China - a 10 minute crash course

[joshuawbb]

Came across this well-made video just now, don't think it's been posted yet. It's a stylish 10 minute crash course on China for the newly arrived business person (according to chatter on ShanghaiExpat), give it a watch and see what you think of it.

http://www.tudou.com...Lna7657YQ/?fr=1

I have somewhat mixed feelings after watching this (mostly good) but am nonetheless very impressed; it certainly makes for an excellent introduction that would likely help a lot for the newcomer in China. On the good side it introduces many aspects of China in concise, interesting and clear detail, whilst not just jumping on the "praise EVERYTHING" bandwagon; honest downsides and problems in China are also introduced.

On the other hand, though this is somewhat unavoidable, things become subjective when going into Chinese people's thinking and behaviour (e.g. "Chinese people never criticise, ignore or make fun of a person to their face; good points before bad points in people evaluation, etc"), though you can't satisfy every end of the spectrum when you've just a few minutes to talk. There is discussion on concepts such as face, but little discussion on its impacts on society, economics and criticism of it. I might be nitpicking here though, since it's an introduction and not an essay, and the creator does indeed grab the time to mention issues corruption with regards to law and business. Lastly, I'm sure we all have plenty of opinions on some Chinese food and its healthiness (in restaurants, etc) enough said.

There are mistakes here and there, mostly errors in the subtitles, one of the more critical being the subtitler mistaking the speaker's "millennia" for "million years", etc.

Since one of the creators appears to be in this topic, I should probably post a link here to SHExpat for reference: http://www.shanghaie...4.html#p1649401

*Edited my post, it deserves more praise than I originally gave it.

[skylee]

The music of "The Last Emperor" still sounds good after so many years.

[Brian US]

I think it is put together very well and perfect in explaining so much in only 10 minutes. It was shown in my business class of all Chinese students and they got a kick out of the slicked haired-big glasses politician.