Need2LearnChinese Blog

Dealer Carlo Scalvini in a stretch limo model of the Hover, a car imported from China in a showroom in Palazzolo Sull'oglio, Italy. China's inroads into Europe are the first test of the world's richest markets by Chinese automakers.

 They have names like the Brilliance BS6, the Landwind Fashion, or the improbable Hover Wingle, and though these sedans, vans, and sport utility vehicles are hardly as familiar to Europeans as, say, a Volkswagen Golf, they are beginning to show up on European roads.

"I've got air conditioning, ABS brakes, and air bags," said Carlo Scalvini, describing his Hover, a big and boxy sport utility vehicle built by the Great Wall Motor Co., with headquarters in Baoding in eastern China. "And the price is competitive: You pay 10,000 euros less in the end," more than $13,000.

The enthusiasm of people like Scalvini could influence the global auto industry and China's place in it. China's quiet inroads into Europe are the first test of rich markets by Chinese automakers as they build dealer networks and deliver small shipments of cars to test the reaction of drivers and auto industry experts.

Many of the dealers who have signed on with the Chinese previously worked with the Japanese and the South Koreans, and so have experience in coaxing Europeans to purchase cars with unfamiliar names and unusual looks, but sweet prices.

If business is starting fitfully, they foresee healthy profits down the road, aided by the weak dollar. European car dealers pay in dollars for the Chinese cars, yet are paid in strong euros when they resell them, pocketing nifty profits from exchange rates.

"The game the Japanese mastered in 15 years, and the Koreans in 10," said Nigel Griffiths, director of European light vehicle forecasting at Global Insight, "they will do in 18 months to five years."

Paradoxically, the Chinese have been helped in Europe by their alliances with Western automakers in China. Some of the Chinese cars being imported into European countries use electrical components from Bosch, the big German parts supplier, or have been designed by Italian firms like Giugiaro. Now, the Europeans are seeing their ideas and components flow back into their own markets.

That the European market is essentially open is also helping the Chinese. Because so many European cars are now being built elsewhere, a quota on imports is politically almost impossible.

There have been setbacks, like abysmal results on a crash test done on a Chinese car two years ago. Some specialists are skeptical that the Chinese can become major competitors in Europe and the United States. After all, car buying remains an emotional business. "There is a general lack of brand awareness, and distribution is a hurdle," said Michael K. McKenzie, a China expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers' automotive institute in Detroit.

But the Japanese and South Koreans overcame similar hurdles. Moreover, the Chinese are moving in several stages. "They are coming through the back door: first Russia, then working their way west," Griffiths of Global Insight said. He estimates that China will sell 54,000 cars in Russia this year, out of a total market of 2 million, compared with 31,000 last year.

The Chinese are arriving even as European carmakers struggle with flat prices and diminishing profit, and the Chinese presence is expected to ratchet up the pressure. That will force some European companies that stayed in the mass market for small cars, like Fiat, either to move up to larger, more expensive models, or to perish, McKenzie predicted. "They will undercut these companies, and the market will be more contested," he said.

It began when a Dutch Nissan dealer, Peter Bijvelds, visited China with a friend in 2004 to inspect the Landwind factory in Nanchang, a gritty city south of the Yangtze River in Jiangxi Province. The trip ended with Bijvelds' introducing a big and boxy Chinese-made SUV, the Landwind New Vision, a twin of GM's Opel Frontera, at the 2005 Frankfurt auto show. It did not handle like a European car and its engine had little excess power, but for Europeans tired of station wagons or wanting to tow a trailer, this car cost 25 percent less than a Kia or a Hyundai model. It had air conditioning, air bags, and aluminum wheels. In the first two weeks, Bijvelds said, he sold 500 of them.

Then, at about the time of the Frankfurt show, the German automobile club, known as ADAC, put the New Vision to a crash test. The driver's survival chances were about nil, the club's testers said.

Bijvelds' Chinese partners were dismayed. The New Vision was put on hold, while Landwind ironed out the kinks. A successor model, the Landwind Expedition, has a comely design by an Italian design studio, a German-built engine and all European safety features.

Bijvelds suggested that the automobile club might have been prompted by German automakers to undermine his project. A club spokesman, Maximilian Maurer, denied that. "I am sure that in time the Chinese will succeed here," he said, "and the ADAC doesn't want to keep them away. We simply want to inform consumers about the quality of these cars."

