About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

I’m in Austin, Texas ya’ll!!! I’m currently at the Austin Asian-American Film Festival, if ya’ll in the area, come by Saturday for my film’s Texas premier.

It is now day two of the AAAFF, and I sit here awake at 7:30am still suffering the lingering effects left by Arthur Dong’s Hollywood Chinese, a feature documentary about the history of Asian-American filmmakers/actors from early Hollywood to today. I highly recommend this film for anyone.

The scene I can’t get out of my head from this documentary is the crowd’s reaction against Justin Lin at the Better Luck Tomorrow Q&A session during at Sundance film festival when one gentleman shared with the audience his distaste for the film due to racism(my own opinion) by saying the film degraded Asians, and I applaud Roger Ebert for coming to stand up for the Asian-American filmmakers by literally standing on his chair and screaming “You wouldn’t say that to a white filmmaker”. My first reaction was “WTF?”; how could someone who was not Asian-American judge what degrades our own culture and identity? That guy was VERY lucky it wasn’t me there at the Q&A because I would’ve GOT HIM GOOD!

I don’t think the dude would be saying the same stuff at a Spike Lee Bamboozled premier in New York today? He’d feel intimidated because he’d think there would be a ton of “confrontational” black gangsters from American Gangster with Denzel leading the pack waiting to beat his ass since blacks are suppose to be violent, right? Please… And supposedly, he can say what he said to Asian-Americans because we’re suppose to be soft and “non-confrontational”, the never fight back kind, right? Homeboy please… Man, I thought as Americans we were all beyond that. I think out in Cali, we take for granted how diverse everyone is while there are still pompous ignoranuses out there in the rest of the country. By the way, it was also embarrassing when a press member asked Ang Lee the day he won his Oscar what part of his Oscar was “Taiwanese”, WTF? Ang Lee graciously answered he wasn’t about that.

Ok, let me finish my first train of thought on why I was pissed off: What bothered me was not the fact that this non-Asian American ignoranus would come out and say Lin embarrassed Asian-Americans by making BLT; what both bothered & surprised(maybe even SHOCK) me was the crowd’s reaction in support of the man after his comments. People were applauding and agreeing with him in an effort to embarrass Lin and the crew who were all standing in the front shell-shocked not knowing how to react. Let me ask again: Do you think he would be doing the same thing with Spike Lee? At a Jungle Fever premier today? I don’t think so…

It is during times like these that we see the true colors of a lot of people. Seeing all those noding head, clapping hands, “YEAH!” yelling supporters lead me to believe they were doing so NOT because they agreed with the man’s base-less argument; but because of racism. Or maybe I am wrong, and all the people agreed because they also wanted to HELP another culture by discerning FOR US what is right and wrong… Hmm… What do you think? On my account, maybe I’m dilussional, but I thought I saw some faces filled with sheer joy and satisfaction who were salivating to see the kind of reaction Justin Lin and BLT crew would give back. I personally would have liked to see the response from Lin and company(hopefully it was going to be a good one), but I’ll take Roger Ebert’s support anyday!

WTF?

This movie theatre serves food INSIDE THE THEATRE!!! While you watch, people come and take your order and bring it to you! GENIUS! Infront of every row is a long table for food. DINNER AND A MOVIE at a movie theatre! We gotta bring this to Cali

Clean Energy in China with JUCCCE

Part I: Chairperson Peggy Liu gives some background on JUCCCE (Joint US-China Cooperation on Clean Energy) and their green operations within China. JUCCCE General Manager O Koo joins Peggy to fill in some of the finer details on JUCCCE’s individual ongoing programs, including a push to distribute 10 million free energy efficient light bulbs.
Part II: JUCCCE Chairperson Peggy Liu gives an overview of the environmental situation in China and the methods that JUCCCE, as an NGO, is undertaking to push the green movement here forward.

The video can be viewed here.

Interview Transcript:

If you can give us a brief background on JUCCCE and when it was formed and what it stands for?

JUCCCE stands for Joint US China Cooperation on Clean Energy, we are a non-profit in China that’s trying to bring international expertise to accelerate the greening of China. It was formed in April 6^th, 2007 out of a conference called MIT Forum on future of energy in China.

Q: How big of a foothold does JUCCCE have right now in China? And can you give us a background into the type of initiatives you are involved in.

