Guest-Teaching Chinese, and Learning America

 Matt Nager for The New York Times

Zheng Yue,a young woman from China who is teaching her native language to students in this town on the Oklahoma grasslands, was explaining a vocabulary quiz on a recent morning. Then a student interrupted.

“Sorry, I was zoning out,” said the girl, a junior wearing black eye makeup. “What are we supposed to be doing?”

Ms. Zheng seemed taken aback but patiently repeated the instructions.

“In China,” she said after class, “if you teach the students and they don’t get it, that’s their problem. Here if they don’t get it, you teach it again.”

Ms. Zheng, 27, is teaching Chinese in Lawton — and learning a few things herself about American culture — because of a partnership between an agency of China’s Education Ministry and the College Board.

China wants to teach the world its language and culture, and Ms. Zheng is one of about 325 guest teachers who have volunteered to work for up to three years in American schools, with their salaries subsidized by the Chinese government. A parallel effort has sent about 2,000 American school administrators to visit China at Beijing’s expense.

Ms. Zheng left her teaching post at a provincial university south of Beijing two years ago to come to Lawton. She is out of her usual element in this city of strip malls and car dealerships surrounded by cattle ranches and an Army base. The culture of American schools is also different.

“My life in high school was torture, just studying, nothing else,” said Ms. Zheng (pronounced djung). “Here students lead more interesting lives,” partly because they are more involved in athletics, choir and other activities.

“They party, they drink, they date,” she added. “In China, we study and study and study.”
In interviews, several other Chinese teachers said they had some difficulties adjusting to the informality of American schools after working in a country where students leap to attention when a teacher enters the room.

One Chinese teacher who has built a successful language program in Wisconsin, Hongmei Zhao, said a few students sometimes disrupted classes by speaking English so rapidly that she cannot understand them.
“Then the whole class laughs, maybe because of my accent,” Ms. Zhao said.

Ms. Zheng said none of her students had been disagreeable, and Samantha Weidenmaier, an assistant principal at the school, MacArthur High, said that in Ms. Zheng’s classes “the respect levels are kicked up a notch.”

Still, Ms. Zheng said she believed that teachers got little respect in America.
“This country doesn’t value teachers, and that upsets me,” she said. “Teachers don’t earn much, and this country worships making money. In China, teachers don’t earn a lot either, but it’s a very honorable career.”

If you are interested the story, please go to The New York Times for detail. 

Can Starbucks Make China Love Joe?

As Chains Pop Up Daily, Biggest Marketing Challenge Will Be Cultivating a Coffee Culture

A wooden sign in the lobby of Starbucks' China headquarters lists the provinces where the company operates and the number of cafes in each locale. But the coffee chain is growing so fast that it's become impossible to maintain the tally. "We can't update that board!" said Starbucks China Chief Marketing Officer Marie Han Silloway, bursting into laughter. "Forget it!"

The Seattle-based company has been in China for 13 years, with an initial presence largely in major international hubs such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. There's huge potential for growth as it expands into lesser-developed cities with newly robust discretionary spending. But it also faces uniquely Chinese challenges when it comes to customs and taste. Ms. Silloway's marketing strategy focuses as much on educating the world's oldest and largest tea-drinking culture as it does traditional branding and promotions.

The company has more than 600 stores in the country and aims to reach 1,500 by 2015. It's a growth strategy that involves opening roughly one store every day for three years. "We've been very blessed. Starbucks has very high brand awareness to a lot of people in China, so when we go to a new city or existing city, a lot of customers know about the brand already," said Belinda Wong, president of Starbucks China.

Starbucks' greatest asset is that its target consumer in China sees it as an aspirational global brand offering an international cafe experience.

That integration was on display on a sunny late-summer day in the dusty city of Nanchang, as Starbucks opened its first location in the traditionally agricultural province of Jiangxi and in its 49th city in China.  The grand opening kicked off with coffee education for local media. An ultra-perky barista named September told the packed room that "latte" means milk in Italian, so a latte is a coffee with milk. "American-style coffee is black coffee," she explained, "so if you order one in the morning you'll be awake and alert all day!"

Who drinks coffee?
"I think coffee is more of a woman's drink, don't you?" Mr. Fu asked. "If you were doing business with a woman then maybe you could bring her to a coffeehouse. But if you were doing business with a man ... you go to a restaurant and talk business over a meal or you go to karaoke and make deals while you sing together. The idea of men talking business in a place like Starbucks ... I think that's just ridiculous."

 "There's definitely some people in Nanchang who have a habit of drinking coffee every day, but they're really a minority," she said. "People want to sit here and relax.

Starbucks also has room to grow its food selections. Although the company has created products tailored to Asian preferences, such as its black sesame green-tea cake roll, local competitors are more creative, offering hot meals such as curry and pasta. Others sell dessert plates with six mini egg tarts or other sweets, designed for the group dynamic.

"That's perfect for Chinese because they like to put a plate in the middle to share. Westerners just want a big fat muffin each," Mr. French said.

Starbucks' image as a trendy and modern brand helps mask the bigger question: whether Chinese will ever actually like coffee, something often described as "too bitter" to enjoy. Starbucks' R&D center in Shanghai has responded to that concern by developing popular fruity drinks such as Strawberry Soy Frappuccino and the Refresha line of juice beverages.

HOW TO RUN A COFFEE SHOP

Starbucks is a place to socialize, and most Chinese visit in pairs or groups. Seating is configured to reflect that, with large community tables or living room-style setups of couches and armchairs clustered around a coffee table.

