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Made in China Disappearing?
China's Export Machine Threatened by Rising Costs - from the Wall Street Journal. Basically 75% of China's gross domestic product, US is 20%. So with exports increasing in price by about 5% last year, WalMart etc. is looking for cheaper costs than Made in China. This is in addition to increases due to shipping costs. Some businesses are even moving manufacturing back to the US do to increased fuel costs. Others are moving factories to Vietnam. China is attempting to move up the food chain into higher value added goods. The problem is when you just copy, there is not a lot of value added in that. All you are competing on is price. A friend of mine, an inventory, visited a factory in China with a bunch of computers, and was told this was their R&D. Looking at patent filings in the US and Japan. Historically many items were invented in China, this book is a great read! Made in China - Ideas and Inventions from Ancient China by Suzanne WilliamsLabels: made in china
Library Chinese Children Books
I was at the ALA - American Library Association Conference and Exhibition and there were four or five vendors selling Chinese Children books. Some of the booths looked pretty bored with no visitors. It was interesting seeing all the vendors selling to libraries with a huge range of products, only some of them selling books. From library moving services to furniture to of course books. The challenge with the library market is you ship the books, and then you get paid in 30 to 60 days. It seems that 60 days is a lot more typical. What is nice about consumer is you get paid right away. There can also be a long lead time with the Library market for Chinese Children books and others, where you are at a trade show, then 6 months later you get an order. Hopefully you still have in stock what they saw six month ago. An interesting problem a vendor spoke of was getting orders, and then not being able to get the items to fulfill it, since everybody is cutting back on inventory. What I do with ChildBook is when I run out of inventory it is usually (unless I know it's coming in any day or I make a mistake in counting inventory) automatically taken off ChildBook. This is good (less apologizing to customers), and bad (customers can't see items I may be getting back in inventory. I like the less apologizing needed :-) Not to mention how challenging back-orders are. Labels: libraries
Peter Drucker & China
China Embraces Old-School Business Guru from the Wall Street Journal. It's talking about what Bright China is doing to spread the wisdom of Peter F. Drucker, a management guru who recently passed away with a series of academies, donations to libraries of translations of Peter Drucker's books, and more. I have mixed feelings on the article. The characterization of the US as being behind on following Drucker verses China is not 100% accurate. For the Drucker Societies that is true. In the US we had the luxury of a live Peter Drucker for many years and a management university that bears his name, The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. This made it so the Drucker Societies were not needed in the US, since we had the crutch of Peter being around. So any meeting in the US will have a lot of alumni of the Drucker Business School (like me) and the Drucker Societies are just starting in the US. Peter Drucker has had a huge impact on business including his consulting(GE, P&G, Intel, etc.), books he has written defining the study of management, and his non-profit consulting (girl scouts, etc.). His books continue to be huge sellers in the US and new collections of his articles are being published all the time. This indicates to me there is still a lot of interest in Drucker's teachings in the US. The challenge and opportunity is to harness this to build up the Drucker Societies in the US. I am involved with the Drucker Society of Los Angeles and we just had our first real event today, a great presentation called Closing the Responsibility Gap. The societies in China, South Korea, and Japan have been around for years so of course they are ahead of the US Societies that are relatively new. Labels: Peter F Drucker
Chinese Culture and Bicultural/mixed Marriages
A friend of mine, Chinese, is dating a white guy. A concern of her friend may be Chinese Culture. So I was thinking, what does Chinese Culture mean? She's a strong Christian, so her belief of right and wrong is rock solid. And what I see of Chinese Culture after 20 years with my wife is more a traditional way of doing things. Respect your parents, education, and strive to have your kids do great. Subareas are a love of food. What's not to like about this? Superstitions such as not having a bunch of 4's in your phone number or address can be frustrating. Some of it's common sense like not buying a house at the end of a cul-de-sac (unless you like drunk drivers in your living room - the house diagonal from where I grew up was at the end of a street. The Chinese superstition reason is ghosts go in straight lines). The one of not having a stairway go out straight from your front door can be frustrating (if yes, the ghost thing which you can safeguard with a mirror, but also the luck will flow out of your house). Feng Shui is what this type of knowledge is called. This is a great reference on a lot of the Chinese Culture (slight Cantonese slant) Good Luck Life: The Essential Guide To Chinese American Celebrations And Culture and of course for Chinese Food Fortune Cookie Chronicles - Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer LeeLabels: Chinese Culture
Gold Rush and the Chinese
Many Chinese came to the US during the Gold Rush. Lawrence Yep is one author who has written many books about this era and they are great books, for approximately 4-9th grade (and even adults). Lawrence Yep is the bard of the Chinese in America. He often writes about major historical events that have impacted the Chinese in America. Labels: Gold Rush
Summer Vacations & Chinese
Library Purchases of Chinese Books for Children
Rowland Heights ChinaTown - We're Famous!
