Launched for 30 Chinese cities, the Taxi-Book iPhone/ iPad/ iPod Touch applications are your handy guides to key locations and a way to communicate with locals.

Taxi-Book – Handy city guides for all key Chinese cities:
• know your position + help you find your destination
• know thousands of key locations
• Facebook/ Twitter sharing
• different search functions
• speak Chinese for you!
• 10 handy categories
• frequently updated
• GPS

Kindly find more info down below & free Lite version on: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/china-taxi-book/id445493942?mt=8#

Android version & worldwide development are next..

Your destination, our drive!

The available cities are:
Beijing 北京 (free Lite version)
Beijing 北京 (full)
Changsha 长沙
Chengdu 成都
Chongqing 重庆
Dalian 大连
Dongguan
Foshan
Fuzhou 福州
Hangzhou 杭州
Harbin 哈尔滨
Hongkong 香港
Guangzhou 广州
Guilin 桂林
Kunming 昆明
Lijiang
Nanjing 南京
Ningbo
Qingdao 青岛
Sanya 三亚
Shanghai 上海
Shenyang 沈阳
Shenzhen 深圳
Suzhou 苏州
Tianjin 天津
Wenzhou 温州
Wuhan 武汉
Wuxi
Xi`an 西安
Xiamen 厦门
Yantai

(More cities are coming soon!)

The app also features dialogue options for communicating with locals in their language: more than 70 phrases are written in Chinese and can be pronounced via Text-To-Speech Synthesis. Note that you may fill gaps in the phrases using our English-Chinese dictionary containing more than 12,000 words. For example, in a restaurant you may say “I’m allergic to … (select/dictionary). Could you make this dish without it?” in perfect Chinese. Some phrases also feature likely answer options that the dialogue partners may choose as a reply.

This free app comes with a Beijing city guide which contains more than 500 locations in China’s capital. And if that’s not enough for you, just upgrade through buying the full content of Beijing to unlock more than 1,500 locations and speech output for all dialogues.

Taxi-Book also offers more city guides for all key Chinese cities. Each city contains hundreds of locations divided into ten useful categories for easy browsing. Some categories are further divided into useful sub-categories like French or Italian Restaurants. And if you don’t feel like browsing through the lists, just use the fast search option on each city’s home page to find the locations you are looking for.

Note: Buying another city means you pay just one time and can use it forever. There are NO HIDDEN COSTS.

Features:
- Locations: Hundreds of locations divided into 10 categories are featured.

- Locations come with detailed information like English and Chinese name, address, phone number, and GPS coordinates.

- View locations on Maps and find nearby places easily (requires online connectivity). You can also add your own locations, enter and save their data if you have discovered a new place that is not covered in the app.

- Once you’ve chosen a location, press the Taxi-Card button to bring up a simple yet effective page that allows you to tell a taxi driver clearly where you want to go. Show the page to the driver and shake the phone to make it pronounce the phrase with your desired destination.

- Taxi-Card: Choose between different color styles to customize the page to your liking.

- Dialogues: Special dialogues for use in a taxi situation like “Turn on the meter, please” or “How long will the ride take approximately?”

- Basic Phrases: For everyday situations to say things like “Hello”, “Thank you”, tell others your name or ask where the restrooms are.

- Favourites: Pick your favourite locations out of all the locations and add them to your favourites list for quick and easy access.

*Please note that while the app is designed to work in offline mode, using Map view and buying in-app purchasable content require internet access.

When:      Saturday December 10th from 11a.m. to 4p.m.

Where:     1 Wangjiang Rd., Greenwich Village 2-31-03, Wuhou Dist. 610041
中国四川成都武侯区望江路1号格林威治2栋3103别墅，邮编:610041

More Directions: I live at Greenwich Village by the Jiu Yan Qiao Bridge / Bar Street and across the river from the Waterfront. If you tell the taxi Jiu Yan Qiao zai Wang Jian Lu they should know where to take you. There are two banks on either side of the main entrance. After walking through the gate, it’s the first building on the left- Building 2, Floor 31, House 3. Please feel free to call me if you need help.

If you can’t make it Saturday, but still want to come by, you are welcome anytime. I am home most days by 5:30 PM. Just call and we can make
arrangements to meet.

