Youthful Directions

What matters more...

 Doing what a kid does best -- Shenzhen, China

where you are or where you plan to go?

And when do we begin to ask such questions?

Video-ade: The Employment, Death By China, and A Flight Through the Universe

They say when life gives you lemons make lemonade. I like lemons, but none have recently come my way. However, life has given me several videos I would like to share. So today I will make some video-ade (sugar free).

1. As with many examples of artistic expression, I believe this first video is open to multiple interpretations, even if the director, Santiago Grasso, had a specific message in mind. In fact, the message I took from "The Employment" changed after I watched it a second time. It will get you thinking... maybe about technology, maybe about "serving others", maybe about cheap labor, or maybe something else.

[If the video does not work you can also try viewing it here.]

I believe the video can serve as sort of a Rorschach test, though like that test the interpretation of the results may not be straightforward. Whatever the case, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section or email me. If there is enough interest, I will share them together along with my own. One perpective can be found in Andrew S. Allen's piece on the site The Short of the Week. And watch the credits section in the video for a glimpse of what might be Grasso's opinion of it all.

2. Speaking of Rorschach tests, I would be curious to see the results of one taken by Peter Navarro -- the director of the next video which is a trailer for the documentary Death by China. Like the previous video it touches on the issue of employment. But what might be most memorable is author Gordon Chang stating, "China is the only major nation in the world that is preparing to kill Americans". Really, see the video for yourself:

Did that catch your attention? Well, it certainly caught Charlie Custer's attention, and he shared his thoughts on China Geeks. I would agree with him that the trailer is an example of "scaremongering". Instead of me waxing poetic about the dangers of self-fulfilling prophecies, I invite you to consider Custer's thoughts. All I will say for now is that I fear Navarro took a post of mine a bit too seriously.

3. Finally, for a sense of where employment and China's supposed thirst for American blood fits into the grander scheme of things, watch the video "A Flight Through the Universe":

This video:

was made by Miguel Aragon of Johns Hopkins University [!] with Mark Subbarao of the Adler Planetarium and Alex Szalay of Johns Hopkins. There are close to 400,000 galaxies in the animation, with images of the actual galaxies in these positions (or in some cases their near cousins in type) derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7.

To be even more boggled consider that galaxies (the smallest objects in the video) can range in size from 10 million stars to a 100 trillion stars and that the video only includes a fraction of the known universe.

It might be best to consider the title of the video to be "A Flight Through a Model of the Universe". As far as we know, the above experience would not be possible in the real universe for a variety of reasons such as a) it would require traveling faster than the speed of light, b) the images we have of these galaxies are from different ages of the universe, and c) even at theoretically possible near-light speeds visual experiences become rather funky. Regardless, this most excellent video provides a taste of what we know about the incredibly vast cosmos.

There is a lot out there, folks. Don't forget your towel. And I doubt anything out there cares if it was made in China.

A Brief Stop in Zhuhai on the Way from Macau to Shenzhen

I plan to move on from posting semi-regularly about Macau. Some earlier posts about Macau included:

• So Close Yet So Far: Chinese Citizens Without Permission to Visit China's Macau
• "O Santos": A Taste of Portugal in China
• Cigarettes, Noodles, and Diapers: Profiting from China's Internal Borders
• A Long Trip for Milk: Barriers, Trust, and Truth in China

More recent Macau-related posts can be found here.

Instead of Macau, several upcoming posts will focus on Shenzhen -- a large and rapidly growing city an hour away by ferry across the Pearl River Delta. To serve as a bridge of sorts between Macau and Shenzhen, I will now share a few photos from Zhuhai -- the mainland Chinese city which borders Macau. The first link above discusses the special permission mainland Chinese need to cross the Macau-Zhuhai border. But in this post I will continue a theme from a lighter post about the various types of cycles I saw in Zhuhai.

Like before, there were people who rented tandem bicycles at the "boardwalk" next to the Pearl River Delta:

Likely due to the change of seasons since my earlier visit to Zhuhai, I saw that some of the motorbike-taxis in the town of Nanping now sported a specially-designed sun/rain umbrella:

But what most caught my eye during my recent visit was what I believe to be a new bike rental option. Although I had seen a quadracycle before, this four-wheeled vehicle seems deserving of a different name:

Two regular bicycles had been connected together to created this vehicle. Maybe it should be called a double-bicycle. Any other ideas?

More soon from Shenzhen, a city that differs from Macau and Zhuhai in many ways.

Outer Space, International Internet Regulations, and Invading North Koreans

Since I may never get around to writing the full commentary several pieces I recently read deserve, I want to at least make sure I share some of them here before they gather too much dust:

1. There have been a steady stream of stories about China's various disputed claims to islands near or not so near its undisputed borders. This combined with America's recent success of landing a large rover on Mars had me pondering a related question: Does China have plans to make any territorial claims if it places people or a piece of equipment on the Moon or Mars even though no other countries have made any such claims (at least not yet)?

