The China market for its foreign investors

Posted on 20 February 2010 by Guohua | 17 Comments

China is not a good market to put your money. This is about what a Shanghai-based foreign business owner, blogging as MyLaowai, said in a post at his China-bashing blog.

I’ve read quite a few China blogs, and his is one of the most personally vicious, so negative about his host country and its people, whining, chastising, satirizing, and complaining all the time. I must say reading his posts is a very depressive experience. (But, his and guests’ posts make very good jokes, though, if you read them that way.) I can hardly associate such darkness and gloom in attitudes with a typical can-do businessman.

This is a preview of The China market for its foreign investors. Read the full post (705 words, estimated 2:49 mins reading time)

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My English; seeking a language exchange partner

Posted on 02 April 2009 by Guohua | 14 Comments

It’s really frustrating when I find myself struggling to speak good English, especially when I think about this: I started to learn English as a junior high school student in 1990. It’s 19 years now! Anything can happen in 19 years! But today, I still stammer or talk in a confusing way and nobody can understand me when I speak to native speakers on the phone.

I’ve had enough of this!

I want to speak really good English, like a really good native speaker.

This is a preview of My English; seeking a language exchange partner. Read the full post (453 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

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What does it mean when the Chinese say to you that you hurt their feelings?

Posted on 13 December 2008 by Guohua | 6 Comments

it means that they will no longer care about how you will feel about what they are going to do – it’s almost an unqualified grave threat.

When the Chinese say someone else has shanghai le tamen de ganqing (伤害了他们的感情) and this expression is translated as they “have gotten their feelings hurt”, something is missing to native English speakers – the part of it that makes this expression really meanful to the Chinese.

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“Can I take these books home to read?”

Posted on 05 July 2007 by Guohua | One Comment

I just returned home from a hot two-hour bus trip to Beijing Capital Library, where I handed back an English language history book 36 days overdue and paid 7.2 yuan in overdue fine. This amount equals 72% of the library’s card annual fee.

Every time I visit the library, I feel so good about being served by the government-funded institution because it makes me feel like a Chinese citizen being taken care of by the State. Wrong. The library is in fact financed by Beijing City rather than the State.

This is a preview of “Can I take these books home to read?”. Read the full post (285 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

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My six pet peeves

Posted on 04 May 2007 by Guohua | No Comments

Inconsiderate people

It never seems to occur to them that they should consider people or things other than themselves. They don’t think it a big deal smoking near others, standing in the way of others who have to get off a bus or overtake them on the road, leaving food wastes in the sink even though they are sure the wastes cannot pass through the drain, let lights or other electrical devices on even though they don’t need so, or worse, never wanting to learn to be considerate……… I’m not implying that I can be considerate every time and on every occasion. But, at least, I want to be considerate and am ready to learn what I can do to be more considerate.

This is a preview of My six pet peeves. Read the full post (563 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

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