Posts by: Leslie
To celebrate the Year of the Dragon, I am trying something new: posting about trade with China in both English and Spanish. The English version of this article is here.
via Wikipedia
Esta semana es el año nuevo chino. Feliz año del dragón!
Nos ofrece la oportunidad de destacar un ejemplo exitoso del comercio chino-chileno: la exportación de las cerezas chilenas para este feriado importante.
Roja, dulce y empacada en cajas de regalo. Las guindas chilenas son consideradas como algo especial en el año nuevo chino. El eje principal de las exportaciones desde Chile a China ocurre durante este feriado.
De acuerdo a los reportes de Portal Fruticola:
El próximo 23 de enero se celebrará el Año Nuevo Chino (ANC) fecha durante la cual no se puede descuidar ningún detalle, siendo uno de los más significativos la fruta y en especial, las cerezas.
“Las cerezas se han logrado posicionar como un elemento característico del ANC y especialmente en las grandes ciudades donde las cerezas son consideradas como un producto de lujo: es un producto importado, por lo que da una aire de exclusividad a quien lo compra y consume; es caro y escaso porque se puede encontrar sólo en esta época. Por último, el color rojo de esta fruta influye ya que todos los adornos van en rojo y dorado. Estos factores producen que se genere una alta demanda y la gente esté dispuesta a pagar muy buenos precios, que es lo importante para los exportadores”, explica Arturo Aranda, country manager de “The Foodlinks” en Shanghai.
Este año nuevo chino será dos semanas antes que el año pasado, lo que es un desafío para los exportadores, lo que significa que el periodo de cultivo también tendrá que ser antes. Tres flotas especiales fueron enviadas a finales de diciembre y llegaron a China aproximadamente entre el 16 y 18 de enero.
De acuerdo a Bernard Wu, el supervisor commercial de la importadora Zhxing Runfeng Food en Guangzhou, “las cerezas chilenas son bien evaluadas por los consumidores chinos principalmente por su calidad, delicioso sabor y buena presentación”.
The FoodLinks, una empresa que conecta a los proveedores chilenos con compradores chinos, plantea que sólo un 3% de los alimentos chilenos exportados son enviados a China y solamente un 0.7% de la comida importada a China viene desde Chile. Esto significa que hay un enorme potencial de crecimiento que sólo requiere un cuidadoso alineamiento entre lo que los consumidores chinos quieren y lo que los agricultores chilenos pueden ofrecerles.
Feliz Año del Dragón!!
This week is Chinese New Year. Happy Year of the Dragon!
In honor of this holiday, I would like to spotlight a successful example of Chile-China trade: Chilean cherries for Chinese New Year.
Red, sweet, and packed in gift boxes, Chilean cherries are a special treat. The holiday is centerpiece of Chile’s exports of high-end fruit to China.
image via Wikipedia
As reports Portal Fruticola:
January 23 is Chinese New Year, a date when no detail can be ignored, since it is one of the most significant dates for fruit, and especially, cherries.
Arturo Aranda, country manager of The FoodLinks in Shanghai says, “Cherries have successfully been positioned as a characteristic element of Chinese New Year and especially in the big cities where cherries are seen as a luxury product: it is an imported product, which gives an air of exclusivity to those that buy and consume them; it is expensive and scarce because it can only be found in this season. Finally, the fruit’s red color matches all the red and gold decorations. These factors lead to high demand and the people are prepared pay very good prices, which is important for the exporters.”
This year Chinese New Year is two weeks earlier than last year, which presents a challenge to the exporters, because it means that the critical date falls earlier in the growing season. Three special charter boats left Chile in late December, to arrive in China between the 16 and 18 of January.
According to Bernard Wu, commercial supervisor of the importer Zhxing Runfeng Food in Guangzhou, “Chilean cherries are welcomed by Chinese consumers principally for their quality, good flavor, and good presentation.”
The FoodLinks, a company that connects suppliers in Chile with buyers in China, states that only 3% of Chilean food exports are delivered to China and just 0.7% of food imported to China comes from Chile. This means there is big potential for growth. It just requires careful alignment between what Chinese customers value, and what the fruit can bring to the table.
Here’s to health, happiness, and prosperity in the year of the dragon!!