JUCCCE has people in Shanghai, Beijing, U.S., we have executives, volunteers, and a team of strategic advisors. Even though we are only a year old, the footprint is quite large. That includes the likes of McKinsey, Richard Branson from Virgin, Train, Owens Corning, to Margie Yang of Esquire, people from government, industry, media, research, all walks of life. People who have the resources to help, and are very motivated to help tackle the climate change problem.

Q: O is working on a specific program for JUCCCE, can you tell us a little about what it is that you do?

It’s about reducing green gases in China, particularly CO2, the question is a lot of people want to do something for the environment but don’t know how, so here we come up with a project to empower the individual to do something about it. And this is basically the light bulb changing, using compact fluorescent to exchange for incandescent light bulb.

Q: What’s been the reception thus far from the companies you’ve worked with, your clients, and even the people you’re trying to educate here?

I’ve been blown away by the response we’ve been getting internationally, people that want to volunteer, people who want to work with us, and O should talk about his unique background. The governments on both sides are very eager to support us, companies are very eager to do the right thing and learn how to go green. We are very lucky we have the support of some very high level people from around the world. And they have all helped us with the comprehensive roadmaps of programs we have developed in conjunction of the experts we have brought in.

Q: And O, as Peg mentioned, can you give us your specific background?

I worked for General Electric for a number of years, and I was actually leading the lighting group for Asia-Pacific, and at that time environment was a big concern of mine personally. And I felt there’s something more I needed to do as an individual, so after I met Peggy last year, we had talked about doing different things, but we’ve realized there’s synergies in terms of what I wanted to do, in terms of empowering the people, social people, and doing something differently for the environment, and also working with JUCCCE to put this thing together.

Q: What kinds of difficult challenges have you faced?

I think when you look at China, people think about the scale of the country. McKinsey is coming out with a report on the urbanization of China that says basically in the next 20 years, we’ll have 1 billion people living in China, and that means 350 million people will be moving into Chinese cities. They estimate we will have 15 mega-tropolises of 60 million people or more, what that means is we’re going to have a very condense populations that are all competing for the same resources. The same drinking water, which is very polluted right now; the same basic energy resources, so energy prices will go up, they will be competing for food, which means if we have bio fuels, which is a renewable sources, that’s going to affect the food prices as well, so how do we build eco-cities that will sustain this type of population growth and this type of condensed population. So the scale is the number one issue.

How do we take a pilot program, which O is working on, and distribute 10 million light bulbs and distribute them to students in one city, and how do we take that to other cities in an economical feasible way to buy these bulbs and distribute them, so that’s the challenge we face, to come up with programs that make sense in terms of how we fund them, what are the channels we can address to get these programs implemented locally, how do we share leanings.

What I like to tell people is that China is a very interesting country where the central government level, they have really changed their way of thinking, and they have now become one of the most progressive countries in the world I believe. From banning plastic bags in supermarkets June 1^st, to the 11^th 5 year plan, which is coming up, even the 10^th 5 year plan, there is a lot of ambitious central level policies, unlike other countries like the U.S.

The main challenge we are facing here in China is creating the energy workforce we can deploy and implement all these policies because policies are only as good as how you implement them. So China will be facing a huge challenge in the next 10 years, so we have a 10 year time frame in combating and mitigating climate change. That means we have a very short amount of time to build this energy workforce. For example, if we were able to give free solar panels to everyone in China, it’d take a lot of time to deploy those panels, because we don’t have roofers, electricians, contractors, green procurement folks, designers, the full supply Chain of people who know how to implement these types of programs, and the same is true of any type of supply whether it’s solar, bio-fuels, or the grid, for distributing transmitting the electricity, or demand-side management, building the materials.

Q: Can you give us a background on how long term these plans for China are and what these plans are?

With every issue you need to take a look at the positive and negative side. For example, somebody was just talking to me about how we can stop new coal fire power plants from being built in China. My answer is simply that there’s no way we can stop building coal fire power plants. However, whenever someone says the statistics of two new coal fire power plants being built every ten days or so, they don’t also give credit to China for closing down the thousands of small inefficient plants; they are very conscientiously doing that. The central government is very conscientious about harmonious society, I guess in American terms, that translates to continued GDP growth, provide everybody in China with basic drinking water, energy, and food at a reasonable cost. The Chinese government is actively drafting a new energy law, every level of the government is trying to figure out how they can within their territory affect how China is using energy, so I think you have to give China credit.

