Chinese New Year Movies to Watch

http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2012/01/20/chinese-new-year-movies-to-watch/

With the coming Year of the Dragon, Hong Kong is getting into the festive mood with the release of two Chinese New Year comedies.

“All’s Well Ends Well 2012” (八星抱喜) and “I Love Hong Kong 2012” (2012我愛HK喜上加囍) continue the time-honored annual tradition of wrapping all-star casts, zany antics, singing and dancing into feel-good family movies.

The long holiday break is typically a major movie-going period in Hong Kong, with the Chinese New Year comedy tracing its origins back more than 70 years. Much of the comedy is derived from poking fun at local pop culture and current events.

In “I Love Hong Kong 2012,” for example, there’s a take-off on a memorable scene from the hit Taiwan movie “You Are the Apple of My Eye,” recently crowned the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in Hong Kong history.

It’s also an opportunity for stars best known for dramatic roles to kick off their shoes and have some fun. In “All’s Well Ends Well 2012,” martial-arts star Donnie Yen (甄子丹) plays a washed-up rock singer (yes, he sings and plays guitar), turning his image as an action hero on its head. And Chapman To (杜汶澤) delivers a bull’s-eye impersonation of Hong Kong director Peter Chan, one of the industry’s most recognizable filmmakers.

Actor-producer Raymond Wong, a three-decade veteran of local comedies, is the creative force behind the “All’s Well Ends Well” series, which began 20 years ago with stars such as Maggie Cheung (張曼玉) and Stephen Chow (周星馳). This year’s movie is the seventh in the series, four of which have been produced since 2009.

Mr. Wong told The Wall Street Journal last year that he expected to give the series a break after “All’s Well Ends Well 2011,” but nothing speaks louder than success. Last year’s entry pulled in 167.7 million yuan ($26.5 million) at the mainland China box office, according to media-research firm EntGroup, making it a holiday hit. Mr. Wong says now that he couldn’t ignore the approval from an eager audience and plowed ahead to produce this year’s entry.

More In Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year Movies to Watch
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Eric Tsang, another veteran of Hong Kong movies, is the star of the “I Love Hong Kong” movies — this is the second in the young series — and numerous other Lunar New Year comedies. The success of last year’s “I Love Hong Kong” — it came in at No. 8 on the top 10 box-office films for 2011, earning 26.7 million Hong Kong dollars (US$3.4 million) — guaranteed the production of this year’s movie.

Messrs. Tsang and Wong have a long history with Chinese New Year comedies. They have even collaborated on several movies, including on one of the most memorable and commercially successful New Year comedies ever: “Aces Go Places” in 1982. That movie and four others are part of a retrospective at the Hong Kong Film Archive next week celebrating the Chinese New Year comedy.

This year, Mr. Wong says that he is again ready to give the “All’s Well Ends Well” franchise a break. So what can audiences expect from him next year? He’s contemplating a return to the “Aces Go Places” series.

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Carter recalls his lifelong fascination with China

BEIJING - When a 7-year-old farmboy in Plains, Georgia, opened a package from his seafaring uncle nearly eight decades ago, he found a delicate model of a wooden Chinese junk - and at that moment a lifelong fascination with China was born.

From: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2011-12/15/content_14267665.htm


Occasional friction won't derail ties between China and the US, former US president Jimmy Carter said in an interview with China Daily in Beijing on Wednesday. [Photo by Wu Zhiyi / China Daily]

"My uncle was in the US Navy here," former US president Jimmy Carter told China Daily on Wednesday, "and he would send me souvenirs from seaports where his ship visited. I got that package from Hong Kong, and others from Shanghai and from Qingdao. I still have that ship, it's in the bedroom of my boyhood home.
"Then later when I was in the submarine force in 1949, I came here as a young naval officer to visit the same seaports, and I was intrigued with the people of China," he said, noting that when he became president he began the process of normalizing relations with China that began in the Nixon administration.

"So it's been a long process in my life, involving China and my love for the Chinese people."

That sort of exchange was the reason Carter has been in China for the past week, marking the 40th anniversary of Ping-Pong Diplomacy at a series of events.

At a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People that he attended with Vice-President Xi Jinping, Carter said: "It was a very historic moment. But it was that breakthrough just with ping-pong players - that is people-to-people - that was really more important than the decisions of political leaders. And I think that is a stability that is going to prevail in the future."

On Wednesday morning the former president was taping a television spot at the US embassy to support President Barack Obama's campaign for 100,000 Strong - a push to have 100,000 US students studying in China four years from now.

"Now we have 165,000 Chinese students in American universities, and about 13,000 American students in Chinese universities. And in the future, they will be the leaders of our two countries. And they will also be knowing more about each other and the reasons for harmony and cooperation and mutual respect."

Carter said that despite his decades of interaction with China, he's learning about it all the time.

He said one reason for his current visit is China's interest in working with the Carter Center in Africa, for instance, in healthcare programs.

A meeting with a Chinese official, who is in charge of healthcare assistance to Africa, informed Carter of the many programs that China has in Africa to improve healthcare there, involving malaria and many other diseases.

"This was a surprise to me, and I think this is one thing that the rest of the world doesn't acknowledge - or know about - is how extensive China's programs are in improving the quality of lives of people in Africa and in poor countries elsewhere."

Carter is not overwhelmed by issues of discord between the two countries, from regulating the value of the renminbi to US arms sales to Taiwan.

He noted that rhetoric gets ratcheted up from time to time, "especially during US election years". And while some in Congress want to punish China for not moving as far as the United States would like on currency revaluation, Carter said flatly that such a bill would not pass both houses of Congress. "And if it did, President Obama would veto it."

"I think the more rational people in the US Congress - and in the White House - understand that this slight difference of opinion over the value of the Chinese currency is relatively insignificant. I've observed this very closely myself. Five years ago, it took about eight RMB to equal one US dollar. Now it just takes six of them. That's a 22 percent change in the value of the Chinese currency just in the last five years. So change is taking place - not because of comments from Washington but because the Chinese leaders in politics and economics agreed this is best for China.

"Decisions about the US currency should be made in Washington, and decisions about the Chinese renminbi, the yuan, should be made in Beijing."

"We'll always have differences, with our cultural approaches and our political backgrounds, our ancient histories," Carter said.

"But still, the ties that bind us together are much more important than any differences that might arise."

What's in a Chinese Name?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/world/asia/picking-brand-names-in-china-is-a-business-itself.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Picking%20Brand%20Names%20in%20China%20Is%20a%20Business%20Itself&st=cse

Picking Brand Names in China Is a Business Itself

By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — After a hard day’s labor, your average upscale Beijinger likes nothing more than to shuck his dress shoes for a pair of Enduring and Persevering, rev up his Precious Horse and head to the pub for a tall, frosty glass of Happiness Power.

Or, if he’s a teetotaler, a bottle of Tasty Fun.

To Westerners, that’s Nike, BMW, Heineken and Coca-Cola, respectively. And those who wish to snicker should feel free: the companies behind these names are laughing too — all the way to the bank.

More than many nations, China is a place where names are imbued with deep significance. Western companies looking to bring their products to China face a problem not unlike that of Chinese parents naming a baby boy: little Gang (“strong”) may be regarded quite differently than little Yun (“cloud”). Given that China’s market for consumer goods is growing by better than 13 percent annually — and luxury-goods sales by 25 percent — an off-key name could have serious financial consequences.

And so the art of picking a brand name that resonates with Chinese consumers is no longer an art. It has become a sort of science, with consultants, computer programs and linguistic analyses to ensure that what tickles a Mandarin ear does not grate on a Cantonese one.

Art “is only a very, very tiny piece of it,” said Vladimir Djurovic, president of the Labbrand Consulting Company in Shanghai, which has made a business of finding names for Western companies entering the Chinese market.

Maybe. But there is a lot of artistry in the best of the West.

The paradigm probably is the Chinese name for Coca-Cola, Kekoukele, which not only sounds like Coke’s English name, but conveys its essence of taste and fun in a way that the original name could not hope to match.

There are many others. Consider Tide detergent, Taizi, whose Chinese characters literally mean “gets rid of dirt.” (Characters are important: the same sound written differently could mean “too purple.”)

