Starbucks set for new recipe of success
China Starbucks hopes to transform itself from a coffee chain into a broader consumer-product company in China with the opening of a food store.
The new store, in Beijing’s Oriental Plaza, serves beef lasagna, cream of mushroom soup and smoked chicken salad, among other dishes.
“The new store, decorated as a Paris coffee shop, is targeting high-end consumers who work nearby and would like to have a nice lunch, afternoon tea or just a coffee break,” said Lory Lu, manager of the store. Lu added that company has opened several such shops in Hong Kong.
In June last year, Starbucks acquired San Francisco-based Bay Bread and its La Boulange bakery brand.
Starbucks food portfolio is an important part of the company’s core business. According to the company, food now accounts for $1.5 billion in revenue in US company-operated stores and has grown by double digits in each of the last two fiscal years.
At the end of last year, Starbucks opened a Barista coffee store in Beijing, the first of this kind in China, to offer hand-made coffee-based drinks.
“The company understands the complexities of operating in a country where consumers in smaller cities are just getting their first Starbucks and where established big-city coffee drinkers already need upgraded stores,” said Belinda Wong, president of Starbucks China.
On Thursday, the Nasdaq-traded coffee chain announced its quarter results, which ended on March 31. Its total net revenue increased 11 percent year-on-year to $3.6 billion.
Net revenue for the China/Asia Pacific segment was $213.6 million, a year-on-year increase of 22 percent.
Starbucks operates more than 700 stores across more than 50 cities in China. The company said China will be its second-largest market by 2014 and will have 1,500 stores by 2015 across more than 70 Chinese cities.
Chinese police to identify drug-using drivers through saliva test
BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) — Chinese drivers may be stopped by traffic police and asked to open their mouths to allow police to collect samples of their saliva for drug testing. Something new to be tested for.
The China Narcotics Control Foundation received a batch of instant saliva test kits worth about 3 million yuan (480,000 U.S. dollars) from the Institute of Biophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Friday.
The kits will be used by traffic police and narcotics units, according to a statement from the foundation, which is supervised by the Ministry of Public Security.
A test kit consists of a mouth and gum swab for collecting saliva samples. It also contains a tester that can tell whether a person has been using drugs, as well as identify what kind of drugs, in a matter of seconds.
Compared to traditional urine tests, the saliva test is easier to use and will greatly improve the efficiency of police work, the statement said.
Last April, a coach collided with a truck on an expressway in east China’s Jiangsu Province, killing 14 people and injuring 20 others. The driver was found to have been using crystal meth.
The accident triggered a national program to test coach drivers for drug use, resulting in about 1,400 coach and truck drivers having their licenses suspended over drug use.
China had a total of 2.14 million registered drug users as of March, up 19 percent from 2011, according to the foundation.
Drug-related crimes have become more complex in the past few years, as the sources and types of drugs have become more diverse and the average age of drug users has noticeably dropped, the statement said.
New test in China,Chinese police to identify drug-using drivers through saliva test
BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) — Chinese drivers may be stopped by traffic police and asked to open their mouths to allow police to collect samples of their saliva for drug testing. Another test after being pulled over for drunk driving will be drug testing. Maybe the next test will get all the bad/Sunday drivers off the roads too.
The China Narcotics Control Foundation received a batch of instant saliva test kits worth about 3 million yuan (480,000 U.S. dollars) from the Institute of Biophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Friday.
The kits will be used by traffic police and narcotics units, according to a statement from the foundation, which is supervised by the Ministry of Public Security.
A test kit consists of a mouth and gum swab for collecting saliva samples. It also contains a tester that can tell whether a person has been using drugs, as well as identify what kind of drugs, in a matter of seconds.
Compared to traditional urine tests, the saliva test is easier to use and will greatly improve the efficiency of police work, the statement said.
Last April, a coach collided with a truck on an expressway in east China’s Jiangsu Province, killing 14 people and injuring 20 others. The driver was found to have been using crystal meth.
The accident triggered a national program to test coach drivers for drug use, resulting in about 1,400 coach and truck drivers having their licenses suspended over drug use.
China had a total of 2.14 million registered drug users as of March, up 19 percent from 2011, according to the foundation.