A lot of stuff is happening here at all sorts of levels, the industry is being led by MMCs, as far as going green, at different levels, some industries have already very conscientious about what it means to take your supply chain green, they are doing it one step at a time. For example, Esquire, which is a leading textile company, a manufacturer, they’ve done many things to green their supply chain. Another company working in the paper industry is very eager to go green but their questions are what does green mean? So there’s a lot of awareness building that we’re dealing with here in China. But we have to give the credit to China to give attention on how they can do the right thing, then the question is how can we provide them with the resources, the best practices, what are people already doing? What can we implement? Who are the vendors from around the world that have the technology, the services, and the products that we can bring in locally, at a reasonable cost? How can we finance this?

Putting that all together in simple term key manner is key for these people who are making these large decisions are important for the JUCCCE program. It’s education, awareness building, leadership development, collaboration, meaning share leanings across the country, and what we’re really focused on is in the next 10 years, how can we build and enable this energy workforce, how can work on programs that have impact, like O’s program, which will have immediate impact with switching of the light bulbs and awareness building, and how we leave a legacy where we’re building local capability. So if JUCCCE leaves in 10 years, we will already have taught the fisherman how to fish.

Q: Can you give us some background on some of the other programs JUCCCE is involved with in China?

Our programs are all to help teach the fisherman how to fish; to build local capability. We want to do this across China, so we work with key channels of decision makers. So as an example, we are trying to work with the ministry of construction, which has invited us to a 2 day course on city level energy efficiency program for mayors, with the mayor-training center in Beijing, so this is mandatory meeting that all mayors must attend. So what we want to do is bring in experts from around the world that we work with, like Rob Watson, father of Plead. Build a database of city-level case studies, for example street level congestion pricing, it could be lighting, for example, it could be working with hospitals to do energy efficiency, that together with vendors and funding solutions, so that the mayors can follow-up with programs that are appropriate for their state of development. SO the mayors are the kings of the kingdom locally, every decision they make have huge impact, so we want to be enabling the local leaders; that is leadership development.

Another program we are trying to get off the ground is Smart Grid Initiative, this is important because 2/3 of energy is lost during the time of generation and use, so by the time it creates an ice cube, in your glass, 2/3 of energy is lost, which is tremendous waste, so what we want to do is cut down on that wastage by making that grid intelligent, by making every part of the grid communicate with each other so that it can balance the load. The smart grid is something that is an integrated plan that China needs to work on by bringing multiple different parts of the government together, the government, the grid, private companies, the people who are working in transmission distribution, appliances, buildings, plug-in hybrid, all need to work together to establish a communication standard.

So JUCCCE as a non-profit is in a unique position to bring people together to have this dialogue to start the debate, to start thinking about how do you define this smart Grid to China. We’ve brought in Diane Grudnick, the commissioner of California public Utiliies commission, Steve Papermaster, the energy committee of culture on science and technology, we’ve brought in VC’s, smart metering companies to put together reports that we can bring to government leaders, this is something that’s a long term program, but if we can be successful in starting the dialogue to drive a national smart grid plan, this will tremendous impact beyond our tenures.

My film “600″ which I shot in Shanghai in 2007 has recently been accepted into some major U.S. and international film festivals after a short successful China festival 2007 showing(3 awards in 2 festivals). I’ll be heading to the following venues in the next month Austin Asian American Film Festival, Vancouver Asian American Film Festival, International Community Film Festival(can’t make this one, it’s in England). I’ve been wanting to share “600″ with CNreviews for the longest time, but post production with my 2nd film “Drowning” prevented me from having any free time to write. BUT!!!! I FINALLY have some time, so here it is:

Background: I spent my post-college years all over China acting in movies before ending up in Shanghai. While living in Shanghai, I also took a part time job at an English teaching company formerly known as TalkdaTalk as an events coordinator(flexible, easy, I loved it!). When I was free, I would also teach English there and hosted company events. During my time there, I met a lot of English teachers; people from all walks of life now living in Shanghai as expats. Besides the English teachers I met at TalkdaTalk, I also met a huge number of them during social and expat community events. Why teach English? The reason being English teachers are a hot commodity and the Chinese pay nice $$$ for a full time teacher. Full time English teachers are making the ranges of 10,000-15,000 RMB per month. Even though that doesn’t sound a lot to people here in the States, you have to consider the cheap living standards in China where you can eat a cheap meal for 7 rmb( $1), share an apartment for 2000 rmb ($300). To put things into perspective, most of my Chinese local friends all make between 2000rmb-5000 rmb per month (note: most have a college degree). For this reason, people come from all over the world to teach and party in Shanghai.