There is also Reebok, or Rui bu, which means “quick steps.” And Colgate — Gao lu jie — which translates into “revealing superior cleanliness.” And Lay’s snack foods — Le shi — whose name means “happy things.” Nike (Nai ke) and BMW (Bao Ma, echoing the first two sounds of its English and German names) also have worn well on Chinese ears.

Still, finding a good name involves more than coming up with clever homonyms to the original English.

“Do you want to translate your name, or come up with a Chinese brand?” said Monica Lee, the managing director of the Brand Union, a Beijing consultancy. “If you go for phonetic sounds, everyone knows where you are from — you’re immediately identified as a foreign brand.”

For some products, having a foreign-sounding name lends a cachet that a true Chinese name would lack. Many upscale brands like Cadillac (Ka di la ke), or Hilton (Xi er dun), employ phonetic translations that mean nothing in Chinese. Rolls-Royce (Laosi-Laisi) includes two Chinese characters for “labor” and “plants” that more or less have become standard usage in foreign names — all to achieve a distinct foreign look and sound.

But on the other hand, a genuine Chinese name can say things about a product that a mere collection of homonyms never could. Take Citibank, Hua qi yinhang, which literally means “star-spangled banner bank,” or Marriott, Wan hao, or “10,000 wealthy elites.” Or Pentium, Ben teng, which means “galloping.” Asked to introduce Marvel comics to China, the Labbrand consultants came up not long ago with “Man wei” — roughly phonetic, foreign-sounding and eminently suited to superheroes with the meaning “comic power.”

To introduce Clear dandruff shampoo to young Chinese, who are already inundated with foreign brands, Ms. Lee’s firm decided to focus on the shampoo’s image. “It’s not about where this product comes from; it’s about the benefit it can bring to you,” she said. The ultimate choice, Qing Yang, combines the Chinese words for “clear” and for “flying,” or “scattering to the wind.”

“It’s very light, healthy and happy,” Ms. Lee said. “Think of hair in the air.”

“Clear” is one of a select number of Chinese words that carry unusually positive connotations, and that find their way into many brands’ names. Others include “le” and “xi,” or happy; “li,” meaning “strength” or “power”; “ma” or horse; and “fu,” translated as “lucky” or “auspicious.”

Thus the name for Heineken beer, Xi li, and the many automobile brands — Mercedes, BMW, even Kia — that include a horse in their Chinese names (one Kia sedan is named Qian li ma, or “thousand-kilometer horse,” an allusion to strength).

Precisely why some Chinese words are so freighted with emotion is anyone’s guess. But Denise Sabet, the vice general manager at Labbrand, suggests that the reasons include cultural differences and the Chinese reliance on characters for words, rather than a phonetic alphabet. Each character is a collection of drawings that can carry meanings all their own.

Then again, some meanings are best avoided.

Microsoft had to think twice about bringing its Bing search engine here because in Chinese, the most common definitions of the character pronounced “bing” are “disease,” “defect” and “virus” — rather inauspicious for a computer product. The revised name, Bi ying, roughly means “responds without fail.”

Peugeot (Biao zhi) sounds enough like the Chinese slang for “prostitute” (biaozi) that in southern China, where the pronunciations are especially close, the brand has inspired dirty jokes. And in China, the popular Mr. Muscle line of cleaners has been renamed Mr. Powerful, (Weimeng Xiansheng). The product’s maker said in an e-mail that it had forgotten why.

But it could be that when it is spoken, the name Mr. Muscle has a second, less appealing meaning: Mr. Chicken Meat.

Adam Century and Li Bibo contributed research.

China's great gender crisis

Chinese families have long favoured sons over daughters, meaning the country now has a huge surplus of men. Is it also leading to a profound shift in attitudes to women?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/chinas-great-gender-crisis?CMP=EMCGT_031111

His parents knew exactly what they wanted from their son: they called him Famiao, or "produce descendants". Yet when their first grandchild arrived, they refused to step across the courtyard of the family home to see the new baby. Qiaoyue was a girl.

When finally obliged to meet her, "they didn't even wash her face or comb her hair. I was furious," says their daughter-in-law, Chen Xingxiao.

"My father-in-law's friends would ask him, 'How come you haven't brought your grandchild out for a walk?' He would say, 'If it was a boy I would have done. She's a girl, so I won't.'"

Chen's righteous anger is perhaps more surprising than her in-laws' disdain. China's preference for sons stretches back for centuries. Infanticide, the abandonment of girl babies and favourable treatment of boys in terms of food and health has long produced a surplus of men. In the past two decades, the gap at birth has soared: the advent of ultrasound scans has allowed people to abort female foetuses, even though sex-selective abortion is illegal.

In the early 1980s there were 108 male births to every 100 female, only slightly above the natural rate; by 2000 that had soared to 120 males, and in some provinces, such as Anhui, Jiangxi and Shaanxi, to more than 130. The result is that more than 35 million women are "missing". Though China is not the only country affected – India's situation is similar – it has by far the widest gap; its one-child policy has exacerbated the problem.

The effects of the discrepancy are only now emerging in full. The country has tens of millions of menwho are destined to die single. Some fear that the excess will lead to increased sexual violence, general crime and social instability. Yet campaigners see the first signs of hope, as more parents come round to Chen's way of thinking. Official statistics released this summer suggest the sex ratio at birth (SRB) has fallen slightly for two years running, to just over 118 males in 2010.

China's population and family planning chief, Dr Li Bin, said it showed the discrepancy "has been preliminarily brought under control"; while experts are more cautious, they agree that the figures offer some hope. The country's new Five Year Plan sets an ambitious target of cutting the ratio to 112 or 113 by 2016. Could China at last be poised to close the sex gap?

No one is claiming victory quite yet: in fact, the government has just pledged to get tougher, launching a new drive against sex-selective abortion. It is increasing safeguards – such as the requirement that two doctors are present at each ultrasound – and toughening punishments. Institutions, as well as individuals, will be held responsible for breaches; the worst offenders risk having their medical licences withdrawn.

"[In the short term] cracking down on illegal foetal sex testing and sex-selective abortions is very important and effective," says Professor Li Shuzhuo, of the Institute for Population and Development Studies at Xi'an Jiaotong University. But he acknowledges medical staff often find ways to indicate a baby's sex, despite the law. They may nod or shake their head; or use a full stop or comma at the end of medical notes – to indicate that parents have achieved their goal or must continue efforts to have a boy.

Other experts fear that cracking down on sex-selective abortion could lead to unsafe, illicit abortions or infanticide if the underlying wishes of the parents remain unchanged. In other words, the battle for China's baby girls will ultimately depend on changing preferences. But as Li points out, that is a long-term struggle, and society pays a high price in the meantime.

The roots of son-preference lie deep in Chinese culture. Traditionally, the bloodline passes through the male side. Women also "marry out", joining their husband's families and looking after their in-laws, not their own parents. For a long time, a son was your pension. Having a girl was wasteful. "Even though son-preference is not rational from the viewpoint of society as a whole, it is a rational choice for an individual," says Li.

Chen's home lies near lush rice paddies, where farmers in wide-brimmed straw hats bend double. The community used to rely on agriculture and believed a boy was necessary for the heaviest work in the fields.

"I can't really blame [my in-laws]; their view was a common one. We have a saying, 'The better sons you have, the better life we can have,' because men have more strength and can carry out more work," says Chen.

In fact, official policy has adapted to these assumptions. China's strict birth-control rules, introduced just over 30 years ago to curb a soaring population, restrict most couples to one birth. But there are several exemptions. Ethnic-minority families are allowed more than one child; couples who are both only children are permitted to have two. The most striking example is the exception made for rural households. While their urban counterparts are generally restricted to one birth, rural couples are allowed a second - if their first is a girl. The statistics show just how important producing at least one son is: the sex ratios for second and third births are vastly more skewed than for first children.

When Chen's daughter was born, a little over 30 years ago, the consequences of the ultrasound had yet to be felt in Shengzhou. But by 1982, 124 boys were being born for every 100 girls. Five years later that figure had risen again, to 129.

Then something striking happened: the ratio dropped steeply. By 1996 it was 109.5. Soon after, according to statistics, it returned to the natural level.

