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Seoul Changes Chinese Name I remember the Koreans calling their main river in Seoul, Han Gang - written in Chinese, it is Han Jiang (Han River) corresponding to Han Cheng (Han City). I guess they will probably rename that too :) |
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Is the Real Estate Cooling Down? - Part III The article assumes that most buyers are locals or mainland Chinese. Is that really the case? I regularly see SH properties advertisements in the local Chinese channel (KTSF) here in the SF bay area. In the SH market, I'd assume there to be a good majority of Chinese immigrants (in US and other countries), Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, Singaporeans, Japanese, Koreans, Indonesians etc. I'd think there should be a good portion of foreign investment in SH real estate that has flowed in rapidly and that may flow out just as rapidly (Re: Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand real estate market crashes during the Asian crisis)...and of course, this time may be different. |
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On Ethic I remember an incident when visiting the Sam's Club in Beijing. I picked some fruits which had to be weighed by a salesgirl. The salesgirl was serving a old lady so I waited patiently as I would in the States. Before long, a lady in red came along and immediately thrusted her bags of fruits to the salesgirl as soon as the old lady was done. Perhaps it was not obvious enough to her that I was in line as I stood there with my bag of fruits. I patiently waited for her to be done when an elderly man came by with quite a few bags of fruits. I respectfully let the elderly man had his go at the weighing machine first. O .... what a big mistake? It took a while for the old chap to be done by which time a crowd had gathered, each person oblivious to the fact that there were other people waiting there before them...each thrusting their bags to the salesgirl even before she was done. As I stood there as a foreigner (yes, I am Chinese and look totally Chinese but that was the first time I set foot in China), I felt the urge to do the very same thing as the rest - do as the Romans do when you are in Rome? No, I chose not to do it. I continued waiting and the salesgirl finally noticed that I stood there for a long time and pleaded to the others (at least that's what I didn't fully master my Chinese yet :P) to let me go first. Life is already too stressful as it is. If such a trivial task is so stressful, I can't imagine the amount of stress that the average Chinese (or maybe I should limit it to Beijinger) has to go through everyday. I'd say, take it easy folks, treat everyone kindly. Your kindness may not be returned immediately, but it isn't it a nice feeling to know that you have done something nice? |