IKEA seems to have been adopted by the Chinese. Back in November 2010, I wrote IKEA Sleepover in Beijing about IKEA’s Chinese fans that loved the place so much, it became a favorite spot to take a nap.
Recently, I discovered that IKEA in Shanghai is where retired, singles seek love while drinking free coffee.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the dating hot-spot for senior citizens who are out either looking for love or new friends, is none other than the Swedish furniture manufacturer.
Then in November 2011, NPR.org reported, “Twice a week, hundreds of Shanghai residents who have formed an informal lonely hearts club of sorts gather at the cafeteria of the Swedish furniture megastore for free coffee and conversation.
“The pensioners begin arriving around 1 in the afternoon and fill nearly 20 tables in the store cafeteria. They sit for hours drinking coffee, gossiping and subtly checking each other out.” If you click on NPR’s link above, you may listen to the story.
Global Post.com says, “Unlike bars or dance clubs, the atmosphere at IKEA is casual and non-threatening. It makes it easy for the seniors, who show up in groups of 70 to 700 people, to chat over a cup of coffee. And because IKEA serves free coffee to anybody carrying an IKEA Family membership card, some of the seniors don’t even have to pay for their cup. Zhou Hong works at IKEA as a card swiper, and she told The Wall Street Journal that on average, she hands out around 500 cups of coffee each time the seniors meet.”
However, IKEA isn’t the only one playing the role of a cupid in China. China’s postal service also plays cupid. Yahoo.com says, “Who would have thought that Beijing’s publicly run postal service would try to play cupid and save marriages from the “seven-year itch” (the critical point when, some say, a spouse’s eyes begin to wander)?”
But what about IKEA? Is IKEA losing money giving away free coffee to help fill lonely hearts with caffeinated love?
According to the numbers, no.
In fact, IKEA is doing great. Three of its five largest stores are in China, and IKEA reported that in 2011, its net profits rose 10.3% to $3.85 billion with its biggest gains in Russia, China and Poland.
Maybe handing out free coffee to lonely seniors was a good idea.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Note from Blog host — another example of East meets West through business and trade:China Tour Online.com says of Pizza Hut in Shanghai, “Good dining environment and palatable pizza with tasty side dishes. It is always crowded during dining time, you need to wait in line. The recommended food include pizza, roast chicken wing, clam soup and cakes.”
WeninChina.com says, “Pizza Hut entered (China) in 1990 and has steadily grown to 520 restaurants in 2011.”
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Guest Post by Bob Grant — publisher/editor for Speak Without Interruption, an international online magazine.
(Note: The photos included with this guest post are from my collection. Click on Originally Published to see more from Bob Grant.)
One of the aspects of my trips to China, that I truly enjoyed, was seeing all of the flowers, greenery, and gardens along the way. I wanted to specifically mention this fact, and state, the photos you might have seen of typical Chinese landscapes are true.
In fact, there were many more beautiful sights – of plants and flowers – than I had anticipated. I saw them in cities – in the country – in hotels – in restaurants – in offices – and other places too numerous to mention. Our office was in southern China – with a tropical climate – so there were flowers and greenery there any time of the year I visited.
As you go farther north, in China, there are the four seasons; however, even when it was too cold for outdoor plants there were many indoor ones wherever I went.
I do not enjoy planting or maintaining plants but I certainly like looking at them. The growing scenery I saw in China always gave me a feeling of tranquility.
I had once thought about buying a condo in Shenzhen so I could stay longer when I visited. One of the condos had a small patio (this was a multistoried condo building) and each patio came with a beautifully planted garden with flowers, plants, and trees. It was a place where I would have enjoyed going every evening and just sitting. It was covered so I could have enjoyed it in most types of weather.
Because I never stayed in the Western type hotels – rather staying where my Chinese associates stayed – I was treated to a unique insight on how some of the Chinese population lived.
Some of the hotels – where I stayed – were literally right next to apartment buildings. I could actually look out my window into those apartments.
I can’t say that I saw anything “personal” in nature but I did get to see how some Chinese decorated their apartments and balconies. I could also see the gardens many planted on the rooftops of their apartment buildings. Staying in those places certainly gave me even more appreciation of the Chinese people in that I saw a side of their lives that most “Westerners” would never see unless they stayed in places where I stayed.
