...ANCIENT CHINESE CONTRIBUTIONS HUM111/032VA016-1128-001 December 22, 2012 ANCIENT CHINESE CONTRIBUTIONS Ancient China has a glorious history and it is well known that China is the main source of a lot of innovative and ingenious inventions. They have invented things that we as modern Americans continue to use and depend on today. It seems as though the Ancient Chinese were extremely inventive and people all around the globe owe them an awful lot. The Ancient Chinese has given us inventions that have continued to shape the world, as we know it, today. Most of the things that we depend on today basically began with our Asian counterparts. The Ancient Chinese have contributed to the world the compass, papermaking, the movable-type print, gunpowder, porcelain, the mechanical clock, toilet paper, and silk. These inventions are just to name a few; however, the four most ingenious and innovative inventions made by the Ancient Chinese are the compass, papermaking, the movable-type print and gunpowder. First of all, the compass, invented by the Ancient Chinese in 220 BCE, was supposed to be able to harmonize environments and buildings in accordance with the geometric principles (cultural-china.com, 2007-2010). Originally, the compasses were not built for navigation, but the spoon shaped compass made of magnetic ore with a bronze plate which dated back to the Han Dynasty, was used to determine the best location ad time for a burial (Silverman, n.a.). The compass...
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...Reviews Koichi Iwabuchi, Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. 275 pp., including references and index. ISBN 0-8223-2891-7. In this book, Koichi Iwabuchi, a Cultural Studies scholar based in Japan, explores intellectual discourses, marketing strategies and audience consumption of Japanese popular culture in a transnational Asian context. In other words, he examines Japan's encounter with a 'modern' Asia by focusing on the diffusion of its commercialized popular culture. This has been made possible by the globalization of media, which itself encouraged an incipient expansion of a hitherto largely domestic-oriented Japanese media production system to other Asian markets. There have been two results from this expansion of mediated popular culture. In the first place, it brings into question the assumed hegemony of American mass culture (from Disney to McDonald's) and shows how, in East and Southeast Asia at least, Japanese contemporary culture is extremely significant – especially in the global cities of Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore and so on. Second, and more troubling so far as Iwabuchi is concerned, Japan's 'return to Asia' from the 1990s, when it began reasserting its Asian identity, contains echoes of World War II colonialism since Japanese tend to regard themselves as 'above' other Asian countries because of their superior technology and production capacity...
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...bronze and the vase was covered with dragons and toads. A long medal pendulum hung inside the vase. On the outside it had eight dragon heads; each was mounted onto its sides. Each dragon had a ball in its mouth and the dragon’s head was mounted onto its side as well. The pendulum swung in the direction in which the earthquake occurred. The pendulum would strike a rod inside the vase, the rod would then knock a ball out of the dragon’s mouth, and then it would drop into the toads’ mouth. The direction, in which the earthquake was going, was the direction the ball would come out in. The Chinese needed this invention because China had experienced a lot of devastating earthquakes. The Chinese provided help to the victims of the earthquake if they were able to tell the direction that they should go with the supplies. During the time period of Ancient China, there...
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...mid-twenties, Sears switched its target focus from “only the farmer” to “both the farmer and city population”. The reason is that the low-income groups desired to buy the same goods as the middle and upper class. The country was becoming one big homogeneous market. And Sears noticed the trend and was aware of the consumer shopping habits, so they made changes accordingly. This strategy made me think of Starbucks in China. The consumer of Starbucks in America is almost for everyone, but in China, the target consumer is mostly for the wealthy upper and middle class. College students won’t pay 30 yuan for a cup of coffee because they can buy 6 bottles of CocaCola instead. Starbucks was really smart when they decided their target consumer in China. Since coffee is still not a common drink for Chinese, carrying a cup of expensive Starbucks is seen as a symbol of success or some little personal luxury for the middle class. Starbucks premium pricing strategy fits the market demand very well because the middle class and affluent consumers are growing, which means the market of Starbucks in China will be huge in...
