Yep so I’ve been working on developing this event as attendance has been dwindling lately. That, and the fact that it now has potential to net me some money in the long run. I’ve been learning a lot the past several months promoting through various avenues. Little things like… not to take for granted how easily someone can get lost even with clear directions in picture, text, and video format – as well as bigger things like the general relative ineffectiveness of impersonal invitations and mass marketed ad’s.

The more I’ve been using online means to generate traffic and eventually warm bodies to different events in the area the more I’ve felt a connection to the appeals of social media in the Chinese marketplace. As I’ve mentioned before mass marketing, at least initially, for anyone results in far less returns here than it would in western countries. People here need to know your brand name well, gaining a consumers trust is an incredibly challenging task in a world where business law, customs, and infrastructure are based on non-trust.

Using social media you can interact with your target customer’s on a human level. This may not get you sales right away but it will grant you access to people that you can then make further contact with face-to-face. Without making those phone calls and meetings where you meet potential clients, partners, etc. you wouldn’t get anything done through the internet here in China. Not on any reasonable time line anyway. The appeals I’m talking about are even more useful in western countries – however I find their effectiveness particularly attractive in this market where so many other tactics that work well in the west fail miserably.

Seems I’ve drifted off away from the subject of my Chinese corner event but hopefully it will be beneficial for some of you that take the time to read it. If not, you can forgive me right? Hope to see you guys reading this from the Shenzhen area at my event this weekend I promise the wine will be good, the cheese fresh and the fruit sweet and ripe as always. Plus if its not you can always try to convince me to cook something for you instead .

So I began well intended, looking for some software that would translate chinese text to english when placing your cursor over the text in any application or webpage. The winning candidate turns out to be one Powerword created by Kingsoft a Chinese based software company which has been combating Microsoft on various fronts for more than a decade. Problem…. apparently the software was designed to aid Chinese learners and was therefore designed with a Chinese interface. Having downloaded and installed that version I found the functionality I could use acceptable but most of the applications power was unavailable to me because of the chinese interface. So began the search into an english interface version of the software…

This article springboarded my learnings surrounding this matter. If you tire of my ramblings Wikipedia has a well thought-out entry you may like to peruse. Now to clarify there are several versions of “Powerword” I have seen mentioned back and forth online. The software I initially downloaded (zip file named ‘powerwordlite.25269.3009.exe’) was infact the free software developed by the Google/Kingsoft joint venture (using that term loosly – haven’t researched the official relationship between the two entities). All other versions of Powersoft (I lost count of how many I found – ranging in years from 2000-2009 version numbers 3.0 to 5.5 and a languages Japanese, Chinese, English) were/are produced by Kingsoft and are not freeware. As I’m in China the fact that they are not freeware simply means its a little more difficult for me to effectively transform it into free ware.. [A. Search online for a full download and crack OR B. Go down to my local electronics shopping area and pick up a hacked copy for 10 yuan]. Though I’m sure these behaviors would be frowned upon by many it is an unfortunate defacto law of the land here in China. Some acts are in motion in an effort to circumvent this trend but believe you me for now they remain in full swing.

3 hours later….

Decided to call it quits on account of frustration and lack of desire to pull all the hairs out of my head. Looks like I may have to go the route of steal/copy/crack in order to get what I want. Thats ok – I’m in the right place for that .

Shenzhen Statistics

Current Population: 17million+
Urban Density: 10,105.0/km^2 (26,174.1/sq mi) (2007)
SEZ formed (Special Economic Zone): May 1, 1980
Total Land Area: 2,052km^2 (790 sq mi)
Urban Land Area: 395.81km^2 (152.8 sq mi)
Elevation: 25m (82ft) – Global warming flood proof … maybe
Population @ end of 2007: 8,615,500
Internet Users: 253 million +

Global Population Snapshot

Current world Population: 6,773,021,184
China’s Population: 1,336,599,805 (1 in 5 baby 1 in 5)
USA Popluation: 306,206,895
For more China related stats you can check out the CIA public factbook on China

Class Site Up and Running

So I finally got my website up and running for Chinese. Please feel free to leave me feedback on what you feel could be done better and/or could be added to make the site a more valuable resource to those trying to learn the Chinese language.

There is but one problem that persists in two of my three classes. When something needs to be explained (grammer, vocabulary, usage, etc.) two of our teachers chose to explain that item with chinese – on top of that usually chinese that we haven’t been exposed to before. This results in the asker being more confused when the question has been answered then before he had asked in the first place. Now there is no problem with the moderate level of comprehension throughout the class – say when the teachers choose to go on a gesticulated, smile imbued tangent. However my classmates and I believe it is probably best to integrate some English where necessary when explaining new concepts/vocabulary/grammer.