またまた、ニセ金をつかまされてしまいました！それも、ATMから。。。。BDは”わーい、やったー、これで全部そろった！！”と喜んでおります。というのも、広州へ来たばかりのころ、５０元をタクシーの運転手からお釣りとしてもらい、（もちろん、その頃はニセのお金が存在するなんて露知らず。。）それから気をつけていたお陰で一年半、被害はなかったものの、つい最近、BDがまたお釣りとしてもらった、１０元がニセ札！！しかも、これは明らかにわかる、ニセ物で切り口が斜めぎり。くやしー。すかさず、”ちゃんと見てから受け取ってよ！！”とADが言うと”だって、１０元までニセ金があるなんて知らなかったよ”とBD.気を抜いてはいけない。なんでもありの中国。そして今回のATMからの１００元。今のところ、この三枚は冷蔵庫の扉に仲良く並んで貼ってあります。さて、これはここを去る前に額にいれるかな？と検討中。先日、日本人友人とランチをしていると、彼女は６枚もいっぺんに、ニセ１００元がATMから出てきたらしい。。。”塩”でさえも偽物が出回る中国。やっぱり、侮れないなー。。。
Archive for the ‘Main’ Category
ニセRMB
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007Nice weather in Guangzhou?
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
Surely a sign there’s nothing left to blog about is when you start writing about the weather. Random visits to this particular page in cyberspace certainly have little interest in the authors’ account of the local weather. Oh well. Today we make an exception and report, for just a while, on the current marvelous weather in southern China. Why? Because, the weather where we are, for a large portion of the decade, is rarely worth mentioning. Today it begs mention.
Guangzhou – the city of rams, the flower city, the garden city, the city of gourmet – despite its misnomers is not a city known for its beautiful weather. But today is unique. Today is the first day in perhaps a year and a half that we’ve woken up to a view and a breeze that made the south China urban jungle feel more like southern California or southern Australia or even southern France than the usual Chinese metropolis. A fierce rainstorm the night before preceded by months of overcast, humid, stormy, and generally unpleasant weather has yielded this remarkable metamorphosis. Clear sky-breaking views of Baiyun mountain are captured all the way from the Zhujiang river. Cool breezes waft several months of accumulated smog down the Delta and out to sea. Blue skies shielded by piled overcast layers of pollution reaching to the stratosphere finally break sunlight through to the fertile Lingnan soil. Out come the umbrellas. Foreigners don sunglasses. We might actually get a tan.
It’s truly marvelous and I can’t resist putting off a little Operations Management to just lounge by the river and watch “clear China” for a couple hours. (nevermind the city worker sitting next to me on the park bench sucking a cigarette and the jobless man peering over my shoulder at the strange foreign characters on the laptop screen) For a moment, it’s paradise in a place some visitors in the 45-degree dead of summer regard as something resembling an less than comfortable afterlife. The overdose on sunlight is making me wax poetic and I would go on but…
A guy literally has his face in mine now asking questions about what a foreigner is doing with a laptop in the park – oh wait, now he’s picked up my camera and is taking pictures of the pretty girls walking by. 3[gweilou’/ Hey, it’s getting interesting now – had to wrestle the computer back from him after he grabbed it to tap a few random letters. Perhaps it’s time to go. Appears China is yanking me back to reality. Ah, what an amazing day…
Aero Garden – 2 Weeks
Saturday, April 14th, 2007Quick update on the dirt-less Chinese garden on our shelf. For those that are just joining us, we are attempting to grow seven different herbs in our high-rise urban apartment using a new contraption called the AeroGarden from aerogrow.com. Progress is going well. Chives are over two inches tall and the rest are reaching light-ward. Still several weeks to go till harvest but we’ll let you know how they taste.
How livable is Guangzhou?