Bijvelds, 28, receiving a visitor at the headquarters of his Landwind Motor Corp. near Antwerp, Belgium, said, "We get so many products from China with Western brands, why not cars?" Europeans, he says, are after value for money, citing Renault's recent bonanza with the Logan, a car built in Romania that has a six-month waiting time for delivery in Belgium. "They want a lot of car for a little money," he said.

The German crash test, a colleague told him recently, may have been a blessing in disguise. "Now everybody knows you," the friend said, "For good or bad, they know you."

In Germany, Hans-Ulrich Sachs, a former Volkswagen executive who is chairman of HSO Motors Europe, is signing on dealers to sell the Brilliance BS6, a comfortable sedan with a vague resemblance to a midsize BMW. Indeed, Brilliance assembles BMW's 3 and 5 series cars for the domestic Chinese market.

By the end of this year, Sachs, 54, wants 150 showrooms in Germany, and by next year, 1,100 throughout Europe. This year, he hopes to sell 6,000 to 7,000 cars. The first 500 arrived in mid-March.

Why would a German buy a Chinese car? he asked rhetorically. "Value for the money."

For Europe's carmakers, alliances with Chinese companies could become two-edged affairs, providing models that one day may well compete against their own cars. Volkswagen, for instance, has joint ventures with Shanghai Automotive and First Auto Works. Yet Kai Grueber, spokesman for the Volkswagen Group China, played down the potential for competition, saying that VW was focused for now on the domestic Chinese market. "Future exports into the Southeast Asian area are conceivable in markets where we can expand our offering with new models," he said.

At Eurasia Motor here in Palazzolo, about 35 miles northeast of Milan, where Scalvini bought his SUV, a shipment of 360 arrived in November, and have all been sold through a network of 95 Italian dealers. "We're now expecting 800 more, in lots of 200 each, of the same model," said Federico Daffi, Eurasia's chief financial officer. Eurasia pays Great Wall $14,000 for the SUVs, and sells them for as little as 19,600 euros (about $27,000), still one-fourth below the South Korean competition. Eurasia then uses the lower price to market to middle-class families who until now could not afford an SUV.

Scalvini, 44, would buy more Hovers now, if they were available. He is the owner of Consorzio Vela, a company that employs about 800 people and maintains a large fleet of vehicles supplying services like delivery and catering to other Italian companies.

The Hover's Mitsubishi-built engine is fuel-efficient and will offer the option of shifting from gasoline to liquid propane gas in future models.

"I'm convinced it will be a winner," he said.

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EVERY year around the Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese people give and receive millions of mooncakes - more, in fact, than they can eat - and the question often asked is: "Where do all the mooncakes go?"

Now the Internet has the answer: from scalpers selling cut-price mooncake gift coupons to those unwanted gift boxes going for a song, mooncakes are becoming the ultimate recycling industry.

"Mooncake gift boxes for sale, 50 percent off. Be quick," says one ad posted on a city-based community bulletin board system.

In the run-up to Mid-Autumn Festival, today, the war for mooncake sales is heating up in stores and restaurants. Meanwhile, a discount mooncake market is booming on the Internet, with the number of related posts hitting 551 on a Beijing sub-BBS alone.

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In China it’s common to give money as a gift on certain occasions, for instance on Chinese New Year, for birthdays and at weddings, though it’s certainly acceptable on other occasions as well. But, one cannot simply fork over a few bills. There is an etiquette to giving money in China.

Money is traditionally given in hong bao, or red packets. These red envelopes are especially popular on New Year’s and at Weddings, but they’re not exclusive to these occasions. Any time you give money a hong bao is the best way to present it. In addition, it’s best to give new bills. Though no one will take offense if you give old bills, crisp, new bills are considered better for gifts.

Aside from happy occasions, it’s common to give cash at funerals in China as well. However, how cash is given differs on these two occasions. On happy occasions, cash is given in even numbered amounts; for funerals it’s given in odd numbered amounts. Note that 10 is still considered an odd amount in this reckoning, because it contains the number 1, an odd number.

In addition, it’s prudent to pay attention to considerations of lucky numbers when deciding how much to give. 4 is a very unlucky number in Chinese, so it’s best to avoid amounts with the number 4 in them. In contrast 8 and 6 are both very lucky numbers.

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The egg roll is ubiquitous at Chinese restaurants in the West. It also shows up in collections of Chinese recipes.  This delicious food, made by rolling vegetables, meat and noodles in a thin dough shell, dipping it in egg and deep frying it, is one of the most essential parts of Chinese cuisine!

