Business card etiquette - Do not waive at the Cultural aspectes

There are guidelines 

for making a positive and lasting impression 

when giving and receiving business cards.


Unlike in North America  where the business card has little meaning other than a convenient form of capturing essential personal details, in other parts of the world the business card has very different meanings.

General Business Card Etiquette Tips

• Business cards are an internationally recognised means of presenting personal contact details, so ensure you have a plentiful supply.
• When travelling abroad for business it is advisable to have one side of your business card translated into the appropriate language.
• Good business etiquette requires you present the card so the recipient's language is face up.
• Make a point of studying any business card, commenting on it and clarifying information before putting it away.

 For this seawaves card

21,95 €

The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He’s enjoying the wind and the fresh air—until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. 

   “‘My God, this is terrible,’ the wave says. ‘Look what’s going to happen to me!’ 

   “Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to 

him, ‘Why do you look so sad?’ 

   “The first wave says, ‘You don’t understand! We’re all going to crash! All of us waves 

are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?’ 

   “The second wave says, ‘No, you don’t understand. 

You’re not a wave, 

you’re part of the ocean.’” 

               (From M. Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie)

Everybody knows waves mean..... many things. As the saying goes: "You pays y'r money and you takes the chances."

Now Do this test When my country ruled the waves: 

What your Business Card Etiquette says about you! from Mark Jeffries

    1. Business Card Etiquette in ............

• Have one side of your business card translated into local language printed in gold ink since gold is an auspicious colour. 
• Your business card should include your title. If your company is the oldest or largest in your country, that fact should be highlighted on your card. 
• Hold the card in both hands when offering it.
• Never write on someone's card unless so directed.

    2. Business Card Etiquette in ............

• If you have a university degree or any honour, put it on your business card. 
• Always use the right hand to give and receive business cards. 
• Business cards need not be translated into the native language as English is widely spoken within the business community.

    3. Business Card Etiquette in ............

• Business cards are exchanged with great ceremony. 
• Invest in quality cards.
• Make sure your business card includes your title. The locals place emphasis on status and hierarchy.
• Business cards are always received with two hands but can be given with only one.

    4. Business Card Etiquette in ............

• Business card etiquette is relaxed in the country and involves little ceremony.
• It is not considered bad etiquette to keep cards in a pocket.
• Business cards should be kept clean and presentable.
• Do not feel obliged to hand out a business card to everyone you meet as it is not expected.

Answer KEY:
Do not waive the rules,
Do not cheat....
see the end of our post

Linguistic crossroads. Some meanings are best avoided:

• The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" 
• In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead." 
• Microsoft had to think twice about bringing its Bing search engine here because in Chinese, the most common definitions of the character pronounced “bing” are “disease,” “defect” and “virus” — rather inauspicious for a computer product. 
• Peugeot (Biao zhi) sounds enough like the Chinese slang for “whore”

======
KEY    When my country ruled the waves: 

1-China    2-India   3- Japan  and 4-UK

age accountability: Born at the age of 1 or on the 33th of April in the Old style

Item 1. Born at the age of one and a half is possible!

Note that, in Korea, age is counted age differently from everywhere else. When a baby is born, Koreans count him as one year old immediately. In addition, Koreans count themselves one year older every January 1. So, according to Koreans, a baby born in December, 2005 is already two years old in January, 2006. The result of this is that everyone is really between one and two years younger than their "Korean age." This is of little importance in most circumstances; however, there can be surprises when talking about young children. Some Koreans refer to non-Korean age as "American age." If possible, take the time to point out that the rest of the world, including Japan, uses standard, non-Korean age. Kindergarten children are between the ages of four and six (non-Korean age!).

Item 2. Read on two immortal deaths

Although 23 April is often stated as the anniversary of the deaths of both William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, this is not strictly correct. Cervantes died on 23 April according the Gregorian calendar; however, at this time England still used the Julian calendar.The connection between 23 April and books was first made in 1923 by booksellers in Spain ( Inca Garcilaso also died on the 23rd April) to promote sales (and reading!). Whilst Shakespeare died on 23 April by the Julian calendar in use in his own country at the time, he actually died ten days after Cervantes (on the 33th of April with the Papist Gregorian Calendar) because of the discrepancy between the two date systems. The apparent correspondence of the two dates was a fortunate coincidence for UNESCO (1995) put forward by Catalan activists as on dat day Josep la died and Nabokov was born.

To learn about our bard's life and death, all the questions here:




Item 3. when the day of death was difficult to state.

 Read the footpring at our greatest physicist (not Hawkings, not Kepler): Sir Isaac Newton:During Newton's lifetime, two calendars were in use in Europe: the Julian or 'Old Style' in Britain and parts of northern Europe (Protestant) and eastern Europe, and the Gregorian or 'New Style', in use in Roman Catholic Europe and elsewhere. At Newton's birth, Gregorian dates were ten days ahead of Julian dates: thus Newton was born on Christmas Day, 25 December 1642 by the Julian calendar, but on 4 January 1643 by the Gregorian. By the time he died, the difference between the calendars had increased to eleven days. Moreover, prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in the UK in 1752, the English new year began (for legal and some other civil purposes) on 25 March (Lady day), i.e. the feast of the Annunciation: sometimes called 'Annunciation Style') rather than on 1 January (sometimes called 'Circumcision Style'). Unless otherwise noted, the remainder of the dates in this article follow the Julian Calendar.

