It is a common practice to divide people by generations. Generally, 5~10 years will be long enough to paint people with different colors. Even though everyone comes with different personality, the same generation will share the same popular songs, same national and international events, and same technologies that shaped their live, thoughts and activities. In US, the most famous lables to age groups are baby boomers, generation X, generation Y, and generation Internet. In China, a set of similar but more distinctive labels are used. It is also simple enough to recognize. That is, people use the decades when people were born to tell their generation. For example, the current middle and high school students are born in 1990’s, so they are called post 90, or 90 Hou4. For those who are in or just graduated from college, they are post 80, or 80 Hou. The others are divided similarly, such as post 70 and post 60. For people born at 1950s, they are often called the generation with the same age of new China since the People’s Republic of China is officially founded at Oct. 1, 1949.

It seems that the generation change of China is faster than the other parts of the world. The major reason is that China was changing so fast in the past century, and the life seems to be drastically different every 10 years or so. Every age group can point out some life changing events in the decade they were born. As a quick review of history, I can list some here:

In 1910s, the Qing dynasty was replaced by Republic of China at 1911 and soon the country was falling to civil war among large and small war lords.

In 1920s the Nationalities unified the most parts of China, and later started a so called “Golden decade” period of development until it was interrupted by Japan’s invasion.

In 1930s, China was invaded by Japan, an 8 year war that killed 30~50 million Chinese people, almost 10% of the entire population at the time. It also prompted China to wake up and return to the stage of the world.

In 1940s, Japan surrendered, then soon communists won the civil war and nationalists retreated to Taiwan.

In 1950s, Korean war erupted and China helped to maintain the division. China started a sweeping industrialization across the country.

In 1960s, Culture Revolution started yet China managed to join the nuclear club and aerospace club.

In 1970s, the first generation of PRC’s leaders passed away, Culture Revolution ended, and China started to open its door to the west.

In 1980s, the Soviet Union collapsed, which triggered the lost of communist ideology of many Chinese. Individualism became popular and China started to embrace market economy.

In 1990s, Hong Kong and Macao returned to China, economy grew from fast to hot, consumer electronics became staple of every family, computer and Internet entered people’s life.

In 2000s,  cell phones became ubiquitous, text messaging was the choice of communication. There was also a stock market boom and (from 1000 pt to 6000pt) and bust (from 6000 pt back to 2000pt), and housing boom (from RMB2~3k/m2 to RMB 20~30k/m2 in Beijing) and now people are expecting a yet coming bust.

In just 2008, we have Tibet riot, earthquake, Olympic game, manned spaceship,  poisoned milk and now, the global recession. What a year!

Recently, there are increasing number of senior Chinese expats planning to return or have already returned to China, legally or illegally. Many of Chinese seniors immigrated to oversea as the immediate relatives of their children, who immigrated 10 or 20 years earlier. The younger generation moved and settled down to their new home. According to Chinese tradition, they will bring their parents to live with them, so they can more easily take care of them. Meanwhile, the parents can help to clean the house and look after the third generation. It would be a great solution, at least for some people or on paper.

The things didn’t always turn as people wish. There are many hurdles for the senior Chinese living oversea. First is the language. It is hard for people to learn a new language after retirement. They can’t understand the road signs, can’t read labels, can’t watch TV or listen to radio, even can’t have a very simple conversation with their neighbors. Second, is the transportation. It is not a big deal for the city dwellers. However, for the people who are living at suburb, cars are legs. Most senior Chinese people don’t have a driver’s license. Indeed, most of them don’t want to drive even they have one since they can’t understand the signs or remember the road names. Third, even for the selected few who can speak local language and can drive or live in big cities, it is a great spiritual loss to be away from their own social circles. They became the dependents of their children instead of themselves. Many became depressed even their kids put them in a comfortable environment.

Now, some people started to move back to China, away from their children, but close to their friends and social circles. It is a relatively easy move if they still hold a Chinese passport. However, the aging bodies make it harder and harder for them to meet their children overseas. The visa trip to ambassaies is also a pain for many of them. The lines and waiting time in ambassies are often notoriously long. For those who changed nationality, they don’t have a better luck.  They need to apply for Chinese visa now since they are not Chinese citizens anymore. They can’t stay at their Chinese residences without extending their visa stays, which often come with a 5 year limit. For many of them, leaving the country and applying another visa is often next to impossible. Fortunately, immigration laws are not as strict as in US. Many former Chinese citizens simply overstay and enjoy the rest of their life at a familiar environment. No one, at least for now, will deport them to their new motherlands.

