You Gotta Have Friends… (3)
A few years ago I was in a Hong Kong software shop when suddenly a shrill voice began shouting what I now know was Cantonese for, “Cheese it the cops!”
Within seconds the metal gate to the entrance was electronically being lowered and like some character in a low-budget HK martial arts flick I had to dive under the door to keep from being trapped inside.
And it was a good thing I made it out as at as fast I did because five of–I am sure of this–the largest policemen in Hong Kong came in short order to kick the door down and begin demolishing what must have been bootleg DVDs and software knock-offs. A few seconds later in my departure and I might have been making my way back to America on the next cargo plane one-way.
There have been a number of measures implemented since that time in HK to ensure that consumers, many of whom are mainland tourists, get authentic products. The fake Rolex guys are still on every street corner, but are transparent about the quality of their goods. But, a consistently reputable shop with static sales people is hard to find. Though I think I might value the fakes in HK more than the i-Bods and i-Fones and Rolez watches sold in the mainland.
Soon after my brush with deportation I sought out a trustworthy and found one I have frequented for the last three years. I do not buy anywhere else in HK: It is a tiny shop called Suntekco at Haiphong road, nearby the South Entrance of Kowloon Park. It is the first shop on the left as you head straight away from the Starbucks outside of the Marco Polo Hotel. Phone: (852) 2376 2915
Every salesman, in a shop hardly big enough in which to change your mind, is an expert on any electronic or photographic device new or old. And if you need to save a few dollars, and a generic lens will take the same quality pictures as the brand named version, they will tell you. Too, I have never even produced a receipt when returning merchandise (2X in three years and once it was due to user error) and my goods have been replaced without question.
They have dozens of customers each hour passing through yet can remember my name and that of my friends as well as every piece of equipment I have ever purchased. It doesn’t get any better than that.
This is not a paid infomercial, but a letter of gratitude. I should have written it a long ago because I call the folks at Suntek friends now and love nothing more than to see good friends succeed. Head over to the Dreamblogue and see some of the great pictures David and I have taken with discount gear purchased for us at Suntek Camera Store by the sponsors of the dreamblogue.
I have my eye on a 16-gig i-Phone and the lightning fast new Canon, but as it is for me, I have a few paychecks to squeeze some change from before I head back to HK.
Posted 22 March, 2008 in Camera shop in Hong Kong, China Business Consultant, Sunteck Camera Hong Kong, Photo Equipment, Cal Poly, 中文, Wholesale Electronics China, Expats, Photos, 中国, Wholesale Products China, Hong Kong
China: The Balance Sheet…. (0)
China: The Balance Sheet differs from most other books we have been reading in preparation for our 22 province journey across China for charity and understanding. China guides to business or living become obsolete almost before they are published. And most of the “expert” commentary on China gives the reader intellectual whiplash: The data contained in strategy texts is often conflicting or out-dated. To offset that problem, this text offers online resources for continuing information and is a testament both to the wisdom and commitment of the authors.
China: The Balance Sheet isn’t so much a book as it is a project that yielded enough information for a book. It is a collection of work, information, and analyses collected by the Institute for International Economics and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and The Balance Sheet is rife with diverse demographics, like statistics about China’s graying population, as well as an informed political discussion on the Middle Kingdom’s long, curious relationship with Russia. Yes, its such dry reading that we carried an Internet canteen–interspersing the book with irreverent spoofs from Sinocidal to keep from humor dehydration–but every sentence, to drag out a metaphor, is an informational oasis for a Sinophile.
