01.30.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:41 am by ryan
The first two of these were written by Ben Mezrich - who did an interesting job on the “Ugly Americans” story about some traders in Japan. All 6 of these are a little outside the scope of what I would normally read, which I suppose is all the more reason to give them a shot 
- In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg: 4 x 6]
- Bringing Down the House : The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg 4 x 366]
- Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, from Wall Street to Dubai (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg 2.5 x 39]
- Liar’s Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg: 4.5 x 208]
- Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg: 4.0 x 97]
- Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg: 4.5 x 31]
Ever being the contrarian, the premise of “Rigged” sounds interesting and the score is so low, I’m going to give it a shot. Most of Amazon wrote that they hated it… Will I? We’ll give Ben a chance…
UPDATE: Completed reading all of the above that I’m interested in. I’ve stricken ”Chasing Cool” from the list as it no longer seems so interesting and I’m fortunate enough to have a very wise and experienced “Marketing Mentor”
Of the books above, “In the Ruins of Empire” is an absolute must read. Bringing Down the House, Rigged and Liar’s Poker are each interesting stories, Liar’s Poker probably being the most educational of the group. Each was entertaining.
I’m trying to decide if I should read “Legacy of Ashes”…
Permalink
01.29.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:36 am by ryan
Today I got a good call from my good friend Markie… Oddly enough, he’s now fallen for a Korean girl. Been down that road before - good luck brother Mark
Mark used to call me Waysian… a Caucasian (white) Asian. Personally I blame it all on him and his family. I always liked the food that they cooked so much, and enjoyed their family restaurant so much (Another Thai Restaurant) that I just “soaked up” a lot of asian culture. Of the 5 close friends I had from childhood up until I was in my early 20’s, 60% were asian. Never noticed it at the time, but it surely had an impact. Today, don’t even ask… Something like 99% asian…
Today Markie thought of a new one: Winja sort of Erwin, White and Ninja all in one ~ that’s pretty funny, now that I’m learning Japanese
Permalink
Posted in China at 8:52 am by ryan
Just finished up Nixon and Mao: The Week that changed the world. If you’re deeply interested in US or modern Chinese history, I think you’ll find it an interesting read. It’s not one of the best books I’ve read by any means, but it wasn’t a disappointment either.
Note that American records are still quite a lot more transparent than Chinese records, the Author is a westerner, and the book is titled “Nixon and Mao” not “Mao and Nixon”. As such, the books is clearly written from the prospective of an American looking into China rather than from the Chinese looking into America…
Maybe one day there will be a new version: 毛主席和尼克松。。。
One interesting though to consider, the USA has still not normalized relations with Cuba or North Korea, and look at the economic development (or lack thereof) in those places. It’s not impossible to say that without the vision of both Nixon and Mao, the situation could still be like that of North Korea… Moreover, would Deng Xiaoping’s embrace of market economics have been permitted before taking the first steps toward relations with the USA? Without those relations, where would the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone have exported goods to?
All and all a bit more US centric than I would prefer, and the pronunciation of 钓鱼台 into something sounding like “débutante” were a bit hard to bear, but very interesting to see how the entire backroom political system works — quite similar to sales
Permalink
01.28.08
Posted in China, Economics at 8:33 am by ryan
Suharto (June 8 1921 - Jan 27, 2008). Indonesia’s Suharto was infamous for blocking currency exchange during the Asian Financial Crisis (亚洲金融危机). Indo lost 13.5% of it’s GDP during the crisis and the inflation in food prices led to riots that ultimately caused Suharto to resign. You many not be as aware that his campaign for power during the late 60’s was responsible for the deaths of many chinese residents of Indonesia, approximately equivalent to the numbers of Pol Pot’s “Killing Fields” in Cambodia. To this day, significant Muslim vs/ Chinese tension exists in Indo. During Suharto’s “New Order” Government (1967-1998):
The New Order targeted ethnic Chinese and enacted several anti-Chinese legislations, banning them from public life. Chinese literature and characters were outlawed, and they were forced to renounce their Chinese ties and adopt Indonesian sounding names. Many Chinese were forced into exile, while others were killed during the anti-Communist purges.