Drug-related crimes have become more complex in the past few years, as the sources and types of drugs have become more diverse and the average age of drug users has noticeably dropped, the statement said.
6 Danes investigated for urinating in full view in Shanghai
Shanghai police said they are investigating reports of six foreign tourists drunkenly urinating on a low barrier on an elevated road in full view of traffic on Saturday afternoon.
The driver of the bus carrying them told police the men forced him to stop and nearly caused an accident.
Police started investigation after a picture of the men urinating on the North-South Elevated Road was posted online yesterday morning, causing indignation on the Internet.
“They were urinating on the road and laughing, and all of them are foreigners,” said a witness surnamed Huang, who took the picture and posted it.
The driver of the tourists’ rented bus, surnamed Bian, was found by police from surveillance camera footage. The driver said he was driving a group of Danish tourists back from the Audi International Circuit racetrack in suburban Jiading District to Zhaojiabang Road in Xuhui District about 4pm on Saturday when the incident happened.
Bian said they forced him to stop, so he tried pulling over along the thin median.
“They drank too much and wanted to urinate,” Bian told a local TV news report yesterday. “They dragged my steering wheel and I almost hit other cars.”
It was not immediately known if the men had been identified or what punishment they might face. The driver could be punished for parking on the elevated road.
“It’s too dangerous, not only for the cars but for themselves,” a resident told the news report yesterday.
The case remained under investigation late yesterday.
The picture soon went viral on Sina Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. Many netizens condemned the behavior.
“These foreigners should be punished immediately,” said netizen Ouyangmengzhou.
“Don’t always talk about Chinese tourists not behaving in other countries. See what the foreigners do in China?” netizen zz52924 commented. The bold even stupid tourist took a picture of themselves pissing in Shanghai. Look at the stupid foreigners now!.
Others were more tolerant.
“Maybe it’s because there are not enough public toilets?” said netizen with the screen name Shenhaigoulan.
“If they don’t have a malicious or discriminating purpose, let’s just take it a joke. Be tolerant, this is an open country,” said netizen Yadian2008.
Shanghai fried turnip cake
Shanghai fried turnip cake Recipe
Makes six
Ingredients
900g Chinese turnip, grated
30g dried shrimp
20g dried Chinese mushrooms
1 tbl oil
3 spring onions, thinly sliced
3 teaspoons sugar
3 teaspoons Shaoxing rice wine
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
2 tbls finely chopped coriander
280g rice flour
Oil for frying
Method
Place the turnip in a large bowl and cover with boiling water for five minutes.
Drain, reserving liquid, then leave the turnip to drain in a colander.
When it is cool enough to handle, squeeze out any excess liquid, then place in a bowl.
Soak the dried shrimp in boiling water for an hour, then drain, adding any soaking liquid to the reserved turnip liquid.
Soak the mushrooms in boiling water for 30 minutes, then drain, adding any soaking liquid to the reserved turnip liquid.
Squeeze out any excess water from the mushrooms, and then remove and discard the stems and finely dice the caps.
Heat a wok over high heat, add the oil and heat until very hot.
Stir-fry the shrimp and mushrooms and stir-fry for two minutes, or until fragrant.
Add the spring, sugar, rice wine and pepper, then add the turnip, coriander and rice flour and toss to combine.
Pour in 500ml of the reserved liquids and mix well.
Place the mixture in a greased 25cm square tin
Place the tin in a steamer
Cover and steam over simmering water in a wok for 75 to 90 minutes, or until firm, replenishing with boiling water during cooking
Remove the tin and let cool
Cut cake into 5 cm squares that are 1 cm thick
Heat a wok over high heat, add oil
Fry the turnip cakes until golden and crispy
Top with fermented soybean paste and/or chili sauce to taste
Pizza Hut China’s Shrimp and Hot Dog Pizza
As heard from a food critic in a foreign country, you might face the challenge of eating combinations you’re culturally not tuned to enjoy. At which point you’ll just have to take one for the readers expecting a review. A foreigner proved this to be the case when he tried Pizza Hut China’s latest pie.
At 73 RMB (or roughly $11.74 at the current exchange rate) per pie, the pizza is supposed to feature baked shrimp with an almond crust, squid, shredded crab, and pineapple over a Mediterranean-style seafood sauce, all bordered by a ring of 24 Milanese sausages — at least, according to the description on Pizza Hut China’s website.