You do not have to look far for part of the explanation. Shengzhou is, it boasts, International Necktie City of the 21st Century, making 350m ties a year – or 40% of the world's supply – as well as huge quantities of gas stoves and cone diaphragms for speakers.

Its factories offer plenty of jobs for daughters, allowing them to make a hefty economic contribution to the household. Across the country, manufacturers have frequently preferred female employees, regarding them as more careful and less troublesome.

Many rural families have less land than they used to; and machinery is available to work the soil, making brute strength less important. China is beginning to develop a welfare system. And development has brought other changes – couples who move into cities have more exposure to new ideas, and less pressure from extended families, say experts.

Old habits and beliefs are eroding. In villages as well as towns, conjugal ties between husband and wife have become more important, while the filial links between parent and child have become less so. Young couples are more likely to live apart from relatives. Few parents can now count on a dutiful daughter-in-law caring for them; and many are noticing that daughters are doing a better job.

Chen admits that she was initially disappointed when her daughter was born. "Of course, I wanted to have a boy. But after giving birth, I thought: 'I don't care. This is my baby,'" she says.

"I looked around me; one of my neighbours had five sons and one daughter. One day, when he was 60 or 70, he wanted some money from his sons for living costs. He cooked a tableful of dishes and bought wine and invited his sons. But none of them agreed to give the money to him. He was furious and smashed the table with his stick. And I thought: 'Well, sons are useless.'"

Meanwhile, she noticed, daughters were returning to visit their parents, bringing gifts and money. Despite strong pressure from her husband and in-laws, she refused to have another child: Qiaoyue was enough for her.

Anthropologist Yunxiang Yan's work suggests that others in China are drawing similar conclusions – and that it is changing their attitude towards girls.

"You can see clearly that a trend of treating sons and daughters equally is slowly emerging in some regions and developing in others," says Yan, of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Some even think that son preference may partially correct itself. The surplus of men has increased competition for brides, meaning families must buy ever more expensive housing to ensure their sons can marry – increasing the economic attractiveness of daughters.

The government has spent an estimated 300 million yuan (£29.5m) trying to precipitate this shift in preferences. Li is the lead consultant in the Care for Girls programme, which combines carrot and stick with educational projects.

There are punishments for sex-selective abortions and extra subsidies for couples who do not use their right to a second child after having a daughter. One county in Fujian has built houses for daughter-only families.

But Ru Xiaomei, deputy director of the international liaison department at the National Population and Family Planning Commission, says the programme is designed to promote female equality in general. So there are roadside signs telling villagers that girls can continue the family line; focus-group discussions for mothers-in-law; help packages for women starting businesses and extra encouragement for girls to enter schools. Officials have even tried to promote the idea of men marrying into women's families, rather than vice versa.

A pilot programme in 24 areas, selected for their very high imbalances, saw the average ratio fall from almost 134 in 2000 to just under 120 in 2005 – still high, as the experts involved acknowledge, but a substantial improvement. It has since been rolled out across China; Li says it is hard to know how exactly how much of a difference it is making, but is confident it has shown results across the country.

Others have concerns: Dr Lisa Eklund of Sweden's Lund University suggests in a recent thesis on son preference that parts of the programme could backfire. Capitalising on gender norms – such as the idea that women are caring – may increase sympathy for girls in the short term, but in the long run reinforce stereotypes – and, thereby, son preference.

Similarly, the social and economic incentives "are partially based on the assumption that having daughters creates vulnerability ... They convey the message that daughters are not as valuable as sons, and that families with only daughters are in need of financial support," she warns.

Whatever the merits of individual policies, government intervention has helped to rebalance births. In the early 90s, South Korea had Asia's highest ratio at birth; by 2007, it had a normal rate. Experts suggest that reforming the family law system, expanding female employment and increasing urbanisation were key.

"I think that the preference for sons is decreasing in China, especially in the more affluent coastal areas, where the SRB shot up fastest earlier," says Dr Monica Das Gupta of the World Bank, who has been tracking son preference in Asia. "But you shouldn't expect to see the sharp decline you saw in South Korea, because South Korea is a small, homogeneous country ... The new ideas swept through the country very quickly. In China it will take longer because of its size and internal differentiation."

Professor Yuan Xin, of Nankai University's Population and Development Institute, warns that it will take at least 10 or 20 years' more work to end a preference that dates back thousands of years. Others think that is optimistic.

Chen says she has witnessed attitudes in Shengzhou shift in the past few decades. Even her in-laws have been won over, because her daughter treats them so well. "I'm not boasting, but I think I took the lead," she says. "There's been a very positive trend, but I won't say things have changed totally."

Recently, a neighbour agreed to have a second child under intense pressure from her husband's family, joking that she was damned if the next child was a girl. "It was twin daughters," says Chen ruefully. "The mother-in-law still wants boys.

.....

China Pace University Business School Trip

Great blog with highlights from current students' and professors' trip.

http://dysoncollege.blogs.pace.edu/

Kathleen Ho Feng Shui and Intuitive Design

Visit their site for ways to enhance your life with feng shui.

Kathleen Ho graduated from the New England School of Feng Shui in 2001, completing a year-long study under the instruction and guidance of Feng Shui Masters from around the world.

She brings a unique approach to this ancient art, by employing her feng shui knowledge, intuition,and her love of style and design, home decorating and organized spaces.

www.kathleenhofengshui.com

CNBC Says Chinese Year of the Rabbit is "Lucky"

Burrowing for Wealth in the Year of Rabbit
Published: Sunday, 6 Feb 2011 | 9:54 PM ET Text Size By: Geraldine Tan
CNBC Asia Pacific

Perhaps it's time to whip the bunny out of the hat. After the volatility that marked the year of the Golden Tiger in 2010, the incoming Metal Rabbit may be what's needed bring some calm back to the markets.

The Rabbit is said to be the luckiest sign in Chinese astrology; and according to CLSA's annual Feng Shui Index, the new Lunar Year will bring plenty of luck and material gains for investors.

The report combines the traditional Chinese practice of predicting fortunes through dates — or feng shui — and current market trends to see what 2011 holds for equities, commodities and property.

"The year of the Metal Rabbit provides great opportunity for investors to reap the rewards of astute investing," said the report. "But they should be forewarned: those who chase two rabbits will not catch one."

That means staying focused in whatever you invest in, as market movements will remain choppy this year, though less than what was experienced the year before, the report says.

And the best way to get richer this year, according to CLSA, is to accumulate indirect wealth, in the form of dividends paid from stocks.

In terms of asset classes, metals will do well this year, especially gold, said CLSA. The yellow metal could very well break above $2,000 per ounce; while silver and rare metals like gadolinium will also fare well.


Still, it's looking to be a volatile year for stocks. CLSA says the year will start slow, with rallies expected in the months of July, August, October and November. But investors should brace for market corrections in September and October.

Remember to mark 4 August on your calendar — according to the CLSA's Feng Shui Index, this will be a particularly profitable day.

So which animal signs are expected to profit this year? Those born under the Cow, Sheep, Dog and Pig signs.

But it will be a bumpy ride for Tigers and Roosters.

That said, CLSA maintains that the feng shui predictions are just, well, predictions. Investors will still need to do their homework and apply good judgement in investing.

Chinese Language School of Connecticut's Annual Chinese New Year Festival

CLSC's 9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival made the front pages of all area papers for the 9th year in a row...huge thanks to Anita Lai, Dana Lupton, Terri Kung, Samantha Connell and the intrepid Chinese New Year Volunteer Committee for their stupendous efforts again this year!

From www.greenwichcitizen.com.

Photo: Julie Ruth / Greenwich Citizen

Greenwich resident Emanuel Lai, 8, gets to stay up really late one night each year: Chinese New Year's Eve. How late? "Till he passes out," said his mother Anita Lai, laughing. "Traditionally you let children stay up late that night because it's a way children wish longevity for their parents."

The Chinese New Year, also called Asian New Year, will be celebrated in Greenwich, as it is around the world, with plenty of ancient customs and family-centered dinners of dumplings and noodles, fish and other traditional dishes.