Due to Suharto being vehemently Communist, his reign was supported by the United States, in spite of it’s brutal consequences. I’m curious how Indo’s Suharto compares to Egypt’s Mubarak? Edward S Herman provided this interesting background on Suharto…
Coverage of the fall of Suharto reveals with startling clarity the ideological biases and propaganda role of the mainstream media. Suharto was a ruthless dictator, a grand larcenist and a mass killer with as many victims as Cambodia’s Pol Pot. But he served U.S. economic and geopolitical interests, was helped into power by Washington, and his dictatorial rule was warmly supported for 32 years by the U.S. economic and political establishment. The U.S. was still training the most repressive elements of Indonesia’s security forces as Suharto’s rule was collapsing in 1998, and the Clinton administration had established especially close relations with the dictator (”our kind of guy,” according to a senior administration official quoted in the New York Times, 10/31/95).
Suharto’s overthrow of the Sukarno government in 1965-66 turned Indonesia from Cold War “neutralism” to fervent anti-Communism, and wiped out the Indonesian Communist Party–exterminating a sizable part of its mass base in the process, in widespread massacres that claimed at least 500,000 and perhaps more than a million victims. The U.S. establishment’s enthusiasm for the coup-cum-mass murder was ecstatic (see Chomsky and Herman, Washington Connection and Third World Fascism); “almost everyone is pleased by the changes being wrought,” New York Times columnist C.L. Sulzberger commented (4/8/66).
Suharto quickly transformed Indonesia into an “investors’ paradise,” only slightly qualified by the steep bribery charge for entry. Investors flocked in to exploit the timber, mineral and oil resources, as well as the cheap, repressed labor, often in joint ventures with Suharto family members and cronies. Investor enthusiasm for this favorable climate of investment was expressed in political support and even in public advertisements; e.g., the full page ad in the New York Times (9/24/92) by Chevron and Texaco entitled “Indonesia: A Model for Economic Development.”
The U.S. support and investment did not slacken when Suharto’s army invaded and occupied East Timor in 1975, which resulted in an estimated 200,000 deaths in a population of only 700,000. Combined with the 500,000-1,000,000+ slaughtered within Indonesia in 1965-66, the double genocide would seem to put Suharto in at least the same class of mass murderer as Pol Pot.
It’s is a bit interesting that Pol Pot’s victims were primarily Christian, and so the tragedy in the eyes of American’s was obvious. Meanwhile, most of Suharto’s victims were Chinese — associated with the Communism of Mainland China. Nothing makes friends like a common enemy, so the US vs/ USSR (Capitalism vs/ Communism) dynamic makes the situation comprehendible. The ultimate irony though, is that Chinese are famous as the merchant class throughout South East Asia - the merchant class turning communist seems far fetched… Heck, even mainland China could only pull that trick off for a few years…
Permalink
01.26.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:12 pm by ryan
Do you have a few books that you’ve bought recently, but you haven’t finished reading cover to cover? I can’t stand that feeling — There are two cinematography and a few tech books that I’ll feel really good when I finish up 
Simultaneously, I find that I’m nearly always able to finish BOOK ON TAPE / Audible / 有声读物 versions of any book that I purchase. With my iPhone it’s more convenient than ever before!
Since I started LISTENING to books via Audible.com, back in May 2005, I’ve listened to 118 books with a combined time of 26.6 days. There are a few of these (Adventure Capitalist, first and all time favorite) that I’ve listened to end to end several times!
Of course, the downside of the audible version of books is that the selection is so small ~ but I’ve also found the limit in scope to be a pleasant diversion from the routines that I frequently find myself settling into…
I was quite excited tonight to find:
Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World
AUDIBLE LINK — AMAZON LINK
I listened to the sample and it sounds extremely interesting….
