I am in Asia

I have noticed the that the “Anyone in china now?” topic has been popular at the Footware and Softgoods forum has been very popular. The soft guys have stated they would prefer to keep this to their specialty so I wanted to open this topic up to non Footware and Softgoods designers.

Please list when and where you are heading to Asia.

My hope is the following:

  1. Designers in Asia can get together with designers from other parts of the world.
  2. Designers from anywhere can get together.
  3. It would just be interesting to see how many people travel to Asia for work.

Hope this proves interesting to you.

Leaving tomorrow for two weeks in Shenzhen. Pretty busy, but not too busy for a cold brew with other designers…

The Hong Kong Designers Association just had a nice boat trip this past Sunday: http://www.hongkongda.com/2010/07/19/make-a-splash-join-our-august-boat-trip-and-chill-out-in-style/

We had perfect weather and a decent turnout. The gathering had folks with backgrounds in graphics, multimedia, advertisement, branding, architecture, product, and design education.

I’ll try to keep people on this forum posted for our next gathering.

HK

In Shenzhen from 1/9 - 1/22 for my pre-CNY sweep.

Returning to China (again) on 3/4. In SZ until 3/18.

TsingTao anyone?

Some info here, it’s a simple blog that informs you about upcoming design gatherings in Shanghai and Taipei.

http://designgathering.wordpress.com/

Cheers

I will be in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Suzhou during the last two weeks of May. The Pittsburgh Technology Council has worked with the Pennsylvania ¶ Department of International Trade (not the correct name but close) to set up a trip for PA companies to meet companies that they might be able to do business with. Not bad to have a state helping in business to business matchmaking.

Will be in Beijing and Shanghai from May 15 to May 29.

Question - My company’s email service is based within Gmail. has any had luck getting on your Gmail account when in China? If not I can find another way to get the email but just curious.

I havn’t problem accessing my gmail account in Shanghai. So it might be good for you.

I’m not sure if this proves it will work: my work email is also based on gmail, and my supplier in China can send to and receive from my email just fine. Too bad I’ll just miss you going to China. I’ll probably be in China around early to mid June. Safe travels.

I figured there would be no problems but just wanted to check.

Sorry to miss you davidhu.

Mei wen ti in South China. Good reception in Shenzhen.

I’m just curious: are you getting by in Shenzhen with English? Or do you speak Mandarin? Funny thing: I visited Hong Kong once and I actually had an easier time getting around speaking English than I did with Mandarin–and I’m fluent in it!

one word plastics - Wow the knowledge of the Shanghai reception is getting around. Tse Tse, or Mgoi Sai depending on where you are.

davidhu - While Hong Kongers are learning Mandarin, Cantonese is the language of the SAR.

I’m ashamed to say… After 25 years of traveling in the Shenzhen area I only know about 100 words of Chinese. The reason is simple - I’m always surrounded by English speaking people. And with picture menus, phrase books, iPhone translation apps, and a few other tricks I’ve never been pressed to learn very much Chinese. I really should know more Chinese.

I think that’s Xie Xie. That’s one of my 100 words.

I expected HK would speak Cantonese, but I thought I would be able to get around with Mandarin (I had assumed it was a three-language region, including English), but actually very few people whom I asked for directions on the street understood it.

Let me guess: Tse Tse is thank you and Mgoi Sai is no problem/it’s ok in Cantonese?

Don’t feel bad: back in high school, I met a girl whose parents were Portuguese working in Taiwan, was born and raised in Taiwan (she was 16 at the time), went to an international school in Taipei, and still spoke no more than 10 words of Mandarin. She lived and got around just fine.

one-word-plastics ; There are different spellings for just about every word in Mandarin. Both your spelling and mine are correct.

davidhu: Hong Kong is trying to be trilingual but as their Mandarin goes up their English goes down.