The film’s core: The core of “600″ is about the loneliness and struggles with identity of an American ex-pat living in Shanghai teaching English. I used the stories of many expat English teachers as inspiration in writing “600″. The main motivation behind this film being the crazy stories I hear from people talking about their lives and how they somehow ended up in Shanghai. When I was living in China, I felt this aura from all the expats that they were all lost(myself included), and was looking for something. This maybe the reason why most of the expats I knew had different jobs and was always trying to do different things. They all deeply loved Shanghai for the city’s energy and were drawn closely to it. In getting to know more and more of these people, I realized most of them were all looking for something in life that they hadn’t found in their previous existence. As expats of Shanghai, they all loved the city and culture initially and are having the best times there. But gradually, over time, the reality and problems begin setting in… and this is where our film begins…

The film”600″ is online and you can watch it for free HERE

(feel free to donate $$$ to support my next film)

In my next post, I will focus on the theme from “600″ and talk about

Living in China as an Expat

Don’t touch that dial!

A small city now 45 minutes of bullet train away from Shanghai(was 2 hours a few years ago), Wuxi is and has been one of the brightest spots of tourism in all of China for the past ten years due to the film sets and the beautiful Tai Hu( Lake Tai). Of the “Three Heavens” outside of Shanghai: Wuxi, Suzhou, and Hang Zhou, Wuxi is more frequented due to the popular studio sets of many Chinese television series such as “Romance of the Three Kingdom”.

Three Kingdoms City - The title of all the films/tv series shot here are listed on wooden boards with each respective title.

After they built the sets a few years ago, they have also named one of the huge studio sets Three Kingdoms City. Although there are other sets next to the Three Kingdoms City, I’d have to say none are as exciting and magnificent. If you go visit during the day, be sure to catch the 1:30pm martial arts show held in the round Shaolin temple located in the center of the attraction. Each film set costs about 100 RMB to get in, there are a few around the area, but I’d skip out on the other ones and just go to Three Kingdoms City. They are all mainly the same; you seen one, you’ve seen all.

I don't even remember where this was, LOL, can't tell you how to get here, sorry!

Traveling tip: If you are ever visiting Shanghai and want to get away from the city for a weekend, visit these cities in the following order: Hang Zhou, Suzhou, Wuxi.

Traveling tip #2: Do NOT fall for overpriced ripoff tours like this one. $191/person for a one day trip is ridiculous.

YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS!!! 30 or 50rmb to rent this and take a picture! Bring own digital camera otherwise they charge you more!

How do I get there? If you decide to take a tour, it might be costly than going on your own(they charge locals and foreigners different prices for these tours due to language-barrier. Foreigners will most likely pay 4x the price of a local) But at least you don’t have to organize anything and worry about getting lost.

Wedding Crashers, well, a fake one...

WWJD? I’m a pretty adventurous cat, so I love to go out and explore, this is what I would do:

1. Get a map first and find out addresses of the spots I’d want to visit(from tourist guide pamplets available in your hotel room or internet sites. If your hotel has no tour guides, then you must be in a really ghetto part of town)

2. Buy a train ticket and go to that city.

3. Once there, take a taxi to the addresses (Make sure you get in a  legitimate looking taxi with a working meter or else you’ll get jacked without knowing it)

4. Once you get to the front gates of the attractions, buy tickets, and also get out 50-100 RMB bill ready to give out to walking guides looking for business. A lot of them can speak English, and they might cost more, but 50-100 RMB should be sufficient; unless there’s some new union or inflation in China I don’t know about. What SHOULD be included in that fee is a full day of walking around showing you around, showing you a nice restaurant to eat some local cuisine(invite them to eat with you even if they politely say no; common courtesy), and finding you a hotel if you need.

This isn't exactly England with the tall guards; THIS CHINA FOOLS!

Traveling Tip #3: DO NOT miss out on the world famous “Wuxi Spareribs” (pronounced Woo She Pie Goo). Ask a taxi driver and he’ll know where to take you.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

George Godula, Founder of Web2Asia

George talks about how companies and businesses must adapt to local culture and customs when branching out into China. How do Chinese marketing strategies differ from those in Europe and the U.S.? George offers some insightful advice about tapping into Chinese digital and mobile markets.

