Shaun T. Dy's Business & Economics Perspective Blog

  Last time, I wrote about Jollibee purchasing 70% shares ownership of Compose Coffee . It's easy to shout, "Pinoy Pride! The Philippines has conquered South Korea." I mentioned in that same article about one of my favorite tea franchises--Gong Cha. Gong Cha Korea currently owns 70% of the shares while Gong Cha Global owns only 30%. The big question is did South Korea just "conquer" Taiwan in what it did?  Pinoy Pride Economics (read about its socio-economic costs here ) might say yes to that. They might use Gong Cha as an example saying, "Are you crazy? Look at what happened to Taiwan! South Korea just checkmated it as Gong Cha Korea now owns 70%!" A good question to ask is, "If that's so why does Taiwan still remain a sovereign state and not bought by South Korea?"  Pinoy Pride Economics would rejoice with Jollibee growing worldwide but not in MNCs investing in the Philippines. Did they really think the Philippines checkmated South Kore

Atlas Institute for Internal Affairs   Happy Double 10 to Taiwan! Chinese Filipino schools would take part in what's often called the Double 10 celebrations. October is the 10th month and it's the 10th day. I remember talking about how Taiwan succeeded by accepting FDIs and how the Filipino First Policy caused us to fail . The typical response I would get on American-made social media (of all places), such as Facebook, would be, "How many times do I need to stress that the Philippines isn't Taiwan. We are the Philippines! We are unique!" If those fools did a study, they may realize that there's a link between the Taiwanese aborigines and the Filipino aborigines (read here ). The Philippines should've learned from Taiwan during COVID-19 One of the best models for fighting COVID-19 was Taiwan. Sure, I'm more in favor of shifting to a parliamentary system and Taiwan is still a presidential country (with parliamentary features).  Former Taiwanese president

Taiwan News It may be news from 2018 (meaning, five years ago) but as a person who sees the importance of Mandarin in the international market, I still want to react. Not surprisingly, Yeh Yi Jin lost the Tainan mayoral bid because of her controversial statement to abolish Zhuyin from Taiwan altogether . She may have lost the race but I'm still supporting her for this. It's not because I kept failing hard in Zhuyin back in my days. It's because I feel that as time goes on, some things need to be dropped like asking students to submit their reports written via typewriter or asking documents to be faxed when email (and modern standard mail) are more reliable. Like I argued with an investment before, I said, "You can't fax a book. Can I just mail it?" The bank kept arguing it had to be faxed. Unfortunately stubborn boomers, stubborn boomers, everywhere, right? From The Free China Post , this is what's said about Yeh's argument: Yeh argues that using zhuyi

I wanted to write more about Chinese education. I did write about the constraints that hit Chinese education . I had problems with how too much memorization became the focus. With Chinese, there's also the world of reversible words which change in meaning . In English, we can compare that to the anagram where switching letters change the meaning . For example, evil and vile may be synonymous but live and evil aren't. In Chinese, we can have two characters getting swapped which may either change the meaning entirely or change to a related meaning. Remember that they may be related but they don't have the same meaning. I could remember how the Hokkien calls visitors lang ke and while we called the customer ke lang. Both are people but both have a different purpose. I got into the LTL Mandarin School website and found reversible Chinese words. I won't tackle it all here because 164 words would mean I'll have to write an entire lecture. I think one of the biggest probl

I wrote about how I believe pinyin will bridge the gap in Mandarin learning  and how pinyin helped secure business permits . I think a new challenge that some may face is learning pinyin through the 23 consonants and 24 vowels method. Back in college, I took Mandarin as my required foreign language (FOLA) elective. It was my attempt to find out what went wrong with Chinese language classes in Chinese schools. Zhuyin was used for too long (read here )   and isn't the ideal bridge between Mandarin and non-Mandarin speakers. Meanwhile, romanizing on your own without learning the pinyin gives the wrong reading. It's like how nobody should Sh in the place of X. I could talk about learning using the 23 vowels and 24 consonants method. The early stages of teaching pinyin followed the bopomofo method. The Chinese language teacher in college didn't use the 23 consonants-24 vowels method. Instead, we had the pinyin arranged using the bopomofo method. It was simply to translate all th

As summer hits, it's normal for me to want a cup of cold tea. One of the many things that could revive interest in Mandarin learning is not just Mandarin shows resurging on paid digital subscriptions. It's the rise of Taiwanese MNCs around the world. In my case, as a coffee and tea person, Taiwanese tea shops are practically my alternative to coffee shops, even if both tend to cost just as much (read why here ). After Chatime, I'm going to use Yi Fang Taiwan Fruit Tea. You can see the use of Pinyin, English, and Chinese calligraphy. Taiwan may still teach zhuyin as part of its tradition. However, I believe that Pinyin is truly the bridge between Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers in this Asian century (read here ). I may have my criticism about the lack of tones in the Yi Fang. However, I could really appreciate how the use of Pinyin makes it easier to get a business permit. I find it stupid how we were still using zhuyin over pinyin to learn phonetics. These days, I