Cynthia Chang, a Greenwich resident who is Chinese but grew up in Taiwan, said the Chinese New Year celebrates multi-generational families and is a time when people pay respect to their elders and ancestors.

In China, people will pick up and travel for the Chinese New Year to the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects and thank them for what they have done for the current generations, said Chang.

It is also time to start fresh, and Chinese families in town will observe many customs that represent a new beginning. "For the New Year, you don't want your old clothes with you; you want new clothes," Lai explained. "We'll first clean the house in the morning to sweep out old spirits, and, when we're ready, we'll dress ourselves in new clothes. If you wear something red, that's even better, because it means very good luck in Chinese culture."

Though the Chinese New Year falls on Feb. 3 this year, the celebration officially began last Sunday for more than 30 Greenwich families with a festival in Stamford sponsored by the Greenwich-based Chinese Language School of Connecticut (CLSC), a non-profit school that teaches Mandarin Chinese as a second language along with lessons about Chinese culture.

The festival, which doubles as a fundraiser for CLCS, also drew children and parents around Westchester and Fairfield County. Some are Chinese and want their children to learn or retain the language and culture. Others have adopted children and want them to stay connected with their Chinese heritage, and still others simply want their children to learn about Chinese culture.

The Chinese Language School of Connecticut is relatively new; it has only offered the festival since the school opened in 2002, when parent Susan Serven and other area parents co-founded the school. But it has fast become the center of a vibrant and diverse community in Greenwich that wants its children to know and appreciate Chinese culture and language.

Greenwich resident Mary Murphy, who spent much of her childhood in Thailand, already had strong ties to Asian culture before she and her husband adopted daughter Robin, 5, from Southeast Asia. She enrolled her in the school because she feels it is very important for Robin to learn Mandarin. "It's her biological heritage and it will also be a huge advantage for her to speak Mandarin. It's a beautiful language," Murphy said.

English-born Anita Lai, who chaired the festival, felt it was important to teach her son, whose father is Chinese, about Asian culture, so he studies Mandarin and Chinese culture on Sundays year-round. "I didn't want Emanuel to lose that beautiful culture and those rich traditions: the art, singing styles, the instruments, the calligraphy, the beautiful characters, the traditions for everything," Lai said.

CLSC's New Year celebration this year featured the ancient Chinese dragon and lion dances, a musical performance by the Chinese Musical Ensemble, a martial arts demonstration, Chinese arts and crafts along with traditional Chinese New Year dishes, such as long noodles -- which are eaten uncut -- to symbolize a long life. "Almost every dish has a symbolic meaning or name that sounds like a Chinese character for fortune, happiness longevity and prosperity," explained Lai. "There're very traditional foods, like dumplings, which promise wealth and prosperity, fish prepared whole, special vegetables, jello with fruit, Hong Kong-style egg tarts -- you could go on and on about what they stand for."

For months CLCS children prepared to perform the Chinese dragon dance, a highlight of the festivities. The dragon, an emblem of the Chinese emperors, appears on Chinese New Year to wish everyone peace, prosperity and good luck. Another highlight came when several performers in a large multi-colored lion costume pranced around to the sound of drums, to ward off evil spirits. According to tradition, children, many in Mandarin garb, fed the lion red envelopes with money. "The lion's coming and he's hungry. He's getting rid of all of bad stuff that happened and bringing in the new year, and you give him the traditional red envelopes to thank him for doing his job," Lai explained.

Last week the Second Congregational Church also held a Chinese New Year celebration, which 100 peoople attended. The church also houses classrooms for the CLSC in its preschool building. "It's great; we get to teach the pre-schoolers about Chinese culture," said Chang.

Though the New Year will be a family-centered celebration, it will be observed differently by Greenwich residents. "We like to go down into Chinatown in the city and really get an authentic Chinese meal," Murphy said. "It's a lot of fun; you have banquet-style eating, with the family all sitting in a circle."

Lai will be cooking for family in her home, while Chang will follow a tradition that her family began in Taiwan. "We always have a group of family and close friends with us. We'll select a restaurant on the West side in Manhattan and have a big new year's dinner," she said.

After family dinner celebrations, the elders in the family traditionally give the children good luck money: red envelopes with crisp dollar bills. The amount in the envelope? It varies by family, but one thing, Chang says, is for sure: the amount will not contain a four, which is bad luck. Best to slip an amount in that has an eight in the total: it's the Chinese lucky number.

NOTE: The Chinese Language School of Connecticut will hold an open house for interested families on Sunday, April 17. Registration opens on Sunday, May 1.

For more details, visit www.chineselanguageschool.org. You can also contact the school by phone at 866-301-4906 or email: info@chineselanguageschool.org.

CLSC holds classes on Sundays at Eastern Middle School, 51 Hendrie Avenue, in Riverside, and on weekdays at the Second Congregational Church, Room 19, 139 E. Putnam Ave,, Greenwich, CT 06830.


Photo: Julie Ruth / Greenwich Citizen

Help Us Usher In the Year of the Rabbit!

photo caption: Kwan's Kung Fu performs a traditional lion dance to celebrate the Chinese New Year.


Chinese New Year Festival at Stamford’s Plaza Hotel and Conference Center

-- 9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival Welcomes in the Year of the Rabbit --

“We are very excited to have such an exciting group of performers, artists, and wonderful food at our Chinese New Year Festival this year,” said Greenwich resident, CLSC Chinese New Year Festival Chair, Anita Lai.


Riverside, CT, December 12, 2010 – Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia will welcome in the Year of the Rabbit at the Chinese Language School of Connecticut’s 9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival to be held Sunday, January 23, 2011, from 12:0-3:00pm at the Stamford Plaza Hotel and Conference Center, 2701 Summer Street, Stamford, CT . For information and tickets please visit: www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org.

The non-profit Chinese Language School of Connecticut (CLSC) (www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org) teaches Chinese as a second language to children and adults in their weekday and weekend classes, Before and After School programs, cultural workshops, winter and spring break programs, summer classes, private tutoring and AP Prep sessions.

Martial Arts performers, drummers, and a Dragon Dance will be performed by Kwan’s Kung Fu Studio, of Peekskill, NY. Since 1982, martial arts have been taught at Kwan's Kung Fu in Westchester, NY by Sifu Shue Yiu Kwan. This traditional Kwoon (school) offers its students training in Fu Jow Pai (Tiger Claw System), which originated in the mid 19th century, as well as Tai Chi Chuan and Lion Dance. Fu Jow Pai training includes aerobic activity, strength training, increased flexibility, practical self defense, respect, self discipline, values, improved coordination and concentration. Master Kwan has been featured in prominent martial arts publications such as Inside Kung-Fu magazine.

This year’s Chinese New Year Festival will usher in the year of the rabbit and, along with Kwan’s Kung Fu performers, will feature music provided by the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York, gravity-defying Chinese Yo-yo performances and children’s workshops by the Columbia University Chinese yoyo troupe, name painting artists, brush calligraphy demonstration, traditional crafts for children; Asian vendors, an authentic Chinese buffet luncheon included as part of the price of admission, and much more.

Susan Serven, president of CLSC, noted, “We’re very pleased to welcome the retirement planning advisory and investment firm, www.YourOwnRetirement.com, as a lead corporate sponsor of this year’s Chinese New Year Festival. Their donation helps fund our event, and allows us to introduce Mandarin Chinese to even more children in the area.” For more information on how to plan your retirement using annuities please visit www.YourOwnRetirement.com.

For information on the Chinese Language School of Connecticut’s language and cultural programs for children and adults, their Before– and After- School programs, special workshops, private tutoring, AP Prep, or corporate language programs, please visit www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org or email them at info@ChineseLanguageSchool.org.

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Beijing's First Confucian Temple Service in 60 years

Confucius' birthday, celebrated in China. Photograph: Wu Hong/EPA

When a man has reached 2,561 years, it is hard to distinguish each birthday from the last. But anniversary celebrations for China's best-known philosopher included one notable change today: the first service at Beijing's Confucian temple since the Communists took power in 1949.

Once reviled as backwards and feudalist, Confucius has made a comeback since the 1990s, his work again openly a source of moral instruction and social debate – although it is also used to legitimise a party that once denounced him, to bolster tourism, and to soothe the souls of stressed workers.