One of the more engaging elements of this book is its ability to maintain a separation from the standard strains of China fever: while the book delivers competent, clear information about mainland China, it avoids over-generalizations and makes clear the plurality and multiplicity of a country with 56 distinct ethnic groups, 200 spoken languages, and size enough to make Europe jealous. As Lucien Pye of foreignaffairs.org says of the book: “The main thrust of the analysis is that diversity has replaced the monolithic system that Mao Zedong created. There are, therefore, many Chinas — rural and urban, wealthy and poor, educated and illiterate, international and isolated.” And yes, seemingly benign statements like that one make it unavailable on the mainland, but censors should tale a second look as it is careful to avoid the paranoia about China’s growth that pervades Western news and doesn’t issue dark proclamations about China’s fearsome rise or apocalyptic fall. The book holds to tenets set forth in early pages: “Because we believe that constructive US policies toward China must rest, first and foremost, on a firm factual and analytical footing, this study’s primary purpose is to provide comprehensive, balanced, and accurate information on all key aspects of China’s own development and its implications for other nations.”
Will the Balance Sheet help you understand business culture in China and learn the secrets of guanxi, face, or how to hold your chopsticks at just the right angle to impress the Chinese delegation leader? No. Will the book arm you with a clear understanding of the economic, political, and demographic realities facing China now? Yes. You can find an overview and preview of the first chapter of the book here and a collection of 2007 published addendum’s here.
This ranks high on our list of must-read texts along with Harold Chee’s Myths.
By David DeGeest with Lonnie B. Hodge
Posted 27 July, 2007 in Internet marketing China, Guangzhou, Chinese Medicine, Travel in China, Chinese Internet, The Internet, The Great Firewall, Foshan China, Chinese New Year, India, China Book Reviews, Chinese Media, China Business Consultant, China Expat, Shanghai, china books, Hainan Island, Chinese Education, Korea, Chinese Proverbs, Human Rights, 中文, Wholesale Electronics China, Wholesale Products China, China Expats, Intercultural Issues, Expats, Teaching in China, Japan, Asia, Hong Kong, Macau, Book Reviews, Asian Women, China Editorials, China Business, 中国, Guangzhou China, The Great Wall, Chinese Festivals, In the news, Tibet, China Olympics, Weird China, Confucius Slept Here, China web 2.0
Bamboocycles! (0)
I have been blogroll diving again! There is a new one in town Responsible China (No, it is not an oxymoron!) and it is worth your attention: Erica Schlaikjer, a trained journalist (She has had paltry internships at: The Chicago Reporter, Crain’s Chicago Business and National Geographic. But, she has never written for OMBW, so….) one of the producers for Entrepreneur Magazine’s online radio show, The China Business Show, hosted by WS Radio, is the author.
She has a bunch of great posts up now and I picked one to showcase that I thought was interesting:
The article is on Bamboo Bikes. It caught my attention because I helped a company create a prototype of a Bamboo baseball bat last year, but it proved too durable and they opted for something that Barry Bonds could break–even off the juice. But, I digress….
According to Erica, China is home to 450 million bicycles and 4.21 million hectares of bamboo and it make sense to combine the two into something good for the environment. And it appears that designers Liakos Ariston and Jacob Prinz, who started Daedalus Custom Bamboo Bikes two years ago after drawing up designs on a napkin, feel the same. The problem is the bikes will be for Laowai or well-heeled Chinese as they cost about $1,250 each. For $1250 a Cantonese would want it to float, double as a shelter, act as a fishing rod, stand-in as an eating utensil and play bootleg MP3s and DVDs. If the truth be known, I wouldLOVE to have one of these, but at my salary it would take three months of starvation.
“The raw materials are sustainable, so potentially make less of an impact on the environment, the designers say. But that’s not the only appeal.”
‘We’ve gained a lot more respect for the material we work with because we’ve had a few accidents on them and generally riders and bikes have come out unscathed,’ said Ariston, 25 . . . .” I get the unscathed bike part, but I wonder how the rider gets a break (no pun intended) from injury.
If it gets cheaper to make it could have a future in China as Erica reports that China’s Ministry of Construction wants to restore bike lanes to their old glory.
Here are some links she posted to bamboo related projects and designers:
Bamboo Bike Project
“The project aims to examine the feasibility of implementing cargo bikes made of bamboo as a sustainable form of transportation in Africa.”
Brano Meres Engineering & Design
“This is my second home-made frame. This time I used bamboo rods connected with carbon composite joints.”