A Chinatown like no other from the LA Times, via the Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN.
I live in Rowland Heights. A friend of mine in Texas mentioned the article as did my paretns. I missed it when it first came out.
I would give the article a grade of C+, it really did not capture Rowland Heights area.
We have late night places to eat and karaoke, to major businesses that are ethnic Chinese owned such as NewEgg and Viewsonic, to many small businesses. We also are county, so we are not a city (good and bad). Diamond Bar and Walnut are both cities, as well as the interesting City of Industry (99% businesses, with a few lucky residents). Hacienda Heights also has a large Chinese community and has a lot in common with Rowland Heights.
Diamond Bar/Walnut have better school districts by test score than Rowland. Rowland is a mixture of La Puente, West Covina, Walnut, City of Industry, and Rowland Heights. The district has some heavily Latino areas, Asian, and African American areas. There are a few whites around (like me). School districts don't follow city lines in California, so even if you buy a house in Walnut you may end up going to Rowland School district.
We got lucky and through a lottery got my daughter into the Walnut/Diamond Bar School district that has better test scores than Rowland. A lot of my daughter's friends have done the same. So many that somehow Rowland supposedly closed this loophole (I am sure it's frustrating when all your best students leave).
The area has gone through a lot of changes, some positive and some not. My daughter's K-5 school looks like it will be closing, replaced by Apartments. Why - the school did not change with the times. Wonderful school, that could have been so much better. They shocked my wife when the school principal at a dinner started talking about how their graduates went to such wonderful schools as Azusa Pacific, Cal State LA, Mt. Sac, etc. My wife wanted to hear Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkeley... And Rowland Heights has lots of Chinese great Chinese food! History and Culture: Chinese Food is a nice article. And a listing of Chinatowns across the US Chinatowns of the United States
Labels: chinatowns
Olympic Data Risk
Olympic visitors' data is at risk - basically your PDA, laptop, and cell phone are at risk if anyone in China is interested in you. Viruses, bugs, etc. can all happen. A business executive found a couple of attempts on his PDA. A US government official may have had his laptop copied. Of course coming back through US customs, your PDA, Laptop, and Cell Phone can be looked at and the data copied by US customs. Labels: China Olympics
Cantonese - Why Childbook does not carry it
I tested carrying a few products in Cantonese after getting a few requests. I then sent out an E-Mail to everyone who had asked, and the product was so slow in selling. My personal opinion is Cantonese with the transfer from Great Britain to China has seen an increased usage of Mandarin. Cantonese will become more of a language spoken at home. In the US there is a large historical community of Cantonese Speakers that is centered around the historic Chinatowns, some overseas Chinese such as from Vietnam also speak Cantonese. Most people in the US are interested in speaking Mandarin because it's the official language spoken in China, and has the most opportunities. My guess is 99% of the US market for Learning Chinese is Mandarin. A while ago I also carried a few Taiwanese products, and these also did not sell well. My wife liked the Taiwanese Video's I had a lot, but unfortunately they were not selling. Since per Peter F. Drucker, the purpose of a business is to make a profit (no profit it's hard to stay in business), at this time I am going to focus on Mandarin. As I grow bigger I am sure I will add some Cantonese and Taiwanese products, but not for a while. Labels: Cantonese, Learning Chinese
No Post Yesterday due to my Internet was down
So I get back from the tradeshow last night. Ate dinner with the customer and some co-workers and got dropped off home late. First thing I heard was the Internet was not working from my wonderful daughter. After unpacking, I went to do some posting and my cable modem was fried. So it's 11:30AM, do I go to work to post or sleep? Sleep won. I exchanged the modem this morning and at least it's working. I also went into work, did some shipping because the person who was doing shipping while I was at the tradeshow got sick. Labels: childbook
Tradeshow Experiences - Chinese Companies in Las Vegas
I am still in Vegas helping out a friend at a tradeshow booth. Some things I noticed: - Two booths of Chinese companies with female employees wearing VERY short QiPao's. Of course there was the American company that sold projector lamps with 3 ladies with who wore something similar to what I image is worn in hooters. Booth was very popular.