Furniture

We still have a beautiful and rare alter table, magazine buckets, and money boxes. In addition, we are selling a low coffee table for Reed’s
former Ayi (the proceeds will go to her Ayi). It’s old Beijing (about 100yrs old) and like they did then, no metal nails were used, just wooden pegs. It’s
30cm tall, 40cm deep, and 80cm wide. All original with no repairs priced at 2,000rmb.

Gifts for the Season

Don’t forget about family and friends back home! In addition to furniture we small gifts available.

• Babushka hot water bottles to keep the kids warm at night

• New Panda Chopsticks

• Christmas Decorations made by Hearts and Hands

• Handmade jewelry using natural stones, freshwater pearls, glass, metals, including sterling silver and gold, and other interesting finds.

Looking forward to seeing you this Saturday!

Lindsey Stolte

Tel: +18628132032

E-mail: chengdudongxishop@hotmail.com

Website: www.thedongxishop.com

The Blue Marlin venues often come with a pool table, TVs that provide coverage of most major sporting events, and a resident band plays nightly. The amply stocked bar serves Carlsberg, Tiger, San Miguel and Erdinger on draught, a wide range of spirits, and a reasonable selection of wines. Drinking at the Blue Marlin becomes particularly attractive between the hours of 4 and 7 p.m., when prices are halved on all drinks. After work drinkers, keen to take advantage of the happy hour, will be particularly enticed by the Long Island Iced Tea at only 24RMB and the regular draught beers that come in at 14RMB.

Website:

Adresses:
Shanghai
Blue Marlin Green City :
No. 689 Lan Tian Rd.
Green City Jinqiao Pudong Shanghai (Opposite of Decathlon)
Tel : 021-50309676

Nanjing
1) Blue Marlin 1912 :
No. 8 Chang Jiang Hou Jie, 1912, Xuanwu District, Nanjing
Tel: 025-84537376
2) Blue Marlin Jiangning :
No.200 Li Yuan Road (M), Jiangning District, Nanjing
Tel : 025-52074027

Suzhou
1) Blue Marlin SND :
No. 98 Shi Shan Road, SGV Plaza, SND, Suzhou
Tel : 0512-68087316
2) Blue Marlin SIP :
No. 168 Xing Hai Street, SIP, Suzhou
Tel : 0512-62889676
3) Xuzhou
Blue Marlin Xiao Nan Hu :
Block 26 Xiao Nan Hu Plaza, Xuzhou
Tel : 0516-83886722

First of all, making sure you are single and older than 22 if you are male or 20 if you are female, before you decide to get married in China. And you are not supposed to be the close relative of your soon to be bride or groom.

Getting married in China can be easy, if you really think it’s time to do so: appearing together for registration at the relevant authority (usually, the civil affair department) with the required certificates and documents. You should present a certification certifying that you do not have a spouse at the time of marriage, which shall be issued by a notary institution or competent governmental authority in the state of your origin and be authenticated by the Chinese embassy or consulate in that state.

From the date of your marriage, you are “half Chinese”, as some people usually say. You enjoy rights hereafter, and you hold responsibility at the same time. Briefly, they are as following:

Right of Equality: Husband and wife have equal status in the family. Both husband and wife have the right to use his or her own surname and given name, and have the freedom to engage in production and other work, to study and to participate in social activities. And either husband or wife has the power to dispose of the community property for their daily needs of life without having to obtain the consent of the other, but on the other hand, the couple shall have to, through consultation, reach an agreement on significant disposition of the community property for non-daily needs of life.

Duty of loyalty: One spouse owes a duty of loyalty to the other. A serious breach of this duty, for instance bigamy and cohabitation with any third party, will entitle the other to claim damages upon divorce. Damages are generally granted by courts to compensate the emotional distress and material losses suffered by the non-breaching spouse.

Duty to Support: Husband and wife have the duty to maintain each other. If one party fails to perform this duty, the party in need of maintenance shall have the right to demand maintenance payments from the other party.

Right of Succession: Upon decease of one spouse, the surviving spouse has the right to inherit the properties of the decedent spouse at the time of death.

