1, red for day 2). source from Xinmin Net(新民网)

Obviously, the route has been updated. For example, the torch will be in Pudong New District area in day 1 in the afternoon.

The same information can be found on Sohu here in Chinese.

I have been following Yeeyan (译言) - a community for people to translate articles in foreign languages (mostly English) into Chinese language volunteerly, since Aug. 2006 when it was called “言多必得”. I personally like the old name which means”you will certainly get something if you express more”. It is form a Chinese idiom “言多必失” means the opposite: you will certain leak some secretes if you keep talking. The current name is more straightforward: “translation” and “language“.

In a presentation by Zhang Lei(张雷), one of Yeeyan’s founders in CnBloggerCon 2007 in Beijing, Zhang Lei compared the online resources about “Breast Cancer” in Chinese (乳腺癌) and English. In the example of Sohu Health Channel, there are less than 30 articles about the general knowledge and treatment. But in a single website of http://www.breastcancer.org/, there are more than 8,000 pages. Statistics show that 1/7 of women will suffer from breast cancer in the world.

• Baidu: 乳腺癌: 8,210,000
• Google: breast cancer :38,800,000

According to Lei, the huge gap of quality contents between Chinese language and English was one of the motivation that Ding Ding (丁丁), Zhao Jiamin(赵嘉敏) and himself found Yeeyan. These three founders from Silicon Valley saw the opportunity in “High Quality Chinese Contents” on the web with the inspiration to encourage Chinese to “discovery, translate and read the best of the Web“.

Yeeyan is a bridge of KNOWLEDGE in Chinese and other languages. I found 140 results about “earthquake” (地震) on Yeeyan 9 days after the earthquake, and more than 100 translators joined a translation group. These articles include the reports by western medias (such as CNN, Newsweek, BBC, etc), knowledge about earthquake forecast, rescue, disease prevention. For example, one translator finished <Epidemics after Natural Disasters> by World Health Organization 4 day after the earthquake. Webtizens have helped to spread the word about these great resources on what to do scientifically after the disaster. (see here, here, here and here)

Zhang Lei even contacted Dr.Barbera Joseph from George Washington University and consulted him about crisis and disaster management. Here is the abstract of his post on Yeeyan blog:

请译言的读者、译者、合作伙伴、媒体广为转载本文！
今天，我与美国乔治华盛顿大学灾难、危机、风险管理学院（ICDRM）主任约瑟夫·巴贝拉博士（Barbera, Joseph）通了电话，听取了他对 四川地震紧急应对状况的看法。巴贝拉博士提出下述几点呼吁：
*第一：目前最关键的问题，是救援的决策者**决定**何时停止**对被掩埋者的搜救工作。* 巴贝拉博士紧急呼吁，*搜救工作至少应坚持到震后14天！*他提供了这样一份研究报告：《地震垮塌房屋受困幸存者时间与存活分析》（译言正在紧急翻译)…

Thank you! Yeeyan and all volunteers who have built a bridge in knowledge in face of such crisis.

I have also Interview Zhang Lei on phone about two weeks’ ago. Here is what I learned from him about the team, product and plan.

Q: Why did you and your other two founders get this idea?

Lei: We are very interested in translation. And when we are able to read some many great and fresh contents online, we want to share them with more people in China.We were the first translators of Yeeyan.

Q: What’s your background?

Lei: I am a Tsinghua 96 alum. After I got my Master Degree on Operation Research (OR) in US I worked for Oracle in Silicon valley. Yeeyan is not my first start-up. We tried to launch fantansy sports product during 2006World Cup. As you know, it is very common that first startup fails. Yeeyan is our second baby.

Q: Could you briefly share with us the milestones Yeeyan has achieved today?

Lei:

Jul 2006: 言多必得 found; it was a platform for volunteer translators to publish articles.

