Baby Bear (宝宝熊). Baobaoxiong offers a nice environment resembling a KFC, a good Chinese food menu, and QSR efficiency. I also astonished the counter girl by winning three receipt lottery numbers in a row!

We liked Oh My God! enough that it beat out the only Starbucks in town as our temporary office of choice.

Zoom in and the sign says "Last 2 days". This is really an everything must go sale.

This was at a large intersection in a nice little town called Yangzhou. Is this a sudden truce between two fierce competitors or does the distributor have both licenses for the city? Or are the both knockoffs?

These are some of the things you have to be on top of here. Imagine what HQ would think if this happened on your watch.

Here's a piano brand - the world famous Sterinborgh. It's not a Steinway, nor a Steinberg, it's a Sterinborgh! I took a look at the Sterinborgh & Sons website out of curiosity, and there actually is a .de site, but what ruins it is the "Germany Sterinborgh Pianos" logo, and the "YourCompany.Com ◎ 2005" in the header. But you have to hand it to them for at least setting up a site in German. Too bad the site is owned by the Xiamen Zhuoyue Trading Co.,Ltd. and was set up in 2009.

Here's a fun KFC style place called CSC. In Chinese it's 乡村基 (xiangcunji), or country chicken. I love the blue and green hair on the smiling cartoon faces.

And finally, not to be out done, there's my favorite, Pussie Gatto. I don't think the brand owners watched Loony Tunes as a kid, but I did, and as any cartoon fed kid from the 70's will know, Pussy Gato was what Sylvester J. Pussycat Sr, aka Sylvester the Cat, was called by his arch-nemesis Speedy Gonzales - the fastest mouse in Mexico, who ran around yelling "Arriba! Arriba!" and frustrating Sylvester to no end.

And to think all this can be found while poking around in Mao's hometown.

Imagine you were partnering - not just an investor - in a Chinese business like Soufun, which recently had a very successful IPO of about $125 million recently. For Q1 and Q2 of this year, the company made $5.3 million net on $68.2 million gross.

Take a look at their share structure and tell me if you can follow where a dollar comes in and where it goes out. I certainly can't.

The reason I bring this up is here's an example of a company that has been scrubbed and prepped in order to go public on Nasdaq. In other words, they are about as transparent as you can get for a Chinese company. Even after all this, it's hard to follow the money.

Now think about partnering with a company that hasn't been scrubbed clean, and you have some idea of why so many ventures here fail.

Very interesting insights, and something worth thinking about when looking at staff and yourself.

"At the risk of oversimplifying, I think that in any great leadership team, you find at least four personalities, and you never find all four of those personalities in a single person.

You need to have somebody who is a strategist or visionary, who sets the goals for where the organization needs to go.

You need to have somebody who is the classic manager -- somebody who takes care of the organization, in terms of making sure that everybody knows what they need to do and making sure that tasks are broken up into manageable actions and how they're going to be measured.

You need a champion for the customer, because you are trying to translate your product into something that customers are going to pay for. So it's important to have somebody who empathizes and understands how customers will see it. I've seen many endeavors fail because people weren't able to connect the strategy to the way the customers would see the issue.

Then, lastly, you need the enforcer. You need somebody who says: "We've stared at this issue long enough. We're not going to stare at it anymore. We're going to do something about it. We're going to make a decision. We're going to deal with whatever conflict we have."

You very rarely find more than two of those personalities in one person. I've never seen it. And really great teams are where you have a group of people who provide those functions and who respect each other and, equally importantly, both know who they are and who they are not. Often, I've seen people get into trouble when they think they're the strategist and they're not, or they think they're the decision maker and they're not."

Pivot left 20 degrees...

Pivot right 20 degrees...

On the left you have Luya Yogurt Shop. The Luya logo is in English but what does it mean? In Chinese the name says "Yogurt Shop", so it's a 50/50 English/Chinese branding mix. For a Chinese reader it's pretty obvious the place can't just be called "Yogurt Shop," so it must be called Luya - but that's unclear and you're kind of stuck looking at the cartoon for identity.

On the right you have Coco in English, and in English it says "Fresh Drinks," but the Chinese name says "Du Ke Tea Drinks". But which one is it? Du Ke or Coco? Hard to say. If it's hard to say, then it's unclear, so once again you are probably looking at the cartoon for identity.

But what does the pointy headed cartoon blob have to do with either?

I'm having issues here trying to figure out which one is better than the other in terms of brand placement. Luya seems easier to grasp since there's no conflicting Chinese name, but Coco is definitely bigger and clearer, but still you have the whole Du Ke Chinese conflicting name thing going on.

As you can tell, branding a retail chain well in dual languages can get confusing.

Final decision? See which one is still there in three months.

"They lie"
"They cheat"
"Everyone's on the take"

I hear this mantra a lot. There's a lot of reality to those complaints, and not just between foreigners and Chinese, but I hear this from Chinese business people all the time as well. But as we are taught in the great books and also in expensive Hollywood movies where they blow stuff up, we need to constantly remember - reality is just perception.

With this in mind, here's what I tell people when they chant this mantra.

Lie
Our common definition is...
To speak untruthfully with intent to mislead or deceive;
to convey a false impression or practice deception

So...
Don't get stuck on the "wrongness" of it. Get used to hearing things that are not true and not getting upset by them.

Working definition:
Words spoken as a way to get from point A to point B, usually involving money or something valuable as a final destination.

Cheat
Our common definition is...
To act dishonestly; practice fraud. To violate the rules.

So...
Being cheated is a result of assuming something will happen the way you think it "should" happen. Don't assume, and chances are you won't feel cheated.

Working definition:
An unpleasant surprise like turning on the hot shower and getting cold water. It's still your fault because you didn't check the water heater before you got in.

On the take
Our common definition is...
Taking or seeking to take bribes or illegal income

So...
Yes, get used to it. It happens. A lot. Have strong internal policies and hire honest people.

Working definition:
Watch everything, and always make sure to leave enough money on the gas card that's left in the Gucci man bag that's forgotten at the customs official's office.

Source: 我的世界