Today hundreds of schoolchildren gathered to pay their respects. Dancers in red robes and students in flowing black drifted through the courtyards of the 14th century temple complex in central Beijing.

For Confucian teacher Yang Ruqin, the event was a welcome sign of renewed interest in the philosopher's thought.

"Confucianism has always been in Chinese people's blood. Although negated for many years, it is still there and when the environment is right, it will come back. I think it is a very good thing, especially in today's materialistic society," he said. "Most people now are just curious about it instead of really understanding the theory, but that's okay: as time goes on, they will know better. Plus Confucianism is something really suited to the Chinese people."

Although celebrations of Confucius have become a valuable money-spinner in Qufu, his birthplace, Yang said it was the first officially-approved service at the Beijing temple for six decades.

Disapproval of Confucianism, and destruction of temples during the cultural revolution, had made people cautious, he said.

"But people started to understand the core values, the true concepts, and started to find that those values are not completely irrelevant to their lives," he said.

Virtue, filial duty, obedience to rulers and benevolence from them are all key themes. But like most influential schools of thought, Confucianism can be interpreted in apparently limitless ways.

A Taiwanese speaker described Confucianism's relevance to cross-Straits ties.

Yu Dan – China's best known populariser of the philosopher's work – made him sound more like a self-help guru. "Now that everyone is busy, it seems that the things that actually make people happy are drifting further away from us. A child should have a dream. This is all related to what Confucius says in ethics."

The country's leaders too have co-opted the thinker. He has reappeared in school textbooks, and President Hu Jintao drew on Confucius in establishing his vision of the "harmonious society".

Dr Daniel Bell, a scholar at Tsinghua University and author of China's New Confucianism, said: "[Historically] it was part of political legitimation – and maybe that helps to explain the revival now to the extent [China's leaders] appeal to Confucianism for legitimacy. Obviously they don't want to become liberal democrats, but Marxism does not really grab people any more."

But he added: "The revival is happening at different levels of society, with some [Confucian theorists] having a much more critical way of thinking. In Imperial China it was a conservative tradition, but always had a critical edge; Confucius and Mencius were social critics."

Li Gengwu, a retired newspaper employee attending the service, studied Confucius as a child before the revolution. "All the good traditional values were abandoned. Now it seems more people are interested. Confucius advocates loyalty and trust and caring for others. In today's society, all people care about is money, so it's good to promote these values."

Younger people were less enthusiastic.

"Confucius is an important part of Chinese culture, related to everyone," said Han Bing, 30, a musician at the event. But she was "not really sure" how he was relevant.

Xue Wenjuan, 23, was swift to quote "Learning is our belief," but added: "That's a commercial for a language training centre."

Additional research by Lin Yi

Black Market For Mooncakes.

From NPR: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/a-black-market-for-mooncakes-in-china/

A black market for mooncakes in China
China's mid-Autumn Festival and its tradition of eating mooncakes has lent itself to an underground economy worth billions.

KAI RYSSDAL: There's a big festival coming up on the Chinese calendar tomorrow: It's called the mid-Autumn festival. For the past week or so, stores over there have been stocking up on the traditional gift of the season: Mooncakes. They're pastries, small but rich, with a flaky crust and a sweet filling, usually made of lotus paste.
More than a billion people wanting the same thing on the same day? Smells like a business opportunity to me. Our Shanghai Correspondent Rob Schmitz takes us inside the mooncake economy

ROB SCHMITZ: Mooncakes have been likened to pastry hockey pucks. At around a thousand calories, they're almost as dense. This helps explain why the Chinese don't buy mooncakes for themselves. They gift them.
Shaun Rein is a strategy consultant in Shanghai.

SHAUN REIN: It's a way of showing respect to business partners and people you want to be close to, and it's also a way to give them outright bribes.
Yes, bribes -- and we're not talking about briefcases full of mooncakes, but their paper representations, mooncake vouchers.
Here's how it works: Buy a voucher from a company that makes mooncakes. Give it to your friend, client, local government official. And they, in theory, redeem the voucher for mooncakes. What most people do, though, is sell the vouchers on the black market for cash.

REIN: There's no embarrassment about saying, "We don't want this mooncake." Let's be pragmatic and get some money out of it.
And when a fifth of the world is in on this, that money becomes an underground economy worth billions.
Dozens of workers pack boxes of mooncakes at a Haagen-Dazs redemption center in Shanghai. Thirteen years ago, the company had an epiphany: They realized the Chinese give mooncakes, but many don't eat them. It's like the Christmas fruitcake dilemma in the West. So they thought: Why not make ice cream mooncakes? The ice cream mooncake was born.
Gary Chu manages the company's China operation.

GARY CHU: It's huge business. It's a very important business for us. It's growing at double digits every year.
Soon after, Starbucks, Nestle and Dairy Queen got into the business. This year, Haagen-Dazs sold 1.5 million boxes. To buy one, you'll need $50 to $100 worth of vouchers. Want an ice cream mooncake this year? Sorry. Vouchers are sold out. Your only option is the black market.
A back-alley vendor named Yin Jing wears a fanny pack full of Haagen-Dazs mooncake vouchers. They're made of thick paper; each one has a laser engraved hologram, just like currency. They float like currency, too. Last week, their price peaked. Now with just days to go before the festival, Mr. Yin is looking to unload.

YIN JING: After the festival's over, all these vouchers will be expired. So I have no choice. I've got to start dropping the price.
This selling frenzy reaches the highest levels of society. Just blocks away, a vendor who only gives his surname -- Zhang -- just negotiated a deal on reams of vouchers.

ZHANG: These are all from government officials. They get so many as gifts, and they feel too embarrassed to sell them to me in person, so they ask their wives to meet me in a coffee shop.
Fresh from his secret government rendezvous, Zhang's got his game face on, trying to sell all these vouchers before time runs out. If he fails? He'll be forced to succumb to the spirit of the season by giving away dozens of boxes of mooncakes and keeping a few for himself, at which point the giving will stop, and the losers of this annual game will be forced to eat.
In Shanghai, I'm Rob Schmitz for Marketplace.

Chinese archaeologists' African quest for sunken ship of Ming admiralSearch for remains of armada which came to grief on a pioneering voyage to Kenya

Chinese archaeologists travel to Kenya this week to begin work unearthing what is believed to be the remains of a Chinese treasure ship, piloted by ancient Chinese captain Zheng He.

Zheng He mapped out many continents in the early 1400s. He is widely believed to have arrived in North America before Christopher Columbus, according to retired British submarine commander and and writer, Gavin Menzies.

Please see the full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/kenya-china

Destination: Beijing A unique, modern view of an ancient city

Looking to visit Beijing? Be sure to check out this video collection of interesting places to visit, first.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30217776/#37722359

Chinese Language School of Connecticut Offers Expanded Art and Culture Programs

Students Participate in Chinese Art and Culture Programs
-- Redding-based Artist Introduces Children to Chinese-Themed Mixed-Media Art --

“VP Art & Culture Katy Chen Myers is an energetic, true professional, dedicated to exploring Chinese history and culture with students via art, and we are all so lucky to have her,” noted CLSC Principal, Daisy Chen Laone.

Riverside, CT, July 1, 2010 – The Chinese Language School of Connecticut (www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org), the fully-accredited, non-profit, Riverside, CT-based provider of Chinese language programs to students, schools and corporations, is pleased to announce expansion of their Art and Culture programs for academic year 2010 - 2011.

During the Art and Culture section of CLSC’s classes this year, VP Art & Culture Katy Chen Myers, of Redding, CT, developed and ran segments whereby students studied traditions and celebrations focused on Chinese folktales and festivals such as the Moon festival. Handcrafted lanterns have been designed by CLSC students for an art shows in Westport and Greenwich this fall and winter.

Ms. Myers explained, Children love to cook, and eat, and are usually very interested in what others’ meals are like, as well. In our segment “The Chinese Diet” we studied agricultural traditions of northern and southern China, culminating with a look at traditional Chinese foods, and the banquet foods of the Qing Dynasty.