- Chinese company booth where the employees were watching movies, because no customers. It was like the company decided they wanted a booth, but had no idea how to make it so people would want to go.
- Or course BenQ had a wonderful booth, as did many other Ethnic Chinese company owned boths (so please don't assume I am just picking on Chinese owned booths).
- The lady who came into our booth, wanted a retail price, and when a co-worker from China asked a question not understanding, the lady just stomped away. It's disappointing when a person speaking to a visitor from a foreign country does not show more patience, it's not the type impression I want visitors coming away with of US people.
- This morning I passed a booth that said easy to use and install - unfortunately nothing was working and the poor technicians were on their laptops desperately trouble shooting (not Chinese owned).
My booth was OK, but it will be a lot better next year. It was our first year and we did not have the best booth, but it was not the worst either. I already have a long list on improvements to make - like I do for childbook.com :-) Labels: china's future
Japan/China/Taiwan Incident?
NY Times mentioned it: Lately Mr. Ma’s energies have been focused on smoothing out a diplomatic conflict that caught him by surprise — a surge in tensions with Japan over a June 10 incident in the group of disputed islands that the Taiwanese call the Diaoyutai Islands, where a Japanese coast guard vessel sank a Taiwanese sport-fishing boat. Although Japan administers the islands, which it calls the Senkaku Islands, China and Taiwan argue that they belong to the Chinese people. Protesters in both mainland China and Taiwan have demanded a formal apology from Japan. Right after a new President took power in Taiwan who was elected on better relations with China, and this happens with Japan. Who would of thought! Labels: china's future, taiwan
Paris Tip for Chinese Speakers
Tip to save some money because of discrimination by vendors near the Eiffel Tower. If your Chinese looking and speak Chinese, pretend you don't speak Chinese as the vendors approach you. If you have a significant other like me, have them go ahead of you. The first time I was with my wife we were offered I think it was 5 Euro for a small Eiffel Tower. I then had her go back with my daughter and pretend to not speak English, and the vendors actually spoke some Chinese and she got it for 2 Euro. I remembered this because of driving by the Eiffel Tower replica in Las Vegas today. Labels: china's future
Investors Seek Asian Options to Costly China
Investors Seek Asian Options to Costly China- NY Times article. Lots of businesses moving to Vietnam in search of cheaper labor, stability, tax breaks, etc. At the trade show we were setting up today, and a person who helped give us some tie wraps was making a joke about the tie wraps we had. That sometimes good stuff came out of China, but that was by mistake. And I thought what about that iPod, it's made in China. China produces junk, but at the same time has world class products. And just looking at wages, it's not the cheapest. But what matters is the total cost equation. Some businesses due to higher freight costs are moving back manufacturing to the US and Mexico. Freight with the high cost of oil is not cheap anymore. Labels: made in china
Pride and Doing Manual Work
I was talking to a person who used to work for me about their experience working for somebody who just had zero respect for him. Treated him like dirt. I have seen this across many cultures, where a person thinks he is so high status he does not need to get his hands dirty. Another story. A tenant of ours while we had moved out of area temporarily, when my Father-in-law went to fix a garage spring treated him badly. My Father-in-law did not say anything to the person. The problem was the person judged a book by it's cover, they should have looked in his garage at what type of car he has there... Today I was helping out at a trade show booth for a friend and it was so refreshing to see the owner of a large Chinese company helping to put together his product. I really respect a person who is not afraid to get his hands dirty. One of my favorite memories of my Father in law, was one time I was helping him out with his garden and the shovel broke. He fixed it with a nail and some tape, and it worked perfectly fine. It's something I would have never thought of. He is an amazing person and I just shake my head at the former tenant who showed him little respect. That was the same tenant where after we moved back, a lady came and dropped off an envelope... It had a newspaper clipping in it. That is an interesting story... Labels: Chinese Culture
Las Vegas Chinatown
I am helping out a friend with a Trade Show, and we stopped by dinner at the Las Vegas Chinatown and then checked out the 99 Market. There is also a 99 market in Rowland Heights. Some observations: - The Chinatown here has increased in size. Their is now a vegetarian restaurant (Rowland Heights has 2) and lots of restaurants.
- The Chinatown here is aimed at Asians in general (Philippino fast food is an example, where in West Covina next to Rowland Heights we have a huge Philippine area). The 99 Market was smaller than the one in Rowland Heights, but still had a good selection.