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...CIS610-Foundations of Management Information Systems Case: Netflix Leading with Data: The Emergence of Data-Driven Video Question: What advice would you give to the CEO of Netflix? Ruohua Cui, Yang Cheng, Tien-Ni Kuo, Yitian Ren Digital distribution market is undoubtedly the future of the video rental industry. Netflix has already taken a good lead in it but must have fresh ideas to keep its advantage in the industry. Beating its competitors in the domestic market is important, however, Netflix should jump out of its own circle into a new market to gain the first mover advantage. Looking at the global market, China is a good choice for Netflix’s next station. Using the Porter’s Five Forces model, Netflix can examine its advantages and disadvantages see whether entering China is good choice: * Bargaining power of customers China has a growing economy with a large group of new middle-class, who are able and willing to consume on entertainment. Nowadays, Chinese usually watch films on free websites with a low picture quality and slow Internet speed. While the number of people watching films are increasing, the picture quality is becoming more important for the viewing experience. Providing a fast, flexible and high-quality service, Netflix can persuade many customers into its subscription model. * Bargaining power of suppliers: China’s film and TV show makers have been facing a major problem: plagiarizing (including unpaid online watching), which substantially...
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...Sabrin Zawahrah Professor Hamai English 101 1 July 2013 Fight Back Tradition, culture, respect and honor are the ideals that shape the Chinese civilization. Coming from a Chinese immigrant family whilst living an Americanized life, Kingston reveals the idea of gender being an important role in both cultures. In her story "No Name Woman" the author describes some of the gender roles and expectations both woman and men had to abide. Kingston uses a unique story told by her mother as an example. As she begins her article the author dives right into the story. Kingston retells only the information she is passed down secretly by her mother. Although the author is a Chinese-American she does not know the culture or what comes with it. To learn about the woman her aunt was, Kingston had to make due with her mother's words. The author begins to pick apart the story to find out just who her aunt was and what drove her to her demise. Because Kingston cannot ask about her unnamed aunt, she invents her own fantasies about why her aunt gave in to her forbidden passions. In the passage Kingston establishes realities between being a woman, displays the oppression of the male dominance the culture embodies, and the struggles that women have to go through to fight back against subjugation in all forms. To learn who her aunt was, Kingston must first learn what was the standard held by Chinese women at the time. From the beginning of "No Name Woman" the author depicts...
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...Singapore is the district that most of its Chinese residents that use Chinese language as a second language. And there must be some differences between the two Country’s Chinese Curriculum. But after several comparisons, the author found that there is no much difference between the two Countries of its general objective of Chinese Curriculum. They not only put more attentions on the language basic skills training but also lay stress on critical thinking/moral values/Chinese quality and Chinese culture. Therefore, in this dissertation I will analyze part of the language phenomenon in the Singapore Chinese textbook and its arrangement as the starting point. And put them in comparison to find out the similarities and differences. Keywords: China；Singapore；Primary School Chinese Textbook；Comparison 引言...
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...How should you handle the introduction, greeting, and handshaking? The female boss should enter the room followed by myself. We will both be wearing neutral colored conservative dresses with flat shoes. The Chinese businessman will introduce himself whom my boss will respond to with “Hello, we are pleased to meet you” and begin to formally introduce herself as Manager Johnson and myself as Mrs. Fowler. I will not attempt to introduce myself as it would be considered rude. We will wait for him to initiate a handshake at which time my boss will first shake his hand gently and then myself. How do you exchange business cards? Following the introduction it is expected exchange of business cards. It is important to have business cards that are printed on sides; one in English, the other in Chinese. These should include: Company Name, Personal name, title, fax and email. They should be clean, neat and printed in gold lettering. The exchange will occur one at a time standing up and holding the card on the corners with both hands with the Chinese side up. You will hand your card carefully showing him respect, you will show the same respect when accepting his card. Once I receive the card I will need to study it prior putting it on the table, showing interest by reading the details; if I had collected more than one business card, I would line them up in vertically in order of seniority going down on the table (NBC Universal, Inc, 2008). The culture coach informs me that they should...