In the U.S., many Starbucks are kiosks targeting the grab-and-go segment. But in China, stores must be spacious enough to accommodate consumers who linger for hours.

In China, Starbucks does the majority of its business after 2 p.m. "People like to come out for an afternoon coffee, a cake, meet up with a friend," Ms. Silloway said. "Walk into any Starbucks at 4 p.m. ... it will be very hard to find a place to sit."

Many Chinese offices are drab and crowded, making Starbucks a popular place for business meetings. A Starbucks meeting has the added bonus of making the host seem international and sophisticated.

Consumer education is essential. Starbucks' target consumers are urbanites interested in international experiences, and they're curious enough about coffee to spend $5 on a drink when an average office worker's salary is about $1,000 a month. Baristas are trained to teach consumers about the products, and stores regularly host coffee seminars.

 Please read the whole store at Adage.com

Janson Wu and his fashion design world

Photo credit: Wikipedia

When Michelle Obama wore a white, one-shoulder gown by Jason Wu to the Inaugural Ball in 2009, the then 26-year-old designer was, as the New York Times described him, “barely known outside the fashion beltway.”

Four years later, Wu, whom the First Lady wore again to the Inaugural Ball Monday evening, has reached mass recognition, having launched a diffusion line with Target in early 2012. The young designer has also partnered with St. Regis hotels on a luggage line and with faucet company Brizo on a bathroom collection, in addition to dressing celebrities such as Diane Kruger, Zoe Saldana and Michelle Williams for red carpet appearances.

The red, chiffon and velvet dress he designed for Obama on Monday night will only raise Wu’s growing profile. The sleeveless gown showed off Obama’s famously toned arms, and she accessorized it with a handmade diamond embellished ring by jewelry designer Kimberly McDonald, and shoes by Jimmy Choo.

Wu and Vogue's editor in Chief Wintour, alexisbittar.com

Jason Wu (吳季剛) was born in Taipei in 1982, then moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada at age nine. He learned how to sew by designing and sewing for dolls, and went on to study sculpture in Tokyo. Wu continued this career path at age sixteen by learning to create freelance doll clothing designs for toy company Integrity Toys under the lines "Jason Wu dolls" and later "Fashion Royalty". The following year, he was named creative director of Integrity Toys. He decided to become a fashion designer while spending his senior year of high school in Rennes, France before graduating from the Loomis Chaffee School in 2001, and studied at the Parsons The New School for Design, a division of The New School in New York. Now, he is a fashion designer based in New York City.

Read more about him at Time Style.

The Hakka Cookbook

"I NEVER KNEW I was eating Hakka food (客家菜) when I was growing up," says Linda Anusasananan, a food writer and former Sunset senior editor. "I just knew it tasted really good." In the new Hakka Cookbook (University of California Press; $40), Anusasananan shares recipes from her grandmother's kitchen and beyond.

Part cookbook, part memoir, the book celebrates the little-known cuisine of the Hakka people, who, after fleeing central China in the fourth century, traveled to southern China, many eventually migrating to places around the world including Peru, Australia, and California. That nomadic lifestyle added layers of diversity to the cuisine's rich broths, salty preserved vegetables, and robust Cantonese flavors. Some think of it as peasant food, but Anusasananan calls it Chinese soul food.

If you want to learn more about this California-influenced, Hakka-style noddle buffet, adapted from her book, please read February issue of Sunset magazine. And please go to author's The Hakka Cookbook blog to learn more Chinese recipes.

Bend, Not Break

Ping Fu, CEO of 3-D software company Geomagic, has also been a prisoner of Mao's Red Guard, a kidnapping victim, and an immigrant with $80 to her name. Here's how her unique past influenced her leadership style.   

When you speak with Ping Fu, the cofounder and CEO of 3-D software company Geomagic, you may not realize just how remarkable she is. Her company profile is impressive--Inc. named her “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2005, she had a role in the creation of NCSA Mosaic (the forerunner of Netscape), and sits on President Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship--but is nothing wholly unusual as far as accolades go. She passionately discusses her commitment to a future where everything is produced locally and individually, and, like most other entrepreneurs, the hardships she overcame on the way to success.  

 

But when Ping talks about difficulties, she isn’t referencing the lean times before Geomagic began to prosper. She’s describing growing up in the midst of China’s Cultural Revolution and being repeatedly raped and beaten by Mao’s Red Guard, all because she had the misfortune of being born into a well-educated family, a history she recounts in her recent book, Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds (Please notice: you must be enjoying her book if it is a fiction, unfortunately, it's a faked memoir, and is getting more and more bad reviews at Amazon.com). 

 

Image: Jonathan Fredin

Mao’s death improved Ping's lot, but her trials were not over yet. Her thesis on China’s one-child policy prompted China’s official press to comment for the first time on the increasingly common female infanticide in rural areas. Ping's research instigated an international controversy, leading to her imprisonment and exile.

At 25, Ping fled to the United States with $80 in her pocket. Kidnapped shortly after arriving in Albuquerque, Ping shouted one of the three English phrases she knew--“help”--through a barred window for days.

Ping's book details her path from factory worker to the successful CEO of a company that is moving the world towards a custom-made future. Fast Company recently spoke with Ping to learn how her unique past has influenced her leadership at Geomagic, and where she's taking the company next.

If you are interested in the interview Fast Company with her, please go to Bend, Not Break: Leadership Lessons For Resilience Amid Struggle to read more.