Dec 2006: Yeeyan launched. It is a more open platform with more support for translation. For example, users can copy and paste the original contents into an editor, and can run machine translator before editing. Users can tag the article and join different group,such as business, literature, current issues.

Mar. 2007: Yee Pro Beta launched. It is a wikimedia platform also translators to work together for larger projects.

Q: Why do you want to turn Yeeyan into a wiki? Isn’t wiki difficult to use for most users?

Lei: We believe in the social collaboration(SC), and wiki is a great tool for SC. In the past year, we have learned that translation is addictive. It is also very time consuming. In a wiki platform, we will enable more users to work together for big projects. We want more volunteers to join us, even though they don’t have time to finish a long article, but just editing a paragraph whenever possible. A wiki platform creates the possibility.

Wikipedia is successful. I have written a very detailed guide on how to use wiki on editing. I don’t think the technical aspect is a problem.

Q: What’s the status after you launched Beta?

Lei: There are 4 completed projects (including “Long Tail” which has been completed before) and 14 on going projects. It is pretty amazing.

Q: What are the difficulties you have in the past 18 months?

Lei: In Chinese websphere, except of Baidu Zhidao(百度知道), there are not many communities generating high quality contents. Good news is that we don’t need to translate ourselves now. lol. The community is generating 30+ pieces a day. The one big challenge we are facing is that we don’t know much big the UGC market is in China/Chinese.

Q: I know you have quite some Techcrunch translations. What are the most popular contents ?

Lei: A lot. Yes, technology, entrepreneur, business, these are what we ourselves are interested in. Arts and literatuer, current issues are also very popular. Curently, we have 5000+ articles contributed by 1500+ active translators.

Q: How do you guarantee the quality of the translating works? What about copy right issue？

Lei: We have a feature called “眉批”, a sticky note like feature with which readers can always comment on the translating for correction or improvement or whatever. Readers can also rate the work.

We think a published piece of content online is meant to be distributed and shared, especially blog posts. We encourage translators to inform the authors before publishing. And we will take down the contents if the authors disaprove. So far, we get permission from some prominent bloggers such as Guy Kawasaki, Fred Wilson (A VC)and haven’t received any ”complaints” from the authors.

Q: What about your other team members? Are you full time?
Lei: The other two founders are Ding Ding (丁丁) and Zhao Jiamin (赵嘉敏). At early stage, we three did technology, product and marketing together. Now, Ding Ding is more focusing on product, Jiamin is on contents/editing and I am repsonsible for media and marketing. Jiamin and I are full time for Yeeyan. Jianmin is now in Beijing leading a team.

Q: Are you in need for any financial funding?

Lei: We are talking very closely with a few VCs.

-End

More coverages of Yeeyan from the web and media:

• YeeYan Translates Blogs Posts Into Chinese - ReadWriteWeb
• A window to the world (China Daily)
• web2.0时代背景下的网络翻译与创业 (Chinese)
• Interview of Zhao Jiamin (Life Weekly,三联周刊) (Chinese)

The current projects on Yee Pro.

A Yeeyan fans meet-up in Beijing early this year.

Juan Zeng, the English teacher in Chengdu who wrote us a long report on how her students walked out of the death zone from Qingcheng Mountain has sent me another report. It is a little dated when we count by hour or even minute after the earthquake. She told me that she feels the need to express what she is experienceing and she doesn’t know who she should talk to. We didn’t edit her post and she is not a journalist. Her narration could show you a different picture of the earthquake from main stream media. -Min Guo

People were suffering after the earthquake.

It was 15th of May, at night, in Sichuan Technology University Chengdu Arts College(四川理工成都美术学院)。I think by then, we should call the end of the first stage of the earthquake, although the aftershock comes on and off all the time.

It is 10a.m., in the anti—earthquake center of my college, where I ran into my students. (more…)

Being an UpTake (formerly a Kango) for more than 400 days, I am proud to share with you that UpTake officially opens its Beta doors to everyone TODAY! Uptake is ”

a new vacation search site that has amassed the travel industry’s largest database of hotels and attractions (more than 400,000 in US) and analyzed more than 20 million online opinions from other travelers.