Calfee Design
“Beginning as a publicity stunt in 1996, Craig’s bamboo errand bike evolves into a well-tested new model for the general public.”
Thanks Erica and welcome to the Sphere!
Posted 10 July, 2007 in China Cool Gadgets, Wholesale Products China, Guangzhou China, 中国, The Internet, Chinese Internet, 中文, Chinese Media, Guangzhou, Internet marketing China, Top Blogs, Environment, Intercultural Issues, Asian Humor, China Humor, Humor, China Editorials, China Sports, In the news, Photos, China Photos, China Business, China web 2.0
One World, Many Schemes…. (0)
A report in the China Daily warns: “China may be famed for fake goods, but don’t mess with the Olympics.” Is this a logic puzzle? I think Beijing will do better curbing Chinglish, getting the gum scaped off Tiananmen Square or getting an accredited degree at Macau University of Science and Technology.
Hey, but so far the Olympic IP patrols have logged 1,556 cases of violations involving souvenirs. This sounds good, but, the goods seized over a three year period have only amounted to about $1.9 million USD and the fines handed out totaled $1.1 million USD. OK, do the math: $1.1 million divided by 1,556 equals about $707 dollars a case. What a deterrent!
In all, 428 cases have been “uncovered” since the beginning of 2006. Here in Guangzhou 428 cases wouln’t close even one of the bootleg speakeasy joints near me and $707 dollars would not be more than a couple of days worth of gross.
The Beijing Olympic body has registered the seven main Beijing Olympic trademarks, including the “friendlies” and they are reportedly moving ahead to register 69 other Olympic trademarks, including the torch design. THE GAMES ARE NEXT YEAR! Somebody forgot this part of the early planning?
I was a bit stunned that the Trademarked products will only add $30-45 Million USD to the assets side of their $38 billion Oympic debt: Licensed merchandise in the last two Olympics grossed about $300 Million and the host city pockets 10-15% of the total. The Backstreet Boys make that much on pajama royalties don’t they?
I think some smart entrepreneur will set up an authentic licensed shop online and smart shoppers will inspect goods carefully while avoiding vendors at the Great Wall that sell watches with Mao waving an Olympic torch.
I bought several “Friendlies” (before their name was changed to the expectorant “Fuwa”) collector coin sets for friends, but made sure they had the goverment hologram and unique certificate number inside. You could actually an offical number provided and verify authenticity and no, the call wasn’t answered in Nigeria.
I did pick up a couple, like the one below, that have no company name and no contact number printed on them, so I am guessing they will eventually have less value than a McDonalds’ Happy Meal insert.
VERY similar to the i-Pod won by D.M.P. and sent back to me by customs:
Everything looks, and almost acts, exactly like the real deal, but the wheel does not turn….
Picture taken with my Macbook–a real one–albeit with a broken screen…..
Posted 8 July, 2007 in The Internet, Wholesale Products China, 中国, Chinglish, Travel in China, Chinese Media, Beijing Olympics, 中文, Macau University of Science and Technology, In the news, Photos, Intercultural Issues, Asia, Asian Humor, China Editorials, China Sports, Weird China, China Photos, China Olympics, Humor
Can the Wheels Be Put Back on Chinese Quality Control? (0)
I remember as a kid when “Made in Japan” was a euphemism for junk or soon-to-break disposables. That was long before Toyota turned the “S” in Sinophobia into a dollar sign.
Now I run through 2-3 VCR’s a year due to the poor workmanship and the less than perfect DVDs that you have to buy locally. As I write I can look down to a sack of local medications that are headed for the trash as I fear the consequences of taking them. Even the mainland Chinese are jamming the aisles in Macau and Hong Kong pharmacies in hopes of safer, more efficacious drugs.
As profit margins decrease due to global tariffs and increased competition, some manufacturers are cutting a few safety corners. The phenomenon is not isolated to the Middle Kingdom as the West has had its share of debaucles: Firestone, Perrier, Dell, ect….