Or is it? In fact, there’s some debate about where egg rolls actually came from. Some claim that they’re not Chinese at all, but actually Malaysian, Phillipino, or elsewhere in Southeast Asia. One website even claims they have their origins in Calcutta, India.

Who exactly invented the egg roll may be in some ways an unanswerable question. The point, however, is that while egg roll like foods have been their predecessors are an essential part of South Chinese food – as distinct from North Chinese food – these are not necessarily the egg rolls known in the West. Egg rolls are very different in different parts of South China and Southeast Asia, and the ones served in “Chinese” restaurants in the West may not be Chinese at all. Chinese egg rolls are usually made with a wheat-flour shell. Vietnamese “egg rolls” are better known as spring rolls. These are made with a rice-flour shell and don’t include any egg at all.

The idea that egg rolls are essentially Chinese is so deeply entrenched in the West that all of these different types of egg rolls appear in Chinese restaurants of every flavor. Hunan restaurants have them; Peking duck restaurants have them; and Sichuan restaurants have them – even though egg rolls are distinctly not a part of any of these types of cuisine. In the end, one is tempted to conclude that egg rolls aren’t Chinese at all, but Western.

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While the US real-estate market maybe suffering from a bout of subprime malaise as of late, China’s housing boom continues unabated (until it hits a wall of its own). According to numbers released yesterday, in August, prices for new construction among China’s top 70 metro areas on average are up 8.2 percent year over year, and 1.4 percent sequentially. Shenzhen leads the pack with a 20 percent annual appreciation rate. Shanghai in comparison, sports a far more modest yearly increase of just 3.6 percent. Chinese residential real estate market has been on a tear since 2000. Prices in several top tier cities have already gone up 300 to 500 percent coming into this year.

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Over the past few weeks, massive displays of small cakes covered in elaborate pastry designs have popped up in several shops and cafes across China.  These pretty pastries are an Asian specialty called moon cakes, and appear every year in the run up to the Lunar Festival, which this year falls on 25th September. The Lunar Festival, also known as the Mid Autumn Festival or the Moon Cake Festival, is China’s Harvest Festival that has been compared to Thanksgiving Day in America. Traditionally it is a time for families to gather together and be reunited as a whole again, just as the full moon in the sky is whole.

The Lunar Festival was traditionally the third and last festival for the living in the Chinese calendar. It always occurs on the 15th of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar, so in the Western calendar that is usually some time between mid September and mid October. It is a festival that has traditionally been celebrated by both the Han and the minority nationalities.

The Chinese custom of worshiping the moon goes as far back as the ancient Xia and Shang dynasties (2000BC – 1066 BC). Most of China’s historical palaces and classical gardens have a moon viewing pavilion for this reason. People drew a connection between the changes of the moon and of life, comparing the waxes and wanes of the moon to the human emotions of sorrow and joy due to parting and reunion. The Mid Autumn festival falls at the time in the lunar calendar when the moon is full. It came to symbolize a time of reunion when fruit and grain had just been harvested and food was abundant, so families came together under the full moon to celebrate.

The Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279 AD) is said to be when the moon cake tradition began. People sent round moon cakes to their relatives during the Lunar Festival as an expression of their best wishes of family reunion.  Celebrating the lunar festival became an important event in the social calendar. Families would get together and look up at the full silver moon or go sightseeing on lakes, enjoying the clear sky and each other’s company. 

Modern Lunar Festival Celebrations

The Lunar Festival is still known as an important time for Chinese families to be together. It is also known as a romantic night for lovers, who might take a walk together under the clear sky. The custom of gazing at the silver full moon continues, especially to think of relatives who are far from home. Companies use the festival as a time to thank clients with boxes of moon cakes. As well as moon cakes, people also eat cooked taro because legend has it that this was the first food discovered at night. Recently holding a barbeque with family and friends to celebrate the festival has become popular too.

Moreover different parts of the country have their own particular festival customs. There are lots of different kinds of customs, including burning incense, planting mid Autumn trees, fire dragon dances and lighting lanterns on towers. In Hong Kong and Guangzhou, the Mid Autumn Festival is held in conjunction with the Lantern Festival, so celebrations include huge lantern shows. In Zhejiang province, people gather by the Qiantang River to watch the ebb of the tides coincide with the strong gravitational pull of the waxing and waning of the moon.

