Posts Tagged ‘China’

When in doubt, spin spin spin

迈迈 Posted in 中国，Tags: , ,
23 July 2011
0

So tonight there was a terrible accident on the high speed rail.  In the strictest known facts at this point there was a lightning strike which stopped the D3115 in it’s tracks (no pun intended).  For some reason, the D301 managed to smash into the rear end of the D3115 and derailed it.  At present there are 1116 confirmed deaths and 89 others sent to the hospitalover 100 injured, sadly I am afraid this number will only increase.

 

Chinese news has been rather forthcoming with details and photos since this hit the wires and should be commended with it, providing facts and up to date information as it becomes available.  Obviously there is a delay, as the primary concern is to save lives first and throw out media stories second.

 

Sadly this is not the same case for western news sources, who lately are having a love affair with stories attacking China.  For example:

China bullet train derailed after ‘lightening’
China bullet train ‘derails’
China bullet train derailed after ‘lightning’
High-speed ‘bullet train’ derails in China causing two carriages to fall from bridge

 

Just from the titles alone, it’s obvious that there is propaganda within.  The questioning ‘quotes’ are used in this matter to infer that this is the “official reason”, but not the real reason.  Now we get to dig into the articles and see what’s going on, but first, lets get some basic facts on straight.

 

The D series is a low speed “bullet” train part of the 和谐号 class.  It has an absolute max speed around 250km/h but tends to average around 150~180km/h.

 

The D3115 travels on is the Wenzhou-Fuzhou Line which was opened in 2009 after 4 years of construction at a cost of $1.85 billion USD.  The fastest trains do in fact travel at 250km/h average speed, however this train was only traveling at around 150km/h.  The speed of this train is irrelevant, as it was stopped by a lightning strike related power failure.

 

The D301 starts at Beijing on the newly opened Beijing-Shanghai line and switches over to the Shanghai-Hangzhou line at Hongqiao and then makes a connection to the Wenzhou-Fuzhou line in Hangzhou before proceeding to it’s terminus in Fuzhou.

 

This accident occurred in Wenzhou, so based on the time table, I am calculating speed between Wenling and Fuding, which works out to approximately 180km/h. Using basic research skills of openly available public sources, I am able to piece together quite a lot… imagine if I had a news staff.

 

Time to dig into western sources. I am not quoting articles in full as they are linked, I am not going to bother with the facts that are relevant and accurate, as it is not worth the time.

Daily Mall:

 

The Xinhua new agency did not say what caused the accident.

 

China has spent billions and plans more massive spending to link the country with a high-speed rail network. Recently, power cuts and other malfunctions have plagued the showcase new high-speed line between Beijing and Shanghai since it opened last month.

 

Official plans call for China’s bullet train network to expand to 8,000 miles of track this year and 10,000 miles by 2020.

 

The huge spending connected with the rail expansion also has been blamed for corruption, and Railways Minister Liu Zhijun was dismissed this spring amid an investigation into unspecified corruption allegations.

 

No details have been released about the allegations against him, but news reports say they include kickbacks, bribes, illegal contracts and sexual liaisons.

 

The basic facts in the article are correct, apart from Xinhua not stating what caused the accident (they did). The Beijing-Shanghai issues are fact, but irrelevant to this and out of scope. The corruption charges are irrelevant, as it concerned a separate line entirely.

 

AFP via MSN (both of them):

 

The accident occurred less than a month after China inaugurated with great fanfare a new flagship $33 billion line from Beijing to Shanghai that halves the rail journey time between the two Chinese cities to five hours.

 

It was opened on the eve of July 1 celebrations to mark the 90th birthday of China’s Communist Party and authorities touted it as yet another symbol of the country’s growing advancement.

 

More irrelevancy, not too slanted, but if you read between the lines (and about half of the article ranting about corruption) the intent is clear. Instigate that the entire system is nothing but fanfare, corrupt, expensive and dangerous. They wont say it directly, but it’s the intent and what they want you to get out of it.

 

In the expanded and updated version, we get some more quotes which make the intention clear:

 

China National Radio quoted an unnamed Shanghai Railway Bureau official as saying the accident was triggered by a lightning strike.

 

But a flurry of postings on China’s popular Twitter-like microblogging services said the derailment was actually caused when a second train ploughed into the stationary one from behind.

 

The reports also said there were sizeable casualties at the scene, without specifying if there were fatalities.

 

AFP was not immediately available to confirm the blog reports.

