Dave Porter Weblog

Newsstands of Beijing

This episode on life in China today from the internet TV station Danwei, part of their Hard Hat series, is 5 minutes 51 seconds long. It is a short program about the newsstands of Beijing where most residents of the city purchase newspapers and magazines. The program includes short interviews with a newsstand operator and two customers. Shot and edited by Luke Mines, presented by Jeremy Goldkorn.

NC: Chinese starts in North Carolina counties

Article "Guilford chosen to teach Chinese"; in the Greenboro, N.C., New-Record.com:

HIGH POINT — Northwood Elementary, Ferndale Middle and High Point Central High schools will start offering Mandarin Chinese courses in August as part of an effort to help students compete for jobs in the global marketplace. 

Guilford County Schools was one of three districts in North Carolina chosen to participate in the College Board’s Chinese guest teacher program. Schools in Forsyth and Union counties and 18 other states will receive teachers this month.

The College Board, which administers the SAT and other college entrance exams, created the exchange program last year as a way to increase the number of schools offering Advanced Placement Chinese, said Selena Cantor, director of Chinese Language and Culture Initiatives....

China's Economy Roaring

The Economist article "China's economy: Still roaring: But China's economy will quiet down this year."{

ROSS PEROT, a populist American politician, predicted in the early 1990s that a trade pact with Mexico would create a ‘‘giant sucking sound’’ as jobs headed south. Instead, America experienced full employment. So giant-sucking-sound detectors turned to China. In time, China became the workshop of the world, although by then America had long hollowed out much of its manufacturing.

Now there really is a giant sucking sound—not one made by the flight of jobs, but by China ferociously hoovering up commodities and raw materials. Although it accounts for roughly 4% of global GDP (measured at market exchange rates), China consumes 30% of the world’s supply of minerals and other raw materials. This time around, the world has not only heard the sucking sound, but has also felt its effects, as the prices of commodities such as iron ore, copper and zinc have soared, doubling or tripling in just a couple of years.

How has China suddenly developed such a big appetite? The economy has been growing at a dizzying rate, recently by double digits. Much of this growth is driven by fixed-asset investment, which now accounts for more than 50% of GDP a year—a higher proportion than that of any other country at any time in history. This relentless capacity for expansion has created an insatiable demand for raw materials....

China's Stock Markets Soar

NY Times articled "Chinese United by Common Goal: A Hot Stock Tip"; by Jim Yardley:

...Less than two years after share prices collapsed, China’s stock markets are almost going mad, actually, with the leading Shanghai Composite Index approaching 3,000 and Chinese investors flocking to buy shares in record numbers. The bull market is so powerful — the Shanghai market hit a record high last week and was among the best performing in the world last year — that one senior Chinese official has warned against “blind optimism.”

College students, young professionals, retirees and others are buying individual shares or investing in China’s swelling mutual funds. One mutual fund raised $5 billion in a single day. Day trading, meanwhile, is becoming popular with investors, many of whom monitor the market from home on personal computers.

The run is particularly striking because China’s stock markets have historically been stagnant financial backwaters, marred by scandal, weak oversight and fundamental contradictions. Even as China’s economy has roared, the stock market has rarely inspired public confidence or great interest. China’s markets nearly disintegrated in 2005, and one 2003 poll found that 90 percent of investors had lost money....

No one is arguing that the Chinese markets are now fully reformed, but enough changes have occurred to inspire new confidence. Many state-owned companies, for example, have settled on formulas to begin cleaning up the problems over nontradable shares.

Meanwhile, many Chinese investors are leaving the bubbly national real estate market and moving money into stocks. Roughly 2.7 million new investment accounts were registered last year, more than triple the number from 2005....

Muzi Mei Sex Blogger

Another episode on life in China today from the internet TV station Danwei and is 7 minutes 18 seconds long. This episode is part of their Hard Hat series and is an interview with Muzi Mei (aka muzimei, Mu Zimei), the young Chinese woman who shot to fame in 2003 after starting a blog filled with descriptions of her sex life.

Mandarin Rising in Oregon

Article "Mandarin rising" by Kimberly A.C. Wilson in the Oregonian:

...To the Portland schoolchildren on the first rung in the nation's only kindergarten-to-college Chinese immersion curriculum, Mandarin is fast becoming as familiar as story time and stubby pink erasers.

"Mandarin has been this quiet little jewel," says Patterson, whose English business card reverses to Simplified Chinese characters. "Interest keeps blossoming."

Ding Li, an electrical engineer from China who teaches Mandarin in Portland and Beaverton, agrees. "We can feel that the language is becoming hotter."

And Southeast Portland -- home to Woodstock's nine-year-old immersion program, assorted Chinese language schools and the city's largest concentration of native speakers -- is an epicenter.

