stlplaceLast Updated on May 30, 2007 by stlplace
The following picture was taken at Barbela, a popular Pizza place in Shanghai. One nice feature of Barbela is they offer the same quality food as Pizza Hut, but at half the price. No wonder people will form a long wait line at Barbela during weekends. As you may know, Pizza Hut was (and still is) a very popular place in China, it’s not the good old Pizza Hut you see in the US.
Last Updated on May 26, 2007 by stlplace
I’m sorry being a flip-flopper here, because I was bullish on its stock until last Thursday. But like many things in life, I think sometimes it’s worthwhile to have a second look, this is especially true on investment. It’s no good to hold on a stock “no matter what”, or “fall in love with a stock or a company”, because we don’t want to throw away our hard earned money. At least I don’t.
Last Updated on May 25, 2007 by stlplace
I heard about this thing first from reading Home Inns’ IPO prospectus. Don’t know how big a deal it is. But it was ineresting to see Home Inns’ (Rujia) being mentioned again in this list. I did not see the Jinjiang (2006.HK) being mentioned here, a bit surprised.
Think that as a “best hotel” award, if you will. This Golden Pillow thing is a bit of Chinese English.
Last Updated on May 25, 2007 by stlplace
A while ago Amazon launched Endless, its shoes and hand bags division. To promote its web site, Endless is giving away $5 for Overnight shipping. Maybe guys at Amazon learned that from Google Checkout promotion?
Zappos, the largest shoe store on the web, is continuing gain momentum. I used their service and was satisfied with them.
Last Updated on May 24, 2007 by stlplace
When I was in Shanghai in March, I watched a special program on China-CBN (Di Yi Cai Jing) talking about “school for migrant workers’ kids”. Not surprisringly, the schools’ condition usually are much inferior to same level schools attended by “city kids”. The Shanghai Municipal Goverment gave 60 m Yuan this year for the “migrant kids’ school”. This is nice, but not too enough to cover all the kids, because they are millions of migrants workers in Shanghai, and I believe there are at least one million kids attending those schools (so roughly 60 Yuan per kid).
Last Updated on May 24, 2007 by stlplace
I got some more Home Inns (HMIN) today. Nothing fundamental has changed at Home Inns, as I said in my previous post.
Separately, Ma Yun, the big mouth at Alibaba, speaks again. We all know he likes to brag about how great will Alibaba become, but this time he is saying “China does not have a pure Internet company”. Duh? How about Baidu?
Last Updated on May 23, 2007 by stlplace
This is a part of the deals reached during Ms. Wu Yi and Mr. Paulson’s talk today. Here is an excerpt from MSN.
“Under the agreement announced Wednesday, starting this year, U.S. carriers will be able to operate 13 new daily flights to China within five years. One new flight will be awarded this year and one in 2008, four new flights will be awarded in 2009, three more in 2010, and two each in 2011 and 2012.”
I also found the following very interesting, from Financial Times.
Last Updated on May 23, 2007 by stlplace
I believe most people would think that Postal Services is usually cheaper compared to UPS or Fedex, this is not always. Today I was about to send a parcel at US Postal Service (USPS), but there were 13 people ahead of me. Don’t want to wait for another 20 minutes, and also want to check out the Fedex Ground, I decided to leave. I went to their web site first. The rate was $16.95, which is lower than the quote I got from USPS web site.
After the comparison shopping, I sent the item via Fedex Ground at local Kinko (Fedex) store. One caveat in Fedex is the packaging material is more expensive than USPS. I packed the stuff using my own box so this is not an issue.
Last Updated on May 23, 2007 by stlplace
Mr. Greenspan (former US Fed chief), Jim Rogers (legendary investor), or Shang Fu Lin (Chairman, China Securities Regulation Committee)?
For me this is an easy pick (the latter two). But it seems people in the west believe in Mr. Greenspan better. Now after making comments in Feb (which partially caused the Feb. 27 crash), the old man speaks again. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot respect for Mr. Greenspan regarding economy indicators, monetary policy, all the good stuffs, but not on the Chinese stock market.