Friday, April 13th, 2007A recent Mercer study published in Business Week ranks our beloved city at 131 “most livable” out of 215 cities evaluated on 39 “quality of life issues”. Some may be surprised G-town even made the list in the first place! Pleased to report that it ranks just below Cairo and just above Kuwait City. Three cheers for the City of Rams! Shanghai just barely made the top 100 at number 100 and Beijing ranked right up there with the likes of Rio de Janeiro. The programs in place to clean up Beijing’s act by the Olympics could boost it into the top tier next year. As for us down in the South, we’ll be happy with where we stand. Keep in mind this was a ranking for the life that is offered to “expat executives and their families”. Most people know what property sector they’re talking about in countries like China – sometimes bordering on ultra-luxury. Anyway, it’s interesting…
Dude, where’s my car?!
Thursday, April 5th, 2007Here, on this blog, we try to focus on all things Chinese like Chinese languages, Chinese massages, Chinese business education, Chinese medicine and sometimes just life in China. But occasionally things get off topic. This post relates to chinaRoll in the way that its authors live in China and occasionally forget how incomprehensible sometimes people in their home country can be. There are times we struggle to understand why our gracious Chinese hosts do some things they do. But we fail to remember that there are people all over the world that can make us do this – even those who grew up where we did.
Ok, enough of the melodramatic intro. ABD got a call early the other morning (or was it so early? – it could have been noon – anyway, I was still sleeping). It was a foreign friend of ours that called to let us know that the postman was looking for us. Looking for us? Why can’t he just drive to our apartment? And why would he just ask a random foreigner? But it worked – he found us. Anyway, I needed to go pick up an express mail package (irony coming soon) addressed to us but without an address.
中国的礼仪培训 – What to wear in a Chinese business situation
Monday, April 2nd, 2007I attended a brief seminar on Chinese business etiquette the other day and surprisingly understood a large majority of the professor’s lesson (probably because it was so interactive and involved a lot of “showing” in conjunction with “telling”). It was an optional evening session at 岭南 with follow-on sessions every Tuesday night at 1900. It’s meant as a series for MBA students to learn the way to dress and the way to act when conducting international business – especially with focus on western traditions and style. It was interesting to hear what Chinese considered proper etiquette in a business setting. For example – a Chinese woman’s main consideration when choosing what outfit to wear should be what makes her look “sexy” 性感 (and the speaker was female). Also, if a man is wearing a suit coat, he should either button all the buttons or no buttons at all and the sleeves should only go down to the upper part of the wrists – no further. At least that was my translation of the highlights. Here’s some more in marginal Mandarin (trying to blog more in Chinese for practice)…
美周二晚上七点种中山大学岭南学院有一门礼仪培训棵。对学习商务的工商管理学硕士的学生，这个培训很有用。商务人对客户和合作者一定要创造一个十分好的印象。非常重要的印象的方面是你的长相包衣服和礼仪。培训者强调商务情况有一些不同的范畴。 看你的情况有不同的衣服不同的动作。这次我们只讨论什么衣服要穿和怎么表示好长相。每个商务的场合不一样但是有一些原则不变。
到处可以看到很多人他们的衣服太大或者太小。不合适的衣服非常明显。而且有颜色在商务的情况不应该穿。比如说，原色（红色，黄色，蓝色）都看其来小孩。最好是褐色或者深蓝色或者浅黑色的。如果你的裤子和成衣一样的颜色好象你是空姐或者工作在别的服务行业。不要全部搭配。男人买衣服的时候跟女人没那么多的选择。但男人可以选衣服给他们看起来瘦一点。裤子没有褶皱的看起来更瘦。
老师说不要秀色。我们都要夸张我们自己的好处。他鼓励我们尽量选和穿配合我们自己的身体的专业的衣服。我觉得我自己应该踏踏实实的裤子的拉链拉好扣上了！那件事不必穿好看的衣服的重要！
I don’t know if I entirely agree but here is what some British “Language and Culture Specialists” think foreigners should wear to a business meeting. General rule – ask what your hosts are wearing and follow them.
• Business attire is conservative and unpretentious.
• Men should wear dark coloured, conservative business suits.
• Women should wear conservative business suits or dresses with a high neckline.
