Met Chinese Adoption Granpa in Denver

I was eating breakfast at a hotel with my co-workers, two from China and one from Taiwan, and when I got up a person at another table asked me if they were speaking Japanese, I said no, Chinese. It seems his son's family just adopted a child from China 2 months ago with a cleft palate. Nice conversation about how much his grandson has improved since getting surgery and is almost walking, and should be able to catch up. He's 2 years old.

In the car, I asked my co-worker who is visiting from China, if adoption is good for China? Her answer was yes, since the kids will have a better life. Interesting, and controversial answer with some. My answer was from a political viewpoint it's good for the Chinese Government, since they now have a little piece of China with pretty well off couples in the US (adoption ain't cheap, unfortunately).

Open Mouth, Insert Foot - Olympics

A co-worker at the trade show from China asked me what made the most impression at the opening ceremony of the Olympics. So, I answered with what came to mind first. Milli Vanilli at the Beijing Olympics about the older girl who lip synced a song sung by a younger girl. And since she lives in China, she did not know about this (it's been censored) and said they just used pre-recorded music. I disagreed, and I showed her using my iPhone a picture of the two girls and an article Beijing Olympics: Faking scandal over girl who 'sang' in opening. And after some translation from another co-worker, she left to walk around the tradeshow. Not the type of conversation I really wanted to have.

When she got back I mentioned how I found the most spectacular part to be the person running around the ceiling, but the entire opening ceremony was amazing. Which was the answer she was looking for! She replied she really liked the drumming.

She thought the London opening ceremony may be very good, and I commented it won't match the Beijing opening ceremony, There will not be anything like it again. I need to watch what I say, because my answers can get a lot deeper than people expect, especially about subjects I have thought about a bit and done some analysis, like the Beijing Olympics. Part of the conversation also got into how much the Beijing Olympics cost, and I commented it's a good question if that was a good use of the money since there are so many other pressing issues in China (Sichuan earthquake, environmental, schooling, etc.), but I said that the world definitely saw how far China has advanced with the Olympics as a nation in wealth and technology.

China Admits Building Flaws in Quake

My gut feeling is this is major, my guess is since the Olympics are over the official party line can be a bit more open on what really happened, perhaps as a way to defuse anger over what happened.

China Admits Building Flaws in Quake from the NY Times.

Dress Page Design

I am not sure what to do, the measurements are necessary and should be prominent, but where else to put them on the product page. If I put them so they are less noticeable, that may increase returns, but increase reviews which are under them. The trade offs.

iPhones, Lousy Chinese Food, and Good Vietnamese Food

I am again helping out a friend at a trade show, running my business remotely (thanks so much Mom!), and doing the Father duties via Cell Phone. And yes, I feel like pulling some of my already thinning hair out today.

So on the way from Denver's airport, a coworker from China wanted to go have steak. So I get out my iPhone 3G with GPS, and look for a steak restaurant nearby. Since I am driving it's challenging, so we get off the freeway and change drivers. I find a restaurant using the Yelp plug in, but no reviews in the entire area. And you can't go directly to the map in Yelp to give directions (hopefully fixed soon). So we proceed via some interesting surface roads to where the Restaurant should be, nope, not there, It's a Taqueria. So we went over to the other side of the road, and not there. So the consensus is there is a Chinese restaurant there, and I give my warning on be aware it's not what you expect, so don't complain. They did not even have chopsticks. It was edible, but I am so spoiled in Rowland Heights with real, excellent Chinese Food. When my wife got back from a trip to Germany, she immediately went to a local Taiwanese restaurant to recover from eating so many sandwiches for lunch while she was there.

So went to the tradeshow, and the booth had major issues. Got those fixed I hope... And went to dinner. The co-worker from China wanted Black Angus, and I had looked at Yelp on the iPhone and suggested Capital Grill, which is really well rated. No Black Angus near by, so we went to Pho Duy per the good ratings on Yelp. Excellent Vietnamese food, we seemed to have found the Little Saigon of the Denver area.

Long day!

Chinese Moon Festival - Even More!

Updated - Chinese Moon Festival Calendar of Events for the United States and Canada
Added more pictures - Chinese Moon Festival Coloring Pages/Pictures
Redid the entire page - Chinese Moon Festival Coloring Pages/Pictures
New - Chinese Moon Festival Word Scramble
Redone - Chinese Moon Festival Match A Word

Chinese Moon Festival - More!

Did you know there is a game traditionally played during the Moon Festival? ChildBook now has instructions.



Would you like to do a Word Search Game? ChildBook now has one!



More coming soon...

Languages go after the money

Languages go after the money - interesting letter to the editor.

It's in response to this article - The lure of overseas opportunity

My opinion, since my wife is an accountant (auditor CPA type) is it helps a lot to know the local language. Sometimes you are lucky and everyone knows English, but sometimes that is not true.

A good friend of hers got a job as a CFO in China because of her knowledge of Chinese. Husband who speaks some Chinese is happy teaching at the local American School. They have a chauffeur, etc. Nice step up from the cubicle she used to work in at a major firm in the US.

Chinese Moon Festival Updates

Moon Festival section has been updated, including a new section of Chinese Moon Festival Coloring Pictures. I copied them from Coloring Pages & Pictures of Chinese Kids, Animals, Festivals, etc. I also updated the section about the Chinese Moon Festival Background. A confusing part was the differences in the legends of the Moon Maiden. The Chinese Moon Festival Calendar of Events for the United States and Canada has also been updated. The section is an improvement from last year when I created it, and every year it's getting better and better.