The latest scare (with a hat tip to Tim Johnson’s blocked Typepad site ) is reminiscient of the Firestone and Ford scare: Tires and autos. China’s Brilliance BS6 is meant to be positioned as a premium-style import sedan at a budget price. After viewing the videos of this tiny hearse traveling only 40 miles an hour I would say it is unsafe at any price–with apologies to Ralph Nader.
[youtube]F06LjugtIUo[/youtube]
Germany’s test group gave it one star out of a possible five. And I am with some of the dark humorists in the comments section of an Autoblog (also blocked in China) article on this beast. They wonder if it takes an explosion to get no stars and one reader thought a riding a tricycle without a helmet would be preferable to taking the wheel of a Chinese car.
The picture above is from a tire sold by Foreign Tire Sales, Inc. of Union, NJ. They are in a panic after a death resulting from one of China’s Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Company’s tires, sans an important layer of rubber, overheated. FTS says the tires may need to be recalled. What?! And since the geniuses at FTS don’t have the financial resources, and obviously product liability insurance, to deal with a recall disaster, they are suing the Hangzhou Rubber to cover the expenses. They claim Hangzhou built the tires in a way that differed from the FTC’s specifications. Score one for stupidity and indifference in due diligence and zilch for the consumer at risk. The company executives should be made to crash test the next 100 shipments personally.
I am a staunch supporter of buying locally and doing my bit to support the economy that pays my rent. As an example, all my computers are Chinese save my laptop MAC. But, I have now drawn the line at anything ingestible or drivable in a crisis.
The scariest part of all of this? Analysts and consumers (also blocked in the mainland) don’t think this information will negatively affect sales of the Chinese car. People would rather save a buck than breathe.
Posted 2 July, 2007 in Chinese Internet, Chinese Media, 中文, China Business Consultant, Wholesale Products China, 中国, Asia, China Editorials, China Business, In the news, Videos
Not with a Whimper…. (4)
One of the worst phone calls I ever received was from a friend of 30 years who weeks earlier had phoned to ask my advice. The first call was to get my recommendation for a natural sleeping aid. She and her husband were facing big job changes and she wanted a non-narcotic alternative to counting sheep. At the time I was successfully using amino acids like tryptophan to help naturally restore chemical balance and chemically altered serenity to alcoholics and addicts. The best sleep aid available was tryptophan, the chemical precursor to serotonin and the substance that you find in turkey and milk. It is the reason, other than you have seen it 9999 times, that you never make it through that re-run of It’s a Wonderful Life after Christmas dinner without snoring. Back to the phone call….
She told me she had been in a wheelchair for weeks and had lost all strength in her muscles. She went on to tell me that she was the one of the lucky ones as several people had died and the Center for Disease Control had indeed identified a bad batch of Japanese tryptophan as the culprit. It did not ease my guilt for recommending the supplement when she told me that I was not going to be mentioned in the lawsuit being brought to the Japanese company responsible by pre-Simpson trial heavyweight Attorney F.Lee Bailey.
My friend recovered and the suit was settled quietly by a Japanese company flush with cash. Tryptophan was removed from Vitamin store shelves and I stopped suporting amino treatments despite believing the tryptophan incident was an isolated. They never found the real cause of the devastation and I never heard of a single individual being punished for a part in the debacle.
The Chinese have rightly been under the microscope lately for some terrifying incidents of pure greed. Drug manufacturers and food producers have been found to be cutting costs (while we want to up the value of the Yuan so now shrinking profit margins get even smaller) by using dangerous, cheap chemicals in place of the real thing. Hundred have died or become sick worldwide from a host of products: Antifreeze laced toothpaste, bad cat food, killer cough syrup, and bacteria laden eye drops are among the most recent problem products.
China, like most Asian countries, detests publicity and the resulting loss of face. And to show their resolve about cleaning up the problem they handed Zheng Xiaoyu, former director of China’s Food & Drug Administration, the death sentence yesterday. Swift Action 1, Human Rights 0.
