Truths or Lies

For the Love of Journalism

Affordable Luxuries

Jul 7

Posted by Suya in Industries | Comments off

Where there is luxury, there are Chinese buyers. And when they arrive, cash registers ring incessantly as sale after sale is made.

It’s particularly true at luxury shopping outlets worldwide. From Galleries Lafayette in Paris to Harrods in London and premium outlets in New York City, Chinese tourists descend on these locales, often leaving their inventories empty for a few days.

“Chinese tourists are buying up these goods not because they’re rich, but because they think the prices are more reasonable and cheaper than in China,” said Guo Kai, an economist at the International Monetary Fund and an observer of emerging economies.

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Budgeting Your Travels

Jul 7

Posted by Suya in business, Industries, Internet | Comments off

For her college graduation, Hu Si received an iPad, a gift from her mother. Her father gave her something not so tech-heavy: a piece of paper with a travel agent’s phone number. But the paper held promise—Hu’s father said the family would be going on a vacation and Hu would be in charge of planning the trip.

Overnight, the father found the omnipotent Internet had helped his daughter plan the trip, from booking the flight to making reservations at a highly recommended budget hotel. Hu even found interesting attractions and restaurants at every stop of the vacation. Read the rest of this entry »

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IPO Gold Rush

Jul 7

Posted by Suya in business | Comments off

Video-sharing website Youku.com, the Chinese equivalent to YouTube, and online retailer Dangdang.com, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on December 8, ushering in a dazzling and busy year-end for Wall Street.

The two Internet companies’ share prices soared within hours of being listed—Youku almost tripled its $12.8 offering price to end its first day of trading above $33 a share, the best debut on the U.S. market since Chinese-language search engine Baidu jumped 354 percent in 2005.

On the heels of their spectacular debuts, five more China-based businesses were listed by the end of 2010, such as movie distributor Bona, mobile application seller Sky-mobi, and software outsourcing company iSoftStone.

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Reliable Helping Hands

Mar 26

Posted by Suya in Uncategorized | Comments off

The creation of a further sovereign wealth enterprise is expected to accelerate restructuring of China’s central state-owned enterprises

After almost a year of painstaking deliberation, the State Council recently green-lighted a plan by China’s state-owned assets regulator to set up an asset management company to push ahead reorganization of central state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the industrial sector.

The new company, Guoxin Asset Management Co. Ltd., will focus on restructuring central SOEs and helping the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) turn small and unprofitable SOEs into money-making entities. Read the rest of this entry »

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Global Goals

Mar 6

Posted by Suya in Company news | Comments off

ZTE Corp. strives to gain a foothold in next-generation mobile communications technologies

The goal of ZTE Corp., the second largest telecommunications equipment and phone maker in China, has remained simple and unchanged for the past four years, continuing to push further into the European and American markets. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Very Beginning of My Career I

Feb 24

Posted by Suya in Private writing | Comments off

How I began as a reporter

I am doing a hard disk defrag manually this afternoon, checking and categorizing documents and files one by one in a chronological manner. I has worked in front of the same desk and the same computer for the same publication for six and a half years after all.

Then I come across a word file named “Money Online-final.pol.doc” which sounds familiar but reminds me of nothing. After a double-click, the first story I wrote at the very beginning of my career as a journalist popped up. Read the rest of this entry »

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Youth's Guardian Angel

Feb 24

Posted by Suya in artists | Comments off

The death of author Jerome David Salinger has heralded nostalgia not only for his works but also for the moments those works represent in their readers’ lives.

The reclusive author, most well known for his book, The Catcher in the Rye, will live on in the memories of his loyal fans worldwide as long as there are misunderstood adolescents like Holden Caulfield, the anti-hero teenage protagonist he created in the novel. 

 The Catcher in the Rye appeared in 1951, a time of Cold-War social conformity and conservation and the dawn of modern adolescence.

Contemporary critics rated the book as the best of contemporary youth novels, because teenagers all over the world identified with the novel’s themes of alienation, innocence and fantasy; and identified themselves with its antagonistic protagonist, the twisted and rebellious Holden Caulfield, although Salinger was primarily writing for adults.

More than 60 million copies of this book has been sold worldwide, and its impact was incalculable. Decades after publication, the novel remains the defining expression of rebellious teenagers’ dreams: to never grow up. 

The book has numerous fans in China as well. The Nanjing-based Yilin Press, one of the few professional publishers of translations in China, officially published the Chinese version of the book in 1983–along with a new translation edition in 2007.

 ”We sell around 100,000 copies of the book every year. It’s undoubtedly a bestseller and has a great influence on young readers,” said Ge Lin, Director of the press’ marketing department.

But Salinger shunned fame. He moved to Cornish in New Hampshire in 1952 and lived there for decades in self-imposed isolation in a small, remote house where he died at 91 on January 27.

