Archive for the ‘Matthew Plowright’ Category
Monday, April 14th, 2008
Being woken up by someone pounding furiously on the door is never a pleasant experience at the best of times but when you’re living in China, it’s 6.30am and the person at the door is yelling “Police, Police”, it must be doubly disturbing.
My friend, who suffered such a rude awakening ...
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Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
Anyone living in China can’t fail to have noticed the sharp price increases in recent months. Zhang Hong has written a fascinating piece for our magazine this month – link to follow - on how the rising cost of living in Chinese cities has lead to a major shortage of ...
Posted in Consumer, Matthew Plowright, economy, cib | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
Anyone who has ever been taken out to lunch or dinner by a Chinese business partner knows the drill. You sit down and, if you’re male, your host will offer you a cigarette. A failure to accept this cancerous gift is just about ok if you’re foreign, but if you’re ...
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Thursday, March 13th, 2008
Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap has picked up on a terrifying story tucked away in the inside pages of the state-owned Shanghai Daily, revealing that half the steel used in construction projects in the city does not meet quality requirements. Yes, that’s right, half. Given the sheer scale and pace ...
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Friday, March 7th, 2008
Waiting for a contact in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Shanghai yesterday morning, I observed a 10-strong crowd of very stressed-looking twenty- and thirty-somethings rushing around, making phonecalls and glancing anxiously at the grand spiral staircase. A petite, elegantly dressed middle-aged woman came down the stairs, and ...
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Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Luxury brands have flooded into China over the past decade in a bid to capitalize on China’s growing band of wealthy consumers. And consume they most certainly have have, usually in the most conspicuous way imaginable. Buying an expensive car, a diamond-studded watch or a designer suit was a sign ...
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Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
“Oh, you’ll love it,” the middle-aged shopkeeper said to me. “You foreigners love history and the new Qianmen Street they are building will be very historic.” “But how can something new be historic?” I asked. “Oh, it’s not new, it’s old. It will look just like it did when I ...
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Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Speaking to my American friends and colleagues, it has always struck me how China is, rightly, held up as a major issue by US politicians, yet is still largely a marginal issue in UK government circles. Sure, the papers are full of China stories, but, bar occasional state visits or ...
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Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
“We’re officially supposed to be back at work on Valentine’s Day, the 14th. But I won’t be back until the 18th. I’ll just tell my boss that I couldn’t buy train tickets back to Beijing and take a few extra days off.”
So said a Chinese friend of mine when I ...
Posted in Matthew Plowright, cib | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
My former employers, MSN, have just launched a fully revamped online mapping service in China (Chinese language only). Unlike in many other markets, where its unique selling point in its bid to upstage Google Maps is its 3D Bird’s Eye View capability – an area where MSN actually does it ...
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