Category: China

  • This American Life: Americans in China

    Was listening to the Americans in China podcast. Includes the requisite discussion on search engines and censorship.

  • YUM Seeking to Acquire Majority Interest in Little Sheep

    YUM! Brands, Inc., which operates KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver‘s and A&W All-American Food Restaurants, is seeking to acquire a majority interest in Little Sheep. From the YUM! most-recent quarterly report:

    We currently own 27% of the outstanding shares of Little Sheep Group Limited (“Little Sheep”) a Hot Pot concept headquartered in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China. On April 26, 2011, we announced that we have submitted a preliminary proposal to Little Sheep under which we would offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Little Sheep, other than a minority interest to be held by the chairman and other founding shareholders of Little Sheep. No formal offer has been made at this stage and any such offer, should one be made, would be made only after we have obtained all necessary regulatory approvals for the transaction. There can be no assurance that the current discussions between YUM and Little Sheep regarding the proposal will ultimately lead to an offer being made or, if an offer is made, that it will result in a completed transaction.

    Please don’t. I like Little Sheep just as it is.

  • Google Books Ngram Viewer: Peking v. Beijing

    Google Books Ngram Viewer is an interesting application for looking up the frequency of phrases in books over time. For example, I recently ran a search from 1800-2000 for the different spellings of 北京: Peking, Beijing, Peiping and Beiping.

    As expected, Peking is the dominant English name for 北京. Peiping appeared at some point in the mid-1920s, but that spelling has since disappeared. Interestingly, the rise of Beijing coincides not with the founding of the PRC in 1949 but with the normalization of US-China relations in the mid-1970s. Beijing finally eclipsed Peking in the late 1980s.

  • 鲍汁扣辽参

    Thank goodness for the photo because I could not read the Chinese and the English was utterly incomprehensible. At first, I thought the dish was named after a Chinese senator named Bao Zhikou. It could be possible, much like how Dongpo Pork 东坡肉 bears the name of 苏东坡.

    From the photo, the pièce de résistance appears to be sea cucumber and Google Translate confirms my suspicions with an obtuse translation of Bao Zhi buckle Sea Cucumber.

    The better translation will interpret 鲍 as abalone and 汁 as sauce. As for 扣, Google Translate offers the following possibilities. As a noun, 扣 may mean button, discount, knot or ouch. In this context, none of these are correct. As a verb, Google Translate offers buckle, button, deduct, button up, pull, detain, fasten, arrest, place, press, or take into custody. These are all wrong as well. My best guess is that 扣辽参 means steamed sea cucumber because 梅菜扣肉, which is a favorite dish, is preserved vegetables with steamed pork. So, my translation would be Sea Cucumber in Abalone Sauce.

    So, where does distant senate come from? Well, 辽 could mean distant or faraway as an adjective. Senate, according to Google, is 参议院, so there you have it.

    As for the related menu items, 清炖辽参 could be translated to Sea Cucumber is Clear Broth. I can see how “boils in its own broth without soy sauce” would be one way to translate clear broth. Google translates 金米烩辽参 to Golden Rice Braised Sea Cucumber. Of course, 金米 literally means Golden Rice; however, a closer translation may be available. I just haven’t found it yet. I am 100% sure that Bao Zhikou and Jin Mihui do not refer to competing senators with dishes named after them.

  • 木瓜炖雪蛤

    Not sure how 木瓜炖雪蛤 ended up as The Chinese Flowering Quince Cooks the Snow Clam Synopsis. As far as I know, 木瓜 is papaya, not the Chinese Flowering Quince. I can see how 雪 which means snow and 蛤 which means clam ended up together as snow clam, but where did synopsis come from?

    Google Translate says 木瓜炖雪蛤 means Papaya Stew Hasma. I agree with the Papaya and Stew part, but I have never heard of Hasma. Wikipedia reports that Hasma is a Chinese dessert ingredient made from the dried fallopian tubes of true frogs. Ugh, on second thought, Snow Clam Synopsis sounds perfectly delicious. Talk about a missed translation. Big difference between clams and frog fallopian tubes.

    As for the 木瓜, I had to reverse search the Chinese Quince on Wikipedia and it turns out that Chinese Quinces and Papayas are both referred to as 木瓜. However, based on the photo with the reddish orange fruit with green flecks, I’m betting that I’m seeing a papaya and not a Chinese flowering quince. I think Google Translate wins this round.

  • CIA Prisoners in China

    Central Intelligence Agency: Two CIA Prisoners in China, 1952–73

    Beijing’s capture, imprisonment, and eventual release of CIA officers John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau is an amazing story that too few know about today. Shot down over Communist China on their first operational mission in 1952, these young men spent the next two decades imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, while their government officially denied they were CIA officers. Fecteau was released in 1971, Downey in 1973. They came home to an America vastly different from the place they had left, but both adjusted surprisingly well and continue to live full lives

    Fascinating article about the capture and imprisonment of two CIA employees in 1950s China.

