Back from the Nomadic Life!

Sorry, for those who have not been following the twitter well enough to know that I have been officially nomadic since May 11th. Seems like a long time to be on the go and yes, it has been every bit refreshing as exhausting, but alas I settle down again. New Location - moving into town for my internship - not yet in Central but TST is good enough.  Perhaps I'll just begin with a list of why I havent been blogging that well and it will give me a refresher of what to touch upon:

 

After my exam, I..

1. Escaped to Bangkok, Saw Angkor Wat, Went to the Bridge over the River Kwai, Went back to Bangkok

2. Went Beijing for corporate visits with Globe, Went to Tokyo with Globe

3. Met my parents in Hong Kong, then left for Kunming with them, we did Shangri La, Li Jiang, Dali, Xizhou, Hanoi, back to Hong Kong

4. Within 24 hours, I left for Shanghai to spend the week with Krisanna and had an unbelievable time!

5. Now back in Hong Kong, Kowloon side no longer the New Territories, I'm refreshed and about to start work tomorrow!

 

Please note that China does not allow access to Facebook, Twitter, Google blogs, or Google. So yes, that's why my blogging's been at a low.

 

--
Catherine Coley ▪ GLOBE IV ▪ BSBA Class of 2011 ▪ UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School
▪ Hong Kong cell +852.6974.4874 ▪ catherinegcoley@gmail.com

Chraveling in China

First, I should mention that during the month of April, I visited Shenzhen 5 times. Impressive. Well, mostly for tailoring but regardless, my passport is cluttered with Chinese and Hong Kong stamps back and forth within the same day. It's a breeze actually, despite dodging the incredibly slow walkers or jumbo suitcases full of goods and knock offs, the border crossing is a favorite pastime of mine. And oddly enough, it takes less time to go to China than go to Hong Kong Island!

So after using my handy dandy Google translate print out of 4 sentences that said, "I want to go to Changsha. Is there a train to Changsha? Is this the bus to the airport. May I borrow your phone, my flight is delayed and I need to call the agency." I managed to get on a 22 RMB bus to the airport instead of the 150 RMB cab that I heard it was normally... The only problem was that due to the May 1st holiday, there were no trains to Changsha so I had to stick with my plan of a morning flight. But what does one do if they are already at the airport only about 11 hours ahead of time.

The Traveller Halts, indeed. So my plan was to find a hotel or bed or spa for the night, but in my fluent Chinese miming and poorly recognized English I only managed to find a couple options. So I spent the night in an unusual place but with an eye mask and light luggage anything is possible.

And then we all boarded the flight in a Chinese single file line as shown here.


Exhausted from my day of travel and I hadn't even made it to Changsha,  Catherine

More to come, but for now a teaser

Avatarheels for Life, 

Catherine

Shenanigans in Shenzhen

Seriously, they have a poodle dress. I was sooo close to buying it because well, it didn't look that bad on! But too funny because this dress had a tag of PRADA but I saw the poodles elsewhere on a Marc Jacobs top. The Chinese love to copy/steal/sell. They almost had me drop 280 RMB for this - 40 bucks. Sorry, but I will take a picture and enjoy the Coco/Nica resemblance.

I mean Coco must have been a model in her first life, look at the feet they are even angled out like her's! Priceless!!



Proudly a Poodle lover, Catherine

Banh Mi Oh My!

Finally, photos from my epic Banh Mi (Franco-Viet Style sandwich packed with pork, liver, and carrots inside crispy warm bread) Adventure!

And I quote: "Your mother always told you never to go the the Man Ying Building. The massive residential block is where criminals hide, dealers deal their wares and illegal immigrants slave away in factories. But those few strong-willed souls will be well-rewarded with the kind of baguette shop you'd find in Vietnam."

Strike a Pose!

Delicate layers of random meats placed into the hot french baguette with chopsticks and care at the speed of lightening. Sorry, Calvert no cilantro and not that spicy, but savory nonetheless. 

Where did I go? Oh you know, Mae Yuen St. Down in the Slums of Kowloon ... Fortunate thing! It's within view of my office building.

42 for a massive baguette, 22 for a good sized lunch. That makes my lunch splurge a little under $3 usd. Wow! I love HK Foodie Finds.

The only other customer and I anxiously await the fresh sandwiches (ha there were a dozen funs just chilling on the counter, but our's were fresh). I showed up to Tim Kee's (well, there is no mention of Tim Kee's outside the all chinese shop and street) but I showed up and he was on his lunch break so this lady and I just stood in silence, salivating over what could possibly be the best banh mi ever. 

Going to have to clean up the drool from looking at these pictures, Catherine

CC at CUHK!

I went on a hike a long time ago, but Brian finally put up the pictures - Here is a great one of me overlooking our campus. Yep, our campus is a mountain. so right by my puff of brown hair is where I live then all the way by the water on the righthand side is where I go to class. Then the MTR, psh you can't even see it. Good pic of the campus and the smog!


Tarheel born, Tarheel bred, although in Hong Kong I still wear Tarheel threads, Catherine

Google may have left China, but the Search is On!

Proudly a sponsor of Google, Catherine

Sweet Skyline Bom Bom Bom

Just came across a website http://citynoise.org/article/3432 that has the top 15 skylines listed. Pretty cool that I live at numero uno and have seen 6 on the list. Soon to see 7 with Tokyo in the plan. I do enjoy the skyline of Hong Kong and their Epcot-style Illuminations light show: Symphony of Lights everyday at 8pm.

One of the few people that actually looks up when walking, Catherine

Extra Pages to My Passport

I just love this. I have to get extra pages to my passport - After having only 2 stamps at the start of the year, it's pretty cool to have the "the passport has been amended" page.

- Catherine

Understanding Chinese Consumers

Here are my notes from my last day in Chinese Marketing:



Cognitive Bias:

- Overconfidence



Major Differences in Eastern and Western Culture

Origin - Greek (Essence, abstractions, perceive object in isolation, static and unchanging)

Origin - Chinese (Taoism, Confuciansimsm, contradictions, harmony)



Individualism vs. Collectivism

- Independent vs. interdpendent self

- Attention to context vs. focus

- Continue vs. change

- Categorizaiton: rule vs. relation

- Dispositional vs. situational causal attributions: fundamental attribution error



East Asians are less happy.

East Asians are more pessimistic in comparative predictions of futrue prospect.

East Asians are more likely to exhibit hindsight bias.



Risk Attitudes

- Stereotype and reality

Both Americans and Chinese think Chinese are more risk averse financially but the reverse is true



Self Regulatory focus theory

- Promotion - westerners

- Prevention - easterners

Persuasiveness of Advertisment

Language as a prime for decision style: Cantonese vs. English



Increasing Inequality in China

- Urbanization

- Greying population

- Rising National Pride



153 million people over 65 according to 2007 data.



Wealthy Consumers in China

- 80% of them younger than 45 years old

- 1% of population



Legal system on Business

- Confucian principles + socialist style laws + European civil law style laws

- Hierarchy: no instructions , latest more authority



Chinese Companies

- State-owened

Low market orientation

Support from government

Financing

- Private

Market oriented

Low Labor costs



AAA Triangle of Global Strategy

- Adaption (Advertising to Sales)

- Aggregation (R&D to Sales)

- Arbitrage (Labo to Sales)



One discussion on the case analysis - if you understand KFC and Google.