The number of Portlanders who speak Chinese -- Cantonese as well as Mandarin -- grew at least 20 percent from 2000 to 2005, a recent Multnomah County Library study found. To serve them, the Woodstock branch hired the system's first Mandarin and Cantonese speakers last summer. Other businesses and services are blossoming in Southeast to serve a thriving community swelling with both multinational adoptive families and immigrants.

The developments might put a smile on the face of Uncle Sam. Mastering Mandarin is considered a matter of national security, and the U.S. Defense Department wants Americans to grasp Mandarin's nuances like the Beijing-born -- and compete with residents of the world's fastest-growing economy...

The prospect of college scholarships has made Woodstock's program even more popular. Nearly 110 families applied for Woodstock's 60 kindergarten slots this school year. Bacon gets frequent calls from parents who want Mandarin in other parts of Portland and from principals who want to replicate the K-to-college track....

About 600 Oregon families applied to adopt children from overseas last year, with about half of those seeking children from China, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Such families are encouraged to maintain linguistic and cultural connections with China....

The Woodstock Library, meanwhile, bulked up on Chinese materials and hired two staff members who are native speakers in Mandarin and Cantonese after a library study completed in fall found that branch is the most heavily used by Chinese speakers. The branch plans to add a Chinese story time for kids later this year, led by the new staffers.

The study's author, Ben Moorad, says Census data show that Southeast has the city's highest percentage of children under 5 who speak Chinese at home. He also found that the number of people who call Chinese their primary language ballooned 45 percent from 2000 to 2004, to 7,350. And while Cantonese speakers outnumber Mandarin speakers by as much as 10-to-1 in Portland, the ratio is shifting downward.....

MI: Online Resources at Confucius Institute

Michagan State University's Confucius Institute offers an variety of online resources for learning Chinese:

MSU Confucius Institute (CI-MSU) was established in collaboration with China Central Radio and TV University under the authorization and sponsorship of China's National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. Its objective is to meet the ever-increasing demand for Chinese education in the U.S., providing quality Chinese learning materials and experience to both K-12 students and adults and helping training qualified teachers of Chinese.

Currently, CI-MSU is working on three major projects: podcast of existent video-based Chinese learning materials and daily news, online Chinese courses for K-12 students and adults, and Chinese instructor training program.....

Learn Mandarin via online game

Investor's Business Daily article "Video Games Aim to Make Difficult Language a Bit Easier" by Sheila Riley:

Taking a cue from much-hyped phenomena such as "World of Warcraft" and "Second Life," teachers of Mandarin — China's notoriously difficult official language — are moving from classrooms to cyberspace.

Educators are finding ways to teach the language through online interaction and role-playing games rather than rote instruction.

One example is "Zon — The New Chengo Chinese." The five-level, massive multi-player online game weaves Chinese history and geography into an immersive environment aimed at middle- and high-school students.

It is a way to transmit authentic language and culture through technology, says Yong Zhao, the Michigan State University professor behind the game.

 "Every government, if they are rich enough, will find a way to help other people understand their culture and learn their language," he said.

MSU is working with the Chinese government-sponsored Confucius Institute to develop the game. The organization promotes Chinese language, history and culture.....

Chengo Chinese has it own website.

Fishman: How China Will Change Your Business

Ted C. Fishman's article "How China Will Change Your Business" elaborates fourteen points:

Yet Americans -- particularly anyone involved in running a business -- need to know what is happening today in China and to understand how China's fate has become inextricably bound with our own. Conceding China's rise does not mean conceding to China. But it does require acknowledging some important truths:

1. China's economy is much larger than the official numbers show.
2. The growth of China's economy has no equal in modern history.
3. China is winning the global competition for investment capital.
4. China can be a bully.
5. China's economy is an entrepreneurial economy.
6. The most daunting thing about China is not its ability to make cheap consumer goods.
7. China is closing the research and development gap -- fast.
8. China now sets the global benchmark for prices.
9. China's growth is making raw materials more expensive.
10. No company has embraced China's potential more vigorously than Wal-Mart.
11. There are hidden costs associated with doing business in China.
12. Piracy is a problem.
13. China's heavy buying of U.S. debt has lowered the cost of money in the U.S.
14. Americans and Chinese have become reliant on each other's most controversial habits.

Big, New Buildings of Beijing

Another episode on life in China today from the internet TV station Danwei. 3 minutes 57 seconds long. This episode is part of their Hard Hat series and shows the current state of four of Beijing's new mega buildings:(1) Rem Koolhaas' new CCTV building, (2) Paul Andreu's National Theater, (3) The National Swimming Center or 'Water Cube' designed by PTW, and (4) The Olympic Stadium designed Herzog & de Meuron. Shot and edited by Luke Mines, presented by Jeremy Goldkorn.