In China, one of the most important principle about marriage is that all the assets gained before marriage are individual property, and all the income gained after marriage are community property if there is no marital property agreement stipulates otherwise. Therefore, a couple may enter into an agreement in writing providing that properties acquired during or prior to marriage are separately owned by each, or concurrently owned by both, in each case, in part or in whole. In absence of such agreement, properties shall be owned by spouses according to statutory rules.

May you always have everything you wish for a rich life together!

But if you have entered a new land for good then why rush back? You can live where you prefer and still create a home. You can always show concern and keep in touch with your family, even if you choose to live in another country. If home is about belonging, then there are ways to create a sense of belonging. Getting connected to your loved ones or hearing a bit of reassurance from home is always a way to combat loneliness or homesickness.

Earlier, with the few yet costly calling services it was tough to connect to your loved ones or hear from home. On the contrary, today the need for international communication is growing with changing pace of time. As the requirement is increasing, means and ways of connecting people are also going high. Due to the heavy expense of international calling, expatriate at times make few calls or speak for few minutes. Thanks to the progress of modern technology, international calling services have become a great medium to bridge the gap. Many companies have introduced calling services offering cheap international call rates.

Feeling at home means living in a comfortable environment with the sense of belonging.  Involving yourself in work will enable you to keep your mind active so that it does not grip itself with thoughts of home. If you have moved to a new city, take the time to get to know your new environment.

One of your necessary attempts should be to start making friends with the folks around you. Maybe you can select a nearby coffee shop to meet up with them on weekends. You can attend social functions; join sports teams or religious groups associated at your work place. The local newspapers are the best source to tell you about the current events in your area. If you are interested in reading, become a member of a local library or join creative classes based on your hobby. This will give your morale an enormous boost and considerably decrease the amount of time it takes to feel settled.

Don’t just work at a charity group, instead get involved and take up certain tasks. Invest more in the local community, and simply enjoy living in an environment which you can call a home. If you are a reserved person and don’t like meeting people, then attending night classes in a subject you are interested in. If in a foreign country, make try to learn the language and immerse yourself in the new society.

Feeling homesick is like feeling loss for the life you left back home, but family and friends are no more than a phone call away. Sometimes, people feel emotional to call up their loved ones abroad, incase it disturbs them. You can combat this with careful and reassuring discussions with friends and family. But most of all you need to accept that the place where you are at the moment is your ‘home’.

Written by Karen.

Based in Hangzhou, MORE magazines are published by Hangzhou Passion Advertising Company. MORE Hangzhou was established in December of 2004, MORE Suzhou in October 2007, and MORE Chengdu in April 2008. It is the longest running, most popular & most widespread English Magazine in Chengdu. Monthly issued with a strict deadline, it has been highly successful in hitting this target through careful hands-on selection of points of distribution (>300 venues in Chengdu), with a focus on international companies (Forbes 500), high class hotels and well-known restaurants/ bars.
The mission of MORE magazines, is to provide English speaking people living in Hangzhou, Suzhou and Chengdu and those traveling to these cities an insight to events and venues of interest within these cities. The core of the magazines is based around two areas: our extensive database of all interesting venues of which a selection, chosen by the editor, are listed each month in the magazines, and our ability to attract venues to advise us of up and coming events, whether they be theatre shows, product promotional parties, special entertainment events etc.

Online Opportunities

MORE Hangzhou website www.morehangzhou.com was established in January 2007, and its traffic  has increased ever since. Our aim is to make the website a core community portal for all English speaking visitors and local expatriates. We have a skilled team working on the site every day, adding content and making the site more accessible to search engines. The work has paid off – for many Hangzhou related searches we are now on the first page, often within the top 5 on Google. In this way we promote Hangzhou, and our advertisers to an audience outside of Hangzhou. We send weekly events email to thousands people on every Thursday, which lists all events in Hangzhou. This is a free service we offer to our venues and our readers. There are also 3 banner slots available for companies to highlight their products or event.

moresuzhou.com and morechengdu.com were established in the end of 2007, they provide the most up-to-date entertainment information for residents and visitors of Suzhou and Chengdu anywhere on the internet. Traffic is steadily increasing and is certain to increase even more in conjunction with the continued publication of our Suzhou and Chengdu magazines.