China has a tradition of travelling performers creating shadow puppet theaters during the Ming Dynasty, and up to the modern era. Our younger students were able to design their own shadow puppets as they learned about these Chinese entertainment traditions. We created our own, authentic traveling Chinese Shadow Puppet theater, probably the only one in the tri-state area, and students assisted in recent puppet performances.”

Ms. Myers continued, “One of our goals is to introduce Chinese as a second language to students while allowing them to explore Chinese culture via art in age appropriate ways. Our older students’ main focus centered on answering the question: Who am I? by creating a mixed-media project which involved students telling their own story by creating a biography in Chinese characters, and by creating self portraits using the graphic novel “American Born Chinese by Gene Yang as their inspiration.

Another project for this upcoming school year is the Chinese Cherry & plum blossom quilt which will also be readied for exhibit in upcoming shows.

One of the highlights of this past year was that in addition to showcasing work at various children’s venues, art created by CLSC students was accepted into a professional artist exhibit at Weston Art’s Center in Weston CT. The seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, a series of four paintings by students from CLSC levels 3-8, was displayed alongside works by professional illustrators, photographers and print makers from all over the US.

We are currently working with various venues to plan more exhibits as professionals, in New Canaan, Ridgefield and New York City for the 2010-2011 academic year. The main theme for CLSC’s art and culture segments next year will be the Silk Road. Many exciting projects are currently being planned for all levels with the goal being exhibition in various schools and libraries in Fairfield County.

I’m so pleased to be able to share my passion for art, and Chinese culture, with students of all ages, via CLSC’s programs. ”

For information on CLSC’s weekend or weekday language classes, summer programs, private tutoring, corporate services, or any of their other programs, please visit www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org or email them at info@ChineseLanguageSchool.org.

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Museum of the Chinese in America

http://www.mocanyc.org/visit/exhibits/current/the_chinese_american_experience

With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America
With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America presents the diverse layers of the Chinese American experience, while examining America’s journey as a nation of immigrants. It interweaves the historical and political context of Chinese immigration to the United States with the personal stories and cultural traces of multiple generations to tie together three main threads:

1) The relationship between China and the United States; and its impact on Chinese Americans.
2) How Chinese Americans have perceived themselves in American society (and been perceived) over time.
3) The impact of Chinese Americans on American politics, culture, and life.



With a Single Step is organized thematically and chronologically by section:



1) Go East! Go West! (1784-1870) opens the exhibition with the flows and exchange of and people between the United States and China in the nineteenth century; how this encounter helped shape the formation of new American identities and brought America into the industrial revolution; and the diverse roles Chinese workers played in the industrialization of America.



2) Down With Monopolies! The Chinese Must Go! (1870-1930s) examines the political climate in America leading up to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and its impact as the first federal law to restrict the immigration of a specific group based on nationality, defining in legal terms who could not “become American.”



3) Imagined and Intimate (1900-1930s) shows how the idea of “Chinatown” as a foreign place developed in the American imagination through the intimate genre of photography; while Chinese laborers, excluded from entering the skilled trades, were forced to make a living by providing services to whites on an intimate level by doing laundry, cooking food, and keeping house.



4) Welcome to Chinatown! presents examples of “yellowface” in mainstream culture, and how Chinese Americans have survived in economically marginalized environments through such creative inventions like chop suey.



5) Building Community showcases an old general store – a composite of salvaged objects and memories from Chinatown stores across the United States (Los Angeles, Boston, and New York City). General stores are, at once, a supplier of everyday and specialty Chinese goods, pharmacy, post office, travel agency, and community center.


6) The Rising Spirit addresses how cultural traditions and social/political networking have knit isolated people and fragmented families and communities together.



7) Allies and Enemies (1940-1950s) presents the dramatic changes of fortune for Chinese Americans. The U.S. and China become Allies during WWII, and the Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed; political refugees of the Chinese Civil War and students stranded in the U.S. create a new wave of Chinese immigration to America; and the Cold War creates a political environment that targets Chinese Americans as potential enemies of the state.



8) Towards a More Perfect Union (1960- Present) invites visitors to explore the impact of the American social movements of the 1960s, the normalization of U.S.-China relations, and the de-racialization of immigration laws in 1965 on the changes in the Chinese American community. MOCA presents projects inspired by an idea, a question, or a discovery, that have caused ripples in the society in which we live. Through these examples, we come to see that the Chinese American experience is an ongoing project, an adventurous undertaking with changing players and inspired outcomes. Visitors are asked to tell the Museum of ongoing projects and/or personal stories that represent the journey we all make in finding community and home.



9) MOCA video archive Many Voices, One Humanity
Twelve individuals discuss their own personal connections to the Chinese American story.
1. Agnes Chan, first Asian American woman NYPD officer

2. Emily Chang, spoken word artist/actor
3. Ti-Hua Chang, broadcast journalist
4. Jeff Gammage, journalist/father of two daughters adopted from China
5. Jennifer 8. Lee, journalist, New York Times
6. John Liu, first Asian American NYC councilmember and Democratic nominee for NYC comptroller
7. Roger Brue McHayle, co-founder PNB clothing
8. Taiyo Na, spoken word poet/musician
9. Father Raymond Nobiletti, Transfiguration Church
10. Anna Sui, fashion designer
11. Frank Wu, legal scholar
12. Henry Yung Jr., descendant of Yung Wing

Shanghai World Expo: The New World's Fair

Interesting WSJ article on the World Expo, opening May 1 in Shanghai.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575109563322843670.html

Why Newly-Minted MBAs are Heading East

Why MBAs are Going East
Unprecedented growth, good salaries, and the ability to make an impact faster make Asia the new promised land for B-school grads
Crawford hopes he can capitalize on his Columbia MBA in Shanghai Rodney Evans

By Michelle Conlin

James Tsai is the sort of MBA corporate recruiters covet. He went to a good prep school, earned a degree with honors from Middlebury College, and made vice-president in Bank of America's (BAC) international wealth management group at the age of 26. Today, Tsai is about to graduate, straight A's in hand, from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, a top-rated program in America. And he's hustling to land his first post-MBA job—in China.

Executive Class strivers like Tsai used to have just one post-grad career destination, the U.S. Not anymore. "I am doing everything I think I can to get over there," he says.

Every era has its version of the MBA dream. In the 1980s, it was about conquering Wall Street and choppering off to the Hamptons. The late 1990s saw a stampede to Silicon Valley. In the mid-aughts, the gilded, clubby preserve of private equity beckoned. Now, the emerging narrative is about steroidal Asia and its promise of growth. At premiere institutions such as the University of Chicago's Booth School, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and Northwestern's Kellogg, the percentage of MBAs taking jobs in Asia—including U.S. students like Tsai as well as international students—has more than doubled in the past five years, from roughly 5% of the graduating class to more than 10%. "There is a sense that the center of gravity is shifting," says Julie Morton, Booth's associate dean for career services.

The number of students taking international jobs usually swells in a recession, says Kellogg Assistant Dean Roxanne Hori. But Hori and others believe that the refrain of "Go East, Young Man" is not a short-term response to the U.S. economic downturn but a structural shift toward an internationalized, mobile talent market. And right now, Asia is where the career velocity and opportunity are. "This has never really happened before, except in little spurts, where you have a fairly large group of talented, recent MBAs asking for assignments in China, Vietnam, India," says Jeff Joerres, CEO of global staffing firm Manpower. Adds Richard Florida, professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management: "I don't think many of us thought Asia would become the destination for top Western talent—but it is."

ONE WORD OF ADVICE
For many MBAs, the prospect of making a bigger impact faster is simply too good to pass up, especially now that the pay packages offered by both domestic and multinational companies are competitive with those in the U.S. Shortly before James Crawford, 30, headed to Columbia B-School two years ago, his dad sat him down in the kitchen of the family's suburban Chicago home. Think of that scene in The Graduate, only instead of saying "plastics," Crawford's father's advice was "Asia." Today, Crawford is pursuing multiple opportunities there. "I can't imagine a career over the next 30 years that would not require or give benefit to international experience," he says. Asia fever has also hit Wharton student Andrew Maywah, 32, who had a cushy life working at Oracle (ORCL) in Silicon Valley before graduate school. Now he is juggling offers from three Chinese companies. "It's like the Wild, Wild West. There is just so much happening there," he says. "I want to be at the center of it."

