I will unfortunately miss the 1 year anniversary gathering on January 28 of the Waterloo MIN group because I will be in Montreal speaking to a First Nations group from Northern Canada at the Northern Lights Business and Cultural Showcase about Chinese outbound investment.

This year has been historic from the Canada China perspective. In December, we saw a thawing of the frosty political relationship that existed between Canada and China with Prime Minister Harper's visit to China and Hong Kong.…

We have now migrated to the far south of China and you will note how different things are in this region. Historically this is the area which was the first real "trading" area in China. Guangdong or Canton as it used to be known was the main area for many years where foreign traders came to and did commerce.

Let us begin with Hong Kong. This is part of China since 1997 but it is operated as "one country two systems". For example, you can enter and stay in Hong Kong on a Canadian passport for 90…

Shanghai is a city that is on every China traveler's itinerary. It is of course China's financial capital, a position it had even back in the days of the British and Portuguese traders. It used to be called the "Paris of the orient". It is a jewel and truly a world class city.

Hua and I lived there for a few years when my company had its offices there. We lived in an older and very charming area called Xujiahui District, which before WWII was the home to many foreign nationals. Shanghai, while…

The Capital Airport in Beijing is a great facility. Terminal 3 is the newest and it reminds me of the Hong Kong Airport. Air Canada and most of the other Star Alliance carriers use this terminal. Unlike Pearson Airport in Toronto, there are no signs going in to tell you which airline is in which terminal so I advise you to check into this before leaving for the airport. The terminal is similar as well to Atlanta inasmuch as it has a small train taking you from the arrival gate to the Customs…

Last week we were planning our programs at CCBC for 2010 and where we have to go, etc. I thought that this would make a good topic to share this week, as I suspect many of you who are engaged in China, will be going there sometime before April.

In part 1 today, we will deal with Beijing and points north.

When I was a lacrosse player, I played my last two seasons in Rochester and I had a teammate who had played hockey with the Birmingham Bulls of the ECHL. He told me a story of the time they had a…

I always found it interesting when I thought about the factory workers in plants in southern China and their reaction to all the Christmas products they make and ship to North America and Europe.  I am sure they wondered what we were thinking about when we designed these decorations.

Christmas in China is celebrated like a birthday party on December 25^th. The young people go out and eat and have a party either at home or at a KTV. They grasp the religious meaning but the whole event seems like a…

Santa came early this year. I am not talking about the recent success and turnaround of the Maple Leafs (although this is good) but rather Prime Minister Harper's long awaited visit to China.

Check out the CCBC link below for full details of the Canada China Joint Statement https://www.ccbc.com/Portals/0/Highlights%20of%20Canada%20China%20Joint%20Statement.pdf

The highlight, no doubt, was the granting of "Advanced Destination Status" so that Chinese tourist groups can be booked to come to Canada…

I am not referring to the Bill Murray movie of a few years ago about the US actor who seems to be baffled by the complexities of Japan. I am referring to the study of Chinese language and culture.

I started to study Mandarin (Putonghua) Chinese back in 1996 when I first began my journey of 1000 miles. I had a few lessons, bought a book, jumped on a plane and learned as I went. This is good as I was able to communicate in China but I always felt that my skills needed to be refined so shortly…

To continue on about my last trip to China, I must tell you that China has found a great way to make rain.

I arrived on November 3 in Beijing and was surprised to see snow on the ground. While sitting in the lounge waiting for my flight that night to Xian (for the Yangling Agricultural Hi-tech fair), one of the passengers told me that I was lucky I did not arrive yesterday during the main-made snow storm. Apparently, Beijing had not had rain for a few days so they decided to create some but had…