In the age that the “wisdom of crowds” are generated faster than ever, Uptake offers to collect and filter word-of-mouth from the web to make vacation planning easier. UpTake also got press at ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, SemanticWeb, SearchEngineLand, Les Explorers and the UpTake blog itself. It is only for United States for now. But Winser Zhao of SinoHotelReservation also wrote about us.
To describe the Uptake services using the geek’s vocabulary, it: uses a travel ontology and natural language analysis to extract meta-tags from the collective intelligence it has collected and returns unbiased, personalized recommendations based on travelers’ facts and feelings.” So how much do you understand from this description? Uptake is a global company with an R&D team in Beijing and Moscow. Based in Shanghai, I have been focusing on web marketing and analytics, and work closely with a web developer in Indonesia. Here are some learning from working in for a global company in China.

Beijing vs. Shanghai?

There are many theories and researches on infrastructure, culture, cost structure etc. to decide where to build an offshore R&D center. But I like the way a Shanghai-based Rob McCormick of Mustang Ventures says to “go back to your hometown” (to build your team if you have to outsource). You see, two core technical team members in UpTake are originally from Beijing. In reality, Shanghai doesn’t have a “Silicon Valley” while Beijing has Zhongguanchun. And people (around me) all agree that Shanghai doesn’t have as good as Beijing of an “academic environment” for research & development. So Beijing is better.

But don’t people in “Silicon Valley” Zhongguanchun “jump trough” (跳槽, job-hopping) a lot?

Recruitment site (zhaopin.com) paid two celebrities Xu Jinglei (徐静蕾) and Huang Jianxiang (黄健翔) to “advocate” people to “jump trough” on TV, subway and newspaper. And with the new Labor Contract Law, it is more costly for a company to lose employees especially after getting them trained. An ongoing trend is that a company would try to “dig” (挖) talents from competitors by offering 1.x salary. So, people in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing are all as equally likely to engage in job-hopping.

I have heard executives in China saying Chinese employees would leave the jobs for very small increasing of salary. But from my observation, more and more people are thinking from a “career path” standpoint rather than “cash”. So the trick to keep employees is to understand what they value most in their career plan. For example, international training, travel and working experience are very important to my peers.

RMB (China Yuan) is appreciating v.s. US dollar, will it still be cost efficient?

Elliott has been watching this issue (see his posts on RMB appreciation) for a while. RMB has appreciated around 9% since May 2007. China is facing possible inflation in 2008 or 2009. April 2008 CPI increased 8.5% (near decade-high level). Shanghai Labor Protection Office (上海劳动保障局) issued a guide on “increasing employees salary” saying “enterprise can increase employees’ salaries 11% in 2008″ in late April. I don’t know how this guideline will affect the salary. But people are expecting to “get a raise” if the price of rices, vegetable oil and pork are keep going up like this.

In addition, Dan Harris from China Law Blog said that “Increased enforcement by Chinese regulators of means that compliance is more important than before”. One major compliance is employee social insurance and allowance. It is important to count these ”hidden” operations costs when budgeting. The regulation on this varies from city to city. In Shanghai, an enterprise pays less for a people who don’t have Shanghai Hukou (户口), but in Beijing, the Hukou doesn’t effect the cost. Be prepared to pay 40% of 5k monthly salary, or 20% -15% of monthly salary 10k- 50k (percentages are rough estimations). I guest I don’t have an answer for this question.

Culture Difference?

In a professional working environment, culture differences highlighted in David’s Mind the Gap posts are less influential than in daily life. Another difference I learned from Shanghai expat Kai Pan is that Chinese like to hang out with friends in a small KTV room (Elliott has very valuable advice on KTV team building), but westerners like to hang out and meet random people in a big room (such as a bar). But if the offshore team are engaging with oversea customers or consumer-oriental products, they need to get trained on the customers’ culture. For example, Uptakers in China are probably the top 99.5% people who are familiar with US geography in this country.