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...Tang, and Song Dynasty. Well during the period of the dynasty that China was unified again when Young Jian a member of aristocratic family from northern china founded a new dynasty known as Sui. The Sui dynasty started 581 and ended 618bit was founded by Sui Wendi or Yang Jian. The major changes that occurred were reduce the rich-poor social gap, enhanced agricultural productivity, equalization system and have the governmental power centralized. The defense was improve and great was expanded and Buddhism was spread. When Yangdi took over the throne he didn’t seek to gain support from nomads. He restored Confucian education and examination system of bureaucrats. Yangdi lost support of nomads by supporting educational forms. Yangdi start expensive construction work. Yangdi luxury expense lost him public support and he was assassinated by his minister, but the biggest factor that led to the down fall was invadation of Goguryeo. Li Yuan took advantage of the situation and declared a new foundation dynasty known as Tang. The Tang dynasty started from 618 and ended 907 it was founded by Li family who gain power during the collapse of Sui Dynasty. According to Chinese history records The Tang dynasty was the greatest historic period in China. During this time period the economy, politics, culture and military strength reached an unparalleled advanced level. Tang dynasty experience a wonder of change in China culture by modern feel that era represents the apogee of Chinese creativity...
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...Case Analysis: DMG- Shanghai GM598ON Spring A 1. It is obvious why guanxi and guanxiwang are so important in China. The people are very focused on connections, and building relationships with people. When you have a culture that is that focused on that, it would be illogical not to. I was always brought up to never burn bridges and build good professional relationships, because you never know when you might need a favor. By building the relationships they did, they were able to film in the Forbidden City. That was all due to the fact that the company respected the Chinese culture and religious beliefs. That would have never happened, had they not been sensitive to those aspects. Building relationships is essential to operating a successful business. I know when I sold advertising I would have never had repeat clients had I not taken the time to build good respectful relationships with them. 2. If a company was to go in to China and try to obey all of the rules and regulations they would be eaten alive. There is no way they would be successful. It seems like the only real rule that has to be followed is guanxi. Rules and regulations can be bent when there is a great working relationship and respect from both parties. Obviously, the company is very attentive to that and takes it very seriously. If a company came in worried only about the rules and not the people they are interacting with, they would essentially be booted out of the country. 3. I would think that...
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...VanillaLemon Article Review and Analysis ----The Secret of Starbucks’ Success in China The current event article I found tells about the successful marketing strategies that the Starbucks Corporation takes to enter into the market of China, and simultaneously the problems and difficulties it has in the process of market expanding. The Starbucks Corporation is the global leader in specialty coffee consumption. Arising almost overnight from a market in Seattle, Washington, the company today provides quality premium coffees with a superior level of customer service and at a premium price, around the globe. Starbucks is an excellent example of a company that has successfully embraced a differentiation focus strategy tailored to providing a high quality, focused product, of which, for the company customers, price is in essence, no object (Isidro, 2004). Based on the stateside success, Starbucks begins to expand its international market. Additionally, the current coffee consumption of China is much lower than the average level in the world, therefore a huge commercial space existing there. Starbucks realizes this great development potential, hence it hopes to make China becomes the largest international market except U.S. in the future. However, this is a big challenge for Starbucks Corporation, and therefore the article analyzes the SWOT and 4Ps strategies of Starbucks by taking this entering into China’s market as an example. Besides, the article also summarizes the major problems...
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...Culture Shock Culture shock Introduction The topic of the essay is ‘culture shock’, the definition of ‘culture shock’ is a common affect of oversea experience of cultural sojourners. (Zhou.Y.F, Jindal-Snape.D, Topping .K and Todman .J, 2008). It is estimated that there are an increasing number of students going abroad to obtain a better and higher learning environment. If you moved to a new country, you would face to change with excited and enthusiasm, but it also can be disgusting and inadaptable. On the other hand, it is very easy to happen to culture shock phenomena such as eating problems, living, clothing, and traffic difficulties. ‘Culture’ means doing one’s best by a person in the range of mind to represent, warrant and admire the behaviour what individual retain themselves in being. ( Fanon, F., 1968, p.155). Culture can be good or bad. A great culture can change a person’s life. Therefore it is very important for us. This article shows that in the different way to explain culture shock. In my case, however, I experienced culture shock when I came to Australia for the first time. By globalization, people who live with considerable cultures, such as faith, behaviour and law, they become to a style of culture shock. (Wilson .S.L., 2011).It is indicated that nowadays many countries consist of all kinds of culture. Because develop culture, it comes confusing, many times we do not know what is right or wrong. However, multiculture also can...