That’s not how the pizza tastes. According to Cost, “the pineapple’s tang, the tempura’s rancidity, the squid’s funk, and the sinus-scorching zing of the wasabi-mayonnaise all clash in your mouth, vying to see who can trigger the gag reflex first.” As he feared from reading the description, Cost found it to be a “horrible hydra of fast food.” It was enough to make him “unquit” smoking for a quick palate cleanser.
The blog editor does acknowledge his “cultural insensitivity” as he dipped into the biases that inform his sense of what’s odd (or not) in Chinese fast foods. When he asked Shanghainese people for their two cents, he found no one balked and “some even said it was delicious.” This just shows why it’s hard for foreigners to see their way clear of themselves. They are not looking at the big picture, given they are in a country that they are a minority and Pizza Hut is selling to the majority. You get those great foreign comments. Pizza Hut and Kentucky fried chicken have excelled and surpassed most of the foreign brands because they understood the market and what they waned.
Still we see foreigners complain about everything from the air,people, government,visas and manners but hell they still won’t leave China. I wonder why?.. Why complain and bitch so much, yes everything is better in the West!!. So go west young man!!.
Money Worries as Red Packets Get Fatter
Red packets traditionally contained a small sum of money given to children during the Chinese New Year. They are getting bigger and bigger every year!!
But unlike in southern China, such as Guangdong Province and Hong Kong, where people mostly give several tens of yuan for children during the New Year holiday, red packets in most parts of China, including Shanghai, now see large sums of money exchanging hands.
“I’m always amazed to see how generous people are when giving red packets here. The amount is sometimes 50 times what we are used to giving,” said Mark Yip, a Hong Kong resident visiting relatives in Shanghai. “I wonder if they really earn that much each month.”
A report by TNS, a market research firm, found people on the Chinese mainland on average allocate 3,668 yuan (US$588.8) as red packet money for the Chinese New Year. An average red packet for family members contains 1,323 yuan, and those for relatives average 893 yuan, according to the report.
Daniel Tao, a Shanghai white collar worker, said his two-year-old daughter had received more than 10,000 yuan so far this year, mostly from relatives and friends.
“She really got a good harvest,” Tao said, adding that grandpa, grandma, uncles and aunties had each given the toddler 1,000 yuan.
“But we also have to give out a lot in return,” he said. “It’s almost a meaningless exchange.”
For those who are just starting to work and don’t have any children, the problem is that they have little money to give away. Some web users complain that they have to spend all their annual bonus on red packets and taking relatives to nice restaurants.
“It seems that 500 yuan is the minimum amount of money for children of relatives,” an online post said. “The tradition of giving red packets will cost all my bonus in a week.”
Web users were outraged after Xinhua news agency cited a retired government official lamenting about the large sum his child used to receive when he was in his post.
“My child used to receive tens of thousand of yuan during the Chinese New Year, some times people give 10,000 yuan in a packet,” Xinhua quoted him as saying. “But now, none would visit me except for the relatives.”
There have long been proposing to cut the size of red packets, but reality seems to be against it.
An online poll conducted by Tencent found that 40 percent of web users would allocate three months’ salary for red packets, and 70 percent expected to spend more every year.
Shanghai wives hold the purse strings
Shanghai wives have more power in managing their family wealth, research has found.
Almost 42 percent of families in China have their assets managed by both husbands and wives. However, wives in Shanghai seem to have a stronger say in family finances. Shanghai women are know thru out China for being shrewd.
More than 40 percent of families in Shanghai have their family wealth managed by wives, which is higher than the country’s average of 38.4 percent, according to Horizon Research Consultancy Group.
The global market research company polled 2,346 women and 270 men online nationwide between October and January. It showed women now have a leading position in managing family income.
Married women have more responsibilities in family life, the report said.
“The point of controlling family income is to maintain stability, as women tend to feel insecure after being married, like worrying about their husbands having affairs,” said a 28-year-old woman, who works for a foreign-funded IT company in Dalian, Liaoning province. She refused to give her name.
She said she and her husband share a bank account. They deposit their salaries into the account every month and discuss how to use it together.