I am happy to see that someone has given this question deeper analysis. Based on what he wrote in Foreign Policy, it appears that John Hickman woud agree that I am not crazy for pondering such an issue:

You might be asking: Why on God's green Earth would Beijing want to colonize the moon? The crazy thing is that, if one analyzes China's interests and the relevant international law, the Chinese moon scenario seems not only plausible but smart.

And even though there is an international treaty protecting objects such as the Moon and Mars from territorial claims, it has a rather large loophole:

Would a Chinese moon claim even be legal? At the moment, no, but international law would provide only the flimsiest of barriers. Although the 1967 space treaty asserts common ownership of the entire universe beyond Earth's atmosphere, it also permits signatory states to withdraw from its terms with only a year's notice. And there's no law governing whether you can fly a rocket to the moon and land a ship there.

Read the article for more about why China may have some hopes for expansion much farther away than any currently disputed islands.

2. Outer space is not the only place where there may be changes in international agreements. The same holds true for the Internet. Rebecca MacKinnon in Foreign Policy points out that a variety of interests are at stake in making changes to the institutions which play important international roles in regulating the Internet:

China, Russia, and many developing countries have complained for nearly two decades that the new, nongovernmental multistakeholder institutions are dominated by Americans and Western Europeans who manipulate outcomes to serve their own commercial and geopolitical advantage. These critiques converge with the interests of former and current state-owned phone companies wanting to restore revenues of yore before email and Skype wiped out the need for most international phone calls.

Read MacKinnon's article for an overview of how some countries may have reasonable gripes and how nothing less than the Internet's current openness is at stake.

3. A soon-to-be-released remake of the movie Red Dawn will include a major plot change -- North Korea, not Russia, will be invading the U.S. Max Fisher in The Atlantic details several factual mistakes in the movie. Needless to say (I hope), the idea of North Korea invading the U.S. requires a great deal of imagination. In fact, so much is required that Fisher suspects some viewers will replace North Korea with China in their minds. But even though China is far more powerful than North Korea, Fisher explains why the U.S. still has little to fear:

China has no incentive to attack America, its most important trade partner and thus the central pillar in the economic growth strategy around which its entire polity is organized, and every incentive not to. Even if China did want to attack, its military isn't nearly strong enough. And even if it were strong enough, some analysts say it is too riddled with internal problems.

Read Fisher's article in full for more details about why the U.S. is unlikely to be seeing thousands of red parachutes any time soon -- whether they may be made in mainland China or on Mars.

Wedding Photography Scene in Macau

A common ritual in China:

Wedding photography atop of Penha Hill in Macau, China

More soon...

McDonald's Hot Dogs for Breakfast in China

Previously I discussed the existence of imitators which suggests that much room remains in China for McDonald's to grow. I have also mentioned the positive impression some Chinese have of the U.S. because of their experience working at McDonald's and how McDonald's has localized some of its offerings for the Chinese market -- although it has not gone to the lengths of KFC's circumcision parties.

Today I noticed a McDonald's in China offering an item that is quite popular in the U.S.:

¥14.50 is about U.S. $2.30

This was the first time I had ever seen hot dogs for sale at a McDonald's anywhere, let alone in China. But what was even more curious to me was that they were being offered at a time I would not expect -- breakfast.

In China, hot dogs in a bun are not commonly available. They can be found at places such as Dairy Queen and 7-Eleven, but those chain stores are far from ubiquitous in China. However, hot dogs (or hot-dog-like objects) sans bun are not uncommon in many regions. For example, almost two years ago I saw this vendor selling hot dogs in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang province:

Another type of "hot dog" was also available in Mudanjiang -- a topic for another day

McDonald's has previously tried selling hotdogs in Canada, Japan, and the U.S but they never took off. McDonald's is possibly having better luck in China despite the Shanghaiist claiming last year that the hot dogs were a "travesty". The article does not provide many details and a promised future update does not seem to have ever been published. But since the hot dogs have been around for at least almost a year, there is reason to believe there has been a positive response. It would be interesting to discover why McDonald's may have found success selling hot dogs in China but not elsewhere.

Anyways, if you are looking for a food review I will have to disappoint. Maybe if the hot dog in the photo had been topped with brown mustard and relish I would have found it to be a more tempting choice for breakfast.


Update: More on hot dogs for breakfast in China (with a squid ink twist) here.

Nam Van Lake in Macau

No deep (or less than deep) thoughts today. I will simply share a photo of two people having a conversation at Macau's Nam Van Lake. The scene provides a contrast to Macau's narrow streets and alleys.