Interview Transcript Summary:

Can we get a brief introduction to who you are and how long you’ve been here?

I’m from Austria, Europe, I’ve been in China for 2 1/2 years. I was originally sent here by an international direct marketing agency MHDirect to setup their Asian headquarters in Shanghai. We were doing business into China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, coordinating from here. This particular company is taking care of direct marketing services, and also outsourcing for e-commerce. When we first moved here, we had an increasing number of customers asking us to distribute digital products only; so they had no e-commerce products and were just selling online products on their websites. So this made us split the two companies and we have MHDirect, which we have subsidiaries in Europe, India, China, and Chicago, taking care of traditional direct-marketing but also EDM, new media, and Web2Asia is a new division that takes care of internet and mobile products. What we do is we help Western technology companies to expand into China, Japan, and Korea. We do the whole business development for them, localize their product, translate it, and then do ongoing marketing, customer support. They don’t have to send stuff here, or commit long-term capital, we’ll do that for them.

Is there a specific sector, what is your target? What is your ideal company?

For Web2Asia , if you take a look at the three country markets we serve: Japan, China, and Korea, China from the industry side is mostly mobile. For China, we have to say, anything that has interesting innovative technology, but also has potential to work in a different culture. We have to differentiate between content and technology, and it’s very hard to transfer content to other parts of the world, but the technology can be transferred, and can get it to local needs and local culture. The second part is also the investor; we do invest in companies here because we believe there is potential here. If we believe that they have a revenue streak or business model that’s can work here in China, we will tell them. For example, if there’s a company that only relies on advertisement income, I will tell them that it might not work here in China. If they have something that’s built on micro-payments or can be adapted to it, instead of having a monthly subscription fee in Europe or the United States, why not change the business model and break it down to micro-payment model where people can tweak their avator with mobile payment, that makes sense in China and I think that’s the fun part of China. The technology allows in combination the business model to adapt to the Chinese case, and is able to generate revenue streams immediately.

What kind of advice would you offer the novice player who is interested in the Chinese market before they come in?

In general, in every business, the key is people, it’s all about people, and that’s all about trust and also the hardest part. Whether it’s a trusted partner or employee, if you have trust, that’s half of the deal already. I think by now there are a lot of institutions, be it professional companies or state-owned institutions, that help foreign companies to find these partners here, it can a private owned company, or the U.S. Chamber of commerce, basically that’s the first thing you need to do; finding the right people. They consult you on how to get started. The other thing that is especially important for U.S. Americans is to accept that China is different, It is really really different. I’m not saying Europeans do not do that; they also have a hard time understanding that things work in a different way here. But Europeans are more use to adapting to different cultures, you have to speak a different language if you cross a border, and you realize that people are different there. In the U.S., you are more built on one huge market where everyone speaks the same language. It’s a really hard time for many companies because they realize you just cannot do the same thing here that you can do in the U.S. or in Europe. That mental process is a very important step to be successful here, and respect local culture, adapt to local culture, adapt to local business means. I think these two things:having good people, and the willingness to take a deep look into the culture and adapt to it, then you are almost done.

Where can people go to learn more information about your company?

Web2Asia , we also have a blog there, we do interviews with entrepreneurs who are interested in coming to China or already here. Our 2^nd company, the direct-marketing company is a german company called MHDirect.

Disclaimer: “I am here to bridge the gap. Not to hate. Not to love. Not to be biased. Only honesty.”

After seeing and hearing many of the critical comments made from so many Americans on newspapers, blogs, forums, TV, venting their frustrations on China’s policy-making, human rights issues, security issues. I’ve decided to step into the limelight and give my two cents on this critical issue currently circulating the media worldwide.

I’m willing to make a bet that many of these critical comments about China are coming from sources that haven’t lived in China for an extensive amount of time; people who don’t really know China. I believe some people just love to hate because I’ve encountered a good number of these bitter souls, but there’s a difference between someone who hates with no foundation behind their arguments and someone who actually knows why they are hating something. Here is my formula: Hate = misunderstanding + ignorance + arrogance, Arrogance = Not wanting to understand (due to fear/insecurity in most cases). Most of us probably read a biased article somewhere in a magazine about China’s workers working for $20/month and automatically scream “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe this injustice! How can this be? We’ve got to do something about that!”

