社会调查的报告：“在中国创办公司的困难”

改革开放以后，中国的经济体制开始从计划经济向市场经济转移。因此，随着时间的推移，中国人开新公司的机会像雨后春笋般越来越多。不过，在中国创建一家公司还有很多困难。比如说：他们不知道在哪里创办公司，也不知道怎么创办一家公司。在美国，对公司来说，找到它的市场比较容易。美国的广告业已经非常发达，所以新的公司早就找到怎么做广告和在哪里做了。但是中国的人口是美国的四倍多，而且富人和穷人收入的差别更大。中国是一个地大物博的国家，所以一家公司很难占有全国的市场。许多新公司得面对这样的问题。“焦点校园”是一家新公司。它通过在中国大学的校园做广告帮助其它公司在青年人中寻求拓展这些公司品牌的机会。由此来提高青年人的消费水平。“焦点校园”的创始人兼总经理，鲁池斌，解释了寻求拓展对他们公司来说是多么一件困难的事情。他把全部市场划分为三个级别。最高的那个是比较有钱的人。这些有钱的学生常常收到父母寄来的钱，他们一个月能花一万多块。这个高级别的群体虽然能买得起很多名牌，但是这个群体包括的人数太少了。鲁先生估计高级别市场的人数差不多是一百多万。这个数字看起来好像很大，可是这一百多万学生个个都在不同的地方。不可能在每个大学都做广告，那样不能赚钱。所以，鲁先生决定只对中间群体做广告。这个级别人的钱比最高级别人的钱少，但是中间级别大多了。而且，他们比较集中，这样跟他们沟通非常容易。对低级别群体做广告没有效因为他们的消费能力较低。他们只买得起自己最需要的东西，不能花很多钱买流行的衣服和新的电子用品。这样做生意虽然忽视了市场的一个大部分，可是也没有别的选择。如果他想赚钱，就得把精力集中在市场的一个主要并且非常有效的地方。

第二个困难就是中国的新公司没有很多模式。那些公司创始人都好像拓荒者似的。投了很多钱，完全不知道结果是否有风险。如果一个人想推销一件新的产品，他不知道有没有人对他的产品有兴趣。特别在中国，大多数的产品都是新的。一家公司没见过别的公司卖这样的产品。因此，新的公司在成功以前，都做过很多错的尝试。一家因特网技术公司的创始人解释说：他们通过错误学会了怎么样更好地提供服务。比如说，原来，这家公司的创始人认识到有很多比较老的顾客因为对因特网不熟悉而不会用他们的软件。公司要制造一种更简单的软件才能赚钱。改革开放以后，也有国际的大公司来中国做生意。很多国内的公司担心这些公司会跟他们竞争，让做生意变得更难。不过，“城外诚家具广场”的总经理解释说：中国的新公司也利用国际公司的模式销售他们的产品，服务他们的顾客。实际上，中国的国际公司也会对中国商业环境的发展很有帮助。

最后，既然中国总是在发展，人民的想法也总是在变化。了解现代的中国人比了解今天的美国人可能更难。中国人每一个月都能享受新的产品，想知道他们要什么也特别难。几十年以前，因为中国的消费者还没看见过很多新的产品，他们不知道什么样的好，什么样的不好。那时候，公司的广告说他们的产品好，消费者就会相信。不过，随着市场的发展，消费者越来越怀疑广告的可信度。很多公司以为中国人不能理解很抽象的广告，可是他们发现只有做有创造的广告才能使顾客确信他们应该买这个公司的产品。

大体上说，虽然创办公司的人得面对一些困难，中国经济发展得很快是一件非常好的事情。中国人的生活水平一天比一天高，中国也一天比一天好。永远今非昔比！

Excerpt from an e-mail...

I was writing an e-mail and thought some words particularly appropriate for this forum. No context is really necessary:

Beijing - especially with the nice day yesterday - is starting to show its colors a little. It is amazing to see daily changes around town. They work through the night building new and fixing old as the ubiquitous Olympic clocks tick down - ever closer - to the day that these people hope will catapult them headlong into the modern world. It is actually quite amazing to talk with everyday Beijingers - cab drivers, waiters, and the like - in their native Chinese, and hear the kind of language they use to talk about the coming months. The Chinese are famous for their ancient proverbs and brilliant propaganda slogans -- they haven't lost their touch.

And maybe even more spectacular is how this country and its people are reaching out to the world in an unprecedented way. Just two days ago, as I was walking into the gate at the Temple of heaven, a Chinese boy no older than seven or eight came up to me and said, "Hello! Welcome to Beijing." It was a small but genuine gesture. I smiled and thanked him - in English, of course, figuring that was what he was hoping for - and he scurried happily back over to his friend, proud of his country and its culture, cognizant (or maybe not so) of its turbulent past, but (nevertheless) optimistic about its future. It is not something I will soon forget.

In any case, it's back to raining every day...so much for that.

34.

Beijing Looking Up

Beijing has most recently started to improve. Yesterday, I went to 天坛, the Temple of Heaven, a beautiful historical sight in the South of Beijing. It was a cool and party cloudy day, perfect for sight-seeing and roaming the streets. It only rained lightly a few times throughout the day. Hey, it's a start.

After the Temple of Heaven, I browsed the booths of the several story 红桥市场, Hong Qiao Market, very near to the Temple of Heaven. There, they have everything from fake Dolce bags to posters and propaganda from the days of the Revolution. It was my first real time 讨价还价，haggling the price, and I'd say I did relatively well. I at least didn't 上当受骗，or as we say: get ripped off. 