Contact: sales@morechengdu.com or (+86) 13730871837

MORE Hangzhou Mobile Search

2011 Media Kit MORE Magazines –

i-You was developed by an international team of top-class computer scientists, linguists and Chinese communications experts. It allows you to communicate easily with Chinese speakers across the language barrier. The app can be used in practically every daily situation such as ordering a taxi, asking for directions, chitchatting, shopping and even bargaining for a good price. It also covers many emergency situation. In cases where you do not know how to name or describe an object, a building, some Chinese characters or a dish, you can even use a photo in combination with a sentence.

The combination of dialogues for many situations, voice output and Pinyin transliteration can also help in learning basic Chinese.

Fore more information: http://www.yocoy.com/i-You/

Now, the central government has drafted and made effective the Interim Measures for Participation in Social Insurance by Foreigners Working within the Territory of China (the Interim Measures). Below we introduce the main contents of the Interim Measures:

Foreigners are required to participate in social insurance
The Interim Measures make it clear that all foreigners working in China must participate in social insurance through Articles 2 and 3. Article 2 clarifies what it means by “foreigners working within the territory of China” as person who:
1) hold employment certificates such as a Work Permit for Foreigners, a Foreign Expert Certificate, or a Permit for Permanent Foreign Journalists; and
2) are not of Chinese nationality and are employed lawfully within the territory of China. Article 3 states that any foreigner who, after having entered into employment contracts with an overseas employer, are dispatched to work in a branch or representative office (Domestic Entities) must also participate in basic pension insurance, medical insurance, work-related injury insurance, unemployment insurance, and maternity insurance, and the premiums should be contributed by both the employee and their Domestic Entity.

Therefore, it now appears clear that foreigners which currently have an employment certificate, whether employed directly in China or dispatched to China by a foreign enterprise, all fall into the category of people who are required to participate in the social insurance system, pursuant to any relevant and local regulations.

Insurance types and timing of social insurance registration:
According to the Social Insurance Law and Interim Measures, foreigners working within the territory of China shall participate in the following five kinds of insurance: pension, medical, work-related injury, unemployment, and maternity. Further, social insurance registration formalities should be handled within 30 days from the date of completing the formalities for employment permits.

Termination and refund of social insurance:
The Interim Measures also reassure foreign employees that should they leave China prior to reaching the statutory age for pension withdrawal/retirement, their personal social insurance account will remain open, and their years of contribution will be calculated cumulatively if they decide to return to work in China again in the future.
They also have the option to apply for termination of their social insurance account and then the handling agency may make a lump-sum payment of the money deposited in the social insurance account to him/her. However, it should be noted that, in accordance with the law and in practice, the portion of insurance paid by the employer will not be available at the time of termination of the social insurance relationship. Any balance remaining in the social insurance account when a foreigner dies may be inherited pursuant to the law, however, the portion paid by the company is not able to be inherited.

Receiving benefits abroad:
As foreigners may choose to leave China when they retire, they are still eligible to receive their benefits while
living abroad. Foreigners who reside outside the territory of China and may receive their monthly social insurance benefits as long as they, on a yearly basis, submit a certificate proving their continued existence. Such a certificate should be issued by the relevant Chinese embassy or consulate, or the certificate can be notarized or certified by the relevant authority in the country of residence, and then certified by the relevant Chinese embassy or consulate. If the foreigner chooses to re-enter China, he/she may go to a social insurance handling agency thus proving his/her existence and such certification of existence will no longer be needed.

Settlement of disputes:
If a situation should ever arise when there is a dispute between the employee and the employer about social insurance, foreigners participating in the social insurance system may apply for arbitration, or file lawsuits and the dispute shall be governed by PRC law.

Bilateral agreements:
Foreigners whose home countries have signed bilateral or multilateral social insurance agreements with China have the right to participate in the social insurance system in accordance with those agreements. Where a bilateral agreement has been signed, he/she may avoid dual social insurance obligations.
At present, only Germany and South Korea have signed bilateral agreement on social insurance with China. However, it should be noted that these treaties only exempt the said foreigners from dual responsibilities, as the measures are new there has been definition yet as to which parts will be declared dual and thus exempt from participation.