So do many Chinese who emigrated to the U.S. when they were young. They find themselves breaking the news to their families that they're chasing the same dream that lured their parents to the U.S., only in reverse. (What better time to leverage the family capital back in the old country?) The Chinese call these returnees hai gui, or sea turtles, referring to how these animals always return to their birthplace to lay their own eggs. Then there are the international students, who until recently would likely have stayed in the U.S. to learn the soft skills of Western management, and now are heading straight back home.

Piyush Singhvi, 27, was born in India, grew up in the Middle East, and, before Wharton, worked at the Dubai-based private equity firm Abraaj Capital, the largest non-state-owned firm in the region. When Singhvi enrolled in Wharton in 2008 he was certain, he says, that he would stay in the U.S. after graduation like most of his peers. But then came the financial crisis. "It was amazing to see how many people came in with the idea that they would stay in the West, and how that's drastically changed to just the opposite," he says. "There are a lot more opportunities in the East."

On Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, MBAs swap stories about the adrenaline rush of working in an emerging market and the joys of geographic arbitrage. After graduating from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Quan Trinh, 27, who grew up in Virginia, took a job with Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) in Shanghai. There she partakes of an upper-crust-Manhattan-type lifestyle—food delivered to her door every night, a maid who picks up after her, a balcony apartment in a compound with a pool—at Albany (N.Y.) prices. Add to the mix that she travels around Asia with top J&J execs, working in the strategic planning division for the company's diabetes business, and, she says, "sometimes I have to pinch myself."

STANDING ROOM ONLY
Asian companies used to rarely, if ever, come to American B-school campuses for recruiting season. Now at Wharton, Chinese firms like heavyweight investment bank China Investment Corp. and IT firm Tencent are showing up, says Wharton global careers director Sam Jones. This year, CICC played to standing-room-only crowds. At Kellogg, India-based Infosys (INFY) and Tata Group are now on hand for recruiting. The University of Chicago's Booth School is seeing so much interest from Chinese companies that it recently opened a career services office in Hong Kong.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics has been on a hiring tear. Last year the company signed 50 non-Korean MBAs from the top 10 business schools in the U.S., double the number of 2008, says Samsung Vice-President Kim Keun Bae. Those 50 were in addition to the dozens of ethnic Koreans that Samsung scooped up from MBA programs in America. At Kellogg, the company hired 16 business school graduates alone—more than U.S.-based hiring stalwarts General Mills (GIS) and Procter & Gamble (PG) combined. The new hires work in Samsung's Global Strategy Group, which does all of its business in English, advising top Samsung executives on internal consulting projects. This year the company is on track to again double its hiring of U.S.-born MBAs. "The young and smart from top U.S. business schools have helped provide fresh perspectives to our company," says Kim. "Both foreign recruits and Korean employees learn from each other, and that helps globalize the company."

In many cases, companies like Samsung are acing out their American rivals in hiring the very best candidates. Kellogg graduate Jonathan Scearcy, 28, had 30 job offers last year, most from top U.S. companies. But he turned them all down to take a job at Samsung so he could "get international exposure early," he says. "If you ever want to be at a C-suite, you have to have a global skill set and you have to have significant international exposure," says Scearcy.

"GROOMING GLOBAL CITIZENS"
Multinationals like Citibank (C), Pfizer (PFE), Eli Lilly (LLY), and Nike China are also broadening their international programs and amping up hiring for their Asia divisions. Last fall a phalanx of high-level IBM (IBM)ers hit premiere B-schools to talk up IBM's new five-year boot camp for its general manager program. The program gives the new hires massive international exposure, especially in places like Asia. "We are looking to attract global citizens," says Peggy Tayloe, IBM's recruiting director. Big Blue recently flew the recruits to its Armonk (N.Y.) headquarters, where they sipped cocktails and nibbled canapés in the inner sanctum of the company's plush C-suite. One of the new hires hobnobbing at the party was Harvard MBA Yashih Wu, who was born in California and graduated from Princeton University. Before B-school, she worked on Wall Street and Madison Avenue. But for her those places aren't the career destinations they used to be. Today, she says, "It's impossible not to think globally about one's career."

How much longer can the Asian allure hold? With protectionist talk rising in America, and China trying to put the brakes on its rapidly growing economy, there's always a chance that Asia could stumble. There's also rising concern about what the migration East might mean for the U.S.'s competitive edge. "I can't get out of my head that two-thirds of Silicon Valley companies were started by non-U.S. citizens," says Manpower CEO Joerres. What if, after Stanford University, Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin had returned to his birth country of Russia? What if James Tsai is about to do the Next Big Thing—but in his dad's old country in Beijing? "The best and the brightest are leaving," says the Rotman School's Florida. "As a country, the U.S. has never confronted this before."

Free Demo Art Classes and April Art with Tara Hu

Join CLSC as we explore creating Chinese art in two free demo classes on Sunday March 21 and March 28. Spaces are limited; please make a reservation.

April art workshops with Ms. Hu will be held at the Greenwich Family Y in Greenwich, CT. To register please contact info@ChineseLanguageSchool.of

Chinese Immigrants Tell Stories of Angel Island

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14224527

With reflection and tears, Angel Island turns 100
By Joe Rodriguez
jrodriguez@mercurynews.com

Malin Tom is an "emotional man," which explains why he kept his journey through Angel Island mostly to himself for 60 years.

"I did not want to cry in front of people," says Tom, now 81 and living in Santa Clara. "It is a sad story. I was so scared and poor. I was ashamed, and Chinese don't talk about their shame."

But he could not resist a granddaughter's plea a few years ago. Would he talk to her classmates about passing through the "Ellis Island of the West"?

"My granddaughter gave me courage."

And when Tom finally spoke it was as if a dam holding back immigrant tears had cracked, replenishing the soil of American history with bittersweet truth.

On Thursday, a ceremony in San Francisco

will commemorate — 100 years to the date — the opening of Angel Island's immigration station. The government will swear in 100 new American citizens. Some of the nation's top immigration officials will speak, as well as people who actually went through the island in San Francisco Bay, including poet Nellie Wong and her sister from Sunnyvale, Lai Webster.

The speakers won't sugarcoat the island's checkered past. Angel Island was different from its welcoming counterpart in New York Harbor.

About 500,000 immigrants passed through the island from 1910 to 1940. Of these, 300,000 were detained, a third of them Chinese. While most were ultimately allowed in, many, like Tom, waited months in a torturous limbo while their
backgrounds were investigated.

"Angel Island was really there to keep people out, not to welcome them," says Judy Yung, a University of California-Santa Cruz professor emeritus of American studies and author of two books on the subject. "We need to remember that. How can we use the lesson of Angel Island to live up to our ideal as a nation of immigrants?"

By the late 19th century, the easy gold in California was gone, an economic recession had settled in across the country and a new wave of immigrants from Asia and southern Europe stirred up a nativist backlash. Congress looked for scapegoats.

Even today Tom asks, "Why did they home in on the Chinese?"

He was 12 years old in 1939 and living with his mother in a poor village in Canton province. His father, Yip Way Tom, had sneaked through Angel Island in 1916 as "Jack Chew," the supposed son of a Chinese-American family. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, laborers could only immigrate if they were the children or grandchildren of U.S.-born, Chinese-Americans.

"The Chinese figured out a intricate system right away," Yung says.

American-born Chinese who could sponsor relatives often sold their immigration slots to underground brokers, who sold them in Hong Kong to desperate immigrants like the Toms. Sometimes, undocumented Chinese here created entirely new identities on paper, especially after thousands of birth records were destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

The Chinese men who came to Angel Island with these false identities were known as "paper sons."

At 4 feet, 81/2 inches tall, young Tom boarded a ship in Hong Kong with a new identity, May Kwong Chew, son of Jack Chew, and "coaching" notes about the Chew family. He had to study notes between bouts with seasickness because he would be grilled by interrogators on Angel Island bent on ferreting out paper sons and daughters.

"After three weeks on a ship," Tom says, "the next three months were even worse."

Tom remembers going through three or four interrogations: Where was the water well in your village? How many steps did your front porch have? When did your uncle in America die? What company did he work for? Did he have birthmarks, and where?