China Post issued this stamp for the year of the dragon. Some found it "too ferocious." Read more here on NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/01/04/144671003/chinese-year-of-the-dragon-postage-stamp-deemed-too-ferocious
image source: http://www.nesst.org/?portfolio=domos
One of my goals for this blog this year is to provide a spotlight for Chilean entrepreneurs, in English, to share their stories with people outside this country.
Back in 2008, when I was working for a software social enterprise in San Francisco, I collaborated closely with a organization called NESsT. NESsT’s main office is in Chile and I often chatted with their communications team on Skype. Here is a description from their website:
NESsT develops sustainable social enterprises that solve critical social problems in emerging market countries.
NESsT is a catalyst for social enterprises in emerging markets and worldwide.
We achieve our mission by providing financial capital, training and mentoring, and access to markets for a high-impact portfolio of social enterprises in emerging markets.
We combine the tools and strategies of business leadership, entrepreneurship and investment with the mission and values of the social sector to enable our portfolio to: better plan, improve management capacity, grow, and increase their social impact.
I still receive NESsT’s newsletters. In the most recent issue, I read that NESsT exited two of its most successful social enterprises. One of these is:
– Domos, that sells intra-family therapy services to companies in Chile thus reducing low productivity levels of employees due to absenteeism and stress. The social enterprise reached 300 beneficiaries and generated a 42% rate of profit.
I think this is a brilliant business model. Companies need dependable staff, and who can be dependable when there is danger at home?
Read more at domoschile.cl (in Spanish) or in this English version (thanks Google Translate!)
This article originally appeared on Brazen Careerist. Thanks Brazen for depicting me (or at least my message) as strong and savvy!
Do you ever find yourself on a client call, while simultaneously organizing basketball practice, brainstorming a blog post and daydreaming about lunch? You might be a slasher in need of some serious self-defense.
The lifestyle of a slasher – a term popularized by Marci Alboher in her book One Person/Multiple Careers – can be invigorating. As a guest lecturer / researcher / translator / web designer / writer, I love playing many roles and connecting with people from many industries and countries.
But it can also be stressful. When you work with people who have committed a larger part of their own “pie” to a certain task, sometimes they demand more than you have to give. Deadlines can overlap. Weekends can disappear. And the slashes that let you use your diverse skills and interests can become slashes that slice into your sanity, stability and mental health.
The word “ninja” gets used a lot in discussions about working independently – and it makes complete sense. To successfully sustain a slasher lifestyle, you must take self-defense seriously, just like a martial arts pro. But here, self-defense doesn’t mean preparing for physical attacks. It means building and maintaining a strong core, to give you the agility and flexibility to rise to the slasher challenge.
Give these slasher self-defense techniques a try:
Create a day-righting ritual
As someone who might work on several projects in one day, how do you start your morning on the right foot?
Try “day-righting,” a term coined by Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone. He says it’s “The 15-Minute Secret for Individual Effectiveness:”
Almost all of you, I’m willing to bet, have a “morning ritual.” But how many of you have created one by design? This is so important for individual effectiveness, for everyone but especially for entrepreneurs who work independently or at home.
I first became aware of this idea when interviewing a pair of salesman for Who’s Got Your Back. Together, they did an early morning gym session followed by a brainstorm, a process they called “day-righting.” After about a month of this routine, the team told me they saw dramatic improvements in their business and their lives.
Ferrazzi goes on to suggest exercise, journaling, meditation and breathing as day-righting options.
My day-righting ritual has consisted of coffee and newspaper reading with my partner, followed by a quick gym workout, a hearty home-cooked breakfast, and then going into the office to start the workday. In the days when I’ve followed at least part of this ritual, I’ve been able to balance my slashes. The days when I’ve skipped the newspaper, workout and breakfast to immediately sit down in front of my computer, a few hours later I realize that my neck is sore and I’ve been clicking around on the computer without getting much done.
Be conscious of stressors in your environment
Is your office filled with the sounds of colleagues talking on the phone, other people’s music, or buses and honking outside?
Read the rest on Brazen Careerist or Business Insider.
I wrote this a few months back, right when the restaurant opened. A delicious side of modern China-Chile relations!
Madam Tusan, a Chinese-Peruvian restaurant, opened a few months ago at Parque Arauco, an upscale mall that looks like it could be in Southern California.
We visited the restaurant after reading this tempting review in the September 30, 2011 edition of Wikén, the Friday magazine of Chile’s most prominent newspaper, El Mercurio, I translated parts of it into English.