Nonpayment of premiums
If an employer fails to register a foreign employee in the social insurance system or fails to contribute the mandated social insurance premiums for such a foreigner employee, then the labor and social security administration may order such employer to correct the situation. If the employer refuses to make corrections according to the order, or refuses to abide by any decision on dealing with the matter by administrative means, a fine of between RMB 2,000 and RMB 20,000 will be imposed on the employer.

Summary:
The Interim Measures will become effective on the 15th of October, 2011. From experience we know that local authorities will gradually implement these new changes over time and thus it is very important to stay in close contact with them. Further, the strength of any enforcement will certainly differ in various regions. Therefore, attention should be focused towards learning the attitude of the local labor authorities in regards to the
enforcement of the Interim Measures.

 
History of Chinese wine

In China, wine could also be called the “Water of History” because stories about wine can be found in almost every period of China’s long story. The origins of the alcoholic beverage from fermented grain in China cannot be traced definitively. It is believed to have 4,000 years history. A legend said that Yidi, the wife of the first dynasty’s king Yu (about 2100 BC) invented the method. At that time millet was the main grain, the so-called “yellow wine”, then rice became more popular. It was not until the 19th century that distilled drinks become more popular. Traditionally, Chinese distilled liquors are consumed together with food rather than drunk on their own. Although China has a 6,000 year history in grape growing, and a 4,000 year history in wine making, it was not until this century that Chinese wine was recognized in the West.

Wine and Chinese people

Without a doubt, wine occupies an important place in the culture and life of the Chinese people. Wine was intimately connected with most Chinese men of letters. It was also an inseparable part of the life of ordinary Chinese people. The banquets of ancient emperors and kings could not take place without it. Every sort of wine vessel thus became an important kind of sacrificial object. Inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells as well as bronze inscriptions preserve many records of Shang-era people worshiping their ancestors with wine. There were many famous Chinese poet or artist who crafted their masterpieces after getting “drunk”. The famous poet Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) is known as the “Immortal of Wine” because of his love of alcohol. Guo Moruo, a modern scholar, compiled statistics about Li’s poems and found 17 per cent of them were about drinking. Early writers liked drinking and thought it an elegant way to pass the time. Apart from the taste of the drink, they also concentrated on the process of drinking. They created many games to go with drinking sessions involving a knowledge of history, literature, music and poetry. In ancient times, before a battle, a general would feast his soldiers with alcohol and meat. If they won the battle, they would be rewarded with good wine. If a warrior fell in battle, his fellows would scatter wine on the ground as part of a memorial ceremony.

Wine culture in China today

Ordinary Chinese people today have always just used alcohol to help them celebrate the happiness in their lives. In China, a banquet known as “Jiu Xi” means an alcohol banquet and the life of every person, from birth to death, should have pauses for drinking banquets starting a month or 100 days after a baby’s birth when the parents invite people in for a drink. When someone builds a new house, marries, starts a business, makes a fortune or lives a long life, he should invite people in for a drinking session. In modern times it is a pity that the games that go with drinking are not the elegant ones of the past that involved poetry or music. Today, drinkers just play simple finger-guessing games along with a lot of heavy drinking. It also seems today that friendship depends only on the volume of drink being consumed. “If we are good friends, then bottoms up; if not, then just take a sip” is a common phrased exchanged during gatherings.

Chinese wine gerneral classification

Chinese wines can be generally classified into two types, namely yellow liquors (huangjiu) or clear (white) liquors (baijiu). Chinese yellow liquors, are fermented wines that are brewed directly from grains such as rice or wheat. Such liquors contain less than 20% alcohol, due to the inhibition of fermentation by ethanol at this concentration. These wine are traditionally pasteurized, aged, and filtered before their final bottling for sale to consumers. Yellow liquors can also be distilled to produce white liquors, or baijiu (see below). White liquors (baijiu) are also commonly called shaojiu, which means “hot liquor” or “burned liquor”, either because of the burning sensation in the mouth during consumption, the fact that they are usually warmed before being consumed, or because of the heating required for distillation. Liquors of this type typically contain more than 30% alcohol in volume since they have undergone distillation. There are a great many varieties of distilled liquors, both unflavored and flavored.