- The Chinatown here has a mixture of the usual tourist junk you find in the LA Chinatown, plus non-tourist stuff.
- Food was OK and pretty authentic. We ate at a place inside the mall that was open. Staff wore a Chinese style shirt, that you don't see in Rowland Heights. More touristy.
My listings of Chinatowns of the United StatesLabels: chinatowns
Mission Statement for ChildBook
I just attended a Drucker Symphosium and it got me to thinking about Mission - Helping Children Learn the Chinese Language and Culture (click for longer version).A Druckerism I did not know "A Mission Statement should fit on a T-Shirt". Another Druckerism "The ultimate test is not the beauty of a mission statement. The ultimate test is right action." And a checklist for developing a Mission StatementMy current mission describes what I do, but I am not sure if it does what it is supposed to do. It talks nothing of goals and where I want ChildBook to be. What sets ChildBook apart from other businesses is our focus on doing the right thing. Our 100% Guarantee policy is an example of that (along with our low return rate by selling quality items). Simple idea, sell quality items and you won't get many returns and you will have happy customers, which makes the owners life easier! And by running an ethical business, it's also easier to sleep at night! Yes, I am into Ethical Management and I can blame it on the place I got my MBA from ;-) The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management Truthfully, it just helped give guidance to a set of core beliefs I have in win Labels: childbook
Teaching a Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler's Chinese
Little Pim: Playtime, 3-Pack Bundle, Learning Chinese for Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers is really well done. It was created by the daughter of Pimsleur (famous for Learning Foreign Language Materials). Ground breaking video for teaching babies, toddlers and preschoolersTotal immersion experience and offers hours of fun for you and your little onesDVD is entirely in Mandarin with English sub-titles available. Great design!It even has places to stop in the video for review. It's a carefully designed series for Learning Chinese for the young ones. I have even heard good feedback from parents that they learned some Chinese watching it! The first DVD covers eating and drinking, the second Wake Up Smiling ( DVD 2), and Playtime ( DVD 3). Baby Learns Chinese, DVD, Level 1,2,3 & Flashcards also uses full immersion for teaching, and adds Chinese Characters with the belief that the very young can also learn them. Dr. Glenn Doman, author of the best selling books on early childhood learning, including "How to Teach Your Baby to Read". Research has shown that children from birth to age 6 learn languages at an extraordinary rate. Using Music for Learning Chinese is a great way. Songs for Learning Chinese - CD/Tape With Book Sets has a table comparing different products. Some have famous songs in English and Chinese along with a book. It's a great activities for parents and their child. Reading to children is a great way to expose them to a language. A great touch book is I Won't Bite. One of my favorite books. There are two school of thoughts on Bilingual Material. One is it makes the reader a bit lazy. The other is it's a great way to pick up the meaning. Coloring Pictures are a fun way to learn a bit of Chinese. These are really well done: Labels: baby learning mandarin, bilingual babies
Bright China & Peter F. Drucker
I listened to the founder of Bright China today. Wow! Smart person and sounds very exciting what they are trying to do. I should hear more about what they are doing tomorrow. They are bringing the wisdom of Peter F. Drucker to China with a series of academies and more. I am attending the Drucker Society Global Symposium, June 11-13. I did graduate from the Drucker School, and my business plan for ChildBook was presented in his class. I am also on the board of the The Drucker Society of Los Angeles - your free to join! Labels: Peter F Drucker
Ivy League Chinese Discrimination
US Widens Princeton Bias Probe - Article in Today's Wall Street Journal.
I had mentioned the case in my time line of Racism Against Chinese in the US. It shows the Chinese have finally arrived when they are filing noteworthy lawsuits. The suit alleges a white class mate of Mr. Li was admitted with a poorer academic record. Mr. Li's qualifications are amazing: - Scored the maximum 2,400 on the SAT college admissions test
- Registered a combined 2,390 -- 10 points below the maximum -- on three SAT2 subject tests, in physics, chemistry and calculus.
- Admitted to Yale, and now attending Harvard.