And maybe that can inspire some deep thoughts.

Baby Formula in China: Foreign Brands Coming In, Advertising Going Out

Several months ago I shared a story of a young man who occasionally makes a long trip to Macau from his home in mainland China so he can purchase baby formula produced in New Zealand. He does this because of previous milk-safety scandals in China, and he wants to be sure that his cousin's infant receives a genuine non-Chinese baby formula. He is not alone in his concerns, and foreign brands of baby formula are well aware of the demand in China for their products. In Buy Buy China, Dror Poleg reports that this combined with Chinese taxes leads to significantly higher prices for foreign baby formula:

The brands, in turn, make the most of their captive market [in China] and mark up prices up to 4 times their level in the US or Europe. A tin of foreign baby formula ranges from around RMB 200 to RMB 400. Some high end products – such as Wyeth’s Illuma, Nestle’s NAN H.A., and Mead Johnson’s Enfagrow - cost even more. China now levies a 10% tax on imported baby formula in an effort to promote domestic alternatives. But demand driven by safety concerns is inelastic, meaning Chinese consumers absorb the extra costs while foreign brands continue to grow their market share. Similar, if more moderate, dynamics can be seen in the market for other baby products.

The higher cost of some products in mainland China is yet another reason why the Macau-Zhuhai border is a key point in a grey market sales network.

Chinese brands are of course also aware of the situation and hope to improve their image. But it may seem surprising that one well-known Chinese brand is attempting to do this through advertising not only in China, but in London as well. In fact, Londoners themselves are confused. As reported by Boruo Chen in Asia Society:

Yili, a Chinese milk company based in Inner Mongolia, recently launched an ad campaign on London's iconic double-decker buses that had locals scratching their heads. The ad shows Chinese men and women, none of whom are recognizable celebrities or athletes, alongside the brand's logo, in Chinese. No Yili products are for sale in London, and few clues on the buses hint as to the significance of these people.

Is this a sign Yili has made a huge marketing blunder? Maybe not. Poleg claims in another article on Buy Buy China that Yili's main goal for its London advertising is not influencing British perceptions. Instead, Chinese consumers are the target:

On closer inspection we found the London campaign is part of a broader effort to restore Yili’s reputation back in China, following its implication in scandals involving Mercury- and Melamine-tainted milk formulas. The campaign is orchestrated by Ogilvy & Mather and includes a cooperation with Youku, China’s leading video site, and a domestic advertising campaign as well. The London ads are used to appeal to Chinese Olympic visitors and serve as fodder for a PR push in the Chinese media, trying to portray Yili as an international brand that is well accepted beyond China’s borders (here, for example, in Chinese).

Poleg is skeptical that such a campaign will be successful. However, Darren Wee in the Financial Times expresses reason for optimism (article is behind a paywall but can be read in full if you click its entry on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc. -- do a search on one of the sentences below to find it):

Chinese consumers love western brands, so Chinese companies have begun to advertise in the west to build a reputation at home.

Sales of Yili Shuhua milk rose 12 per cent when it featured in the 2011 Transformers  film.

This result suggests that Yili knows what it is doing, even if Londoners are baffled.

It is fascinating to consider how advertising in a far away country may prove valuable at home for Yili. And not only does it suggest some of the ways in which businesses based outside of China can profit even when a Chinese company is targeting Chinese consumers, it is also an example of how evaluating the quality of a design, whether a marketing campaign or a mystery beverage vending machine, requires understanding its purpose.

If the campaign proves to be a success for Yili, it is possible even more Chinese companies will attempt a similar strategy. Could Londoners soon find themselves regularly puzzling over Chinese ads?

At least for the short term*, London's advertising sales agents probably hope so.




*The question of whether it would be good for them in the long term raises some interesting issues I would want to further consider before commenting.

Mystery Beverage Vending Machine in Macau

A mystery beverage vending machine in Macau -- which one would you choose?

I came across the above canned beverage vending machine a couple of years ago at the Macau Fisherman's Wharf -- a theme park that "includes over 150 stores and restaurants in buildings built in the style of different world seaports such as Cape Town, Amsterdam and Venice, six rides, a slots hall, a 72-room hotel, and a casino" (one visit was more than enough for me). Fortunately for anyone who hopes to profit from beverage sales, the machine did not appear to be common elsewhere in Macau. I would expect that in most cases people have little desire to pay for a randomly-selected drink (in this case, some may not have even realized/understood that a drink could be purchased).

But maybe such a machine is appropriate at an entertainment area in a city full of gambling and some people enjoyed the risk or surprise it offered. Maybe not profit but instead amusement was the goal -- anything sold was a bonus. Or maybe the hope was that it would catch people's attention and cause them to more closely examine the Coca-Cola products if offered.