The dawn of the internet age has also seen a rise in popularity of sending online greetings for the Moon Cake Festival. However, this year people have been warned to exercise caution in sending these cards, because last year a wave of internet worms hit hard drives from virus infested moon cake greeting cards.

What’s in a Moon Cake?

Moon cakes are always designed in a round shape to look like the moon. They were traditionally made with four egg yolks to represent the four phases of the moon. For generations, moon cakes have been made with sweet fillings of nuts, mashed red beans, lotus seedpaste or Chinese dates wrapped in pastry. Some people say they are similar to the plum puddings and fruit cakes served in the UK.

These days moon cake fillings are made with anything from fruit and nuts to Chinese sausages. Other more recent developments in the moon cake flavor business include green tea moon cakes and snow skin moon cakes (made from cooked glutinous rice flour). Even Häagen Daz has got involved in the moon cake craze, by introducing their own line of ice cream moon cakes.

Moon cakes usually come in a box of thirteen. This is to symbolize the thirteen moons of a ‘complete year’: the twelve moons and one intercalary moon.

Moon Cake Festival Legends

If you glance at the design on the golden brown crust of a moon cake, or the moon cake box or poster, you can usually see images that refer to legends of the moon. Often there is a picture of legendary figures Chang E or the jade hare. There are lots of different versions of their stories. Not only do these stories feature in moon cake design, they are also told in families at the time of the Lunar Festival.

According to a story from the Xia dynasty, Chang E was the beautiful wife of the divine archer Hou Yi. He saved the world by shooting down nine of the ten suns that would otherwise have scorched the Earth. As a reward, he received the herb of immortality from a goddess. However, his wife knew that if he ate the herb, people would suffer eternally from his tyrannical rule, so she ate it herself instead. The herb made her float upwards to the moon. Hou Yi’s deep love for his wife was the only reason he did not shoot down the moon.

The legend of the jade rabbit who lives in a palace on the moon is also told during the Moon Cake Festival. It is a story about three fairy sages who came down to Earth and transformed themselves into old men begging for food from a fox, a monkey and a rabbit. The fox and the monkey were able to offer the old men food. The rabbit had no food to give the old men but rather than turn them away, he offered himself as a meal, jumping into a fire to cook himself. The sages were amazed by the rabbit’s sacrifice and transformed him into a jade rabbit and let him live in the Moon Palace.

One of the reasons the Lunar Festival is celebrated by lovers throughout China is the role of the man in the moon in Chinese mythology. The Chinese have a saying: “Marriages are made in heaven and prepared on the moon”.  Apparently it is the man in the moon that does the preparing! The old man keeps a record book with the name of every newborn baby. He knows everybody’s future partner and the decisions that he writes in his book are irreversible. Therefore, wannabe lovers go to the hills at the time of the Lunar Festival, and gaze at the moon hoping that their wish will be granted...

Furthermore, the humble moon cake is even said to have played an important role in Chinese history. In the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368 AD), China was ruled by Mongolian people. According to legend, the revolt against foreign rule was coordinated to take place on the night of the Moon Festival. In the run up to the festival, the rebel leaders ordered the making of special moon cakes, with messages about the attack baked into them. This is how they communicated with each other and successfully organized the attack and overthrow of the government. Nobody knows if this Chinese version of ancient Europe’s Trojan horse story is true or not. 

Happy Moon Cake Day

If you are in China at the time of the mid Autumn festival this year, take advantage of the opportunity to be a part of one of China’s most exciting traditions. Have a barbeque, eat some moon cakes, gaze at the full moon in the sky and try not to feel too homesick for loved ones back home.

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Some directors dazzle us with films that are slick, cool and stylish. Ang Lee's are none of those things especially but instead reveal the wisdom of a truly great storyteller.

Who would imagine that a Chinese-language kungfu film would conquer the heart of mainstream America as well as sweep up many of Hollywood's most prestigious awards?

But Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is no ordinary martial arts movie. Because of him, many people know about Chinese filmmaking and about Chinese films.

And last year, with Brokeback Mountain, yet another unimaginable success, both with critics and audiences, he captivated the entire world and reached the pinnacle of moviemaking. "I hope I can live 300 years, and I can try all the film genres and mix them, and twist them and learn about them," Lee says.

A quiet, gentle but commanding presence, this Taiwanese-born, New York University-educated director has connected with audiences throughout the world by concentrating on human dramas.

