Tonight was my first Chinese lesson - I tried Rosetta Stone, and the teaching style didn’t work for me. You can follow along with me, if you want to learn some basic Chinese in a perfect Beijing accent!
The first clip is an overview of the vowels and the different sounds in the Mandarin Chinese language, as well as some simple phrases, and the second clip includes some basic introduction phrases.
A Chinese scientist is showing off a .5 mm thick flexible battery at the 2007 International Forum on New Material Research and Industry Development in Wenzhou. [source]
Alexander Graham Bell makes a “special-guest” appearance pointing out the fact that his 100 years old Telephone line invention wasn’t designed for today’s Broadband connections. This is set in a traditional Chinese Hell like environment to imply the hellish experience of surfing the internet with a slow connection.
In a twist related to my previous post about PrevYou here (link), a social shopping platform, an Austin, Texas-based site ShangBy (link) has an unconventional way for you to shop in Shanghai, where prices for luxury goods can be significantly cheaper than in the U.S., by allowing you to shop virtually via a camera following a Swedish guide in Shanghai! As a ShangBuyer, you tell them what items to zoom in on, which products Nina should try on, what questions to ask the merchants, and which products you’d like to buy. Now here’s actually a potential reason for justin.tv’s technology!
This amazing 400 bed resort and hotel concept designed by the Atkins Architecture Group is set in Songjiang, China. The building is integrated into the natural environment of a water-filled quarry. [via the cool hunter]
According to Faith Popcorn, there are almost as many Chinese learning English in China, as there are people who can speak English living in the US, UK and Canada combined.
Incidentally, one of the hottest cosmetic surgery procedures in China is a tongue snip, which helps with English pronunciation. [via BBC]
About two years ago when I was researching potential business opportunities in China, I was most fired up about the idea of starting a marketing company that would offer restaurant, beauty supply, food products etc. discount coupons. My sources on the ground in China said that it wouldn’t work because the “Chinese are not used to it,” which is precisely why I was enthused about the opportunity — it’s a novel concept!
The real value would have been in collecting consumer data - via online forms, and there could even be small store fronts, where consumers could fill out questionnaires about purchasing behavior and preferences, and in exchange receive discount coupons. There is virtually no direct mail in China. Credit card penetration is extremely low. Consumer credit reporting is in its infancy. So, I think the opportunity to develop a consumer database in China is huge.
BTW, CellFire is an interesting company in America to watch - you can download coupons onto your cellphone. Also, I just checked up on my friends at Chompz, an In-N-Out delivery service for Stanford students I wrote about here, and they are still going strong, and have expanded into offering restaurant coupons.