Chifa Cuisine Arrives in Chile: Fusion of Chinese and Peruvian Gastronomy. by Bárbara Muñoz S.
Cebiche con wantanes? Not only is it possible, it’s delicious. The tasty mix of Peruvian and Chinese cuisine – sweet-and-sour, intense, and with an important historical weight – has just landed in Chile, in the Boulevard of Parque Arauco, by the hand of Gastón Acurio and his ultimate whim: Madam Tusan.
When he was a child, Gastón Acurio – today a super-famous chef, mega-businessman, and face of the Peruvian gastronomic revolution – asked for “una chifa” for his birthday. His parents thought he wanted to celebrate by eating at one of the many Chinese restaurants that existed in Lima, known as “chifas.” But what he had in mind was something else: he wanted to HAVE a chifa.
When I visited the restaurant, I spoke with Liliana Com, who was visiting from the main location in Lima to manage the Santiago location’s opening. Liliana is “tusan,” or Peruvian-born Chinese.
I asked Liliana about the derivation of the word “tusan.” Does it come from the familiar Chinese words for “earth” and “three”? Not directly, she explained; there are specific words for different generations of Japanese descendents – issei, nissei, sansei for first, second, and third generation, respectively – but not similar words for Chinese descendants, at least not in the Peruvian vernacular.
The first Chinese arrived in Peru around 1854, when slavery was abolished and landowners needed a new labor source.
The El Mercurio piece describes how this migration shaped Peruvian cuisine.
“Many of those Chinese stayed to live forever and never stopped eating their food. In fact, part of their payment was in rice,” explains Liliana. The combination of Chinese techniques and Peruvian ingredients gave rise to chifa cuisine. As time passed, the immigrants and their families installed themselves on Capón Street, in the center of Lima, which developed into a Chinese neighborhood. “In this time the chifas in Lima were opium dens and a kind of red-light district where the ‘madams’ reigned over the places,” tells Liliana. From that comes the name Madam Tusan.
When I pulled this newspaper clipping from my bag, Liliana pointed out that El Mercurio misquoted her. She clarified that the Chinese neighborhood was “not a place for families,” but the Chinese restaurants were NOT opium dens and brothels. She became quite animated when she said this, as it clearly touched a nerve.
So, you might be wondering, how was the food? Delicious!
My companion and I started off with fresh juice (the restaurant had yet to receive its liquor license.)
Then one of the dozens of attentive waiters (unusual in Chile – this country is not known for customer service) presented three types of chili sauce. The spiciest one featured crushed peppers from Jilin, China. The second mixed Peruvian chilies and crushed ginger. The third was hoisin con rocoto: a blend of hoisin, the sweet sauce that traditionally accompanies Peking Duck, and rocoto, a Peruvian spice paste.
Next we enjoyed the butifarra china, a plate of three delicate sandwiches filled with pork, cilantro, julienned vegetables and hoisin con rocoto on steamed buns.
The Pollo Bruce Lee – which came with a warning of solo para valientes – reminded me of the gong bao ji ding (chicken with peanuts, chilies, and other vegetables) that I ate so often in China.
Our most elaborate dish was camarones rellenos a la naranja, enormous shrimp stuffed with almonds, battered, fried and topped with a sweet-and-sour orange sauce and green onions. It reminded me of a dish you might find at an upscale, fusion-inspired restaurant in San Francisco.
Our final dish was a simple chaufa con pollo, fried rice with chicken and eggs. It was tasty and simple, and closer to home cooking than the complex dishes that sat beside it.
My Chilean dining companion found the food spicier than what he normally eats. (Chilean food is relatively bland: lots of bread, sandwiches, and barbecue.) But he really enjoyed the mix of flavors and the overall experience.
He also loved the design of the red leather chairs.
Overall, our experience at Madam Tusan lived up to its tantalizing review, and showed a stylish, modern, and globalized face of China in Chile.
Madam Tusan. Boulevard del Parque Arauco. Avenida Presidente Kennedy 5413, Las Condes, Santiago. Call for reservations: 02-2190152. Lunch for two, including non-alcoholic beverages and tip: 30.000 Chilean pesos (roughly $60.)
I'm Leslie and I connect entrepreneurs in Chile, China, California, and beyond — especially through translation, training, and trade. More about me.