I just read from the Inquirer that House Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan wants to encourage the learning of Mandarin . Sadly, the article also says the following regarding Libanan's aim of wanting to learn Mandarin: “ If we are going to continue to rely on the export of labor to help drive our economic growth, we might as well equip our future workers with Mandarin and other foreign language skills to further build up their competitiveness, ” Libanan said on Sunday. Libanan, the representative of Pagtibayin at Palaguin ang Pangkabuhayang Pilipino (4Ps) party list, noted: “In foreign labor markets, we already have the edge because our workers can speak English. We should now aspire to double that advantage by encouraging more Filipinos to learn Mandarin at an early age.” This reminds me what we can't keep relying on what I call the labor export policy. I even wrote an article addressing the destructive obsession with OFW remittances . Sadly, the lawmaker may still be focused o

Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines It's Chinese New Year's Eve tomorrow and this is an essay I felt like writing before the festivities begin. I did write about how Taiwan bested China back then during the time of Mao Zedong . Mao was running his planned utopia via protectionism and it failed miserably . The Great Leap Forward was nothing more than a spectacular failure. Deng Xiaoping had to learn from Singapore in order to bring China forward. I'm afraid that China is going backward at the cost of the Chinese citizens. I don't blame all the Chinese citizens but their government for any tensions. Meanwhile, Taiwan, according to The Heritage Foundation has a score of 80.1% in terms of economic freedom . It's noted as follows: Taiwan’s economic freedom score is 80.1, making its economy the 6th freest in the 2022 Index. Taiwan is ranked 3rd among 39 countries in the Asia–Pacific region, and its overall score is above the regional and world averages

I guess my passion for tea and coffee never stops, right? As of right now, I haven't had a very active life and I tend to get stuck with establishments I enjoyed for more than a decade. Well, I'm glad that I do get flexible. What slipped right through me was that last year that there was the opening of Alishan Cebu at the Cardinal Rosales, Avenue, in Cebu City . The name may sound Chinese but it's actually managed by fellow Filipinos namely Francesco Dino, Robert Dino, Maria Victoria Osmeña, and Juvy Osmeña. Alishan Philippines describes itself as: Who We Are Our purpose was to bring authentic Taiwanese artistry to the Philippines through milk tea. We source our ingrdeients like tapioca and brown sugar from organic farms, always putting great importance to our customers health. Our brown sugar is high in calcium, potassium and iron. It prevents tooth decay. improves resistance to stress, and even lowers cholesterol. Through minimal processing, we are able to maintan the hig

Some time ago, I wrote an article where I discussed why I think Chinese language schools should focus on pinyin over zhuyin (read here ). I remembered how I disliked the Chinese language subject not only because of long memorizations. I also feel (until now) that zhuyin will never bridge the gap between Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers. Chinese schools in the Philippines tend to act like they're in Taiwan. There was hardly any practical application. Eventually, I remembered how later batches who took the Chinese language subject admitted to making erroneous sentences. I remembered two of the Chinese language teachers I had kept getting mad over the sentences, "The people are making people." this was just one of those erroneous sentences.  Zhuyin was a tool used during the Qing period up to 1911. Why does Taiwan, well, stubbornly still embrace zhuyin? I could respect Taiwan's desire to remain independent of China. I love Taiwanese stuff. Though, I think the in

I remembered writing about Chinese language schools and pinyin (read here ). I decided to find another topic to write and this came to my mind. It's all about boba which is another term for tapioca balls. There have been many names given to certain items. Tofu can be called tao hu in Hokkien, the word itself is Japanese, tokwa in Filipino, and dŏu fu in Mandarin pinyin. Take note that any numbers are what are often referred to by Chinese language teachers as the tone. Also, I'm still self-studying Mandarin yet again using the Taoli application.  Here's a children's book written by Katrina Liu, a Chinese-American, and illustrated by Indonesian artist Dhidit Prayoga. The book's title in Mandarin Chinese would be spelled in pinyin as Wŏ Aì Bō Ba Nǎi Chá. However, it's very easy to misread the pinyin. I could remember how people were misreading the surnames of people. It's like how people tend to read the pinyin at the face value  rather than how it's suppo

Tomorrow is the Double Ten's celebration. October 10, 1911, played a significant role in Taiwan's history. It's often mistaken for Taiwanese Independence Day. Taiwan became a   separate state under Chiang Kai Shek on October 25, 1945. It somehow puzzles me how Taiwan National Day is celebrated on October 10 instead of October 25. Here's an explanation regarding Double Ten's significance and why it's considered Taiwan National Day: October 10th is Taiwan National Day, but it is not Taiwan’s birthday .  Instead, it commemorates October 10, 1911, which was the start of an event called the Wuchang Uprising in China . This uprising led to the Xinhai Revolution which brought about the fall of the Qing (Ching) Dynasty, the end of the Chinese dynasties, and the founding of the Republic of China in 1912 .  At this time, Taiwan had been under the rule of the Empire of Japan since 1895, and it was not until the end of World War Two in 1945 that Japan was forced to relinqu