  • China 2010

    I first visited China almost 30 years ago. Back then, China was defined more by its past than its future. Everything that amazed me during that initial trip had an age that could be measured in centuries if not millennia. During that visit, the economic gap between the United States and China could not have been more self-evident. At each stop light, the drivers would turn off the engines of their cars, whose design came from another era, presumably to conserve gas. The Friendship Store was not really that friendly, and sparsely stocked to boot. And, foreigners visiting the standard tourist attractions had to pay the higher outsider price not in 人民券 (RMB) but in 外汇卷.

    Alas, those were the days. Now, repeat visitors, including me, witness in amazement not how old China is, but how new China has become. What defines China today is not the Forbidden City or the Great Wall, but the ever present construction cranes that stands sentinel in every major metropolitan area. While the United States is mired in a recession that has stifled its construction industry, China is busily building away. Mind you, construction in China does not occur a building at a time. Instead, it goes block by block. Absolutely breath taking. What really is amazing is the pace of urban sprawl. As each city expands and absorbs the surrounding areas, the line between the city proper and the 鄉下 slowly blends away, such that it can become indistinguishable. Furthermore, homes in the countryside are no longer distinct from their urban counterparts. Once you have electricity, water, gas and telephone service, the living conditions between city and rural folk become more similar than different. I also noticed a lot of solar hot water installations perched above homes in the countryside throughout China. Plus, electricity and telephone service = internet access! The last place I expected to find a computer and internet access was in the 鄉下, but there it was even if you cannot access Facebook inside China.

    I also had the opportunity to ride on the Shanghai and Beijing subways, both of which offer an experience similar to the Hong Kong subway. Riding a Chinese train also was a pleasant endeavor: modern, air-conditioned, clean and comfortable. An absolute delight.

    So, what are the short-comings? Traffic, pollution and smoking. Yeah, we don’t have an answer to the traffic problem in the United States, so the Chinese cannot look to us for solutions. But, China’s traffic problem is two-fold. Not only are the roads congested, but the way people drive leaves much to be desired. That unyielding chaos and the constant honking of horns frightens both passengers and pedestrians alike. As for the smog, absolutely disgusting. I could not take a proper photo in China because of the persistent haze. Mind you, this is not the LA type of haze that is only noticeably when viewing objects afar. Chinese haze obscures buildings a block away. If you keep thinking about all the particulate matter you are inhaling while in China, it will give you quite a fright, so don’t think about it. Finally, despite all the no smoking signs and no smoking posters displayed in preparation for Expo 2010, smoking was every where: in restaurants, in hotels, in enclosed elevators (with no smoking signs), in hotel rooms, etc.

    Of course, China offers a unique way to promote “No Smoking”: a placard from the Beijing Patriotic Health Campaign Committee. Bravo China. Next time I return, I really want to see no smoking in public places.

  • China Hotel Internet Access

    First, the good news. When I visited China, all the hotels i stayed in had in-room broadband internet access. Now, the bad news. Unfortunately, only the hotel in Nanjing had in-room wireless internet access. For the rest, online access came in the form of an ethernet cable. If I was lugging around a MacBook Pro, I would have been set. Instead, I was trying to travel light with only an iPhone and iPad, both without ethernet ports. So, I was left trying to find free wireless access points wherever I could find them, which usually meant hotel lobbies. I was able to find a wireless access point in most hotel lobbies, but there were a few that just left me completely off-line. Next time I travel outside the United States, I’ll bring along my Apple Airport Express so I can have my own in-room wireless internet access. I won’t make this mistake again.

  • iPhone Video Panorama App

    The Video Panorama application for the iPhone offers a simple method for generating panoramic photos. First, use the app to take a video across a panorama. The app then generates a panoramic photo presumably by stitching together still images from the video.

    When Video Panorama works, it generates a decent panoramic photo, such as the intersection, Suzhou garden and stone gate photo. However, the process is not entirely bug-free, as evidenced by the uneven horizon of the Shanghai Bund, the shifted exposure in the Nanjing bridge photo, as well as the curved roof line at the Yonghe Temple.

    Loved the simplicity of the app, but I need a way to work around the limitations.



  • 2010 Expo 上海世博 Dining

    Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China offers many dining options. However, because the expo grounds are so expansive, I found it difficult to plan for a meal at one of the famous restaurants featured at the expo. Instead, when a meal time arrived, I just opted for the closest dining option. This meant a cafe for lunch and Maxim’s, the Hong Kong fast food chain, for dinner.

    Many of the national pavilions also offer food options. At the Portugal pavilion, I purchased some delicious portuguese egg tarts at their shop. The Belgian food court sold Belgian waffles (as expected) and French Fries with Mayonnaise. As a guest at the World Expo, I should be more open and experimental in trying out new food options, but I just ordered the French Fries and asked them to hold the mayonnaise. They were using Kraft mayonnaise and not some Belgian product, so I didn’t think I was missing too much by skipping the dipping sauce. By the Italy pavilion, a restaurant was serving pizza and gelato. I almost stopped for the gelato, but the wait was too long. I really wanted to try some of the more famous Chinese restaurants who were operating at the 2010 Expo, but I wasn’t anywhere near the China Pavilion during lunch or dinner.