 

Photos posted online appeared to showed one long rail carriage standing vertical, with one end on a concrete bridge and the other resting on the ground at least 10 metres (33 feet) below.

 

They also showed people being carried away from the scene, although it was not clear whether those victims were injured or dead.

 

Similar trains are used on the line where the accident occurred, which was operating before the new Beijing-Shanghai link.

 

Key points being made here are:
“unnamed”, which implies that it’s a lie
The discussion of weibo postings concerning the D301 crash without mention of the fact that Xinhua said it.
Mentioning official sources not confirming fatalities, while immediately undermining it with “photos online”, which is an attempt to separate the two sources in the mind of the reader.
Finally, we have a linking to other trains, implying that the trains are all dangerous. Keep in mind here, that this was a power failure and signaling issue, not a train issue.

 

Last but not least, AFP via Google which manages to combine all of the issues shown above while mixing in facts that Xinhua has provided.

 

The propaganda in recent weeks has been overly excessive. There is clearly some animosity present towards China, as there has been for years, and with the drastic economic differences between the US and China at present, it is becoming more obvious that the goal is to somehow diminish the achievements in China so as not to tarnish the “USA #1″ image desired in the US press.

GroupOn Blunders Its Way Into China

迈迈 Posted in Uncategorized，Tags: , , , , ,
10 March 2011
0

By now, everyone has seen the monumentally stupid Super Bowl commercial where GroupOn succeeded in pissing off everyone:

Well, GroupOn has finally gone and made their entry into China and opened up their official website.  No, it’s not www.groupon.cn as you might guess, that’s another company that is rather well established.  It is “gaopeng”, well as long as you don’t mistake that for www.高朋团购.com I guess you’ll find them ok.

As you may have guessed, GroupOn has a serious branding issue here in China from the start.  They are also kind of late to the game.  Meituan opened up 1 year ago and they are one of the major players in the group buy vertical.  As are many others who were in it from the start.  The original idea was to make a grab for GroupOn’s attention and cash in on a buy-out deal early on.  This would have been the smart move, but it was a move that was not made and now we have hundreds of group buy sites competing with each other with a new battle kicking off every single day and regardless of how much capital GroupOn has behind it, it is simply “just another one” out there.

This market entry however, has not gone unnoticed by the major players and they are already making adjustments.  New refund policies and full cash refunds for expired offers, not just credits but a transfer straight back to your bank account.  Given GroupOn’s recent legal problems this is a no-brainer for the myriad of Chinese companies that will have to deal with GroupOn now.  If you are familiar with this industry, they make their money in 2 ways.  The first method is by contracting with a business for a limited time offer and eating up a very large percent of the proceeds.  Consumers pay the group buy site and when the promotion is expired, money is sent to the local business based on how many sales there were.  The second method is off of consumers who fail to use their voucher before expiration.  The group buy site basically gets to pocket that.  GroupOn’s response to this situation was essentially turning it into gift certificates or “credits” if the merchant refused to accept it (why would they accept it? 40% of that $20 is still gonna go into GroupOn’s pocket).  In China, it’s been essentially an unspoken rule that “you’re fucked” if you fail to use the voucher on time.  This is fortunately changing to a policy which is vastly superior to GroupOn’s.

Branding and strategy aside, GroupOn is making some epically stupid blunders on just about every other front.  They have partnered with Tencent to enter the market.  Well, Tencent is the company that brings us QQ, and guess what QQ has (besides billions of gifs being spammed at you every second of the day)?  Yep, you guessed right!  Not only that, but GroupOn is making the same mistake that Google made not too long ago.  They are “sharing” the ICP license with Tencent, which is basically stupidly illegal.  Furthermore, the website is being hosted outside the country if you bother to trace it.

And just to top it off, the database servers are being hosted in Germany.  This is more or less showing that while GroupOn would absolutely love to do business in China, they are very unwilling to make a real commitment to doing business in China, nor is it willing to follow some of the real no-brainer laws and regulations on the books.  Manzuo is also another major player here and is already in a dispute over infringement issues.  The simple fact of the matter is that 高朋满座 is a 成语 here, and by naming themselves 高朋, they are infringing on 满座.  So, the stupid name they picked is an issue from the start and Manzuo will probably win it, not exactly a brilliant way to come into a market.  Well, what about that groupon.cn site?  At the time GroupOn was not registered in China in any way, expressed no clear intent and was up for grabs… so GroupOn might not like it, but there is nothing short of a buy-out that they can do about it.  Manzuo is also swinging hard to make this whole endeavor a very costly one on the part of GroupOn.  If you were here when group buy sites exploded, they did so with no help of traditional advertising, it was very viral and stupidly successful.  Lashou was essentially the first site to start airing some infrequent ads for additional exposure… they came a little late into the game compared to others.  Manzuo is responding to the ad-buying strategy of GroupOn by spending stupid amounts on ads and jacking up the rates.