Whatever the case, it certainly caught the attention of me and several other passersby. Though, I did not see anyone make a purchase.

Hong Kong Versus China in the Olympics

As can be apparent in sports such as keirin (a cycling event) and table tennis (ping pong), Hong Kong fields an Olympics team that is distinct from China's team. China permits Hong Kong to do this under a right detailed in Chapter VII, Article 151, of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China:

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may on its own, using the name ""Hong Kong, China"", maintain and develop relations and conclude and implement agreements with foreign states and regions and relevant international organizations in the appropriate fields, including the economic, trade, financial and monetary, shipping, communications, tourism, cultural and sports fields.

Not only does Hong Kong compete in the Olympics, it came close to facing off with China for the gold medal in this year's table tennis team event. However, Hong Kong lost in the semifinal and will compete for the bronze medal while China will face South Korea in the gold medal match. [Update: China won the gold medal in both the men's and women's team event. Hong Kong lost to Germany in the men's bronze medal match.]

If the idea of Hong Kong competing against the rest of China in the Olympics seems peculiar, things get only more complicated when considering who is on Hong Kong's table tennis team. According to the AP:

Hong Kong’s three players were all born in mainland China and moved to Hong Kong when they could not make China’s national team.

This may raise questions about whether the Hong Kong team provide a double opportunity for some mainland Chinese to compete in the Olympics. As reported by Reuters, the Hong Kong table tennis players tried to explain their situation:

"We are definitely loyal to Hong Kong, otherwise we would be playing for China," said Hong Kong's Chu Yan Leung.

But then his team-mate Tang Peng pointed out: "We are playing for Hong Kong but there is no difference between Hong Kong and China, we are in the same country."

Their words seem to raise more questions than answers. For example, what are the implications of Cheung's "loyalty" to Hong Kong? And the claim of "no difference" further highlights Hong Kong's unusual situation. Although Hong Kong is part of China, Hongkongers enjoy more freedoms than mainland Chinese and there are numerous other differences which exist. There is even a border between Hong Kong and mainland China which can make it easier for someone from India than someone from China to be allowed entry into Hong Kong.

One might think that a Hong Kong team could create a distraction for China that it would prefer to avoid. But I suspect China has no interest in dissolving it. The reason has nothing to do with Hong Kong's laws or providing some Chinese two opportunities to compete in the Olympics.

Instead, the reason has much to do with another team in the Olympics that China would prefer not to stand out too much and may want to send a signal.

Chinese Taipei.

Mr. & Mrs. Kidney Potatoe on a London Bus in China

I have no plans to write about the Olympics, but yesterday in China I did see something that made me think about London. At the Coco Park shopping center in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, I stumbled upon this section of a children's play area:

For a price, the small train ride would circle around and the bus ride would lightly bounce. The front of the bus listed locations in London, not unexpected given its red double-decker design and the nearby "England Train".

Seeing a London-ish scene in China added a little twist to my day. But what threw me for a loop were the images on the bus of what appear to be Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, the toys that recently celebrated their 60th anniversary, labeled as "Kidney Potatoes" with the small print "Laugh With Amusement......" below.

Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head were designed in the U.S., so it seemed curious to me that their images would be used on a British-themed ride. Why not display an image of something more British? And why would Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head be incorrectly labeled as "Kidney Potatoes"?

Maybe someone sought an alternative name for Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head in the hope of avoiding a copyright/trademark problem. Maybe this is a promotion for a knock-off product being sold in Shenzhen. Maybe the designer believed that kidney potatoes were particularly British and then searched for potato images that would be appealing to children. Maybe the designer thought that Mr. Potato Head looked British. Maybe there was a Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head fad in London. I can think of many other possibilities as well. Some may seem more likely than others, but researching this could lead to surprising and unexpected answers.

At the risk of disappointing, I must say that I do not plan to make any investigations (nonetheless, if you have something to add I would be interested to hear about it). Instead, I will later touch on several design and research related issues raised by this example. For example, although it caught my attention, I doubt any of the kids playing there were concerned about the "Kidney Potatoes" label.

But I did hear some of them laughing in amusement.

Chinese Temples on the Macau Peninsula

Although the Portuguese influence is unmistakable, much traditional Chinese culture can still be found in Macau. To capture just a sliver of it, I will share some photos from three of the more well-known temples on the Macau Peninsula. Unlike many temples in mainland China, none of them charge an entrance fee (a topic for another day). The first four photos are from Kun Iam Temple, the next four are from A-Ma Temple, and the final two are from Lin Fung Temple. They include a variety of scenes, including monks offering their prayers as a woman (not visible) burns paper replicas of various items, such as a car, so they can be sent to her parents in the afterlife.