China compared to teenager by apologist

January 20, 2010

I’ve heard it said before that if you live long enough you’ll get to see and hear all kinds of wild things. Today it was delivered to me via The Peking Duck here. It gave a link to a Forbes article here by Shaun Rein.
Despite having a wonderful 5,000-year history, China is in many ways like a [...]

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Can I Google it?

January 18, 2010

Unless you live in a cave somewhere or simply have no contact to the internet or mass-media you’ve probably heard umpteen dozen times on the Google/China showdown, etc. Obviously the drama is heightened by the actors being  the largest country in the world’s gov’t and ruling party and one of the largest and richest corporations [...]

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What does it mean?

January 13, 2010

On several of my early business trips to southern China I would always notice that the Chinese gas stations all had these brightly colored plastic pendants festooned above their stations. No doubt to catch the eye of the passing motorists and make them think about stopping for gas. I get that. These triangular [...]

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The bragging rights go to…

January 11, 2010

OK,while I was never a big Taipei 101 fan (mostly because I think it is an ugly building) and still have never been there I liked the idea of living in a place with the world’s tallest building, just like when I was a kid in Brooklyn with the then still extant and very visible WTC towers were visible [...]

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What’s a poor round-eye to do?

January 10, 2010

If I had a nickel for every time I had to explain, “which China?”, “which one is Taiwan and which one is Thailand?” and “ohh Taiwan, love that hot food and those beaches…” I remember when I first started studying Chiense history at University that these multiple names/identities only became clear through deeper study and [...]

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Early Taiwan memory

January 9, 2010

Not long after I arrived in Taiwan back in 1987 I was talking with a friend. He was a Korean-born overseas Chinese that moved with his family to Taiwan. I forget what the main thrust of the conversation was but I must have asked a slightly political or weighty question because he started getting very [...]

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A.Connector in China

January 7, 2010

Well it’s been a while and am back with new and revised focus for the new year. Happy 2010 to anyone I didn’t get a chance to wish earlier. Now for the good news. My first e-book on China business culture and communications for the aspiring western businessmen/companies looking to enhance their dealings here or [...]

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Telephone-Disconnect?

September 1, 2009

Besides the obvious pun of the post title,  am I the only one that feels communication culture has changed significantly because of the Internet, and in particular to be much less receptive to using the phone? I used to be quite a regular phone user and enjoyed the good chat with my friends, keeping in [...]

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Breathing life into ghosts…

August 25, 2009

For those of you still following it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted anything here. Not that I haven’t had anything to say, just that I’ve been saying it in real time face to face or on Twitter or at my main site Color*Sound*Word or even Big in Asia:Monochrome. So how have you all [...]

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Musical connection

October 22, 2008

Sometimes being a parent has it’s unexpected rewards or serendipity factor. The other day my son Kevin mentioned to me in passing (he was in the rush out the door mode for school) that he likes the, “what’s that us and what song on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon?” I correctly filled in [...]

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