And he was spurned by three Ivy League universities, as well as Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The quote from the original 2006 article I still agree with - Chinese are being treated as the Jews were in the 20's. Other related blogs posts: Labels: college admissions, Racism
France & Chinese Relations
1 in 1000 Freight Issues
My problems with freight is about 1 in 1000. And of missing packages 1 every couple of years. The latest was a package that was going from California to Arizona, somehow took a detour to Ohio. And the tracking shows the address is Arizona. Good news is it's going to the right place. I called the USPS after noticing the strange route and on the third person found out it was going the right place. Labels: childbook
My Daughter's Picture
It on the front page of ChildBook, where she is dressed up as a Chinese Princess. It's one of my favorite pictures. The problem is most people have no idea what it is. So I am thinking of changing it to something that shows more of an educational focus. Something like a small child reading a book, or parents reading to a child. I like the picture of my daughter a lot a (she is my daughter) and it's a super cool picture, but is it communicating my site is about Learning the Chinese Language and Culture? When you dig deeper into my site and read the about us page I would answer yes, but when a person first comes to the site? The Right Products Free Shipping Money Back Guarantee in the top graphic is also frustrating me. Again the question, when a person first comes to the site is it even seen? Or ignored. On the phone I get a lot of questions about the Guarantee and pleasant surprises it's 100%. How people look at a web site is interesting and what they notice (banner blindness). KISS is a good design principle, and I am afraid my front page just has to much stuff! Labels: childbook Web Site
Taiwanese Concert for Quake Victims
It's refreshing to see how much the Taiwanese Community has reached out to help the quake victims. There was a concert tonight with the Taiwanese church choir my daughter belongs to for raising funds for the earth quake relief. Labels: earthquake
Victim or Victor? China's Olympic Odyssey
China's Odyssey from the WSJ. Interesting article about Chinese Nationalism, history of the Olympics, and recent events. The article makes a lot of good points, but I don't agree with it 100%. A quote from the article that is food for thought and would be a great prompt for a class: Chinese nationalism -- with its belief in the Darwinian struggle of nations -- is rather anachronistic, and so are the Olympic Games.My belief - It would be nice if this belief belonged to another time (anachronistic), but truthfully most countries don't believe this and certainly don't act that way. The comments about nationalism in the article are good. The author has a web site www.ianburuma.com/ and studied Chinese Literature. Labels: China Olympics, china's future
Homeschooling Learning Chinese Feedback
This is such a nice E-Mail I just got: Hi ray I just wanted to say thank you so much. I am a homeschooling mum in Australia. My two daughters love all things Chinese and asked me if they could learn Chinese as a second language! I was so worried as i can't speak mandarin. I searched the whole of Australia and found nothing use full. Then I came across your site it was really easy to use and I found heaps of resource. I ordered some of the songbook packs the kids love them, and within just a few days say quiet a bit and nearly sing one of the songs they can also nearly count to ten with out having to check they love it. The teachers manuals and colouring book are excellent too,so thank you again. I'm telling all my home schooling friends and we will be buying more from you soon thank you Suzanne Thanks Suzanne, your E-Mail made my day! I like the idea of using music and songs for teaching Chinese. I prefer these over Learning Chinese DVD's, because the involve the parent with their child that has so many positives. Video's have their place and are a useful tool. The coloring books are the practical Chinese Activity books which are well done and great for kids. Learning Chinese Coloring/Activity Book, Simplified Characters and Learning Chinese Coloring/Activity Book, Traditional CharactersFeedback like this is so nice. My guiding principal is the customer comes first. That influences everything from getting the right learning Chinese Educational Products to having a web site that works to providing great service. It's surprising the amount of maintenance required on a web site, I think of it like gardening, something you need to constantly work at everyday. Ray Labels: customer service
Chinese Parents Organize, Seeking Justice
Chinese Parents Organize, Seeking Justice - Article from the Washington Post. Key Points: - 9000 students died in the earthquake.
- The government does not seem to be investigating shoddy construction processes.
- Compensation is being offered to parents of students who died.
- The government (not sure central or local) would like to keep everything quite.
- Parents are starting to organize.
Conclusion: China's government gets nervous whenever non-state controlled groups get organized. China's government definitely lives in interesting times... Labels: earthquake
Panda Books & Kung Fu Panda
I don't have any Kung Fu Panda books, but I do have a few Panda books... Labels: panda
What's Selling - Learning Chinese Material
School Collapse Protest
A picture got out of the police lifting up a grieving mother. Very powerful. The local officials want to go back to business as usual (your job is to be happy no matter what we do which is not your business anyway). The earthquake changed business as usual and the news coverage was unusually open. Labels: earthquake
Free Chinese Language & Culture Resources
Home Schooling for Teaching Chinese & Learning
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