A somewhat biased view on China…
A Chinese version of The Apprentice will start in May… Same, same but different!
While Donald Trump take the decision on who gets fired, here the decision will be take by the audiences! Who will be the next business leader will be chosen by the LaoBaiXing (老百姓)! Anyone will be allowed to vote through SMS for the two finalists while only the audience will chose The WINNER! This schema of SMS Voting had already been used for Super Girl. But I think that the targetted audience for Super Girl was much, much larger! hehehe…
The winner… In the original USA show, the winner would get a job at Donald Trump’s Real Estate company with a 6 figures salary. In the Chinese version, the winner will run a new business with a registered capital of 10 million yuan (1 million euros); the runner up 7 million yuan and the next three candidates 5 million yuan.
Source
China Daily - 2006 03 31
Links
The Apprentice - Official Website
After three years of happy blogging - the domain todayinchina.com has been registered on the 1st of April 2003 - Today in China is now opening their servers to the hosting of more blogs and websites related to China. For the occasion, we totally redesigned the Homepage. From this new page, you will have access to all the blogs and websites hosted by Today in China.
Thierry - This guy has been working in China for more than 4 years and provides a flow of interesting or funny news about China. The content of his blog is somewhat biased and considered by some as too much optimistic about the situation in China… Hey! That’s me!!! aaargh!!!!
Emilie - She has been here in Beijing for one year and share with us her day-to-day life in China. She is also the person who started the Theatre des Lanternes!
Valentine - Probably the youngest blogger in the whole Greater China with only 18 months old. As soon as her mother gives her some free time, she will jump to her computer and tell us how easy or difficult it is to be a 18 months old girl in Beijing!
Xiaobudian - Xiabudian(er) is a nice beijing cat - hence the ‘er’ - sharing her appartment with Stinky (the American Cat), Nicky (the Pomeranian dog) and their Human. She always wanted to have a place of her own on the Internet and last week was a good time to start! After a motorbike accident, the Human had to stay at home to rest her foot and had some time to spend on this… So here you go, I let Xiaobudian explaining to you all the details!!!
Le vent de la Chine - A valuable resource for successfully launching projects and optimizing business performance in China. Since 1996, China Trade Winds has been publishing Le vent de la Chine, the French language business newsletter, and providing consulting services for executives doing business in China.
Nite Lily - B&B in renovated house from the 1930’s on Gulangyu Island, Xiamen. Michael and Thierry have five spacious guest rooms with double-bed & attached bath. This is a must for either relaxing vacations or business meetings with your partner in China or, why not, from elsewhere in Asia.
Le Theatre des Lanternes - A group of 14 amteurs preparing a free adaptation of “The Dinner Game” by Francis Weber. The play will be performed on the 19 and 20 of May 2006 and all profit will be given to Datong, an association helping orphans inthe poorest areas of Hubei, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.
Beer Mania - One of the nicest places in Beijing. This Belgian Bar has a lot of different kind of belgian beers to taste and Marc - the owner - will always be there (useful when I am not…) to chat with you and cheer you up after a heavy working day or before a night of partying! This website is presently under construction.
Linxi 林熙 - Here comes a rising star in the area of Chinese Pop Music. In fact, most Chinese qualify her music as City Music. She became famous with the song Dou Niu (斗牛场) that you can, of course, download from Baidu. Her website is still under construction.
Last July, the price of N93 petroleum jumped up from 3.96RMB/L to 4.26RMB/L. and this week it jumped again to 4.65! In summer I usually use 100liter a month which represents an increase of 69RMB a month. Okay la! I can live with that… But what about the taxi drivers?
Let’s say that a taxi driver is driving for 400km a day and for this uses 32 liters. If the driver works 20 days a month, it makes a total consumption of 640 liters a month and an increase of more than 400RMB per month. Which is more than the government help given to the taxi drivers since last July.
No wonder the taxi drivers are asking the government for some more subsidies.
Another solution would be to push this increase to the customers. Taxi companies already did that in the past. They have some tricky way to do this in a not so obvious way. Your cab would still be 1.6RMB but the basic fare of 10 yuan would be charge after 3km instead of 4km. They made a similar change for the 1.2RMB taxis back in 2000 when the basic fare went down from 5km to 4km.
Related news: Yesterday, thanks to JayJay, I discovered a Sinopec Gas Station just near our office in Lido. A really small hidden gas station… Why is it so important? Well, Sinopec Gas Station are not so common and they are the only ones accepting the card CMCC offered me a few weeks ago. I now have gas for free!!! ^_^
Sources
China Daily - 2006 03 27
People’s daily - 2000 07 17 - basic fare going down from 5km to 4km
14 years ago, on the 24th of March, Dirk Frimout left the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on board of the Atlantis Shuttle STS-45 for an orbital flight. He stayed 8 days 22 hours and 9 minutes in space and traveled 3.2 million miles in 143 Earth orbits.