Other books in audible form that appear quite interesting include:
- Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur - An Adventure Story (Audible) (Amazon)
- Marx’s Das Kapital: A Biography (Audible) (Amazon)
- The War That Made America: French and Indian War (Audible) (Amazon)
- Storm and Conquest: The Clash of Empires in the Eastern Seas, 1809 (Audible Only)
Additionally, I noticed a whole “Books that changed the World” series is available, not completely yet in audible form, but if you’ll occasionally settle for the wikipedia version of history, you might want to check out these…
- Homer’s the Iliad and the Odyssey
- Plato’s Republic
- Darwin’s Origin of Species
- The Qur’an
- The Bible
- Clausewitz’s on War
- On The Wealth of Nation
Permalink
01.23.08
Posted in Chinese (中文) at 9:39 am by ryan
How disappointing… Google can’t seem to find an answer to fix my “iPhone Black Screen of Death“, but at least some guy at C|Net Investor News is seeing the same thing…
So, much to my surprise, starting a couple days ago I noticed what appeared to be a “black screen of death.” Everything stops working. The time bar at top is there, but the rest of the screen is black. No touching. No prodding of the home key. No pressing of the upper right key will get the thing working again.
I guess it’s time to take my iPhone to the friendly neighborhood repair shop for a re-installation of 1.0.2 operating system… Hopefully that doesn’t delete all of my SMS history - and I’ll need to make sure I get iCosta 1.0.4 on there too (中文输入法). Sure would be great if I could upgrade all the way to 1.1.3!
UPDATE…
I took my iPhone to the local repair center yesterday and they simply erased the entire operating system in installed a jailbreaked, Chinese Localized version of firmware 1.1.2 and my iPhone is working great. If you get the Black Screen of Death, just reinstall the firmware and you’ll be fine (of course, you’ll loose all notes and SMS’s…) In the last 24+ hours I have not had a single black screen! I love my iPhone!
Permalink
Posted in Chinese (中文), Economics at 6:30 am by ryan
Sometimes it’s rather difficult to find certain words in the Chinese <=> English dictionary, or when you do look them up, you’ll often find 10 word choices and not sure which most accurately represents your meaning. For the last 5 or so years, I’ve spent a considerable amount of free time trying to better understand the global economy, current imbalances in supply and demand (opportunities!), politics, the US debt, and global politics.
As you further your own understand of these areas, you might find the following useful. “T-Bills” were the most difficult translation for me to find
- Interest: 利息
- Futures: 期货
- Loan: 贷款
- Bond: 债券
- Debt: 债务
- Credit Rating: 信用度
- T-Bill: 国库券
- Mutual Fund: 基金
- IMF: 国际货币基金组织
- World Bank: 世界银行 （当然啊）
Also, a parting chinese proverb for your consideration:
教学相长
Teaching benefits student and teacher alike…
Permalink
01.22.08
Posted in China, Shanghai at 9:43 am by ryan
As you’re sitting there sick, imagine how hilarious it was when I lost my voice and went to the hospital to check it out. Of course I couldn’t talk so everybody thinks “this dumb foreigner has no clue what’s going on — let’s send him to the foreigner hospital ASAP” - and of course I’m way too chinese to pay 2 times the price for the same service, only spoken in really bad english that I can’t understand anyway…
So I used my mobile phone to just type in chinese what I need to tell them - which of course they think a chinese friend sent to me and try to send me away… Finally in chinese I type: “You damn idiot ~ my voice is gone ~ I need to see the doctor!” Of course, I had to repeat this process 12 times at each level of hospital bureaucracy to actually see a Doc.
Permalink
Posted in Photos, Uncategorized at 2:53 am by ryan
My new niece - Tara’s little sister just arrived a few hours ago.
Nobody’s even told me her name yet, but my little brother forwarded me this picture.
So cute!
Permalink
01.20.08
Posted in China, Chinese (中文), Economics, Photos, Shanghai at 11:35 am by ryan
I was extremely pleased to get another chance to meet Jim Rogers, though this time only at a brief speech ~ not really any time to chat. This was the first time I’ve seen Jim speak in public and I thought he did an excellent job! There are a few speaking notes that I think anyone can take away:
Humanize it - Turn it into a story. If we were looking for only the cold, dry facts, we could scan through the 10Ks ourselves, but few financial reports are truly memorable - we remember stories!