Salinger’s other books didn’t have quite the same impact, influence or sales of The Catcher in the Rye. They were the collection Nine Stories published in 1953, the fiction work Franny and Zooey in 1961, the 1963 book of two novellas Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour-An Introduction and his last story Hapworth 16, 1928, published in 1965. Read the rest of this entry »

Building China's Hollywood

Feb 18

Posted by Suya in Movies | Comments off

If the 2002 domestic blockbuster, Hero, directed by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, inspired more Chinese directors to pursue commercial successes with homegrown stories, the Shenzhen listing of Huayi Brothers Media Corp. Ltd. last October is encouraging many top domestic studios to capitalize on their businesses. 

China’s movie industry has flourished in the past seven years, thanks to the consolidation of the state-owned studio and distribution system, with domestic box office revenues hitting 6.21 billion yuan ($909 million) in 2009 from roughly 1.5 billion yuan ($219.6 million) in 2004, a growth of more than 30 percent annually.

Still, many industrial observers look forward to the long-expected movie industry legislation, considering its absence the biggest obstacle to the industry’s further prosperity in the domestic market.

The latest development came on January 25 when the State Council put forward a guideline featuring 10 measures to boost China’s movie industry. While encouraging more state-owned or state-controlled studios to seek public listing, the guideline pledges to expedite related legislation efforts to develop the industry.

Other measures addressed common problems facing domestic movie producers and distributors, such as difficulties in acquiring bank credit, shortages of professionals for movie productions and screen numbers nationwide, especially in rural areas.

The guideline supports easier access to financial services and diversified investments for domestic studios. Chinese studios are also encouraged to cooperate with their overseas counterparts to become global players.

“Capital accumulation through business expansion is the top priority for domestic movie studios now because the size of the domestic market is not big enough to create a Chinese counterpart of, say, Walt Disney Pictures,” Wang Zhongjun, Co-president of Huayi Brothers, said. Read the rest of this entry »

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BYD's American Dream

Feb 11

Posted by Suya in Company news | Comments off

Chinese automaker BYD Co. Ltd. repeated its goal of selling electric vehicles in the United States during its third appearance at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this year. But unlike previous years, BYD gained ground in its efforts to promote electric cars.

BYD is known for billionaire Warren Buffet’s endorsement on its battery expertise, as well as being the world’s first automaker to begin mass production of electric cars.

“BYD is no longer alone in pursuing its dream of making electric cars,” said BYD’s CEO Wang Chuanfu. Wang has been at the same show with BYD’s electric cars for three consecutive years. According to his observations, global automakers have finally reached some “common ground” on the industry’s electric future. Under unprecedented carbon cut pressures, more competitors joined BYD to form this year’s highlight: hybrids, electric cars and small-engine cars at the show’s Electric Avenue dominated the event.

But the high cost of batteries and a yet-to-be-built network of recharging stations in most countries have limited the spread of electric cars. Many hold that it will take a considerable amount of time to realize large-scale electric car sales, even with subsidies from governments.

Still, Wang said electric cars serve the ultimate goal of developing alternative powers for vehicles and would replace hybrids that, as transitional products, are partly fueled by gas. Based on this vision, BYD now plans to start trial marketing for its e6 crossover electric vehicle in California later in 2010, a year ahead of its original schedule.

But before BYD electric vehicles can be parked in the garages of American households, the company must cut costs and improve the unstable performance of its batteries, making the quality of its products meet U.S. standards and offering feasible solutions to the shortage of recharging facilities in the United States. Read the rest of this entry »

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Everyone Has an 'Avatar'

Jan 25

Posted by Suya in Movies | Comments off

Avatar woos Chinese fans and kindles audience passion for 3D

U.S. director James Cameron has offered the planet another blockbuster after 1997 disaster movie Titanic and has been awarded two Golden Globes in the process. The alien world he creates in the science-fiction movie Avatar has become a fantasy dreamland for people around the world.

In a 3D, 2D and Image Maximum (IMAX) joint release, the story of aliens on a foreign planet fending off U.S. colonizers has earned more than $100 million in its first three weeks in China, becoming the country’s biggest box office hit to date.

But it is poised for greater success than box office performance. Criticism of its simple and familiar story hasn’t stopped people worldwide from walking into theaters and enjoying the visually spectacular landscapes of this alien world. They find almost everything they hope for from a movie: innocent love, the triumph of justice, environmental themes and, in particular, awe-inspiring and revolutionary special effects.

While Chinese audiences are joining the global mania for the visual spectacle, from tips on avoiding an “Avatar 3D headache,” to experiencing the depression called “Avatar blues,” cinema managers are inking contracts for 3D or IMAX screens, preparing for the post-Avatar era. In the new era of filmmaking, industry observers say, 3D movies will distinguish themselves from 2D versions, as color prevailed over black-and-white and sound over silence.

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