Just as tacos and spaghetti add flavor to menu options outside Mexico and Italy, foreign holidays and customs can introduce the world's children to interesting new activities.
Unfortunately, in January, 2020, the Chinese New Year introduced the world to COVID-19. Millions of people traveling for the lunar new year began carrying the new virus around the world.
With what the Chinese call the Year of the Pig about to give way to the beginning of the Chinese New Year of the Metal Rat on January 25, 2020, children could have been urging adults to try making some Feng Shui modifications said to attract good luck. But by opening doors and windows for 10 minutes on the eve of the Chinese New Year, this year they let the old year out and a new virus in.
Since the Chinese associate rats with storing up food, some customs in the Year of the Rat involve saving money. Placing a glass or ceramic bowl at the front door serves as a reminder to deposit and save all loose change there every time anyone enters all year. On the other hand, all are cautioned; lending anyone money on New Year's Eve can cause a loss of money all year long.
To start the new year with abundance, the Chinese prepare a tray with eight kinds of snacks, including round fruits like grapes that symbolize prosperity, orange slices for gold, olives, pecans, almonds and various round candies and cookies. To foster optimism and energy, the Chinese start the new year wearing the warm colors of red, orange, and yellow.
You'll also want to clean your home before the new year begins, because using brooms, brushes, and dust rags might clear away good fortune. Also, avoid using knives and scissors that can cut off good luck.
Instead of trying to keep New Year's resolutions, everyone might try the Chinese method of writing nine new year's wishes on rectangular pieces of paper and hanging them on a tree where the wind can blow them into the sky for fast fulfillment.
New Yorkers counted down the beginning of 2020 while watching a crystal ball drop in Times Square and blowing horns. Instead, some Chinese will ring in the new year with a Tibetan bell.
Children born in the Year of the Metal Rat are expected to be able to turn unlucky events into fortunes. All children around the world will be able to begin the Chinese New Year with a small fortune, if adults adopt the Chinese custom of giving them coins in red envelopes.
Showing posts with label customs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customs. Show all posts
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Saturday, March 4, 2017
How to Become an International Entrepreneur
In Shoe Dog, Phil Knight, the creator/founder of NIKE, quotes the maxim, "When goods don't pass international borders, soldiers will." He adds, "Trade is the path of coexistence, cooperation. Peace feeds on prosperity."
Knight's book encourages those who would work for world peace and their own happiness. He frankly presents the ways he handled and mishandled the challenges every international entrepreneur faces and tells them they have a big bull's eye on their backs. He observes trolls everywhere trying to block, thwart, and say no to the entrepreneurial spirit. Elsewhere, I've read entrepreneurs can best avoid discouragement by telling no one, when they first decide to start a business.
Knight's business began modestly. He sold shoes out of the trunk of his car at sporting events and opened his first office next to a pulsating bar.
He embraced a management style of telling people what to do (not how to do things) and letting them surprise him with the results. What did one of his early employees do? He set up a data base keeping information about his retail customers, not only what they bought but also their birthdays so he could send cards. And he furnished a store with comfortable chairs bought at yard sales, shelved books about running along with shoes, hung posters of runners, and gave his best customers T-shirts with the company logo on them.
Knight outlines sources of funding: family and friends; local, regional, national, and international banks; venture capitalists; trading companies; public A and B stock offerings. Each funding option has pluses and minuses. Trading companies, for example, lend money with the aim of buying out/taking over the business unless, at the offset, a business stipulates its unwillingness to sell.
Besides the never-ending need to find funding, Knight ran into other problems. Steve Prefontaine, the famous distance runner who was NIKE's first celebrity endorser, died in an automobile accident. Packing too many innovations into a new shoe led to a recall. Despite a contract, the first overseas manufacturer Knight relied on to provide the shoes he sold decided to dump him and get a new distributor. NIKE would have better luck when it was first to find a shoe supplier in China. In the US, competitors tried to put NIKE out of business by using an American Selling Price customs provision. After making a high priced shoe similar to NIKE's, US manufacturers asked the government to impose a $25 million duty on NIKE imports that totaled 20% of their American selling prices. Even after negotiations, NIKE paid a custom's duty of $9 million.
Setbacks can turn into learning experiences and worldwide benefits. After the media blasted conditions in its overseas factories, NIKE responded by becoming a leader in the factory reform movement. To eliminate the toxic process of bonding shoe uppers to soles in a rubber room, NIKE invented a fume-less water-based bonding agent that the company shared with its competitors.
And, finally, Shoe Dog teaches the cure for burnout is more work, and the Japanese word, kensho, means the aha experience of enlightenment, when you suddenly understand.
Knight's book encourages those who would work for world peace and their own happiness. He frankly presents the ways he handled and mishandled the challenges every international entrepreneur faces and tells them they have a big bull's eye on their backs. He observes trolls everywhere trying to block, thwart, and say no to the entrepreneurial spirit. Elsewhere, I've read entrepreneurs can best avoid discouragement by telling no one, when they first decide to start a business.
Knight's business began modestly. He sold shoes out of the trunk of his car at sporting events and opened his first office next to a pulsating bar.
He embraced a management style of telling people what to do (not how to do things) and letting them surprise him with the results. What did one of his early employees do? He set up a data base keeping information about his retail customers, not only what they bought but also their birthdays so he could send cards. And he furnished a store with comfortable chairs bought at yard sales, shelved books about running along with shoes, hung posters of runners, and gave his best customers T-shirts with the company logo on them.
Knight outlines sources of funding: family and friends; local, regional, national, and international banks; venture capitalists; trading companies; public A and B stock offerings. Each funding option has pluses and minuses. Trading companies, for example, lend money with the aim of buying out/taking over the business unless, at the offset, a business stipulates its unwillingness to sell.
Besides the never-ending need to find funding, Knight ran into other problems. Steve Prefontaine, the famous distance runner who was NIKE's first celebrity endorser, died in an automobile accident. Packing too many innovations into a new shoe led to a recall. Despite a contract, the first overseas manufacturer Knight relied on to provide the shoes he sold decided to dump him and get a new distributor. NIKE would have better luck when it was first to find a shoe supplier in China. In the US, competitors tried to put NIKE out of business by using an American Selling Price customs provision. After making a high priced shoe similar to NIKE's, US manufacturers asked the government to impose a $25 million duty on NIKE imports that totaled 20% of their American selling prices. Even after negotiations, NIKE paid a custom's duty of $9 million.
Setbacks can turn into learning experiences and worldwide benefits. After the media blasted conditions in its overseas factories, NIKE responded by becoming a leader in the factory reform movement. To eliminate the toxic process of bonding shoe uppers to soles in a rubber room, NIKE invented a fume-less water-based bonding agent that the company shared with its competitors.
And, finally, Shoe Dog teaches the cure for burnout is more work, and the Japanese word, kensho, means the aha experience of enlightenment, when you suddenly understand.
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