For those who don’t know Dirk Frimout, here is a short piece of his biography:
Dirk Frimout werd geboren te Poperinge op 21 maart 1941 in wat later het Nationaal Hopmuseum zou worden. Na het behalen van zijn diploma van ingenieur elektronica (1963) en van zijn doctoraat in de toegepaste fysica (1970) aan de Universiteit van Gent, vertrok hij naar Colorado om een post-doctoraat te behalen in een laboratorium van atmosferische en ruimtelijke fysica (1972). Tot 1978 werkte hij in het Belgisch Instituut voor Ruimte-Aeronomie. Na zijn studies als burgerlijk ingenieur promoveerde hij tot doctor in de Toegepaste Wetenschappen.
De crew van vlucht STS-45In 1977 stelt hij zich voor het eerst zijn kandidatuur als astronaut. Vijftien jaar later was hij de eerste Belg in de ruimte. In het kader van een missie van de Nasa maakte hij op 24 maart 1992 deel uit van de vlucht STS-Atlantis 45 rond de Aarde. Hij was er verantwoordelijk voor de wetenschappelijke proeven die werden uitgevoerd. De in hoofdzaak Amerikaanse bemanning bestond uit nog vijf mannen en een vrouw. De missie Atlas-1, gericht op observatie van de Aarde, eindigde op 2 april 1992.
In order to celebrate this important event in Belgian History, we organized a party on the 24th of March in the evening. The organization of the party was pretty simple. There were only five rules:
As you will see in the two galleries (party, after party), most of the people played the game and we had a wonderfull time together! I say most of the people because some didn’t… And someone even managed to smoke in my living room and to burn my sofa! In order to get it repaired, I gathered all the left-overs of this party, took some pictures and now, I’m ready to put them on eBay to pay for the reparation. So, if some of these items are yours, you’d better contact me immediately before I find a buyer for them!
And next time, if I see someone smoking inside the appartment, I will definitely throw him/her out of the party! Grrrr
Here is the list of the people who attended the party. This list is not complete! Thanks to help me by sending the missing names and nationalities.
Also, make sure that I have your email address if you want to get notified when we throw another party in 2-3 months. Contact me!
| Thierry | Belgium |
| JayJay | Marseille |
| Johanna | France |
| Arnaud | France |
| Patrick | USA |
| Paloma | USA |
| Samia | Belgium |
| Cecile | Belgium |
| Laurence | France |
| Govinda | United Kingdom |
| Greg | France |
| Camille | France |
| Laura | United Kingdom |
| Matthieu (alias Pumaboy) | France |
| Giulio | Italy |
| Marc | Barcelona |
| Lusu | Barcelona |
| Jacques | Malaysia |
| Christophe | France |
| Praveen | India |
| Emilio | Spain |
| Stephan | Germany |
| Cecile | France |
| Laurence | Belgium |
| Karine | France |
| Pascale | France |
| Valerye | France |
| Perrine | France |
| Olivier | France |
| Alice | France |
| Flory | Quebec |
| Patrice | Quebec |
| Gaelle | France |
| Julie | France |
| Magali | France |
| Adeline | France |
| Ben | France |
| Ellis | USA |
| Lisa | USA |
| Rocio | USA |
| Nicky | Pomeranian |
| Emilie | France |
| Catherine | Belgium |
| Lyce | France |
| Caroline | Belgium |
| Liz | United Kingdom |
| Agathe | France |
-
| Barcelona | 2 |
| Belgium | 6 |
| France | 22 |
| Germany | 1 |
| Hungary | 1 |
| India | 1 |
| Italy | 1 |
| Malaysia | 1 |
| Marseille | 1 |
| Pomeranian | 1 |
| Quebec | 2 |
| Spain | 1 |
| United Kingdom | 3 |
| USA | 5 |
-
| Girls | 59.5% (28) |
| Guys | 40.5% (19) |
Links
Dirk Frimout’s Party - Gallery
Dirk Frimout’s After Party - Gallery
Starting on April 1, a 5% tax will be imposed on disposable wooden chopsticks (筷子, kuàizi). The Chinese government wants to reduce the huge amount of timber used for producing the annual 10 billions of boxes of chopsticks for the domestic market and 6 billions of boxes for the export. This represents more 1.3 million cubic meters!
But is 5% enough?
This new tax is arriving together with some other taxes related to wooden floor panel (5%), yachts, golf clubs and balls (10%) and luxury watches (20%).