Most people agree that software pirate is rampant in China. It is estimated that there are millions of copies of Microsoft Windows and Office installed in Chinese computers. Recently, a new tactic was introduced by Microsoft. Starting from Oct. 20, 2008, the auto updater of XP will check whether the software is a pirate version. If so, it will turn the desktop to black at every hour. Users have to manually turn the desktop back to its original setting, and repeat it every hour.

It is believed by many Chinese users that it is a marketing trick by Microsoft to push for the upgrade of its operating system. The company has been the biggest victim of pirating on paper, and biggest winner in reality. The price of a copy of Windows has been about $90 in US for a long time, but it was sold at about $200~300 in Chinese market. Consider the income of Chinese people was barely $1000 per year for the last century, the price is prohibitive. Many people believe that by encouraging booted copy to be installed at personal computer, MS can collect more income from government and business users. Meanwhile, they virtually eliminated most competitors since the cost of pirated copy is only next to zero. It saved them tons of marketing costs.

On the other hand, if it is not for the pirated software, most Chinese people will still be computer illiterate. The strategic move of Microsoft keeping a blind eye at pirating software at its early days natured a huge potential market and helped a large population to keep up with the development of modern technology. It seems to be the time for Microsoft to harvest the profit right now. The computer usage will keep grow in China. The potential profit will be huge if most current pirated software users covert to the official version.

However, it will be more or less out of the control of Microsoft because of the rapid change of the IT landscape.  Immediately after the announcement of possible blackout by Microsoft, two Chinese companies started to provide free download of their office software for personal use.  Several Linux based company also planned to promote their products more aggressively. Meanwhile, with the squeeze from Google and other companies on Internet based productivity service, maybe it’s the last opportunity for Microsoft to catch the biggest piece of the cake.

Yesterday I mentioned the mosque in Niu Street (牛街) of Beijing. It is considered the oldest and largest mosque in China. Built at 996AD, it has seen many dynasties come and go in China. In 1694AD, it even became the first of the 4 official Mosques (清真四大官寺) in China, protected by emperor at the time. The name of it is simply Li3 Bai4 Si4 (礼拜寺)，meaning the Mosque.

Unlike the traditional buildings in China, the mosque is not facing south. Indeed, it is facing west, where Mecca is located. The building style of the mosque is also quite unique as a combination of both Islamic and Chinese. From one corner, you will never mistake that it is a mosque. At the meantime, everyone can easily tell that this building is a Chinese one.

From one side, it’s no doubt that this is a mosque.

From the other side, everyone can tell it’s a Chinese building.

Inside the worship hall. The decorations are again combinations of Chinese and Muslim. The color are red and yellow, the colors you will find common in Forbidden City, and green, the color of choice by Muslims. There are no figures or flowers ubiquitous in Chinese buildings. Instead, the patterns are Arabic characters.

Sphere: Related Content

Eid ul-Fitr (开斋节，kai1 zhai1 jie2) marks the end of Ramadan (斋月，zhai1 yue4) for Muslims worldwide. Zhai, or 斋， means put constraints of food in Chinese. For example, the Buddist will eat zhai only for their religion. That means to avoid any meat or some specific seasonings like garlic and green onion. For the Muslim, it refers to the fasting at the daytime of the entire Ramadan. The word Kai Zhai Jie, literally means the festival of breaking the fast, with Kai as break, Zhai as fast, and Jie, festival or holiday.

Due to the large population of Muslims in China, Ramadan and Eid ul-Fitr are observed and celebrated in many parts of China, especially at the north ane northwest provinces. In Beijing, the festival of Kai Zhai Jie is more influential and well-known. It’s the time for all the people, Muslim or not, to celebrate together. The center of the celebration is always at Niu Street, or 牛街，Niu2 Jie1. It literally means Bull Street. A spectacular mosque (or 清真寺，Qing1 Zhen1 Si4) is located at the center of the street, along with many famous Muslim restaraunts （or 清真饭馆，Qing1 Zhen1 Fan4 Guan3).

Muslims go to the Mosque for religious ceremony.