It seems Zheng took $800,000 USD in bribes to look the other way as fake drugs, placebos and worse were exported worldwide. There is evidence that his actions were lethal: In one instance, an antibiotic approved by his agency killed at least ten patients last year before it was recalled.
Zheng Xiaoyu in living color
According to the New York Times, via China Digital Times, “The problems are more serious in China because tens of thousands of people are sickened or killed every year because of rampant counterfeiting and phony food and drugs. For instance, last year 11 people died in China after being treated with an injection tainted by a fake chemical. And 6 people died and 80 others fell ill after taking an antibiotic that was produced with a ’substandard disinfectant.’”
About once a month some task force in Hong Kong is seizing millions of Yuan worth of bogus Viagra (it WAS all in your head) and even cholesterol fighting agents.
“The government also said it would crack down on food products that are being illegally exported, bypassing food inspections.”
Worried that many drugs may be substandard, China is now reviewing over 170,000 production licenses issued by his agency over the past decade. 170,000.
It is going to take a lot of policing to review 170,000 manufacturers. It is time to sell your stock in pharmaceuticals and opt for prison wear and weapons grade lead. This kind of behavior is rampant. I am against the death penalty for a number of reasons, but like Dezza (see comments on this post) I want to see this guy rot in hell, but only after being forced to use his own approved products.
The biggest issue with the death sentence in this case is that it is just a high profile face-saving jesture. Hundreds of vendors in Gongbei, near the border to Macau where thousands of police reside, will launder your money, sell you knock-offs of any watch, drug, DVD, or game that you want. Virtually every booth has i-Pod Nanos for 170 Yuan ($20 bucks) that look (but don’t behave) like real. One post long ago at Sinosplice had what was then a funny entry about “Nalencia” oranges. Several commenters remarked that the oranges were pretty good despite the fake inspection sticker which should read, of course, Valencia. I would think twice now about eating anything from a company that goes to that kind of trouble to give a false impression.
I am not parqnoidby nature, but I still travel to HK about once every two months to make a “drug run” where I pick up western medications and over the counter products I cannot get or safely trust in the mainland. The pharmacists there actually have legal degrees and a knowledge of medicine. I do not scare easily, but I have been afraid of mainland products for a long time. I have an infection from a recent dental procedure that will not abate and worry further that the antibiotics given me are really made of chalk or worse.
Don’t expect any great changes anytime soon just because they offed this opportunistic scumbag. It appears this issue, if it ever ends will do so, not with the whimper of a fleeced Japanese industrialist, but with a bang….
Posted 29 May, 2007 in Wholesale Products China, 中国, Chinese Medicine, Chinese Media, 中文, Environment, In the news, China Editorials, China Cartoons, China Business, cartoons, Asia
China Cool Gadget of the Week: Credit Card USB…. (3)
Are these cool or what? David, the non-belly dancing Grinellian fellow in residence, brought one back from Nanjing. Some people are using them as business cards overprinted with their logo:
Most sites are charging from 30-80 Us Dollars for the 128 KB versions, but the 2GB styles wholesale here in China for less than $30 bucks with shipping and duty included if oyu buy 300 of them. I have used one and loved it. It slips right into a wallet….
- 100% Plug and Play for Windows 2000, XP and future Microsoft platforms, MAC OS 9+ and Linux.
- Windows 98 and ME users require special drivers (included with unit).
- Available with 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB and 2GB storage capacity.
- LED data activity light on end of drive lights when data is passed to and from unit.
- Shock resistant. No moving parts (Duh!).
- Packaged in plain white box with driver CD for Windows 98+Me users, lanyard and leatherette carry case.
- Custom colors available with 500+ pieces - 3 weeks lead time.
General Specifications:
- Measurements: 84.3mm x 54.2mm x 6.8mm
- Measurements: 3.317″ x 2.138″ x 0.263″
- Lanyard: 17.32″
- Imprint area Location Size: Front 2.95″ x 1.57″