Are the 50RMB fake rollex also taxable? ‘_^
Let’s go back to chopsticks with two quite interesting related websites…
Erik Wegweiser collects chopsticks as a hobby. His chopsticks are often handmade, of unusual material or design, and represent various world cultures and artists. He has more than 300. Why did he start to collect chopsticks? Well, here is his answer: “They’re not Pokemon, Beanie Babies, etc., and the mere fact that you can’t buy them at the corner gas station along with prepaid phone cards or get them free with your hamburger is enough to make finding them half the fun.” ^_^
Then, because wooden chopsticks do not damage the aluminum skin like regular tools, a guy at PCOnline is using them to dismantle a Mac Mini! Have a look at his report, especially if you are learning Chinese as it is both in English and Chinese Mandarin on the same page!
Source
China Daily - March 22, 2006
Links
How to unpack a Mac Mini with a pair of disposable chopsticks
Erik’s Chopsticks Collection
Look at this! I now have the proof that the Beatles were Chinese!
Forget John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr! Welcome the almighty Wang Brothers!
Well… Okay, I admit, it’s a fake! But in fact, the real one is even more incredible! How come they decided to make their face so asian?
Was it for fun? Was it for marketing reasons?
Links
Source at Ijamming - April 2 2004
The Beatles at Wikipedia (Gollum browser for our China based visitors)
On the occasion of its 2nd performance in Beijing, the French contemporary dance group K-Denza will bring together western students and Chinese professional dancers. Their improvisations will be accompanied by Eugene Martynec’s contemporary music.
Date and Time: Saturday March 18th at 4 p.m. (1 hour show)
Address: DongSiShiTiao, NanXinCang No.5 (200m. west of the subway station, in the old traditional Chinese houses)
Participation to the costs: Please bring a chair, and leave it…!
Contact / Reservation: Send SMS to 131 41 371 655 (Hortense ; Chinese/English) or 137 1787 4393 (Régis ; English/French)
Spectacle International de Danse Contemporaine
Pour sa deuxième performance à Pékin, la Compagnie de danse contemporaine française K-Denza propose à des étudiants et à des danseurs professionnels chinois de partager un même lieu. Ces rencontres improvisées entre danseurs internationaux sont accompagnées par le musicien contemporain Eugène Martynec.
Date: le samedi 18 mars à 16h (1h de spectacle)
Adresse: DongSiShiTiao, NanXinCang No.5 (a 200m. à l’ouest de la station de métro, dans les bâtiments traditionnels chinois)
Participation aux Frais:Merci d’apporter une chaise, à laisser sur place!
Contact/Réservation : par SMS au 131 41 371 655 (Hortense) ou 137 1787 4393 (Régis)
国际现代舞演出法国现代舞团 K-Denza 今春再次来华，此次他们将联手在北京的国际学校学生和中国的职业舞者共同表演，加拿大著名电子音乐家 Eugene Martynec 也将参与到这次的即兴表演中。
时间 : 3 月 18 号 （星期六）下午 4 点. (一个小时的演出)
地点: 东四十条, 南新仓 5 号库 ( 东四十条地铁站往西 200 米
免费入场。注意： 请自带椅子， 凭椅子入场， 演出结束后请留下！
联系方式 / 定位 : 请把短信发到 131 41 371 655 （海棠小姐）
1. The footprints on the toilet seat are your own.
2. You no longer wait in line, but go immediately to the head of the queue.
3. You stop at the top or bottom of an escalator to plan your day.
4. It becomes exciting to see if you can get on the lift before anyone can get off.
5. It is no longer surprising that the only decision made at a meeting is the time and venue for the next meeting.
6. You rank the decision making abilities of your staff by how long it takes them to reply “Up To You”.
7. You no longer wonder how someone who earns US$ 400.00 per month can drive a Mercedes.
8. You accept the fact that you have to queue to get a number for the next queue.
9. You accept without question the mechanic’s analysis that the car is “Broken” and that it will cost you a lot of money to get it “Fixed”.
10. You find that it saves time to stand and retrieve your hand luggage while the plane is on final approach.
I just sent the invitation for my next Party!
Please check The Next Party Page for more details!!!
If you did not receive the invitation… well… I’m sure I sent it to you so… I would blame Camille. I heard she implemented a small software to turn any email in a vote for her blog!!! >_
After killing some 200 millions birds since 2003 due to the bird flu, shuttlecocks manufacturers around the world start to notice the goose feathers shortages in China. Badminton (羽毛球, yu mao qiu) players know that, for each shuttlecock, these manufacturers need to find 16 goose feathers, clean them and attach them to the base of a Portuguese cork.
Because of these shortages, prices of shuttlecocks have increased dramatically by more than 50%. However, Badminton Clubs use to buy their feathered projectiles at the beginning of the season. They will only be affected beginning of the next season; most clubs buying their shuttlecocks in July or August.
At the same time, the International Badminton Federation is pushing the research towards a better more advanced plastic shuttlecock.
Source
China Daily - 2006 03 15
Links
Shuttlecock on Wikipedia (Gollum Wikipedia Browser)
Chinese Shuttlecock Federation
International Badminton Federation
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