I know people who hated China so much that they went over to China to collect evidence to strengthen their arguments (now that’s some serious hating).  However, most of them came back here with a better understanding and appreciation for China as a culture. I respect these people and applaud their efforts in attempting to at least understand the subject they are arguing against.  That is what we refer to in sports as respecting your opponent.

My advice to all those have negative views about China: “Go to China, live there for 6 months, don’t be a shut in and close your mind.  Open your mind and really experience the culture, and then come back and tell me you still hate it.”  That’s the very first step.  I’ve encountered some of the brightest expats in the world who now reside in China, and we’ve gotten into conversations about China and different perspectives, and every conversations always ends with “best damn decision I made in my life to come here, mate (lots of Aussies).”  Before you criticize something, don’t do it because you have been biased by secondary materials and sources that have influenced you in a negative way; go out there and get to know it yourself before you judge!  

First and foremost, I want to make this clear: the purpose of this post is to help each other understand and accept different cultures so that we may all live in harmony. First, I want to mention that China has made great strides in the past ten years to be more globally receptive to become more international-friendly, and yet I feel we Americans unfairly expect China to make a 360 degree turn within days. It’s almost like telling a 3,000 year old Big Mac Lifetime Honoree to turn vegan within a week. It’s not fair for us to expect a culture with such a rich history to change and conform to our ideals because we think they ought to; especially when we think it’s for their own good.

The popular Chinese opinion regarding the main flaw of America is that we are arrogant, stubborn bullies that think the world should operate our way because we are almighty and everyone else is weak and small. Do we Americans agree with that?  Let’s be truthful here (please do not let your patriotic feelings blind your logic and reasoning because it will make for a weaker argument), it’s my firm belief that a lot of things (media, propaganda, racism) can blind us from understanding other people’s beliefs and cause us to block out the legitimate arguments they may espouse; it’s called cognitive dissonance. If you saw any of the debates from the recent Presidential Election, you’d have a pretty good idea of what that looks like. Let’s ask ourselves, “Are we really a stubborn, arrogant nation that doesn’t want to understand and blocks out everything we don’t believe in? Or is that just a misconception?” Don’t get me wrong, I love America and am proud to be a citizen of this wonderful country where we can speak our mind and not fear persecution. But being in China for two years have helped me understand where the Chinese people are coming from, and that understanding has changed my perspective about a country I had previous biased notions about before actually living and breathing here for two years.  

Here is a quote I found interesting:

“When we have too much security, you blame us for oppressing people.
When we don’t have enough security, you blame us for being a dangerous place to be…

What do you want from us?”

I want everyone to read that statement and absorb it.

Please watch this interview with Chinese veteran blogger Wang Jian Shuo to better understand what we need to do as human beings to help this world.

Quote of the Day:

“Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.” Elvis Presley

Wang Jianshuo, Veteran Blogger of Wangjianshuo’s Blog from Shanghai, China.

Part II: Wang Jianshuo, noted Shanghai blogger, explains his philosophy of perspective and how he keeps control of the online debate on his weblog. Part I is here.

Interview Transcript

How do you deal with extreme comments on your blog and maintain neutral?

First, most important thing is to understand how this world works. My favorite story is the “blind man and the elephant”, anything in this world is like the elephant and any person is like the blind man. You can only grasp part of it (the world), most of the time just a very small part of it. So when I read all those comments, I assume that every comment I read are all part of this world. I realized for any questions, there are many different correct answers even though most people think there should only be one correct answer. Actually, there are many conflicting answers but they are all correct answers.

For example, is China a good or bad country? It’s a good country and a bad country. Is it a rich country? Yes it is. Is it a poor country? Yes it is. I think there are many reasons: first reason is that you can only see part of it, just like the “blind man and the elephant”, the second reason you see it from different perspective. It’s just like this name card for example, is this a white name card or a red name card? I think it’s white, no, it’s red. From different perspectives, you can say different things. So you mix all this together and you can see the different opinions.

So as a blogger, I facilitate the communication, and I try to understand no matter how extreme an opinion is, he is telling the truth, he is right, and the guy on the other extreme, he is also right. My responsibility is just to help these two people to see which part this person see, which perspective does this person see, which relevant scale does this person see, so adding all this together, we can put these two guys together and have them shake hands and say ok, we have a better understanding of the world.

I remember in my blog, there was someone from the proud Tibet, and he shared his feeling about this, he said “Before I came to this blog, I really hated the people in China, because of this, but after being here, I’ve read a lot of comments here and now I don’t hate them anymore because I know there are reasons behind it. ” I think it’s the same with the anti-Tibet group, so they come together.

