Archive for October 2006
Confucius Rules!
There are some interesting discussions about an ancient Chinese story on 井底之蛙。
It is recorded in the Han chronicles that when Emperor Wen visited his pleasure park he went to the area called Tiger Garden. There he questioned the official in charge of the park about the various animals. The official did not respond. The caretaker beside him, however, answered in great detail. Emperor Wen instructed Zhang Shizhi [an attendent] that the caretaker was to be given administration of the gardens because of his ability. But Zhang reminded him of Zhou Bo and Zhang Xiangru, who were virtuous with words to those above them in rank. Zhang advised that if Wen accepted the clever speech of the caretaker as a virtue and raised him in rank, the world must then bow to [the vagaries of] the winds. People will compete in clever speech and truth will become unimportant. The emperor agreed and the clever caretaker was not promoted. Gerhart “Tokugawa Authority ”Monumenta Nipponica 52.1 Story from Shi ji 102
Sound Familiar?
WSJ seems to have noticed that some Chinese brand names just sound too darn close to some of the better-known international brands. This type of copying looks so primitive to me compared to the tricks pulled by some of the Chinese web2.0 companies. BTW, doesn’t Roewe (a Chinese automobile brand) sounds like “Wrong Way”?
Andy Xie’s Leaked Email
Little Speck has released a copy of the perported text of Andy’s email that had cost him his job. Read it yourself. It sure doesn’t sound that harsh to me. But I guess it doesn’t take much to tick off the government of a country that ranks 84th in democracy and 111th in Press Freedom.
Sorry Andy, It’s Not Personal. It’s Just Business.
After several days of puzzling on why Morgan Stanley’s star economist Andy Xie suddenly resigned, it became clear yesterday that Andy Xie is the latest victim of private email falling into the wrong hand. WSJ and Bloomberg reported that Xie, in an internal email, criticized that “Singapore’s [economic] success comes mostly from being the money laundering center for corrupted Indonesian businessmen and government officials.” The email was apparently leaked to people who are naturally pissed off by its content.