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...World Culture Title Page China is unlike any other country I have read about; winning a trip to china would be a dream come true! As far back as it has been documented, China has created a number of useful inventions. And, their contributions to the world, in my opinion, cannot be compared to anyone else. These useful inventions and wonderful contributions are timeless. Items such as toilet paper, tooth brush, fork, and the calendar year are used every day and can practically be found in every household. While there are a variety of inventions the Chinese have made, to me, their extraordinary contributions to the society are paper, printing, gun powder, and compass because they have made a huge impact on the entire globe. To begin, I must say, many different items that were used before paper was invented: bamboo silk, papyrus, and parchment. However, these items were not without problems associated with their usage. There were varying degrees of surface smoothness, expense, preservation, and storage requirements. By 105 BC Cai Lun overcame many of the limitations by inventing a new writing medium known as paper from bark, hemp, and rags. During this time, the raw materials could be found easily and at lower prices compared to former methods. Essentially, this contribution helped the development of civilization. Another useful invention to come out of China was printing. The first form of “printing on paper” came from rubbings. The process consisted of smoothing a piece...
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...Iron Road Film Review Iron is a Canada and China film (2009) that is written by Barry Pearson and Raymond storey in 2009. The film was directed by David Wu. The starring are Sun Li, Sam Neill, Luke Macfarlane, Charlotte Sullivan and Peter O’Toole. Iron Road is romantic and upset story which is about Chinese workers were helped to build the Chadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s. And this drama gives a face to the nameless and voiceless that perished en mass in history. Iron Road follows the journey, in 1882; James Nichol went to Hong Kong to check on the company’s recruitment of Chinese laborers to work on the railroad's construction. One of the laborers James brings back was an orphan boy named Little Tiger, who actually was a young woman and a good blasting worker. She was desperate to make it to Canada to find her missing father. Personally, Little Tiger falls in love with James, an unforbidden love even if she exposes her true identity to him because of their race differences. Ultimately, Little Tiger bring her father’s ashes back to China and leaves the railway construction camp; also she had a profound effect on her new Canadian friend. The background music throughout the film gives the viewer a sad feeling. It indicates how strong James and little tigers relationship are. I think that the instrumental sound effects were really cool when little tiger uses explosives to destroy the mine. The sounds give the audience a realistic feeling. The theme of the film is racism...
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...founder, Jack Ma, smiles that business is “pretty good”. Yet he is far from satisfied. In a country where tycoons are often the children of politicians, Mr Ma stands out. He failed twice to get into college. He learned English from the radio. He stumbled on the internet during a trip to America as an interpreter in the mid-1990s. He typed the phrase “Chinese beer” into a search engine. No results appeared. He saw an opportunity. He started Alibaba in 1999, to help small firms find customers and suppliers without going through costly middlemen. Alibaba.com now claims to have 57m users, including some in nearly every country. It is sometimes likened to eBay, but is more like an online Yellow Pages. Related topics * China * Science and technology * Internet * E-commerce * Business Another venture, Taobao.com, sells to consumers. It has 300m customers and shifted $29 billion-worth of goods in 2009. It is like a scrappy cross between Amazon and eBay: it operates an online mall where vetted sellers can hawk their wares, and a site where anyone with a Chinese identity number can sell anything legal to anyone. It generates money through advertising. Alibaba’s staff boast of the businesses they have nurtured. One Chinese village had a stack of rabbit meat, having skinned the creatures for fur. The chief asked for suggestions. A villager sold the lot on Alibaba.com. More commonly, clients are small firms that want to link cheaply to the...
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