How does this make you feel that you are changing people’s perception like this?

For example, in Tibet, there are two groups fighting with each other, I will see it differently. When they are fighting against each other, you draw the line right here (between the two groups), but actually I draw the line here (next to the two groups). I say “there is a group of people like you and me trying to bring people together, and there’s an other group who do not want to sit down together”, so we just grab them from this camp although they have different opinons and put them into the other camp and have them start talking and communicating with each other and making it a better world. Just like the French and the Chinese at that time boycotting Olympics. Here we had the anti-Carrefour protests. The French and Chinese are coming together to bring a worst future for the world; what they are doing is destroying the whole world I think, so we are in the other camp.

Where can people go to find you and your blog?

home.Wangjianshuo.com

William Moss, PR Consultant, Imagethief.

William Moss shares his background in technology and start-ups as well as the story behind his popular China blog, Imagethief. Find out who William is writing for and what kind of advice he would offer to those new or wants to come to China.

Interview Transcript:

Can you give us some background to who you are before we go into your blog?

I work for a global public relations firm, so I spend a lot of time dealing with global companies trying to do business in China and with the Chinese media, the blog is something I do on the side, just because this is such an interesting place to live. One of the reasons I am here at China ICT is because I specialize in PR, before I worked in public relations firms, I actually worked for a couple of technology start-ups back in the mid 90’s and early 21^stcentury doing various shady internet related things I’m sorry to say didn’t make me rich.

You have an English language blog in China that I very high recommended, why do you blog?

For one thing, I’ve always been a writer one way or another, and one of the things that make you a writer is that you write, and so as long as I’m going to write, I might as well put it somewhere, it’s a compulsion and I do it regardless. In a more structured way, I find it so fascinating to live here and the work I do so interesting, for me, this is a constant learning experience, I came to China speaking a little Mandarin and not knowing what it’s like to work or live in China. It’s been an adventure and to me that’s something that’s worth sharing. Some of it is very much is life in China, but a good portion is related to my work in public relations and communications, so I spend a good amount talking about how people communicate in China, how companies communicate, how the government communicates, how public issues resonate, how ideas are shared here. Perhaps, these are some of the things that helped gain the blog its wider readership.

Do you have a specific audience in mind when you blog?

This is going to sound selfish but the audience is me. I write first and foremost as a way to help myself process the things I see, observe, and learn about. I didn’t set out to reach a specific group of people. I’ve discovered that it’s mostly read by foreigners who live in China or people interested in China living overseas. It’s pretty widely read by journalists who live in China which is always gratifying for me, it’s read by some Chinese people but not many, primarily because it’s in English, but also because the things I mainly write about are instructive to foreigners and less so to Chinese people unless they want to know how Westerners perceive China.

What kind of advice would you offer to those who wants to come to China or is very interested?

A few things I would suggest: read everything you can get your hands on, and from a variety range of sources. This is a complex and nuanced sort of country, the only way to know about it is to get all kinds of different perspectives on the country. Try to start by learning the language, the little Mandarin I know has helped me tremendously. Finally, come here! If you want to work in China, nobody is going to pluck you, you have to sacrifice and come here. Come and get a feel and experience it to see if you like it here, and meet people, start building a network, and that’s the way you start to getting pulled into the country.

Where can people go to check out your blog?

Imagethief. Check it!

      I have a friend, let’s call him “Terry”, he is a legendary “mattress wrestler”. What is a mattress wrestler? A mattress wrestler is not a glorious title, luckily I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing this work of art. But as Terry has gotten older and more experienced with “mattress wrestling”, he’s accepted the challenge and taken on his new identity full throttle. Below is Terry’s definition of “mattress wrestling”:

Mattress Wrestling - Near wrestling moves and countermoves performed in attack/defense of one’s attempt to get into panties. It is safe and no one is ever seriously harmed in the act of mattress wrestling. (I will save the mattress wrestling concept/philosophy and stories for another post).

Terry is going to be our spiritual guidance counselor in the world of dating local women in China. His comical, borderline sad experiences will make most American men cringe, but also remember Terry is one of the unluckiest man alive on any side of the world that I know. Terry is also one of the only guys I know that can say “Only in China” everyday due to his unlucky and crazy encounters with Chinese culture.

Disclaimer: This story will elicit the following different reactions:

WTF!!!   <–U.S./Foreign audiences

HAHAHA <—Understanding sympathetic “been there done that” laugh from the Expat community in China.

