Hey all, yet another post from the prolific Veronica; this one focuses on China’s “college student problem”; the system continues to churn out clones that are above average (when taken in context) but not up to par to the standards set by their global counterparts.
Whereas it was a sellers market years previous (exemplified by the high turnover rate of students who “jump” from job to job in an effort to increase their salaries) we now see a reverse of the trend, with companies infused with students with low skill; with nary a competent manager in sight.
That’s a problem. Here’s one Chinese college’s attempt to reverse the trend, and comments from Chinese netizens on the effort. Enjoy; -Rand.
There always seem to be problems with China’s college education area. Sometimes people criticize on the general system; sometimes colleges disgust their students; parents blame universities for being too nice or too mean on their babies; when school authorities decide to do something for change, it’s just not good enough.
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Hey All, as you’ve no doubt heard, Google is refusing to comply with China’s censorship policies. This has become a pretty heated political issue; today, Veronica has compiled commentary from Chinese netizens responding to perceived attacks from Google at China. Enjoy -Rand.
Google’s pulling out of China set off China netizens’ concern in a fairly large scale. As many might have been complaining about the strict censorship and the intentional hidden of past political misery, Chinese’s deep rooted nationalism breaks out in front of Google’s – or so called American – scheme to incite anti-China sentiments.
The following post translation comes from one major forum, www.tiexue.net, which is fond of especially by mid-aged men. From this post, you might be able to come to understand Chinese’s views various with sexes or generations.
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Hey All, the below is from Veronica who is writing about Zhang ZiYi, a famous Chinese movie star and whether she represents Chinese women. It’s an interesting culture article and a good way to get quick insight into the heart of the Chinese woman. Enjoy; -Rand
As the proudest international star from China, the spotlight brings Ziyi Zhang just the same troubles as fame. Recently, she is suffering from some terrible trust crisis among the public. And we can see all kinds of media reports and arguments bomb online and offline.
Below is the translation of some heated discussions happening in tianya.cn:
Special Survey: Is Zhang Ziyi Qualified to Represent Chinese Women?
Since the end of last year’s “Ink-Splashed Gate” incident , Zhang Ziyi’ s affairs almost have occupied all headlines of domestic leading print media and entertainment web pages. A few days ago, some TV channel broadcasted an interview of Zhang ZiYi, finally it said “Zhang Ziyi is on behalf of the Chinese movies, Chinese women”, ”Zhang Ziyi shows the world the image of Chinese women” etc.
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Here’s another question I received via LRB’s contact form. If you’re interested in asking me a question; go ahead and shoot it over; I’ll post it up on LRB and we can discuss online to your benefit, and the benefit of other readers. Feel free to ask me anything; I’m pretty open with my advice; and while I don’t guarantee I’ll be right; I can guarantee that I’ll be “sort-of” right.
Q: “As an architectural office working in China we want to extend our online presence to the Chinese community, we are researching the importance of having a Chinese website parallel to our English website. Could you indicate the importance of communicating both in Chinese and English?”
My answer and subsequent conversation is in the comment section at the end of this post.
This recent campaign by Wildaid is pretty interesting; I’d venture to say most wildlife protection advertising is great; as their primary focus is to shock the crap out of you to get you to change your point of view. In this particular campaign seen in China’s subways; Wildaid shoots endangered animal posters with money, through the billboards glass. The end result is a billboard with a bullet hole; the center of which features a coin.
The intended communication? Each time you buy even a coin’s worth of endangered species produced product, you’re pretty much shooting the animal; sometimes on the torso, but in the case of elephants, in the face. Though difficult to see the actual copy (at first you’d almost think it was a Discovery Channel ad with animals leaping out of the billboards toward you) once the message is absorbed it has impact; and execution-wise it’ll catch your eye.
However, one must wonder of the effect on highly-trafficked China subways; will enough people, rushing from point A to point B stop to get the sense of the communication? Or will they simply tune into the Discovery Channel thinking to catch the new “3D animal show”?
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I get a lot of inquires through LRB, many of which ask for quick bits of advice. I’ll normally answer these things one-to-one, but since there’s some overlap there, I figured I’d start posting some of my answers.
Why? Well this gives you a glimpse into China and marketing strategic thinking; and plus, perhaps some of my propaganda colleagues will chime in to either support me or tear my thinking apart. Now while I would prefer the former, I’ll admit the latter will be a lot more interesting for all involved.
If you want to ask me a question; go to the contact page and shoot it over. If it’s value-add for readers; I’ll post it up in a new article for discussion. Onward.
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