If it’s not playing, click here.

This is the first time I managed to get a PR of one of the things I’m working on. And a little bit out of my expectation, a TV PR! While I was back in China last month, I had an opportunity to meet some TV people because one of my best friends just graduated and became a news reporter in Shantou’s local TV news reporter. Guanxi is important!

After the program showed, my phone rang again and again from friends and relatives. They were surprised to see me on TV, some of them didn’t even know I was back in China for vocation. And it goes without saying the PV of Shantou.net boots up during those days, and also numbers of comments people left. Still, TV is the most powerful media in China at the moment.

Actually we were originally asked them whether they are interested to give a report about our blog, they said yes and Maggie and I went. But then after meeting up with me and Maggie (a pretty blondy British lady), they said filming a blog with some words there is quite difficult, because there is not much movable things they can film, how about a little story about Maggie’s life in Shantou, because it’s more interesting and they were all impressed by Maggie’s Chinese. Well, getting such a good PR is not easy and we didn’t want to miss it, so we said yes. However Maggie still tried to emphasised the blog during her interview and asked them to put more content about the blog. After the interview, she told me she was surprised by how much the media listen to interviewees and made programs as we wished, this can never happen with western media. Oh well.

It seems MyShantou.net is getting more and more well-known now. Maybe we can do something about it as it gets more popular. Thinking…

Ps. if you are in China now, view this video through Tudou might be faster. Or you can also download it.

One of the questions that frequently asked by Chinese (or Asian) students who are planning to study in the West is: are there going to be a lot Chinese or Asian students there? Some of them might prefer to meet people from their own country, because it is easier to start new life and find friends. But more are hoping to make western friends than people from their own country. I think I’m the second type, at least I was when I first came to UK. Anyway, the answer to the question is that wherever you go in the world now there will be a lots of Asian students, especially when you choose to study business or economy.

The number of Eastern students coming to the West is far more than Westerners in the East. In my Asian Pacific Rim seminar this week we watched a video about business in Hong Kong and China, which focused on the understanding the Chinese culture. I was one of the the only two Asian students in that seminar. While other students were busy making notes and try to understand China, I sat there and watching my own culture presented in English. It’s all familiar to me, but never got to look at my own culture in the way like it presented in the video. It was fascinating.

At the end of the seminar, the teacher mentioned a point which I’ve been thinking - look at the number of Asian students in England and English student in China, in near future they will be able to do business with English because of they can speak the language and have experience of living here, but how many of the English will be able to speak Chinese and understand their cultures? The other Asian student replied: I can see a big unbalance, China is going to take advantage in future.

If you’ve got a chance, I recommend you to come and visit Asia or China, because that will be the future. Go to the East.

One of my favour Chinese podcast is Antiwave. I like their professional editing and also the selection of topics. Sometimes they can get some quite exclusive interviews which might not be heard in normal media. Just read from Flypig’s blog (one of two podcasters) that they had a interview in DaiweiTV. The video is blow, for those who are in China this link might get a faster access.

I’m thinking to resume my podcast site WeAreTalking.net, but need be after my assignments schedules.

People communicating with readers on their books publications or research, it’s a good way to gather some other ideas and interesting thoughts. I’m currently dealing with my dissertation (yes, finally it comes to my schedule seriously), why not putting it here and discuss with friends and readers of this blog?

My dissertation is going to be on “a cultural aspect of Sino-Japan Management”. I know there are lots of paper on this subject before and it’s hard to have some new finding on a single dissertation (8,000 words limit), but personally I’m very interested on this topic and want to read about it. My biggest curiosity is that both country are based on Confucianism yet has been developed very differently. To outsiders (I meant those who didn’t really look into the difference of Chinese and Japanese culture), Asia countries are similar. Indeed, the difference between China and Japan is less than the east and the west, however there are many differences between these two countries in many aspects, specially in cultural one. And in management, which is everything to do with people, how to manage people from these two cultures trigger my interest a lot.

Right now I’m reading a book called “Intercultural Management in China - Strategies of Sino-European and Sino-Japanese Joint Venture” by Nikolaus S. Lang. It’s a very interesting book and if you are interested it’s recommended to have a read.

Need to hand out the first draft by the end of this month, Errr….