Repeat It - Jim would say the same thing over and over and over. He would say it 10 different ways. He might have 1000 other peals of wisdom that quickly get thrown out, and a few will appeal to different sections of the audience, but the core of what you are trying to persuade MUST BE REPEATED - use the same words, and then use different words, but repeat it.
Slowly. Speaking, like art is not a race. The whitespace in an Ad, the open space in a courtyard, and the silent pauses while you are speaking are all equally important. Do not talk to fast!
Additionally, there were 3 questions that I was particularly interested in, and Jim was able to answer them for me quite quickly.
1. Doesn’t the fact that the US Federal Debit is denominated in US Dollars make the actual $9 Trillion dollar figure much less important that it appears to be?
Not to quote Jim response, but basically, there will come a time when other countries are no longer willing to continue financing the US debit. As that happens, interest rates in the USA will rise - potentially quite high.
Jim did not mention this, but I would expect that one day we’ll see other nations demanding that US treasuries are denominated in a basket of currencies, rather than dollar debt backed by yet more dollars…
2. The British Pound once served as the global reserve currency. How did this change and what was the process like?
There was a long period of recession in the UK, making it a miserable place to live. This period was not short, and caused extensive changes throughout the UK economy. Again, I’m just paraphrasing an answer, but this topic is now the single economic topic that I’m most interested in… What happened to the Pound Sterling?
3. Do you worry about China’s centrally (mis)-managed investment in Gas Stations where there are no cars stopping for Gas (every 1km in Xinjiang, every station empty), empty airports in Zhuhai (16 terminals, but 2 FLIGHTS DAILY - TOTAL) and empty high rises all over the country?
Jim partially answered by saying that he would NOT be in China’s real-estate market, particularly in any of the “Tier-1 Cities” - Prices are all hyper-inflated and due for a large correction. Shanghai is probably number one in that group… As for the empty capacity - well, at least it’s better than just the excess consumption in the USA - at least they do have a gas station to show for it, rather than just another empty Starbucks cup in a landfill…
My good friend Wu Yi (who I met the day I first met Jim Rogers in Shanghai) also came with me Saturday morning for Jim’s speech
(BTW: Pic came out badly…. But was in a hurry and I’m not a suit guy to begin with…)
Permalink
01.14.08
Posted in China at 5:58 pm by ryan
If you’ve been visiting RyanErwin.com for a while, you probably noticed my tag line:
american business geek trying to be chinese in shanghai
Though I do not have chinese passport (and not in any sort of hurry to get one…), chinese friends have told me that I’m well on the road to being Chinese. I was chatting on MSN with a friend and her sister refused to believe that I was Chinese… So she wanted me to prove it by also typing english faster than my chinese…
However, the much more interesting story is that when I got here, the idea of eating Chicken Feet or Pigs Feet was so repelling, if others or this dish, I could not finish my meal. It was the very definition of disgusting - humans were not meant to eat such food, right? Maybe not. Maybe so. The last time I as out having lunch with a Shanghainese friend, I realized I was not only no longer repulsed, but had to try them for myself. Not bad actually
thoroughly chinafied american business geek in shanghai (now with japanese characteristics)
在上海，很有中国味道的美国来的商业和技术狂 (现在也加上一些日本的特色)
Chinafied isn’t yet in the english dictionary, but I think we’ll find it there some day. It’s the process of something being taken in by China, and then altering the item so much that the original is frequently no longer recognizable. Analogous to something being Americanized or otherwise “localized”, Chinafied is simply being localized, but with Chinese Characteristics.
The Japanese part is sort of just part of being chinese… Japanese are the largest single group of foreign residents in Shanghai (approximately 10x the number of westerns), so using mandarin to study japanese is really just an extension of higher level chinese study - but who knows where the road ends? Only can know where it begins…
Permalink
Posted in China, Photos at 8:13 am by ryan
Last week my good friend Wu Yi’s magazine, “Readers Digest” launched in Mainland China.