So, let’s ignore all that for a moment and cut down to the core.  A successful group buy site will network with the collator sites, offer multiple deals per day across the major verticals, gain insight from their customers as to what types of deals to focus on and generally not step on the toes of other sites with price wars.  A site that is long established with a history of great deals and great customer feedback and service will be a winning site, and so far many of them are doing that precisely.  When a new site stumbles across a good idea, everyone else rushes to copy it and  tweak it slightly.  As a result of this, the “one day one deal” sites are rare now, but the original credit goes to liantuan who pioneered the format here.  The other key aspect is high levels of communication, during spring festival, the players went all out in this effort giving away free travel, entire sets of Apple products, cold hard cash and even bars of gold.  No purchase necessary, priced at 0元 and tons of free credit for every friend you got to participate.  What’s GroupOn… or 高朋, rather, have to offer on it’s initial marketing promotion?

And to participate is it simple and easy?

They want your ID number and full name.  For a stupid iPhone and they are making their announcements on the qq microblog rather than on their own site.  I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be throwing my ID #s around, linking it to my name and email and dumping all of that on a foreign database.  Well, for Gold or a big pile of money? Maybe.  But not for some shitty iPhone that has a real value of about $10.

Will GroupOn succeed with their backwards US model, horrible branding, legal issues, a pissed off Chinese Government and the over-saturated group buy market? It might happen, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

A word to the wise on sea freight to China

迈迈 Posted in 中国，Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
01 February 2010
0

It all seems like a great idea at first doesn’t it? Why piss away all that money on extra luggage, or air freight? With the mail service, you might be even more worried if you are shipping anything large, and the sticker shock can really hurt.

You go off to USPS, UPS and Fedex to check pricing…. all service to China is ONLY air-mail, and as such means that it costs a few hundred bucks to ship… ouch.  It’s just personal effects, a few things that you really care about, but the rest… mostly junk.

Then the realization hits that you *could* mail it, but you would have to have it sent to a friend’s place, which would introduce more variables into the mix that you really could live without, and if you lug it with you as checked, good luck fitting it all in a taxi or hotel room..

So… the notion of sea-freight hits.   An LCL of 1 cubic meter for $164 to Tianjin? It sounds like a steal, but it’s not and here’s why.

The port will only allow bonded companies to handle your shipment.  They pay out the ass for trucks that are registered and allowed within the facility… and they have minimum charges (don’t bother checking around, they are all 3500RMB).  And as a fun side, they are only going to deliver to you personally.  In order to avoid getting hit for duty on everything, you must be a resident here, and that shipment must go to you and only you.

THC and Port charges… say hello to another 1784RMB, this is not negotiable and is what it is.  If you needed time to finish getting everything settled for your residency, you are going to get hit with storage charges as well… another 1086RMB in my case.

Quarantine/customs inspection: 400RMB.  Flat fee, non-negotiable.  This is what they charge to look at the packing list and decide….

Customs duty.  Despite being a resident, and this being personal effects, there are certain items which still get hit for duty.  Mainly electronics, furniture and appliances… in fact, here’s a nice rundown:

Duty Guidelines
• Furniture – 10%
• Books-10% (for returning Chinese)
• CDs, VCDs, DVDs –RMB30 per piece. (may be subject to customs screening)
• Alcohol – below 12% @RMB50 per bottle
• Alcohol – above and inclusive of 12% @RMB250 per bottle
• Foodstuffs – 10%
• Electronic luxury items – 20% – see below for examples

Item

Type

Dutiable Price (RMB)

TV. (Color)

8′

500.00

8~40′ (Per Extra 1′)

150.00

Above 40′ (Per Extra 1′)

500.00

Refrigerator

100L

1,000.00

101~200L

2,000.00

201~250L

3,000.00

251~300L

5,000.00

Above 301L

10,000.00

Washing Machines / Dryers

Automatic

2,000.00

Tumble Drier

3,000.00

Washing & Drier

4,000.00

CD Player

1,000.00

HI-FI System

5,000.00

VCR

2,000.00

DVD, VCD, LD Player

1,500.00

Computer

Note Book

5,000.00

Desktop

2,000.00

Monitor (CRT)

Below 17′

1,200.00

Above 17′

3,000.00

Monitor (LCD)

Below 17′

3,000.00

Above 17′

5,000.00

Scanner

1,500.00

Printer

Laser

3,000.00

Other

1,200.00

Camera

Digital

4,000.00

Traditional

2,500.00

Other

1,500.00

Video Camera

Digital (DVD/MiniDVD etc.)

