Rockstar English Launch

Today starts the first day of free online English classes in China with www.rockstarenglish.com – still have a long way to go, starting simple with easy teaching videos, but I envision a network of online English learning specifically designed for the Chinese market.  In the last couple years I’ve taken on the distinct and separate tasks of understanding China and also gaining a better understanding of technology in the world around me.  I believe the Rockstar English project allows me to merge these two parts of my life and create something really cool.  My idea is not revolutionary in any way, however I think it can bring something new and unique to the way English is taught here.  Go check it out and come back often, as there WILL be changes in the upcoming months.  www.rockstarenglish.com

It’s here- Rockstar English

So I’m ready to disclose a little more information about my project.  Rockstar English is going to bring free English videos to China, and with a little luck, maybe the rest of the world.  For now, my target audience is China.  After seeing private English cram schools doing everything they could to earn a buck, I decided to cut out the middle man and bring online courses to China for free.  I can’t do it all alone, so I’m hoping to build some traction and bring in some guest teachers in the future.  Just put up my first video- check out www.rockstarenglish.com- This whole project is a work in progress and my class doesn’t officially start for a couple more weeks.  Just trying to get the project off the ground one step at a time.  Over the next few months, I will be launching a few more classes and putting up a more professional website.  Get ready, more to come!

Time to Give Back To Free Education

Once again, it’s been a while since the last time I wrote so I thought I’d come back and give a quick update.  I’ve been working hard in school this past semester and continuing programming and learning through free online courses and have been so inspired by the free education movement going on that I’m launching something similar myself.  I’ll wait to post further until I have some content up, I’m only in the beginning stages, but I’m excited about working on a project that will allow me to be a part of the movement that is changing education.  Within the next month I’ll be ramping up, so I’d like to come post more about my journey on making this happen.  Stay tuned…

2012 is Code Year!

Another year has passed, and with it, I completed my first semester in grad school studying Economics in China. It was a great first semester, a lot of struggles, but I made it through. These two years I’ve made it my mission to learn as much as possible and take advantage of this free education, so along with studying Chinese and taking my regular classes, I’ve decided to throw myself a new challenge in 2012- programming! I believe I’ve blogged about Codecademy in the past, it’s a site helping people learn to program, through a simple step by step progression, and they try to make it as enjoyable and painless as possible. These developers have also launched a new project for 2012, Code Year, which emails you a new coding project every week for a year. I just got my first one this past week, and I’m about to dive into it and check it out. Programming is something that I’ve had an interest in learning, but never really took any major steps towards actually doing it.

I’m a big fan of the AVC blog and community, and programming is something that is always talked about, and most of the people involved in the community are a part of the tech scene, so in order to keep up, I feel like I should learn a little bit. Code Year seems like a great way to dive into it.

Trademark Infringements in China

Unfortunately, I’m not very timely with my posts, and I’ve been thinking about the fake Apple stores that were reported about 5 months ago in China. I was blown away that the whole thing was blown open by a blogger in Kunming, China. There are examples of fake stores and trademark infringements all across China and anyone here knows that. I think what made the Apple store case particularly interesting was that the entire stores were copied to look like the real thing.

I’m now living in a city called Xiamen, in southeastern China, and just this past weekend along a main shopping street in town, I ran across a couple interesting brand infringements. There are examples of fake goods being sold all across China, but it’s the big storefronts that cause me to take notice. First, I see a store called “Arsenal”, as in the EPL football team, complete with the players and everything on the sign and storefront. I was really excited that Arsenal had decided to brand themselves in China, thinking maybe they were going to make a push at marketing here. I go inside the store, nothing has anything to do with the team! The whole thing is just a front to attract people into the store!

Next, I see a “Playboy” store. It’s the exact same name, font, logo, that is used by the iconic American brand. I’ve seen many of these Playboy stores across China, and knowing China’s conservative nature, I decided to see exactly what they were selling in the Playboy store. This particular store was selling sheets… absolutely nothing inside the store had anything to do with playboy, once again, it’s just to grab your attention with a recognizable name, and get you to come in.

So it’s no mystery. There are many examples of these trademark infringing stores across China. And for the record, I’ve also seen an “Apple” store here in Xiamen.

Why is the Chinese Banking System so Complicated???

I haven’t written a post in a while so I thought I may rant a little bit about my troubles with Chinese banking. I was struggling for the past couple months with a way to buy a plane ticket back home. Here was the dilemma that I was faced with: I have lived in China for the last couple years, and the majority of my money is here. I couldn’t figure out a way to take my money here and make an international purchase online. I’m assuming the government does this on purpose to control the money supply, however, it makes things difficult for me, and I’d like to know how to get around this.