Great Job Wu Yi!
Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:25 am by ryan
こんにちは！
I picked up a nasty case of Acute Laryngitis this weekend. I can just barely whisper. What a pain… Doctor said by Thursday or Friday should be back to normal. In the mean time, just DO NOT TALK. Easier said than done…
Laryngitis is an inflammation of the vocal cords causing speech to become hoarse and/or whisperlike, and often inaudible.
CAUSE: excessive use of voice
When I get my regular workaholic routine interrupted, I like to read. Picked up an interesting story called: December 6th, set in Tokyo just before the beginning of World War II.
Main character is a caucasian, son of american missionaries, who traveled frequently a left him to be raised by the nanny in Japan. He’s primarily american in appearance. There’s an interesting line when he’s still a boy and crosses paths with one of the generals who lead Japan in the first Great War… The dialog goes…
It’s one thing to have a woman.
It’s another thing to be in love with a woman.
To love a weaker person, what does that do for you?
To mix inferior steel in a sword,
does that make the sword weaker or stronger?
True love can only exist between equals
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/December-Novel-Martin-Cruz-Smith/dp/0671775928 Audible: audible.com: | December 6
Permalink
01.09.08
Posted in China, Economics at 6:41 am by ryan
I stumbled across 国父’s speech on 大亚细亚主义 (Pan-Asianism) this evening. Really an interesting read! I was not previously aware that 中山公园’s name came from Dr Sun Yat Sen (his given name is “中山”…) most mainland chinese cities have a large street or park by this name. Shanghai certainly does! (Zhongshan Park if you prefer pinyin…)
Anyway, if you haven’t read 国父’s speech, I highly recommend you take a look. And while you are looking replace references to The Imperial Western Powers with The United States, and see if it changes your outlook on the future of the US economy… Very interesting.
If you’re behind the Great Firewall, you read the english version here. Otherwise, just go directly to the wikipedia page. en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sun_Yat_Sen%27s_speech_on_Pan-Asianism
Gentlemen: I highly appreciate this cordial reception with which you are honoring me today. The topic of the day is “Pan-Asianism,” but before we touch upon the subject, we must first have a clear conception of Asia’s place in the world. Asia, in my opinion, is the cradle of the world’s oldest civilization. Several thousand years ago, its peoples had already attained an advanced civilization; even the ancient civilizations of the West, of Greece and Rome, had their origins on Asiatic soil. In Ancient Asia we had a philosophic, religious, logical and industrial civilization. The origins of the various civilizations of the modern world can be traced back to Asia’s ancient civilization. It is only during the last few centuries that the countries and races of Asia have gradually degenerated and become weak, while the European countries have gradually developed their resources and become powerful. After the latter had fully developed their strength, they turned their attention to, and penetrated into, East Asia, where they either destroyed or pressed hard upon each and every one of the Asiatic nations, so that thirty years ago there existed, so to speak, no independent country in the whole of Asia. With this, we may say, the low water mark had been reached.
Permalink
01.08.08
Posted in China, Mac OS X at 1:27 am by ryan
If you use a Chinese, Japanese or Korean version of the Mac OS X operating system, you may have noticed that the filenames provided by the system are localized, at least under certain directories.
Pictures => 照片
Movies => 影片
Downloads => 下载
Etc… 等等…
If you also use software like VMware, or sometimes use the Terminal to manipulate these files, you can find it annoying that UTF-8 is still not supported everywhere…
You can duplicate the default system functionality of using english language (or roman character anyway) file names for your actual files, but then localize them so they aren’t so annoying to look at. For example, to make my Finance folder into my 财务 folder, I renamed the english version to “Finance.localized”, then created a .localized subfolder inside (mind the leading dot!) and then created a zn_CN.strings folder inside there. zh_CN.strings simply contains:
“Finance” = “财务”;
Restart your finder (killall Finder) or log out and log back in to see the changes. Enjoy your slightly more chinafied mac…
More information about the procedure is on the Mac Developer Connection website:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPFileSystem/Articles/DisplayNames.html
Permalink
« Previous entries