I will always have fond memories of the many beautiful things I saw growing in China – it is a picture that will remain with me forever.
Note from Blog host – If you plan to do business in China, I recommend visiting the China Law Blog first.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Most China watchers know China’s central government plans years ahead, which is why empty cities are being built across China to be ready and waiting when hundreds of millions more rural Chinese migrate to urban China where higher-paying jobs in addition to a better, more modern lifestyle may be found.
In addition, when China decides to move, it moves fast, which is witnessed by China leading the world in solar and wind generated energy manufacturing. China also has about half the world’s hydroelectric power plants and is building safer Thorium and uranium pebble-bed reactors besides replacing old-coal burning power plants with new, modern facilities that reduce carbon emissions dramatically. I wrote about this in Doing Mankind a Favor.
1958 film of the test fuel-cell tractor designed and tested by Allis-Chalmers
In 2001, we saw the beginning of the evolution of hydrogen fuel use in China when the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) announced it intends to make China globally competitive in the field of hydrogen technology.
By 2005, Tongji University and SFCV had successfully developed three generations of fuel cell power train-system platforms and 13 prototype fuel cell passenger cars.
December 2007, the Science Channel reports on the Hydrogen Fuel Cell electric bike
Then in 2006, People.com reported, China opened its first hydrogen fueling station, which was operated in a joint venture with British Petroleum (BP). The Chinese partner, SinoHytec, is an enterprise linked to Tsinghua University—which is considered the MIT of China.
In addition, in 2006, three Daimler-Chrysler made fuel cell buses went into trial operation in Beijing and five vehicles made by Tsinghua University were tested.
In 2007, the Anting Hydrogen Refueling Station was co-built by Tongji University, Shanghai Aerospace Energy Co., and Shanghai Sunwise Energy System Co. and the station will be used as part of the Global Environment Facility/United Nations Development Programme Fuel Cell Bus Demonstration Program Phase II.
February 2010, CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout talks to Taras Wankewycz about a new hydrogen fuel cell refueling station for the home.
In 2008, twenty Lingyu fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) were successfully demonstrated at the Beijing Olympic Games.
In 2010, a fleet of more than 50 hydrogen fuel cell shuttle vehicles transported athletes and government officials at the Asian Games and Asian Para Games in Guangzhou City, China.
In fact, May 2011, TechCrunch.com reported America’s first pipeline-fed, retail hydrogen fueling station opened in Torrance, California, within Los Angeles to provide hydrogen for fuel cell and hybrid vehicles in the area.
A handful of hydrogen fuel cell black cabs have already hit the streets in London. Hydrogen fuel cell forklifts are already widely available, and used in warehouse fleets from Wal-Mart to Whole Foods. Fuel cell cars — promised by manufacturers including Toyota, Daimler, GM, Honda, and Hyundai — not slated for mass-market availability until 2015, though.
April 2011, China welcomes the Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell World Drive
Supergen Fuel Cells Consortium says by 2015, production from top automakers will likely reach just under 58,000 units in that year and accelerate rapidly from there. Early sales will be focused on areas where infrastructure investments have been or are being made, such as the United States (primarily California and the New York City region); Germany; Scandinavia; Japan (mainly Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka); South Korea (primarily around Seoul); and Shanghai, China.
According to a report from Pike Research, more than 5,200 hydrogen-fueling stations will be operational worldwide by 2020, up from just 200 in 2010, and estimates the market for fuel-cell technology in the Asia-Pacific region will reach $6.7 billion by 2017. Japan, South Korea and China are quickly becoming leaders in the fuel cell industry through their investments in and adoption of the technology.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
Subscribe to “iLook China” Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page.
China is swarming with E-bikes that are basically pedal powered machines with an electric boost. These E-bikes are common in Beijing and Shanghai.
There are also E-scooters with heavier motors that are capable of doing speeds of 30 mph or faster.
According to Time Magazine, “The relative simplicity of the machines and their components has encouraged a huge number of e-bike companies to open in China.
“In 2006,” Time Magazine reported, “there were 2,700 licensed manufacturers, and countless additional smaller shops. Rising to the top of the heap is not easy.
“Leading manufacturer Xinri (the name means “new day”) was founded in 1999 by Zhang Chongshun, an auto parts factory executive who recognized the potential of the field. In its first year, Xinri built less than 1,000 bikes; last year it churned out 1.6 million.”