Let me explain what little I’ve been told about the bank cards over here. The cards issued at the bank are essentially debit cards, although many places still don’t accept these cards. You can sign up for online banking and then sign up for the access to make online purchases, although this really doesn’t equate to a credit card. I believe it serves more as an online debit card. The credit cards here are all Union Pay, which is basically like the Visa or Mastercard here, which controls all of the transactions. There may be some international joint ventures with Union Pay, but for the most part, Union Pay does not allow me to make international purchases, because Western companies (or most) don’t accept it. The only thing I could figure out was to have someone here buy the ticket for me on an American credit card. Now, the problem lies on their end, because they will have to transfer that money (at a price) back to America and into their account. And making matters even more interesting, can I just write the guy a check for the thousands of RMB I spent on these tickets? Nope. They don’t do that here either. I have to go withdraw a huge wad of bills. That’s really how things are done here. You go buy a nice new car or make some other expensive purchase and hand them stacks and stacks of cash. Seems a little archaic to me, but what do I know? Unfortunately, I have no solutions to these problems, nor can I do anything about it because the government controls the sector. For now, all I can do is whine about it. But I now have my tickets, so all is well, and I’ll be back in the good ol’ US of A next month!

Simple and Genius

I recently stumbled upon a company called Love Machine. It’s one of those cool little companies that make you wonder why you didn’t think of it first. It’s all about “giving love” to your fellow employees. It’s a system that allows you to recognize people for work well done, and given that we all love public praise, it sounds like a pretty cool system. I believe there may also be some kind of monetary award attached as well, so a company can give gift cards or something to employees who receive the most love. Pretty brilliant idea, and they even have to mention on the website that it’s a real concept and not a joke. Looks like there are some pretty serious players who don’t think it’s a joke. Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Mitch Kapor (Mozilla) are a couple of the investors.

My Response to the Yue Yue Tragedy

I’ve had many conversations lately concerning the video of the two year old girl who was run over in China, while people walked by, seeming not to care. I’ve heard a lot of comments from foreigners in China, as well as Chinese people, who are proclaiming this the downfall of Chinese society. Of course, the entire incident is horrible and tragic, and anyone in their right mind, outside of the actual situation, says that they would definitely step up and help. Problem is, there is a well documented psychological effect, the bystander effect, that says otherwise. People tend to not offer help in situations where there are other people present. There are many recorded incidents in places around the world where this happens. And in China, where there are ALWAYS many people around, this is even more likely to happen.

During my conversations with others, I hear comments about how in “civilized societies”, this doesn’t happen. A Chinese person even used the word “altruistic” to describe Americans. Nope! Just last year, there was a situation where a man was stabbed and left to die in New York, while pedestrians walked by, and one man even took pictures on his phone. Both of these situations are horrible, but my point is that this is an unfortunate psychological occurrence and it should in no way be a reflection of Chinese society or culture. There have been talks on raising the moral standard in the country, however I don’t think that’s the issue, nor is that really possible.

Another thing that may or may not cross people’s minds as they stray from helping others, there have been a few instances where the law has hurt those that have tried to lend a helping hand in China. People have had blame placed upon them, after stepping up to help others, and then those people have been ordered to pay fines. This is something that the government can, and should, look into, and help ease the public’s mind.

All this being said, this was a horrible event, and the video was really hard to watch. I just think it’s unfortunate that an entire country blames itself over an isolated event. All anyone can do is figure out how to not let these events occur again.

Side note: after talking about this whole thing with my friends, we walked outside and saw two old men on bikes bump into each other and topple over onto the ground. We just kept on walking (I’m telling you, there are LOTS of people in China and this sort of thing happens all the time), but then I remembered our conversation and decided that I needed to step up and help these people. So I rush over to help pick them up off the ground and separate their tangled bikes, and they just had this bewildered look in their eyes, wondering why in the world I was trying to help them. So I received no thanks for my aid, but I attempted to be a good samaritan, and I guess that’s all anyone can really do.

Stanford Online Artificial Intelligence Class

I’ve talked before a little about free online education and open courseware. Stanford has upped the ante by offering a real time class with actual assignments and tests with new videos uploaded every week. I signed up to be a part of it, and who knows if I will have the time to follow it completely, as I’ve got plenty of other classes keeping me busy, but it is a really cool experiment in education and I just want the opportunity to take part- and also learn a little bit about a very interesting topic. Side note- when I was little, there was a time when I wanted to work in robotics (who didn’t want to build robots when they were little!). So this class may give me the opportunity to explore that a little bit. Hopefully, this will be the first of many free, real time, online classes like this.

The Next Step

After being in Ningbo, China for two and a half years, I thought it was about time that I moved on to the next stage of my life.  I love China and want to continue to be here, so I have decided to pursue a Masters in Economics in Applied Finance at Xiamen University.  Xiamen University is in southern China and is located right by the beach on a beautiful campus.  I’m excited to continue my education and also remain in China where I can keep improving my Chinese skills.

Now, the greatest part about this degree is that it’s FREE!  I figured I’d throw a heads up to anyone looking for a free education (how can you turn that down!?).  Obama proposed to send 100,000 American students to China to study and the Chinese Government is sponsoring full tuition plus room and board scholarships for Americans studying for their undergrad, masters, or Ph.D.- it’s called the Sino American Cultural Exchange Scholarship.  That’s a link to the information that’s on Xiamen University’s website, however, the scholarship extends throughout most universities in China. Check it out!  Go get your learn on!