Though Shanghai women are traditionally thought of as having a stronger role than their husbands in family finances, Chen Xiaoshu, 27, a Shanghai book editor, has a different idea.
“It’s always my father who takes care of the family savings and spending. He is an accountant, and it works well. My parents get along well. So I don’t think a stable marriage has anything to do with money,” she said.
But some sociologists do not agree with the survey’s results.
“We should be careful when analyzing online surveys, as the participants are limited to those who have access to the Internet,” said Xue Yali, an assistant researcher from the Family Education Research Center under Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
“On the other hand, managing money does not mean women are enjoying higher positions at home, as it can be very trivial matters like paying for power and gas,” she noted.
“The key point is who does the decision-making in the family,” she added.
Tony Wang, who works in wealth management in a foreign commercial bank in Shanghai, said he has more female clients than male. Wang is a Chinese but asked to use his English name to protect his privacy.
“I found more women have the power to allocate their wealth, but they tend to be cautious, and prefer products with small risks and small returns. Generally speaking, men are bolder in making investment decisions,” he said.
Xue pointed out that for a traditional Chinese family it is very important that the women, especially housewives, control the money.
As the job market favors men, a woman is very likely to lose everything if her marriage fails. But as women become more independent with improved education and better pay, controlling family wealth is less important to them, she added.
According to research published last month by dating website Jiayuan, women are becoming more financially independent. Thirty-nine percent of women refuse to become housewives after getting married, and 98 percent said they would not ask their husbands to hand over their wages.
The survey of Horizon Research also found that women are earning more nowadays. More than 36 percent of women in cities have a higher income than their husbands.
Are Chinese Wives Becoming Relationship Breadwinners? Chinese Women Continue To Defy Traditional Chinese Gender Roles
Chinese women’s’ duties have traditionally been limited to raising children, cooking and cleaning, while Chinese Man’s roles traditionally included working, earning money and controlling the family’s finances. While those traditional roles are still the norm for most of China, in Shanghai, for some time, many of the China’s traditional gender roles have been reversed.
The Horizon Research Consultancy Group recently claimed that women manage their family finances in more than 40 percent of Shanghai households, a figure that is only slightly higher than the national average of about 38 percent. That’s why everyone in China is fearful of a Shanghainese women.
However, one sociologist, Xue Yali, an assistant researcher from the Family Education Research Center at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, says the online survey conducted by the research group may not be saying much.
“Managing money does not mean women are enjoying higher positions at home, as ['managing family finances'] can be [be limited to] trivial matters like paying for power and gas,” Xue said. “The key point is who does the decision-making in the family,” she added.
However, Tony Wang, a wealth management manager at a Shanghai bank says that he has more female clients than male clients, and they are doing more than just paying family bills.
“I found more women have the power to allocate their wealth, but they tend to be cautious, and prefer products with small risks and small returns. Generally speaking, men are bolder in making investment decisions,” Wang said.
In Shanghai, the men have historically been considered much more modern, cultured, subdued and gentle than their rural counterparts. However, much of rest of the country often ridicules them by referring to them as the “little men of Shanghai,” much the way “yuppies” are often derided by the working classes in the U.S. In China, these men, who allow their wives to work and manage their family’s finances, are ridiculed in Chinese folk tales, television shows, movies and now on the Internet, where they are usually portrayed as subordinates to dominant women in their relationships.
A China Daily article in 2006 took a look at one of these Shanghai relationships to see how it set itself apart from those of the rest of the country, if at all. Paul Pan, the subject of the article, was a 27-year-old executive at a foreign company. He said in the article that although some may categorize him as being one of “little men of Shanghai,” that did not make him a wimp.
“My wife is a successful advertising company executive, she has no time for cooking and other household chores,” Pan said. Besides, he added, “my wife is a terrible cook.” Shanghainese women ask you what you want for dinner and they pick up the phone and have it delivered.
Pan said he used to be teased by his colleagues outside Shanghai for his “deference” to his wife.
“They think I’m a wimp,” he said. “I am not a wimp. I am just not boorish like the rest of them.”
Now, seven years after that article was written, women all over China are recognizing that their main role is not necessarily to stay at home, and that men are not the only people who can make and manage money.