• Women should wear flat shoes or shoes with very low heels.
• Bright colours should be avoided.
Incidentally, my first day at business school I showed up in a suit and was surprised to see people in T-shirts and jeans. But again, that may be why we’re all learning etiquette after all.
Tax Massage
Thursday, March 29th, 200723:00. Incessant knocking at the door. A thought it was B. B thought it was A. Finally I ran to the door in my PJs. Young girl with decoratively painted fingernails and a red purse almost sticks her head in door when I open it. She says nothing. I ask her what’s up. She answers back in very poor Mandarin asking if our apartment is “34″. It isn’t. She argues with me about it. She keeps trying to peek in the apartment over and around my shoulders. I ask, what is she here for anyway? She motions a massage and a shower. Or is that a shower and then a massage? Never mind, did we order this service?! Not quite. This follows a previous post detailing a similar incident a couple weeks ago with a “satellite salesman”. ABD suspects the list-o-foreigners down at the local police station has gotten into the wrong hands. Every foreigner in China must register their residence with the local police or risk a personal visit from the police and an unpredicted trip to Hong Kong. This creative sales technique could be lucrative but I wonder if there are many foreigners that just invite these uninvited guests into their homes to “install satellites” and “knead pressure points”. Anyway, keeps things interesting here as we do our taxes…
On that note, a comment about paying taxes overseas. (more…)
Chinese Penguins
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
Whatever we look like, it’s certainly a different look for me. There’s sure to be more pics here soon from the competition. JQ, using his best investigative and bargaining skills, found us the best deal in Guangzhou for these outfits. After a haggling marathon in 电脑城 we finally ended up driving out to 白云区 and JQ convinced the outlet store we were corporate buyers interested in a wholesale purchase (four suits 
). Ended up saving us over US$２５０! He just happens to be our marketing guy. Giordano is helping us out with the “normal” clothing. Even if our business plan doesn’t make it all that far, it will still be fun to play dress-up.
Back in G-town
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007Home sweet GZ. ABD is back home and greeted with standard overcast weather. Did you miss us GZ? In a strange way, we missed you too. ABD abstained from Chinese food for the past month so went out with some friends yesterday for some good old spicy Hunan. A was afraid our apartment wouldn’t have electricity when we returned because we didn’t pay the bill for a month. Fortunately, the lights turned on. However, the stove mysteriously stopped working, the internet was out, and a red shirt I wore for the new year turned all our laundry pink (despite having already been washed previously). Other than that, ABD is back to normal.
During the trip ABD had a little competition and the results are out. Before we left, we both purchased new suitcases, A the $50 “good quality” version, and B the $20 “bargain” version. It was a test in durability (a common issue with products in China). Two flights into the trip, the pull-up dragging handle on B’s suitcase pulled off and he had to resort to stooping in order to encourage the suitcase to roll smartly behind and not nip heels every few seconds. After flight 4, both carrying handles had completely unscrewed themselves from the suitcase body. By the end of the trip the integrated “lock” would actually unlock on several combinations of numbers close to the configured three digit code. Needless to say, A’s bag survived unscathed and B will certainly have to pick up another more reliable suitcase. Proverb – if they don’t already, bargain buyers in China will soon have a few screws loose and may loose a handle on things.
Back to school in under 2 weeks. A will be off to Hong Kong for an overnight turnaround on her visa. B is trapped at home punching out the business plan for GISH Tech active heating clothing. If you care to read more about our business idea and this revolutionary product (or invest ), I’ve posted our executive summary under the “GISH Tech” page in the sidebar. Contact us for the password.
Tibetan dancing
Saturday, February 10th, 2007Here is a video from Tibet that our friend JNY took last summer. This occurred at the “bad” Buddha monastery where worshipers go to pray for mean things to happen. Instead of offering yak butter to the gods, they give alcohol. This guy had a few sips for Buddha himself. After the dance, he threw rocks at us.
Let me know with a comment if this video won’t load and I’ll find a way to post it.