Importer Mistake - So Make Lemonade

I thought I would be clever and order a bunch of the a soft cover book of the Monkey King in traditional characters that comes with a CD, part of a series that is a great value.. The problem is everyone just buys their favorite one (I started with 30 of each).

So I got 20 of them today...

Only one minor problem. Any guesses?

No CD. And the books have the same ISBN number, so time to make some lemonade and sell the book without CD for a bit less. I need to set up some new part numbers, soon as that is done I"ll link to it here. I have re-ordered them and hopefully this time they will show up with a CD. The wonders of importing, you are never 100% sure what you will get in a shipment :-)

Traditional Characters - Chinese Made Easyhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7315029490266806661

I am not sure why, but Traditional Characters - Chinese Made Easy textbooks are super popular. Everyone is out. I have a huge order coming in 4 weeks for both Chinese Made Easy for Kids traditional character textbook and Chinese Made Easy Level 1, Traditional Character textbook. In the year of the Olympics, you would think people would be ordering lots of Simplified Chinese Made Easy.

Stuff like this is what makes running a business so exciting!

Learning Chinese Textbooks - How to find them

Navigation on my site is interesting.

So if you were looking for Learning Chinese Textbooks, how would you get there from the main page?

There are actually three ways:

1. Under Books, Chinese Language on the main menu, there is a link to textbooks after you choose Simplified Chinese Character books or Traditional Chinese Character books for kids
(I got tired of people asking me how I they know which one they are buying, so I separated them). which then takes them to this wonderful chart Textbooks, Learning Chinese Traditional Characters that goes here http://www.childbook.com/Learning-Chinese-Textbooks-s/164.htm

http://www.childbook.com/Learning-Chinese-Textbooks-s/164.htm has a chart showing the differences between the Chinese Made Easy, Practical Chinese , and Kuaile Hanyu (Happy Chinese)

2. Under 4-14 Children/Kids Learning Chinese Products on the main menu has a sub-category Chinese Curriculum Text Books, CD, Workbooks, and Software for Learning & Teaching Chinese that goes http://www.childbook.com/Learning-Chinese-Curriculumn-Textbooks-CD-s-Software-s/244.htmthat has a nicer looking table, obviously a later version that showing the differences between the Chinese Made Easy, Practical Chinese , and Kuaile Hanyu (Happy Chinese).

3.. Under Teaching and Home Schooling Resources for Learning Chinese & China's Culture from the main menu has a sub-category that links to http://www.childbook.com/Learning-Chinese-Curriculumn-Textbooks-CD-s-Software-s/244.htm

Chinese Moon Festival

I have created a section that has everything you need for the Moon Festival! I do need to copy some Moon Festival coloring pictures over...

Chinese Moon Festival Calendar of Events for the United States and Canada					Chinese Moon Background
			Chinese Moon Calendar of Events for the United States and Canada					Chinese Moon Background including on the Moon Goddess, Jade Rabbit, Traditional Foods, and Moon Cakes.
Moon Festival Lesson Plan					Chinese Moon Festival Books and Stories
			Moon Festival Lesson Plan for grades K-4					Chinese Moon Festival Books including stories about Moon Cakes and the origin of the Autumn Festival that is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th Lunar Month.
Chinese Moon Festival Links					Moon Cakes - Where to Buy/Purchase
			Chinese Moon Festival Links					Moon Cakes are available from Chinese Bakeries and Chinese Markets. Some Moon Cakes are imported from Taiwan and China, and others are made fresh locally. There are also a few sites that sell them on the Internet.

China's areas to work on

Areas China should work on:

1. Increasing the value of schooling (the quality varies).
2. Handling the increased urbanization of the population.
3. Environmental issues
4. The demographic imbalance that is coming due to the one child policy.
5. Implementing intellectual property protection (needed to move up the value food chain).
6. Reducing corruption.
7. Some type of Social Security for the coming wave of retirees.
8. Rule of law (property rights are a big issue).
9. Protecting the made in China Brand
10. Energy Savings
11. Making investment more productive overall, instead of based on relations and politics.
12. Work on the Rich/Poor divide that has been increasing. Investments in poorer regions is already happening.
13. Health care - ties with issue of corruption. Quality varies tremendously.
14. Investing in the right industries that will help China in the future. This is a tricky one that most countries have done a poor job at.
15. Reducing the use of Nationalism to keep the ruling party in power. This is such a tricky balancing act since the wide spread use of texting allows feedback from the overall country.

Olympics are done - now what?

My last post for a while on the Olympics, I thought yesterday was but this article came up. What Next for China?

There are two schools of thought.

1 - The Olympics were so positive for China recognizing that China is now a major world power economically and this was evident to the major world leaders who attended, as well as the Chinese people. This helps sustain the legitimacy of the ruling communist party and their policies. With this the Chinese government will open up more since they feel less threatened.

2 - The Olympics were so successful because of the huge amount of state control from the huge police presence to keeping out potentially pesky foreigners to China's Gold Medal results to the amazing images shown world wide and to the Chinese people. This will actually result in keeping the increased tighter control of the media in order to move China forward economically.

I am not sure. China has a lot of challenges in the years ahead, and the Olympics are done and can no longer be used as a justification. I wonder if China's government is going to look for some other justification to use in making decisions.