Lee, 53, creates characters that draw in an audience no matter what language they speak. His insight into the human heart crosses all boundaries.

Lee's ability to be such a huge cross-cultural influence is unique. His Taiwanese upbringing, which kept him deeply rooted in the Chinese way of living, combined with his well-informed understanding of Western mores and filmmaking techniques have allowed him to speak to those two cultures in a way no other director has.

Although he chose to remain in the United States after graduation, his early films, which were made with a low-budget production company, were firmly rooted in Chinese tradition and culture.

"I was born in Taiwan, but my mother is from Jiangxi Province and my father from Beijing," says Lee. "So I was intensively trained with Chinese traditions, and I hope this shows through in my works."

Pushing Hands, completed in 1992, tells the story of an aging tai chi master forced to adjust to living in the United States with his son, who is married to a Caucasian woman.

The Wedding Banquet, released in 1993, is a complex comedy about a young Taiwanese-American in New York who tries to hide his homosexuality from his conservative parents by agreeing to marry a Chinese woman who wants to obtain US citizenship. The low-budget film was a huge hit and an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film.

Lee's 1994 film, Eat Drink Man Woman, was set in Taipei and combined Lee's personal hobby, Chinese cooking, with an intricate story about the relationships between a single father and his three daughters. It was also nominated for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards.

The unique sensibility of telling stories and capturing touching moments are Lee's trademarks, which have seen him emerge as a leading force in Hollywood.

When producer and director Sydney Pollack was thinking about a director for bringing the Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility to the screen, he thought of Lee after seeing his early works.

"They both had a marvelous emotionality," Pollack says. "They were both funny. They were touching without being maudlin or sentimental."

Lee's next film, The Ice Storm, explored another culture and period in time - suburban America during the post-Watergate era. The critical success of that film showed that Lee's ability to penetrate the essence of whatever subject he tackled was no coincidence.

His most recent film Lust, Caution is an espionage thriller set in WWII-era Shanghai. "Normally the stories about fighting the Japanese army at that time are passionate and patriotic, but Chang had her own view and angle," he reveals. "I am so impressed and curious that she wrote about a girl student who tries to seduce and assassinate a Chinese spy working for the Japanese government. I think it's the perfect story."

The novel is only 28 pages long. But Lee says short stories are the perfect length for films: "I will have more space and time to organize the story in my film, and I will add more dramatic details."

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Who would you expect to bump into on an early morning stroll in a park? A couple of ultra keen joggers perhaps, or another early riser out for some fresh air before their day begins. But at seven o’ clock in the morning, one would expect, most parks would be fairly tranquil.

Not so in China. If you feel like getting out of bed early and heading to Beijing’s famous Temple of Heaven Park, or indeed any of the myriad parks scattered throughout the Middle Kingdom, you cannot help but see the elderly community out in force. It might be some old men taking their birds in cages out for a walk. There will be those who choose to exercise independently, perhaps practising shadow boxing or simply jogging backwards and forwards. Big groups of retired men and women gather together and take part in dances to music playing from speakers, some using fans or veils. Others do their exercise in free-to-use outdoor gyms, brightly coloured structures that are somewhat reminiscent of playgrounds for adults. Looking onto these gymnasia I have more than once been astounded by the incredibly agile and flexible bodies that are attached to wrinkled Chinese faces, as men and women bend, stretch and even flip!

In fact at most times of the day it is pretty difficult not to notice elderly people in Chinese society. Groups of grey haired smiling men gather in circles by the side of the road to play a game of cards. Proud grandmothers take their little grandchildren out for a walk.

This is one aspect that apparently differs markedly from life in the West. While in both Eastern and Western cultures, the retired community is an important part of society, they are a much more visible part of life in China. Moreover it is common for Chinese families to share their home with a grandparent or other senior family member. Unlike the Western idea of children becoming independent and creating a family for themselves, by themselves, China seems to embrace the Confucian concept of filial piety. The ancient sage advocated a son having utmost respect for his parents and looking after them into their old age. Today his words have not been forgotten by the Chinese, who are proud of their culture which respects the wisdom of senior citizens. Besides, the live-in grandparent is often not so very elderly (China’s retirement age is 55 for women and 60 for men), and they are in fact a vital part of family life, helping with cooking and childcare. 