Dating Tale #1 Transcript: (Content has been edited to PG, feel free to laugh, he doesn’t mind )

Terry says:                DUDE, I ran into some crazy messed up things again just 1 hour ago!!!
James Z. says:          Again?
Terry says:                So I ran into this one: http://www.*****.com/2440*

Terry says:                Did the usual messages and text and all that, and she wanted to meet me at Rouge out at the Bund, she said she will reserve a table there.
James Z. says:          Ok, and then what happened?
Terry says:                So she said if I got there first just tell the bouncer I am her guest and she  has a table. So i got there before she does and waited downstairs.

Terry says:                She walked right by me and did not recognize me
Terry says:                So I went up and I saw her walked out to out side patio
Terry says:                Ok. she must not even seen my online profile then, I said
Terry says:                So I got a drink from the bar and paid for it and walked around to scope out the place
Terry says:                So she texted me asking where I was. So I walked up to her and finally met her
Terry says:                She saw the drink in my hand she was like where did you get that?
Terry says:                I said I got it from the bar.
Terry says:                I said this place is cool.
Terry says:                She was like oh you should order the table service.
Terry says:                I said ok, may be later after I drink this.
Terry says:                She said “Oh, we have a table, let’s just order a bottle.”
Terry says:                I said may be.
James Z.says:            lol, TRAPPED! Come on now, you should’ve seen this coming during the text messages! You rook!
Terry says:                Then i sat my drink down and asked her where the Men’s room is.
Terry says:                I said I gotta go to the Men’s room.
Terry says:                Luckily, I scoped it out and the kitchen has a utility stair way exit by the Men’s room.
Terry says:                So I ran the hell down and went out the utility stairs
James Z.says:           lol OMG!
Terry says:                I got lucky and was able to get out in time, it was close.
Terry says:                Some night huh
James Z. says:          LOL why am I not surprised anymore, LOL.
Terry says:                I pushed it too far man
Terry says:                I should have not even gone in the bar.
James Z. says:          LOL, you got played like an instrument! hahahahaha!
Terry says:                But lucky thing is I scoped where the back door is beforehand.
Terry says:                Gold-diggers!!!!!!!!!!
Terry says:                Yeah man. The legend of mattress wrestling continues…
James Z. says:          LOL
Terry says:               digger defense (defensive strategies against gold-diggers, we should write a book)

Terry says:               You know what though; I was smiling the whole way when I was running down the stairs,

Terry says:               it was an awesome fun feeling getting into some crazy ass incident like this, LOL, only in China…
James Z. says:          Lol ! I need to blog this.

Fritz Demopoulos, CEO of Qunar

CEO of Qunar, Fritz Demopoulos, shares his advice on how to start a business in China and the value of taking risks. Fritz has been in China for over a decade, find out what hooked him and why he chose to stay, and what advice he has for the people are interested in China.

Interview Transcript Summary:

Can you introduce yourself and your background?

I’ve been in China for a long time, 1997, I’m originally from Los Angeles. I got a job working for news corporation in Beijing, and after that I started going out on my own and getting involved in some Internet projects. I was there in the beginning during the first big Internet bubble. It’s great to be in China since things are almost booming. We didn’t have to be as accountable as we are now, but it was a great time.

Qunar is your new project? Can you tell us about what stage you are at, what your target market is?

Qunar is a travel search engine. We are not that different from companies in States like Kayak.com. We help consumers find the best prices for flights, hotels, tour packages, car rentals and visas. We’ve been in business for three years with invest capital raised from Silicon Valley. We target 100% mainland Chinese travelers. Our vision is to meet information need for Chinese travelers, whether they are international or domestic travelers. Subsections include: business travelers, travelers who travel abroad, and frequent travelers.

What kind of advice would you give someone sitting back at home in the U.S. interested in doing business in China?

The only way you can understand China is to park here, so my advice is for you to come here either to Beijing or Shanghai. Be committed for at least six months to see if you can get things going, and get a mobile phone and business cards, and get ready to lose money for six months. It’s important for you to network and talk to people when you first get here and get involved even if you don’t have a job or have any opportunities. Find out what’s happening and network, and maybe you will get some depth and only then can you exploit the fantastic opportunities available.

Where can people go to find out more about Qunar?

Qunar, it means “where are you going?” (去哪儿) in Chinese.