According to Next Big Future, 140 million e-bikes were sold in China in 2010, and for 2011, those sales are projected to reach 167 million with increasing sales each year.
In addition, The Economist reports, “the (Chinese) government also wants to encourage electric bicycles to curb the pollution and congestion created by other vehicles…The authorities are also trying to make e-bikes themselves greener: manufacturers are being compelled to invest in lighter materials and to replace lead-acid batteries with lithium ones.”
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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This film (based on a novel by Lisa See) is the story of four women and of the complexities of China — Lily and Snow Flower live in 19th century Southwest China, while Nina and Sophia live in 21st century Shanghai.
Even in the 19th century, Shanghai was a world apart from Southwest China and still is. It is safe to say that the day-to-day grind of life probably hasn’t changed much (except for foot binding and more freedom for women) in remote rural villages in Southwest China, which is off the beaten track of most foreign tourists that visit China on fast-paced packaged tours.
I read Lisa See’s novel soon after it came out and although I enjoyed the book and felt it was well written, I couldn’t understand why it stayed on the New York Times Bestseller Listas long as it did. And to be honest, I still don’t. However, if there was a formula to predict why a few books are wildly successful and many fail, no one has discovered it yet.
The original story Lisa See wrote shows a small part of China and in no way represents all of China and all things Chinese. That would be a challenge since China is a diverse land with many spoken languages and cultures and one written language and a very long history.
From what I recall, Snow Flower and Lili, the characters in 19th century China, live in Southwest China and belong to one of China’s fifty-six minorities, which have unique cultures apart from China’s Han majority, and as children these two girls are sworn to be loyal friends for life.
Considering what life was like in China for woman in the early 19th century, it is understandable why such a custom would have evolved. However, to be clear, I will remind the reader that women were mostly treated this way everywhere in the world at that time, and many still are outside the US, Europe and China. Sex slavery and abuse of women still exists in many countries such as Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
These reviews, written by Sino-blind Americans, demonstrate no clue that the real purpose of this movie may have been to highlight China’s past and present and not as another cloned US movie such as two I saw recently, which reflect what is mostly popular in America. Both of these American movies, Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon and Horrible Bosses, lacked depth without a soul, and I cannot recommend them to anyone. However, I must admit that I’m capable of enjoyed both depthless movies and films with depth such as Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.
I’ve been to China many times and sat in movie theaters watching movies made in China for a Chinese audience and this movie, to me, is a Chinese film with Chinese actors and actresses set in China. After all, a Chinese film company was behind its production and the director is Chinese.
Most Chinese do not think like the average American that is often stuck on a linear path incapable of seeing the meaning between the lines. However, Chinese think metaphorically meaning if you want to understand and enjoy this film, look between the lines and learn from what is hidden in sight?
As we travel with the ancient (19th century) and modern (21st century) sworn sisters with scenes that shift from past to present, we discover that although there is more personal freedom in China today than there was almost two centuries ago, life still comes with no guarantees. The scenes in modern Shanghai show a city in transition with old being torn down being replaced by new as if China is emerging from a cocoon. I saw this transition as a metaphor. The scene where Nina is taking off her high heels and rubbing her feet compared to the ancient Lili (both played by the same actress) taking off her three-inch shoes and rubbing her bloodied, painful bound feet demonstrates how far China has evolved.
In fact, because this film is more Chinese than the novel written by American born and raised Lisa See, I feel it captured more of a sense of China than the novel did.
For those reasons, I cannot agree with most of the American media critics that trashed the film. Of course, to be fair, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan would be considered a failed and flawed film to most Western critics because it is a Chinese film adapted from a Western book.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is more than just a disjointed film jumping clumsily between centuries. This film represents China and the complexity of Chinese civilization and it demonstrates how much China has changed while so much that is often out of sight of most foreigners stays the same.
If you have the patience to suspend your Western values and expectations of what movies should offer and want to discover something new, I recommend seeing this film. But be warned, since this film is Chinese (in my opinion), it pushes the melodramatic envelope beyond what most Americans are comfortable with.
Shallow thinkers that flock to see movies such as Transformers 3, Horrible Bosses, The Zookeeper, and Cars 2, etc. may want to avoid Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. However, if you are an individual that enjoys learning and expanding your horizons, go — and take a box of tissues.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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