Still, when a country is developing as quickly as China, lots of changes inevitably occur, and one wonders whether the position of old people will come to change too. There is already evidence of lots of young people leaving rural communities to find work in the cities, so what will become of the parents who are left behind as they reach old age?  Furthermore, Chinese families are nowadays much smaller than they used to be, and many families face a future with only one child to shoulder the responsibility of caring for their elderly parents. In the rush to embrace a more Western lifestyle I hope that the Chinese ideals of respect for elders are not left behind.

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Not surprisingly, surging food prices is the main culprit behind the latest headline number, up a staggering 18.2 percent: Fresh vegetable up 22.5 percent, eggs up 23.6 percent, cooking oil up 34.6 percent and pork/poultry up 49 percent. Ouch! Prices in other sectors are faring much better, with most to the upside, but less than 5 percent: Rent up 3.9 percent, utility up 2.2 percent and healthcare up 2.3 percent

In related news, yesterday, the head of People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan reiterated that the role of a central bank is to fight inflation, perhaps having seen an earlier copy of today’s CPI report. Maybe we’ll get another rate hike sometime this week.

The Shanghai Composite Index surrendered earlier gains after the number was released. It closed the morning session down 14 points, at 5341.

UPDATE: The SCI lost another 230 points to close at 5114 in the afternoon session. Selling accelerated into the close. Decliners outpaced advancing issues by a 15 to 1 margin.

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1. Promote the relationship between China and other parts of the world in their professional fields of economics and trade, politics, culture, sports, or science and technology;
2. Love Chinese culture and history;
3. Be devoted to communicate information of a real China to their native countries;
4. Uphold the Olympic spirit of constant exploration and pursuing excellence; and
5. Contribute to the building of a harmonious society.

An Internet vote will pick out 100 candidates who will then proceed to the next round to be determined by a selection panel.

Think you can run those 400 meters without fainting? Then log on to this page, submit a photograph of yourself looking nice and fit, and write a 500-word essay entitled “China and I”. But remember:

The essay should cover a true, touching part of “my story in China” and a statement of the reason “why I should be chosen as an Olympic torchbearer.”

And oh, by the way, all essays need to be in English. Read: No German, no French, no Spanish, no Italian, no Japanese and no Korean (don't ask us why). And to all the Esperanto aficionados that have been reading this blog, sorry to disappoint you, but no Esperanto as well.

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Okay okay, we've all had a bit of a Macau overdose lately, but we just couldn't resist sharing with you this tid-bit of information that we found on the blog of Telegraph journalist Richard Spencer. He shares a rumour that "the Louis Vuitton store in Macau is, per square foot, the company's most profitable anywhere in the world. And that the big seller is man-bags. The men buy them to put their cash in before going gambling." He also makes the comment that suddenly, the world wants China to go shopping!

Gosh. With the third allegation of hacking by the Chinese military into government computers in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom surfacing within two weeks, the guys at the Foreign Ministry have been kept busy! Fons Tuinstra points to past cases of bored teenagers who have successfully hacked into other governments and surmised that the German government could not have said that they had an issue with millions of bored Chinese teenagers! Richard Spencer made the erudite argument that if the "US and other western governments are busy infiltrating the computer systems of foreign governments... it is disingenuous to complain too vigorously when those same foreign governments become good at doing it back". Hmm...

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All over Asia custom dictates that people don’t wear shoes in the house. In some places, such as Japan and China, people wear exclusive indoor-use only slippers or flip-flops in the house, particularly during the winter. Other people simply leave their shoes at the door and go barefoot inside the house. There are many reasons for the custom, from comfort to a desire for quiet, but the most common reason is cleanliness. The streets are dirty and the shoes you wear outside track that dirt and other less than sanitary substances indoors. In today’s cosmopolitan world, many Westerners are perfectly aware of this custom; particularly in places with large Asian populations non-Asians often don’t even need to be asked to take their shoes off in the entryway of an Asian house.

But, of course, not everyone agrees with the custom. There seems to be no hard and fast rule about shoes in the house in the West. Some people forbid shoes inside for the reasons mentioned above; some people don’t allow shoes on the carpet but do allow them on hard wood floors; a few people don’t care either way; and some people are offended when guests take their shoes off in their homes or when they’re asked to take their shoes off in someone else’s house.