Non-Muslims enjoy the holiday, especially the food with Muslims.

Qing Zhen or Muslim food are enjoyed by many non-Muslim people.

Muslims worship in the Chinese style mosque, with a modern residential high rise building at background.

Note: All pictures are from http://happyelf.blog.sohu.com/101555163.html.

Sphere: Related Content

It has been a hectic month for the new semester. New students, expanded subjects, lots of teaching. When I finally cooled down and look around, wow, what a month! So many events happened around China and the world in this short month. Two national holidays passed, one is Oct. 1, the National Day of China, the other one is the Mid-Autum Festival. Although the latter has been celebrated by people as a traditional holiday for thousands years, it is first time to be an official national holiday in China in the past hundred years. Then it is the spacewalk by Chinese astronauts (宇航员), or so called Taikonauts (太空人). The crew became the first Chinese citizens walking in space. The triumph comes decades after US and Russia, but better late than never.

Then it’s the financial market meltdow. The world economy, or the world financial market, came to hault, or worse yet, a nose down dive. The Chinese market sounds quite resiliant this time. One reason is that the Chinese stock market has already been down more than two third from last year. There is not too much room to go down now. BTW, in Chinese market, red is up and green is down. If you see red on the bulletin board of Chinese stock exchange, bulls must be there.

The economy of China is also slow now. The high prices of energy and material are hurting, the export is getting slow, and the melamine scandle makes every food company suspicious. Nevertheless, the economic growth is continue at the positive side of 10%. China will still be an engine of growth in the coming future while the major part of the world will be slow if not contracting. More job opportunities will be available to be in China or related to China. Hope our language school and this blog will help more people to find a new path to grow or a new area to conduct business.

“Black” or fake electronics were once popular in China. They often took the name of some brand name, but were sold at much lower prices. Of course, the quality was generally lower, and the service is none. This was also the case for cell phones and computers.

With the overall technical advance of Chinese manufactures, many factories started to introduce their own brands. At the same time, many major brands are experiencing bottlenecks of major breakthroughs recently. This makes it possible for the copycat companies to catch up the brand names. Indeed, sometime the quality or functions of the copycat models can be even better than the brand names, although the cost can be just a fraction.

One phenomenon that caught millions people’s eyes is the so called village machines (山寨机 or Shan1 Zhai4 Ji1) in China. It was originally dedicated to the cell phones, but now has been expanded to computers and other electronics. They can be infinitely customized to satisfy simple DIY lovers or those who want to have a personalized machine. For example, almost all car models can be doubled as a cell phone. The technology is not necessarily worse. Just after a few months of announcement of Apple IPhone 3G, a so called CIPhone 3G are showing at shelves of Chinese electronics market. It also comes with multi-touch screen, orientation sensitive display, music and movie play, game, web, and other major functions.

Wait, there is no integration of GPS. Yes, GPS is set to be included in the next production. Since this is a copycat, they will just add whatever they can and ship as soon as they can. One good thing about it is that they get a very fast feedback from the users. Then they will change at the next production. It is much faster than the brand name companies.

The village cell phones grew exponentially in China. There were more than 170 million units sold in 2007 only. As the name implies, most were really sold to the countryside, where consumers are more than 800 million farmers with generally shallower pockets. This helped China to be the largest market of cell phone users. On the other hand, many students and young professionals also prefer the village cell phones for their prices and functions.

Some common characters of village cell phones are: very loud sound with multiple speakers, big and bright display, many new and powerful functions, and many creative designs. Most operating systems of the village cell phones are based on Linux. However, with the introduction of Google Android, it is expected that Android based village cell phones will be the main stream of the market. Some experts even predicted that Android and village cell phones will push many major brand name cell phone companies out of market.

While the village cell phones helped to connect the country side of China and many developing countries, the village computers are providing hopes to close the digital gap of the world. The $100 laptop has been introduced as a concept for many years with really slow progress. Anyway, how much will be the profit from a $100 laptop? However, the village laptops seems are achieving the mission impossible. Please take a look at this video clip. Finally, a $98 laptop is introduced. It comes with a MIPS structure, 1G solid state hard drive, 3 USB ports, 1 Ethernet port, a SDHC card reader, WiFi, Video in/out, a built-in webcam, and of course, a Linux operating system.