That’s my humble takes on working in an offshore team of a global company in China. What’s your learning of working in China?

Again. welcome to Uptake to plan your next vacation! (Sorry, U.S. hotels and attractions only.)

Shanghai Railway Station (Shanghai Huoche Zhan, 上海火车站, a.k.a. Shanghai Station, 上海站) is also known as New Passenger Railway Station (Xin Kezhan, 新客站) by Shanghai residents to distinguish it from the old North Station which retired in 1987. 刘建春 (Liu Jianchun) described the history and development of the history of Shanghai railway stations in a book《火车老站地图》(Map of Railway Stations) published in 2007. The earliest railway station in Shanghai was put to operation in 1876. And there have been 7 railways stations existing in Shanghai in the past 130 years, including the existing ones. It is very interesting to see how these stations were built and moved or changed or disappeared. I marked them on the map below for your quick reference, check here for an interactive version. (The site of an old South Station in Luwan District is not included.)

(more…)

CNbloggerCon finally announced the conference location for 2008 in a very short notice on May 6 2008 without publishing the poll result:

中国广州市举办 (Guangzhou, China)

时间： 2008年11月15日-16日 (Nov. 15- 16)

It is a fair and nice choice. Guangzhou is the “South Gate” of China, the biggest city in south China. It is also known as “Flower City” (花城) and famous for its food culture. And it is also the only city that report TV/radio news in a dialet Cantonese.

See you there!

Happy Labor Day!

I remember I stayed at home (Shanghai) for 7 days watching all the Desperate Housewives episodes last year. LOL. It is not that I don’t want to explore our beautiful western provinces - Yunnan (云南), Sichuan(四川), Tibet (西藏) and Qinghai (青海), I was afraid that the overwhelming crowds would ruin the beautiful natural scenery. Year 2008 is the first year that the eight-year-old “7-day-Golden-Week” is cut to 3 days. Still, I can’t go out to explore the far-away Wild Wild West. What’s worst, my friend from Suzhou told me that a nice hotel in Suzhou is very difficult to book (= more expensive) in the coming few days. So, I guess I will have to stay at home to watch LOST this time (like other Chinese fans of US TV shows).

According to a news report from Qianglong(千龙网), tour bookings are only 50% of what they were in year 2007, especially long distance tours to more remote destinations, such as Hainan (海南) and Lijiang Yunnan (丽江，云南). Self-driving packages are most popular.

So, if you are coming to China, I suggest you schedule your trip to avoid our public holidays. My take is: avoid visiting big cities in 3-day long weekends, and avoid the remote destinations during national holiday and Chinese New Year. Check out the calendar below and bookmark it.

In Summary:

1. We have 11 days public holidays, and minimal 5 days paid leave according to Labor Contract Law.
2. The government wants us to take advantage of the public holidays to drive travel industry, so a holiday usually make a 3-day long weekend. For example, we will have to work in the coming Sunday (May 4) because we are off on Friday (May 2).
3. So, What are these holidays?

• Jan. 1 : New Year Day (元旦)
• Chinese Calendar Jan. 1: Chinese New Year (春节)
• April. 5: Qingming (清明). People usually go to ceremonies to “sweep the tomb” (lit 扫墓) of their ancestors. The act of clean-up the tomb, and bringing some flowers, food and wine to the tomb is to show respect and memory to our passed family members. So you don’t need to say “happy holiday” to your Chinese friends on Qingming.
• May. 1: International Labor’s Day (劳动节). I guess it is a public holiday in all “communist” countries (though it originated from a labor dispute in the United States).
• Chinese Calendar May. 5: Duanwu (端午). It is a day to memorize one of our ancient patriot Quyuan (屈原). People eat a kind of food called zongzi 粽子(sticky rice “cake” wrapped with leaf). That day, dragon boat races are also held.
• Chinese Calendar Aug. 15: Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节). A festival to appreciate the most rounded moon in a year and eat moon cakes.
• Oct. 1: National Day (国庆节). The day Chairman Mao announced that People’s Republic of China was founded in front of Tiananmen Square in 1949.