People’s attitudes about shoes and feet are complicated. For some people, shoes are an integral part of one’s dress, and being asked to take them off is akin to being asked to strip in the foyer. In a less extreme example in the same vein, some people find the request informalizing. There are those who find the idea of walking around barefoot itself disgusting – you never know what’s on the floor after all, and who wants all that whatever on their feet? For these people the idea of sticking their feet into a pair of slippers worn by countless other guests is particularly disgusting. Then there are the people who think of feet themselves as inherently dirty and don’t want people walking around barefoot in their houses with their icky feet. Finally there are those Westerners who have no particularly strong feelings either way, but find the request nonetheless annoying when it’s enforced too strictly – for instance if one is just running inside for two minutes to grab forgotten sunglasses. In short, if you never thought shoes and the wearing or not wearing thereof could be a source of culture clash, think again.

Wildly divergent opinions as to proper shoe etiquette aside, one thing does remain constant across Western and Asian cultures: in your host’s house, it’s polite to follow his customs. In China, refusing to take off one’s shoes would be extremely disrespectful and offensive, no matter what or how legitimate your reasons might be. So if you do find the idea of taking your shoes off and either walking around barefoot or wearing a pair of guest slippers unbearable, you might want to consider purchasing a pair of house slippers to take along when visiting Chinese friends’ houses. You might get an odd look or two, but at least you’ll be both comfortable and inoffensive.

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The high-living, high-pressure lifestyles of China's wealthy are catching up with their health, according to a  recent survey that shows many are paying a high cost for their affluence.

The survey of medical checks of 183 middle-aged company owners showed they were suffering from disproportionate diets and a lack of exercise.

The checks of 123 men and 60 women from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou showed all had at least one health problem. Each of the entrepreneurs surveyed owns assets worth more than 10 million yuan (US$1.31 million).

The survey, conducted by Ciming Health Physical Examination Company, showed 41.5 percent suffered from hyperlipidemia, or excess fats in the bloodstream, 21.8 percent from high blood pressure and 12.5 percent from hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar.

The figure for hyperlipidemia was 20 percentage points above the national average, while those for hyperglycemia and high blood pressure were each ten percent above the national average.

The electrocardiogram tests of 33.8 percent of the entrepreneurs were found to record abnormalities, while 62.8 percent suffered cervical spondylosis, or neck pain due to wear and tear of vertebrae, and 32.2 percent had too much fat in their livers.

Cimin chief executive Dr Han Xiaohong said, "the new rich is not as heathly as an average person."

"High pressure from their work and irregular lifestyles are the main causes," she said.

More than 30 percent of the interviewed said they seldom exercise and 67 percent said they are sacrificing health for money.

After the health checks, 83 percent said that they would rather regain their health than make more money.

Han said that more people were sacrificing their health for the success of their career or making more money at the expense of their health.

The affluent, to some degree, were regarded as successful, but the survey showed they are not so successful in terms of health, Han said.

"The survey was aimed at reminding the public that health is the biggest asset and could not be bought with money," Han said.

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On 14 September, the most expensive Japanese movie in history, Japan Sinks, will premiere in China. This is a remake of the 1973 original, which was adapted from Sakyo Komatsu's disaster novel. The story: several brilliant, righteous oceanographers discover signs that the Japanese archipelago is sinking. When the news gets out, the entire country panics. Amid continual earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, people begin to transfer their property overseas with the thought of fleeing the country. The government drafts a plan to migrate people to other parts of the world, only to meet fierce opposition and countermeasures from other countries. The story ends as the islands of Japan slip beneath the waves.

This movie, with its mission of awakening and strengthening Japan's sense of urgency and awareness of early-warnings, is too alarmist for many of us; can the Japanese people, who have lived peaceful, affluent lives for the better half of a century, possibly accept such a film? The answer is yes. People who have been to Japan's book stores know that this kind of book can be found all over: books like Japan Crisis, Japan Faces Challenges, Japan's Tragedy, Japan's Coming Collapse, and Whither Japan?. Japan is an island nation, surrounded on all sides by the ocean. The country is like a raft that can capsize at any time. Add to this the earthquakes, frequent volcanic eruptions, scarcity of natural resources, and a dense population....the people lack a sense of security, and this feeling naturally fosters a deep-seated sense of urgency and early-warning awareness. Japan Sinks exists against this backdrop.