I then hopped on the 北京地铁，Beijing Subway, and took a ride back over to the street-side food venders at 王府井，Wangfujing. I had some 饺子，dumplings, and then came back to the dorm for a shower. You can see quite how dirty Beijing really is when you look at a white towel after you've used it to dry yourself off. The dirt seeps so deep into your skin that it does actually come off on the towel. Kind of gross.

Today, Sunday, June 6th, is the first absolutely pristine day in Beijing that I've seen. I actually opened the window to let the warm breeze come in. From my window, all you can see is buildings, but the window out at the end of the hallway frames a beautiful range of mountains off in the distance. On a normal day, they are all but completely veiled by the 空气污染和雾, air pollution and hazy fog. 

And now, since the sun is likely to soon retreat behind its protective layer of Beijing clouds, I am going to enjoy it while it has come out to play. So, as they say here in Beijing: "Bye bye!!"

Creeping up on three weeks

I will have been in Beijing three week tomorrow, Friday, July 4th. A group of us have decided to go out to a 西餐馆, a Western style restaurant, to celebrate that and, of course, the Fourth. Not too much will be going on here for that, so we'll have to have our own fun. There will be no fireworks and no barbeque, but I suppose we will have to make do with what we have.

Beijing is by no means a fantastic city. The life here pales in comparison to that at home. It is very difficult to find the same types of things, and even when you do, they have been made differently or have different ingredients. The diet coke is horrendous. It is sweeter and has a very strange aftertaste. They aren't really into diet here anyway, so I'm lucky if I can find it. The only good coffee is at Starbucks, a luxury when I'm far enough away from 北语, Beiyu - the school where I am staying - to find one. Coffee is not only very expensive to import, but this is also a tea-drinking culture. It is been hard to adjust.

Not only that, but 海淀区, the Haidian district, is undergoing a lot of construction. Walking on the street is not easy. Sometimes I feel like I'm back on the Great Wall. Not only that, but it has been raining every single day, which I'm told is a rare phenomenon for Beijing summer, but, in any case, the piles of dirt on the street quickly turn to mud and flow down the sidewalks. I am beginning to understand why Beijingers are always underdressed.

That aside, Beijing is an extremely large city. I live a good 45 minutes from the city center on a good day. The subway is extremely cheap and easy to use, but you have to be on it all day and change lines several times to get to where you want to go. Fortunately, most cars are air conditioned, and the newest lines have brand new, very clean cars. But they are packed, even very late at night. 

I'm also beginning to understand how it might feel to be black, for example, in an all white city. Even though there are a lot of foreigners here, there are 100 times more Chinese people, and since this society is seriously lacking in racial diversity, foreigners are extremely easy to identify. Stares abound, and not necessarily ones of disapproval, but rather of interest or amazement. I can tell that the Chinese people get a big kick out of hearing American students speaking half Chinese and half English. They still can't believe that white people are speaking their language. I can tell they appreciate it.

There is only one week left of this term, and then we will be conducting our 社会调查, Social Study, for one week. I will be staying in Beijing (lucky me), to learn about the Beijing's ever-changing economic situation. It should be interesteing; they've lined up a lot of great speakers and interviews for us. We have to write a report afterwards as part of our class grade. After that, we have another 4 week semester. And then I will, Thank God!!, be able to come home. 

44 days, and counting (fastidiously).

北京欢迎你们！

I arrived in Beijing on June 13th and quickly passed through customs with not a problem. HBA teachers were waiting for us outside and took us right over to 北京语言大学会议中心, Beijing Yuyan Universtiy Conference Center, where the HBA students are staying. The living conditions in this building are quite good. We are all in single rooms with private baths, air conditioning, refrigerator, television (albeit in Chinese - except CNN), internet, and daily housekeeping.

We got to speak a little bit of English for the first weekend, but signed the 语言誓约, Language Pledge, on Sunday. It was a little intense, but even after one week it got much better. You just have to come to the realization that it's OK to be annoying. They don't want us to use English, so they are willing to deal with our being unable to get our point across easily. The teachers are making it easy - they already know what will be asking for and have taken care of most of the issues that would have arisen. 

Classes began on Monday. Not bad. We have about an hour and ten minutes of 大班课，Large Class, with eight students, and then break up into 小班课, Small Class, with four students, for about two hours including a few breaks. After lunch, we have 50 minutes of 单班课, Individual Class, a one-on-one session with one of the teachers.

The teachers are all fairly young, in their 20's or early 30's, except, of course, for the course heads, who are much more experienced professors. Class is fast-paced and interactive. You can't get away with doing nothing in classes so small. However, the focus is not on trying to find things that the students did not study well enough. There are no games, everything they want us to know is clearly written out on the board and we very 有条有理地 (methodically, systematically) go through it. The first week's test wasn't too hard, but we are surely being eased into what appears to be an increasingly intensive program. I'm sure I am in for more rigorous work as the weeks progress.

As for the weekend, we went to 司马台长城, The Great Wall at Simatai, a relatively untouched portion of the wall about two-and-a-half hours outside Beijing. It isn't as touristy as some of the other sites, which I hear are "Disneyland-ish," whatever that means. We climbed up 18 very long, uneven sets of steps in nearly 100 degree heat to reach the top. It was tiring, but worth it. One wonder down, six to go!