According to research published by Jiayuan, a Chinese online-dating site, women are increasingly becoming financially independent from their spouses. Ninety-eight percent of women surveyed said they would not ask their husbands to give them their disposable income. In addition, Horizon Research found that more than 36 percent of women in cities have a higher income than their husbands.
Whether the “little men” applies to just the men of Shanghai or modern Chinese men in general, it’s clear the rest of China’s women are catching up with their counterparts in Shanghai, and it’s only a matter of time that gender stereotypes w
Millions of Chinese trek home for festival
Considered the largest mass migration on earth, millions of Chinese are returning to their villages for the New Year.
Shanghai, China – Despite a long, uncomfortable bus journey ahead Du Ling Ying is smiling. She is travelling to her home town in Anhui province and will see her family for the first time in a year. “I am looking forward to seeing the children,” she says excitedly. For Chinese no holiday is more important than Chinese New Year.
She is one of thousands of people milling around Shanghai Long-Distance Bus Station laden down with bags, suitcases and boxes travelling home for Chinese New Year. Like many of China’s migrant workers, it is the only chance each year Du Ling gets to go home and spend time with their family and loved ones.
Du Ling is travelling with her husband Li Wei and his younger brother Li Ping. All three work in Shanghai, the elder Li is a welder while his brother and Du Ling work in a furniture factory. They have a large number of bags between them, mostly full of presents. “We bought things for the children and our parents,” Li tells Al Jazeera. Du Ling closely guards one bag in particular, the one with toys for the children.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese are travelling over the festive season, known as Spring Festival, in what is believed to be the largest single mass human migration in the world. According to the state news agency, Xinhua, 3.41 billion trips are expected to be made during the festival from January 26 to March 6.
Travel costs
Most of these trips will be made by bus and train, putting the public transportation system under a lot of pressure. Extra buses and trains have been put into use in an effort to cope with the rush.
But still it can be difficult to get tickets with many people queuing for hours but being left empty handed. Tickets can be bought online but because of the heavy traffic around this time of year, the website often crashes. Many people travelling by train choose to buy a standing ticket if there are no seats left, an uncomfortable option on the packed to capacity trains for long journeys.
Li said the bus was not their first choice of transport, they had tried to get train tickets but “they were gone, all sold out”. Instead they have to take the bus meaning an extra eight hours of travel time.
At Shanghai Railway Station, Liu Li and her husband Xia Yuan also had ticket problems. They are also travelling with their young son to Anhui province. They had bought train tickets but went to the wrong train station and missed the train, the only tickets left were for first class, more than double the original price. “At the beginning the two tickets only cost about 300 RMB ($48),” said Xia, “now the two tickets cost over 1000 RMB ($160). You have to pay it, you don’t have a choice”.
It is tradition for Chinese families to spend the Chinese New Year together, with family members travelling as long as it takes to get home on time. This year, New Year’s Eve in the Chinese calendar falls on February 9 and most families will celebrate with a large meal and fireworks to welcome in the Year of the Snake.
It is very important to go home for the new year, says Zhu Xiang Biao who is travelling with his wife and son to Jiangxi province. He has been living away from his home town for more than twenty years and his parents are both dead but he says he still visits “to show respect to the older generation and to take care of family graves”.
Cash payments
It is common for those returning from cities to bring money to give to their parents and also to give red pockets containing cash, known as hong bao, to family members. Zhu says he will spend and give up to 10,000 RMB ($1,600) over the holidays. “It is a lot of money, but it is tradition,” he says.
Liu and Xia have saved for months for the new year festivities. They are travelling lightly and will buy presents when they get to their home town and will also give money to their parents as hong bao. In total they will spend “about 20,000 RMB ($3,200) because it is only once a year,” says Xia.
For couples who are both from one-child families as is common in China, deciding which family to spend the holiday with can be difficult. This issue is known to cause so much tension that police in the city of Qingdao in east China’s Shandong Province gave advice on their micro blogging account on the social networking website Sina Weibo on how to resolve the issue. They suggested bringing both sets of parents together or visiting each others parents in turn.
Thankfully for only children Liu and Xia this is an issue they have managed to solve amicably. “We take turns, this year it is my turn and we go to my family and next year it is his turn,” says Liu. “Because we are both only children, it is the only way to do it, to take turns.”