Baidu Data Research Center (百度数据研究中心) released a Online Travel Report 2007 on April. 10, 2008. It provides some very interesting data about online travel industry in China. [Note: all data are for year 2007 if not specified; all Baidu data are collected from browser cookies in Q4 of 2007 Q4.]

1. Market Size

• Total Revenue of Travel Industry of China: 1,090 Billion RMB -> 155.7 Billion USD (data from China National Tourism Administration, 中国国家旅游局);
• Total Online Travel Booking: 2.25 Billion RMB -> 0.32 Billion USD, increased 65.4% from 2006 (data from a report by Data Center of China Internet 中国互联网调查);
• Estimated Online Travel Booking in 2008: 3.84 Biilion RMB ->0.55 Billion USD (中国互联网调查).

2. Travel Theme/Category

The categories are analyzed from the key terms. One interesting category for English speakers would be “红色旅游“ (ranked at #2 ) which literally means “Red Tourism”. People usually visit China Anti-Japan/ Liberation War (1920s-40s) and Chinese Communist Party development related historical places in a Red Tour.

3.Top 10 Most Searched Information Categories

I wasn’t surprised to that “Air Ticket” is the most WANTED key terms in travel related searches, but a little surprised to see only 3.57% terms are about “lodging/accommodation”. This is very different from the United States market where “hotels” is a hot term. A large percentage of people are searching for “itinerary” (旅游路线) which I will understand as “deciding where to go”.

4. Top 10 Travel Booking Sites

Top 3 players are: Ctrip, Elong and MangoCity.

5. Top 10 Travel Information Sites

I have personally used Go2EU (穷游网) and knew it was very hot, but I didn’t expect it to be Number 1. Go2EU’s Chinese name can be understood as “Travel though you are poor” or “How to travel even if you don’t have much $$$.” It is a portal and community for budget/independent outbound travelers. All the information (in Chinese) focuses on overseas travel: from how to get a visa, where to buy cheap ticket, to tips on when and where to take great pictures. I am a little surprised to see only Travel Channel of Sohu on # 10 but no other major portals.

6:Top 10 Domestic Travel Destinations for Shanghai Residents (most searched)

The top 10 destinations are: Hangzhou, Suzhou, Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Huangshan, Wuxi, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Chengdu. Except of Huangshan (黄山) which is a natural park, all others are cities. I haven’t been to 2 of them.

7. Top 10 Oversea Travel Destinations for Shanghai & Beijing Residents (most searched)

Shanghai: Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Bali, Sin-Ma-Thai, North Korea, France

Beijing: North Korea, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa, France, Vietnam, The United States, Finland and Japan.

An interesting finding: North Korea is a in the “Top 10″ lists of both cities. Very funny! I can’t believe people are actually travel to North Korea, or maybe just it is just a MOST Interested country that people search for general purpose rather than travel. How do you think? I bet the United States will be in the list of 2008 for Shanghai residents.

There are some other interesting charts in this 44-page report, such as top 10 most searched hotel brands, airlines, travel agents, cities. It can be easily download here.

UPDATE from Elliott:

CNReviews.com Trivia Question: On Twitter, I tweeted the trivia question: “When asked if the French Revolution was successful, which Chinese statesman said “it is too early to tell?” JPostman of SocializedPR answered the question correctly–Zhou Enlai. The lucky winner gets a link to his blog at SocializedPR! Now I have to reread Alexis de Tocqueville’s Old Regime and the French Revolution to contrast it with Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (also on Amazon)to even be able to understand what Zhou Enlai was thinking when he said this. Thanks JPostman!