A major shortage of table salt has hit China, which, as everyone knows, prevents radiation sickness…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/17/chinese-panic-buy-salt-japan

I’d like to re-write the headline, “Republican moviemaker tries to blackmail NPR”…who the hell goes around posing as a donor with $5million no-strings-attached and trying to pull quotes from people on camera?  The truly racist remarks are from the filmmaker, “Jews do kind of control the media or, I mean, certainly the Zionists and the people who have the interests in swaying media coverage toward a favorable direction of Israel.”   Evil. This is journalism?  Probably worked for Fox News.

Michael Moore never hides who he is. 

Bruno, you must be appalled…

NPR exec caught bashing Tea Partiers as ‘racist’ – Politics – More politics – msnbc.com

Fantastic success for the smoking ban in Shanghai in thousands of places including Karaoke bars, office buildings, restaurants and more:

– 5 people in the past year were busted

– the top fine was RMB 200 (about $30)

No question, this is going to save massive costs on health care with those 5 people learning their lesson…

Enjoy

With Renren (and other Chinese social networking sites) going public, I expect the remaining US-based social networking sites to be blocked soon.  Don’t worry, this is not about what the western media typically reports, it’s about protecting the local companies and ensuring success.

China Networking Site Renren Said to Plan $500 Million U.S. IPO – Businessweek

This is truly sad news for me.  Best Buy in Shanghai has been my favorite store – low prices with decent customer service (they actually accept returns!).  For anyone that has tried to return a brand-new, unopened item in China, Best Buy figured out a way to accept this as something that is normal, rather than a runaround.

Note the feeling by consumers as to the reason that Best Buy closed: people in China thought Best Buy was too expensive.  Fortunately, in Shanghai, there are 2 Chinese competitors within walking distance.  I priced 5 different products: mobile phone, washing machine, refrigerator, air filter, and TV.  In each case, Best Buy was either equal to the cheapest of the 3 (Gome or Suning) or cheaper.  Yet, I’ve asked my friends – and they will shop at Gome or Suning because they believe it’s cheaper (without actually checking the facts)…so, the brand has a perception of being too expensive, and people also won’t pay for service.  The laws of Marketing 101 are not holding true in China…

As to the actual business done there?  The stores were always packed with shoppers.  Now, those shoppers may not have been actually purchasing…

RIP China Best Buy.

Best Buy, Home Depot find China market a tough sell – USATODAY.com

Tokyo, Japan 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110131/ts_yblog_thecutline/chinese-air-force-drill-looks-awfully-similar-to-top-gun

Pretty funny that the local news (CCTV) ran this story – and now I’m wondering if Tom Cruise is retroactively learning Mandarin.

From this article…

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/12/28/chinese_and_indian_entrepreneurs_are_eating_americas_lunch?page=0,1

It certainly is a provacative headline.  I can’t share much perspective about Indian entrepreneurs.  However, in China:

– A rush of funding is occurring to Chinese startups “easy money” like in 1997 in the US

– Software and online is hitting the mainstream China population with Sina, Facebook copies, Baidu, QQ, more as role models

I believe China has a very long way to go on the innovation front – copying won’t allow China to out-innovate my fake jeans.  However, a few of the keys for learning how to innovate are in place (money, education, risk/reward, role models from returning Chinese from America, more) – until then, I’ll continue to enjoy my (more) delicious American lunch.