5,000.00

Analog (Video 8, Beta etc.)

2,000.00

So, this adds up fast, as the dutiable prices don’t distinguish between new and used items, broken or intact.  There is no leeway at all here, no bargaining and receipts for actual price of the item make 0 difference to the outcome.  That $268 monitor you bought on sale is $732 as far as they care and they are going to hit you for $150 on it…. the same as if it were a laptop.

So, as you can see by now, it ain’t cheap and my 7 year old laser printer ends up costing me 600RMB… enough to have just bought a new one.  My glass and steel L-desk (made in america) which does not exist here in any serious way only cost me 100RMB in duty though, and that’s reasonable as I only paid $35 for it…. and was the primary reason I went with sea freight in the first place.

So, in the end I got sapped for 8270RMB on this side, plus the cost of the palletized box (another $50) and the ship cost ($164) for a grand total of $1425.  The only reason I didn’t just abandon the shipment was because of the other goodies inside.  Rather than deal with excess baggage fees (which are definitely not reasonable anymore), I filled that cubic meter box as full as it would go with literally everything I could….

To have repurchased everything here:

Printer (a good one)- 1000RMB (optional), Monitor – 3500RMB, Bike lock – 1000RMB… leaving me with a budget of about 3000RMB to replace all my good clothes, a columbia coat, and other irreplaceable keep sakes, not to mention a desk… which was the whole reason I did this in the first place!

Excess luggage would have been a better deal, as it would have worked out to approximately $11 a kilo, minus the giant box, about 80 kilo total, 3 boxes for everything.  $880 in baggage fees and no one at customs caring… leaving me with an interesting task of storing it all for about a month or so.  The 8270RMB figure was unknown to me, so it sounded insane.

Shipping via fedex or USPS…. somehow ends up more expensive.  Shipping via air-freight… would have been smarter (and about half the cost).

The lesson to learn from all this is simple.  When shipping an LCL to China, do it via air-freight, and when it comes time to declare items for customs, be vague as all hell while leaving one or two items sitting there for them to suck a little tax on.  As long as they get some, they are basically happy and satisfied, trying to skirt by with none at all…. not gonna happen.

Time to start this up again

迈迈 Posted in 中国, 美国，Tags: , , , ,
05 January 2010
0

Sorry for the long long long delay in updating… yes, it’s been a year.

In that time, I have accomplished most of my goals for 2009, and now it’s time to make some for 2010.

I am back in Beijing again, woohoo.  Came back On July 1st 2009, lived for 6 weeks in a hotel while waiting for my apartment to be ready to move in.  Unfortunately, it was not the apartment I actually wanted, but after SIX WEEKS and watching average rent do nothing but increase, there was no real choice.

I am now Chief Rep for Rockhopper in Beijing, I have 100% full and complete control over my residence permit and working papers as  well.  After last time, that seemed the prudent thing to do and I have effectively done it.

I am also now driving in Beijing… yes… in this insane traffic, I am now part of the problem :)  It’s not really all that bad, despite what it looks like.  People do amazingly stupid things, but as long as you keep your cool, stay fluid, and adjust, it’s all ok.

Jude moved out of LA shortly after I did (good riddance) and now she is up in San Fran with her guy.  So it looks like we both are living out the dream at long last.

In the time since moving here I have shed a solid 35 pounds and am looking to shed some more and get my body to where it should be…  yes, new years resolution, typical… watch it not happen.

Resolution for 2010: I am going to be building up more business for Rockhopper in China and try to jsutify the existence of the rep office apart from me avoiding paying taxes to the US and a higher standard of living (that is also far more secure) than I could get in the US.  This time it’s for good! No going back!

I am also in the process of getting my damn seafreight forwarded to my apartment, it’s been half a year and it’s starting to drive me insane.

