China Unicom has justinked a deal that’ll grant it exclusive rights to sell Apple’s  smartphone in mainland China for three whole years. Unfortunately, most of the  details are absent. The “Wo” icon you see just below the speaker signifies that this here device is ready to rock on the carrier’s 3G network, though we still can’t say with any amount of certainty if said image is fully legitimate. We’re also waiting to hear whether it’ll be the iPhone 3G or 3GS (or both) that’s sold, and we’re particular curious as to whether or not these handsets will include WiFi modules.

In related news, it does sound as if China Unicom bent over backwards a bit to make this all come together, with the article stating that it signed on to move between one and two million units per year regardless of how many consumers actually show up to buy one.  At any rate, it’s noted that Unicom will be snapping up the devices from Apple at a cost of around 3,000 Chinese yuan a piece ($440), with end users being asked to pay an undisclosed lesser amount on contract. If all goes well, the units could hit Chinese stores as early as September, though only time will tell how everything shakes out.

Family, friends, fireworks, dumplings — That’s what we called Chinese New Year. As you can see, Chinese New Year Eve is like a battle zone. Fireworks everywhere.  You would never feel alone since everybody was sharing joys with you at that night.

The food is just like other day’s food but the quality time you spent with your family makes it the best day of the year. On the first day of the new year, people visit each other to say hi, give their greetings over the phone and sometimes you receive greetings oversea… and yeah, that’s why i like Chinese New Year.

Today is January 23th, 2009.  December 28th, 2008 on Chinese calendar. 3 Days away from Chinese New Year. What should you do now? Here is some suggestion.

• Buy some new clothes
• Do the haircut
• Learn to say “过年好” ( Guo Nian Hao )
• Buy some candy, fireworks.
• Get your “红包” ( Hong Bao ) ready

This is the place if you are looking for a large mount of currency exchange. The address is 解放路166号 ( Jie fang lu 166 )  Here is the coordinates

So how to spot those people who do the black market business? Most likely they sit on the couch, look around, look like they are expecting someone.  They usually carry a big bag with them.

Another concern is security issue. In my opinion, it won’t be a problem. They have CCTV in every corner. Some of them i knew have been doing this business for a long time. It’s a business based on reputation. So basically it’s a great way for currency exchange.  Just be careful with those bills. They might have fake bills mixed with other real bills.

Finnally i’m back to Yantai. It’s one week away from Chinese New Year. Did you buy any new clothes yet? If not, go buy some now because that’s what everybody does before Chinese New Year. So do you. At the meantime, get ready for the massive updates. I will shoot some nice pictures with great reviews. I’ll see you around.

Hi, this is Tai from the TsundereStorm blog and I will be writing in Mincius for the next few months. When the owner of this blog, Nual, moved to Canada he somehow managed to meet my parents and they helped facilitated some of the issues that he had as a foreigner in Toronto. Now is my turn, I will be living in Yantai for the next few months as part of a volunteer teaching program. I’m still in Toronto and won’t arrive in Yantai until next week, but I thought I’d like to give an introduction of myself before the pre-flight madness starts.

I’m a 20-year old Canadian-born Chinese, and I have been living here all my life. You can’t really say there isn’t any exposure to Chinese culture here since Toronto is one of the most multi-cultural cities of the world, but it obviously is not as abundant as a native-Chinese city. My parents are from Hong Kong, so I know a good amount of Cantonese, but my Mandarin department is still underdeveloped so there are definitely going to be a lot of language barriers when I arrive in mainland China. It won’t be my first time in Yantai, I actually in the same program two summers ago well before Mincius was created.

My first placement is going to be in a “Practical English” holiday camp, where I will be helping tutor high school students with oral and aural English (speaking and listening) skills. Most schools in China don’t have the resources and staffing to be able to develop good practical English skills; the focus is on literacy since it’s a lot less subjective and resource-intensive in terms of teaching and grading.

Despite my Chinese background, I still consider myself a foreigner due to the language and culture differences. So now will be my turn to experience what life is like for a foreigner in Yantai. If anyone would like to get in touch with me, leave me a comment or message me on the forums. I would love to share with you additional details about my current and previous visit to Yantai. Lots to come in the upcoming months!

Sexy Bejing: Hard Hats in Beijing

Wii Scream — Little kid goes crazy over christmas gift

Stunning Wood Car

The Forbidden City in the central part of Beijing is right next to Tiananmen Square. The emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties lived there. The Great Hall of the People and Mao’s mausoleum are on the square as well. You can wind your way through some impressive imperial buildings and the grounds.

Start on the south side at the main entrance to get the best experience when entering the main gates and then snaking your way through the many courtyards. You can easily catch a taxi (except when it’s raining) when you exit from the north side of the Forbidden City.

Avoid the Forbidden City ( and other Chinese tourist attractions ) on Sundays. This centrally located tourist destination can be overrun with locals, out-of-town Chinese, visiting overseas Chinese tour groups, and foreign tourists from all corners of the world.

From “Doing Business in China for Dummies”

1. http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/

This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely available in an electronic format. it is an independent, non-profit effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages.

Courses here are made available through the private efforts of individuals who are donating their time and resources to provide quality materials for language learning.

2. http://education.jimmyr.com/Learn_Languages_on_iTunes_23_2008.php

You can download various of learning language materials from this site to your iTunes.

3. http://www.livemocha.com/

One of the newest and potentially the best language learning tool on the internet.

4. http://www.mangolanguages.com/

Mango is designed to equip you with conversational abilities from the very start. Whether you’re learning how to order a pizza or ask when the game starts, Mango immerses you in real, everyday conversations in 12 different language courses.

5. Wikibooks

To learn the language you want to learn, just do a search via goolge or yahoo or any search engine you like for wikibooks + language you want to learn.

If you don’t get what i said above, here is a video tutorial.