Then he, like the other detainees, waited as immigration agents checked out his answers. Tom waited three months, about average, but some detainees were forced to remain on the island up to two years.

Nothing frightened him more than the whispers of suicides. Yung says some immigrants who flunked the questioning probably killed themselves on the island, but there is no official proof.

"They would have been too ashamed to go home and face their families and villages," said Yung, whose own father was a paper son and adopted the surname "Yung."

She estimates that 4 percent of Chinese were deported from the island.

Immigrants channeled their hopes and desolation into poetry, which they etched on the walls of their prison barracks. Tom read some of these, but "they made me feel even more sad."

To help pass the time, he played games with other Chinese boys in the recreation yard and picked up a few words of playground English. Because of the strict segregation, he never met boys from other nations, though he could see them during their allotted time in the yard.

Mostly though, he mulled over the interrogation questions during the day, complained about "terrible mush" and other western food, and cried silently under his blanket at night.

"I didn't want to make noise for the others," he says.

After three months, he was released and traveled to San Diego, where his father delivered produce to restaurants. On a much better diet, Tom sprouted to nearly 6 foot tall and played basketball in high school. He mastered English and kept his Chinese.

When he and his father returned to China in 1947, they learned Tom's brother and sister had died during World War II, probably from disease. Tom married, but with the communists taking over, he and his new bride moved to the United States in 1949 and sailed through immigration as Mr. and Mrs. Chew.

He might have remained a Chew were it not for the "Chinese Confession Program," a sort of amnesty for undocumented immigrants in the early 1960s, so long as they weren't communists or criminals. After three decades in the shadows, he became Malin Tom again, and a U.S. citizen. More than 18,000 Chinese paper sons and paper daughters also confessed and were allowed to stay.

He raised a family, and owned a nursery in Silicon Valley. And he never talked to anyone in detail about Angel Island.

"Not even to me," says his wife, Jean.

Too much shame.

In 2001, Tom returned to the island after 61 years with his adult children and grandchildren, who had begged him to go. He says the hardest part was visiting a restored dormitory, where he spent so many tearful nights, remembering the sound of doors being locked behind him.

"I cried again," Tom says. "I'm still an emotional guy."

Contact Joe Rodriguez at 408-920-5767.


A look back through Angel Island history

An immigration station opens on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay on Jan. 21, 1910 to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
As immigrants from Asia, Russia and Mexico arrive, the station is dubbed the Ellis Island of the West, but its detainees are segregated by race, ethnicity and gender.
About 500,000 immigrants pass through over the next 30 years, the majority of them Asians.
While Europeans arriving at Ellis Island passed through in two to three hours, Chinese immigrants at Angel Island endure interrogations that often lasted two weeks to six months, with a few forced to stay up to two years.
On Nov. 5, 1940 the last group of 200 immigrants on the island — 150 of them Chinese — are transferred to San Francisco. Congress repeals the exclusion act in 1943.
Today, visitors to Angel Island can visit a museum, restored dormitory and read the poems carved into the immigration station's walls. Guided tours are $4 for adults and $3 for children. For schedules and directions, go towww.aiisf.org or call 415-435-3392.
Source: Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Culture Clash - NY Times Article on American Workers in China

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NY Times: For American Workers in China, a Culture Clash

For American Workers in China, a Culture Clash
By HANNAH SELIGSON
December 23, 2009

As more Americans go to mainland China to take jobs, more Chinese and Americans are working side by side. These cross-cultural partnerships, while beneficial in many ways, are also highlighting tensions that expose differences in work experience, pay levels and communication.

In the last few years, a growing number of Americans in their 20s and 30s have been heading to China for employment, lured by its faster-growing economy and lower jobless rate. Their Chinese co-workers are often around the same age.

“The tight collaboration of the two countries in business and science makes the Chinese-American pairing one of the most common in the workplace in China,” said Vas Taras, a management professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a specialist in cross-cultural work group management.

But the two groups were raised differently.

The Americans have had more exposure to free-market principles. “Young Americans were brought up in a commercial environment,” said Neng Zhao, 28, a senior associate at Blue Oak Capital, a private equity firm based in Beijing. “We weren’t. So the workplace is a unique learning process for my generation.”

People in Ms. Zhao’s generation were born around or shortly after Deng Xiaoping opened up China to the West, so China has evolved from a government-regulated economy to a more free-market system in their lifetime. Therefore, they can face a steeper learning curve.

Sean Leow, 28, founder of Neocha, a social networking site based in Shanghai, says young Chinese employees often enter jobs with less hands-on preparation. They may also have less understanding of client services, he said.

In addition, he said, “I know a lot of my Chinese colleagues did not do internships in college,” in contrast to United States students.

Managers hiring workers in China appear to be paying a premium for Western experience. Foreigners tend to earn 10 to 15 percent more than their Chinese counterparts in similar positions, said Michael Norman, senior vice president at Sibson Consulting, an American firm.

That imbalance does not go unnoticed by Chinese workers. “There is definitely the perception that Americans get paid more for the same work,” said Ting Wang, 25, an associate at WildChina, a travel company based in Beijing.

The difference is a function of supply and demand, Mr. Norman said. “If you need the foreigner for their specialized knowledge of the West, companies are willing to pay a little more.”

On the other hand, Chinese workers have a deeper understanding of the influences, like Confucianism and Communism, that play a part in their country’s culture and economy.

It is imperative for Americans working in China to adjust, said Mr. Norman, who works on management and work force issues for multinational companies operating in Asia.

“In the West, there is such a premium on getting things done quickly, but when you come to work in China, you need to work on listening and being more patient and understanding of local ways of doing business,” he said.

Ming Alterman, 25, a senior account executive at Razorfish, a Shanghai-based digital media firm, is the only American among 40 employees. He says Americans need to understand the importance of building so-called guanxi (pronounced GWAN-she). The word means relationships, but has implications beyond the obligatory happy hour, occasional lunches with the boss or networking.

“In China, it’s really expected that you become friends with your boss and you go out and socialize in a way that doesn’t happen in the U.S.,” Mr. Alterman said.

The Chinese now rising in the work force were raised and educated in a system that tended to prize obedience and rote learning. Their American counterparts may have had more leeway to question authority and speak their minds. This can affect workplace communication.

When Corinne Dillon, 25, was working at a multinational company in Beijing, she noticed that her Chinese colleagues were sometimes hesitant about expressing their opinions, which she thought was rooted in views about hierarchy.

“Because foreigners are often in higher positions in companies, or even when they are not, there is sometimes an implicit respect given to them that makes Chinese people not want to directly disagree with them for fear of being perceived as impolite,” said Ms. Dillon, who is now director of sales and marketing at That’s Mandarin, a language school based in Beijing.

The difference cuts both ways. Ms. Zhao, of Blue Oak Capital, recalled her first experience working for an American at an American-run agency in Beijing. What her American boss perceived as directness left her feeling humiliated, she said. “I remember I was so embarrassed when my American boss told me he didn’t like something I was doing, right in front of me,” she said. “The Chinese way would have been much more indirect.”

Communication styles, Professor Taras said, can create workplace challenges. “Americans often perceive the Chinese as indecisive, less confident and not tough enough, whereas the Chinese may see Americans as rude or inconsiderate.”

This, he said, “can lead to conflicts and misunderstandings, but also affect promotion and task assignment choice, and ultimately performance.”

What is similar, though, is that both the Americans and the Chinese perceive a glass ceiling. “Most expats don’t speak good enough Chinese, so their promotion prospects are limited, and on a social and cultural level, young Chinese feel there are barriers that are hard to get past,” said Ziyu Wen, 28, who works with Americans in her job as a communications manager in Beijing.

Despite the tension, the Chinese-American pairing holds many economic and political benefits for both countries.

“China needs workers who understand China and the West, so they can develop a business presence and influence in overseas markets,” Mr. Norman said.

“Likewise, America needs people who truly understand the Chinese, in order to compete and cooperate.” Having Americans working alongside the Chinese in China, he said, “is one of the best ways to cultivate and internalize this understanding for the future.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/business/global/24chinawork.html?_r=2