Also, the big event worth noting… I finally beat Sallie Mae and forced a settlement! It’s really not all that difficult to force their hand into that situation and in this economy, it’s more or less the best thing to do.  Can’t delve into details here directly, but hit me up if you need advice.  Furthermore, hit me up if you need advice on any of the following:

Seafreight to China, Moving pets to/from US/China, Setting up a legal presence in Beijing, Market Research in China, Driving in China, or generally anything to do with living in or relocating to Beijing… over the years, I have managed to do most of the insane stuff and learned the ropes (while praying never to have to do it again for myself).

On that note, I am now driving in Beijing and the snowfall tested my skills with successful results.  It’s more or less similar to driving in LA, with a few significant differences.  Firstly, no signaling to be expected at all, people do not ever stay in their lanes.  White plates and black plates… might as well just let them do what they want to because they are never going to get a ticket of any kind either.  Tailgating is taken to an extreme and signage is more like “labeling” rather than useful information.  There are no standard interchanges and it’s all ad hoc flyover-style with the prudent information of “how the hell do i navigate this mess” being given last second.

Happy New Year and here’s to a successful 2010!

I would post more on this, but my host managed to get my IP blocked in China thanks to the shared server (I suspect the FLG site had something to do with that), but with a new fast VPN up and running, I’ll be posting more now :)

Getting a Cat OUT of the US and INTO China

迈迈 Posted in Uncategorized，Tags: , , , , , , ,
05 August 2009
0

Hey, look at that… all that fun 18 months prior and now doing it in reverse.   Anyways, here’s what to expect:

China to US is easy as all hell.  Come in for a checkup, get the tests, make sure rabies are up to date in the book, take paperwork to import/export, get a certificate which is free, get on plane and the US basically doesn’t care.

Coming the other way though, giant pain in the ass, and there is no really good detailed explanation out there for the US so this will at least benefit someone out there I hope.

So, here’s my US->Beijing.

 

Ideally, you want to come through Guangzhou, as they are very bribable and you can skip quarantine for around 5000.  Beijing costs around 8000 and you still have to leave the pet with them for 1-2 days.

 

Problem is, in the US, vets simply have no idea about this process or how to do it for some reason and you have to have all the info laid out so they actually fill out the right forms.

 

Paperwork:

Rabies certificate.  Within 1 year and at least 30 days prior to departure.  If you are re-importing, be sure to have them update the burgundy book as well when you get the shots.

 

APHIS Form 7001, filled out by a vet.  Call around to make sure they actually have this.  Expect to pay around $50 for everything.  Must be done within 10 days before the flight.  Make sure it is filled out entirely accurately with your name exactly as it is in the passport, as they don’t do many of these and love to make mistakes on it.  Expect to wait half an hour while they dig through file cabinets looking for the form.  It should be a 6-part form, not the 2-part that they think you need… that’s only for domestic travel.

 

Next you have to find a USDA office, this is actually the biggest pain in the ass.  http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/area_offices/

 

You need to find an office, go there in person, get a seal on the 7001 form as well as the rabies certificate.  Cost is $25, and the office hours are short.

 

In Beijing, expect it to take about 30 minutes to get everything settled, pay your 150 RMB and say so long to your pet for 30 days.  Don’t bother to print out pictures as they will take one right there on the spot anyways.  The quarantine facility closes at 5pm and is not open on weekends.  It is also damned annoying to find and the maps they hand out really do not help at all.  Look for a last minute sign with an arrow pointing the way, it’s all the way down that road on the left.  Bring cash (1000 RMB) as there is no ATM anywhere close by and they cannot swipe cards, if you get there late, usually you will find staff down the hall to the right playing ping pong and they are generally helpful in accommodating you.  Best bet is to take the airport line, hop in a taxi and tell them to wait, as there are virtually no taxis anywhere near where you are going.

 

After paying, a guy comes around the front on a bike-cart with your pet, so wait outside, and not inside the lobby expecting someone to show up carrying a kennel with your pet in it.  Expect to wait about 15-20 minutes.

 

And word to the wise, anything you leave in the kennel such as a toy, or a t-shirt with your scent, or a small mat they like to sleep on… that gets incinerated on the first day when they arrive, so don’t bother putting it in the kennel in the first place.  Also, don’t bother trying to go to visit, and assume that no news is good news.  None of the phone numbers they provide are in any way useful and you’ll find yourself being tossed around like a $5 whore to lots of people who have no idea why you are talking to them because they have no information and half the time they’ll give you a wrong number or a number that doesn’t exist or to an office that is only open 2 hours a day and staffed by a guy who doesn’t want to deal with you in any way at all.

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