Then I naturally have the following question: China is a place where natural disasters frequently occur, so why is this type of book so scarce? Perhaps this has to do with geography. China is in no danger of being swallowed by the ocean. Its territory is vast, and even if natural disasters like earthquakes, storms, floods, and droughts occur frequently, there is space to spare. We have the advantage compared to Japan, but will this gradually form a sense of satisfaction, a mentality in which we worship of the past and dislike looking to the future, and in which we lack a sense of urgency or awareness of early-warnings?

Preparation for major natural disasters is nothing more than revealing or "exaggerating" the detailed premonitions of disaster that normal people cannot easily discover, inviting the public and the media to turn their eyes toward possible disasters, pushing scholars and scientists to perform expert analyses and predictions, and suggesting various plans for avoiding disasters or reduce their dangers to the lowest level possible. When repeated national debate finally results in a commonly accepted wisdom, the government and legislature may take the necessary measures to institute necessary laws and regulations to ensure that various plans are effective. In short, this functions no differently from a weather forecast - even though it may sometimes be a false alarm, it would be much worse not to predict the weather. So we should not simply be afraid that the public will be unable to endure the assault of preparations for major emergencies. We ought to understand that the public is weak in this regard only because it has been ignorant of disaster prediction for such a long time. If we are able to perform drills and educate the public about such preparations, then people will no longer be overly panicked. Instead, they will face disasters calm and composed.

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Nancy Lang held a flashcard in front of the children. Black strokes written in different directions covered the card. Lang nodded her head, signaling that it was time for the first-graders to pronounce the word.

"Ni hao," the class yelled, speaking the Chinese word for hello.

Lang teaches Chinese at New Life Academy of Excellence in Gwinnett County, one of a small-but-growing number of schools in metro Atlanta teaching the language. The schools say understanding Chinese will be a vital skill in today's global economy.

The number of Georgia public schools offering Chinese has climbed from two to more than 20 in the last five years, including schools in Atlanta, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett, according to the state education department.

National figures are more telling.

About 5,000 schools taught in 2000, compared with an estimated 50,000 now, according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

"It's been growing by leaps and bounds, faster than any other language," said Marty Abbott, director of education for the council.

She cited several reasons.

In January 2006, President Bush announced the National Security Language Initiative to increase proficiency in Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Hindi and Russian as a matter of national security. The other languages haven't taken off, but more and more students want to learn Chinese.

"It's the Chinese economy and their dominance in the world market," Abbott said. "People are looking toward the future and want students to be ready."

That's why New Life Academy and the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology started teaching Chinese. As charter schools, they receive tax dollars but have more latitude than traditional public schools in what and how they teach.

Alphonsa Foward Jr., director of New Life Academy, said his students should be bilingual by the end of eight years at the school. The elementary and middle school opened in August with about 200 students.

"Chinese is a business language," Foward said. "We are preparing children for the world business market. We are putting our students above the rest."

Tricia Kennedy, executive director of curriculum and instruction for Gwinnett schools, said the district's growing Asian population also expressed interest in schools offering Chinese. The course is taught at Peachtree Ridge High in Suwanee, where about one in four students is Asian.

The growth in these classes means schools are hunting for Chinese teachers.

Liuxi "Louis" Meng, coordinator of the Chinese program at Kennesaw State University, said public and private schools throughout the South have called looking for teachers. He said the college is developing a master's degree program in teaching Chinese and plans to have it ready by summer 2008.

"We're expecting the interest to keep growing," Meng said. "I think Chinese will be popular for years."

If the past is any indication, though, Chinese could be another fad.

American schools historically become more interested in a country's foreign language when the United States feels threatened by that nation, Abbott said.

Russian became more popular in the 1950s after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Japanese classes grew in the 1980s because of that country's global dominance. Interest in both languages later waned.

Regardless of global issues, some students signed up for Chinese because they thought it would be interesting.

George He expected 50 students would take his Chinese classes at Peachtree Ridge, but about 90 registered.

"I think they enrolled out of curiosity and now they are attracted to it and motivated to learn," he said.

The class requires meticulous memorization. Successful students spend hours writing characters and perfecting pronunciation.

Ashley Murray, a junior at Peachtree Ridge, said she's having fun learning the language.

"It gets so boring studying Spanish or French or German every year," Ashley said. "Sometimes you just want to study something different. And if this helps me later in life, it's just a bonus."

WHY STUDY CHINESE

> Global issues: "It's the Chinese economy and their dominance in the world market."

> Career motivation: "Chinese is a business language."

> It's trendy: "I think they enrolled out of curiosity and now they are attracted and motivated to learn."

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