Item 4. when the October revolution took place in November.

In Russia, the terms "Old Style" and "New Style" have the same significance as elsewhere. The start of the year was moved to 1 January in 1700, but the Gregorian calendar was introduced there much later, on 14 February 1918 (Gregorian calendar) in Soviet Russia (which became the Soviet Union in 1922). Hence the October Revolution of 1917 is so called, despite having started on 7 November under the Gregorian calendar (25 October [Julian calendar]). Articles about the October Revolution which mention this date difference tend to do a full conversion to the dates from Julian to the Gregorian calendar.

Further reading: What about Turkey?
In the Ottoman Empire they used the Islamic (Lunar) calendar, which count its beginning from 622.07.16 (JD# 1948440) the so-called Hijra era. Later, on 1789.03.01 JU, the Julian (solar) calendar was introduced as a fiscal year (also used by the postal services), but the Islamic calendar remained as a religious calendar and was still used in the legal sphere and especially for all documents issued by the sultan. They did not count this fiscal year from 1 AD but from the Hijra era. A special problem was the religious lunar year was shorter than the Julian solar year. So to bring the years into line again, the fiscal years numbers 1221 and 1255 were skipped.
    Of course the discrepancy continued but was disregarded. For the fiscal year in 1917 the Gregorian Calendar was introduced and the beginning of the year was moved to 1917.03.01, leaving out the days 16-28 Shubat (February) 1332. The final adjustment was made, when they changed the beginning of the year to 1918.01.01. So the Turkish fiscal year 1332 had only 352 days and the fiscal year 1333 only 306. The use of the religious Islamic calendar of course continued until the Republic abolished it on 1926.01.01.    The Ottoman post used the fiscal dates from the beginning in 1840. 


PD: From Lunisolar calendar to Solar discipline.
In Eastern Asia countries, the old style calendars were similar but not all the same. The Arabic numerals may be used for both calendar dates in modern Japanese and Korean languages, but not Chinese.

Japan. Japan started using the Gregorian calendar on 1 January 1873,^[21] locally known as "the first day of the first month of Meiji 6". The preceding day, 31 December 1872, was "the second day of the twelfth month of Meiji 5".

Korea. Korea started using the Gregorian calendar on 1 January 1896, which was the 17th day of the 11th lunar month in not only Korea but also in China, which still used the lunisolar calendar.

China. the Kuomintang-led Republic of China government adopted the Gregorian calendar on 1 January 1912. It kept the lunisolar Chinese calendar as well, especially for the timing of traditional holidays. When the Communists took over China in the late 1940s they kept this two-calendar system. 

SPEED MATTERS: How to Fast on fast Broadband while in Korea

The REAL connection speeds for Internet users across the world (charts)

 November 12th, 2010 by Pingdom

How fast are Internet connections across the world? How fast are they in your country?

This article examines the real-world connection speeds for people in the top 50 countries on the Internet, i.e. the countries with the most Internet users.

Why connection speeds matter

Why would you be interested in knowing how Internet connection speeds are distributed among various countries? 

• As an Internet user, you can get an idea of how your own Internet connection speed holds up against others in your country.

 The Huffington Post   won't give away which country boasts the fastest connection speed (You'll have to view the slideshow to find out), but let's just say that it blazes past the United States at nearly 17 Mbits/second.

Check out our slideshow (below) of the top 19 countries listed by Akamai. Are any of these findings a surprise? Share your thoughts in the comments, then see our post on the top 5 riskiest country web domains.

#12 - United States

8 of 20

Average connection speed: 4.60 Mbits/second
Global rank in terms of Internet users: #2

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Average connection speeds

Before we go on to see how each country’s connection speeds are distributed, let’s look at the average connection speed for each country.

As we mentioned before, the number you see within parenthesis next to each country is its worldwide rank in terms of Internet users, i.e. its size on the Internet. The chart is sorted by the average connection speed.

Some observations:

• South Korea, as is well known, is something of an Internet speed king, and that’s made abundantly clear in this chart. At an average connection speed of almost 17 Mbit/s it thoroughly outclasses the competition.
• China, although the largest country on the Internet, still lags behind when it comes to Internet connection speeds. Its average of 0.86 Mbit/s is far below the world average of 1.8 Mbit/s (see below).
• And speaking of China, Hong Kong, technically a part of China but separated in most surveys for statistical purposes, is clearly far ahead of its mother country. With Hong Kong’s average connection speed of 8.6 Mbit/s, it’s second only to South Korea.
• It’s also interesting that all three top positions are in Asia.
• Of the top 10 in this “speed list,” three are from Asia, and seven from Europe.
• Canada beats the United States, barely, with 4.7 Mbit/s versus 4.6 Mbit/s.

Worldwide averages

The average connection speed for Internet users worldwide, not just among these 50 countries, but all countries, is an average of 1.8 Mbit/s. As an average, this is actually pretty good, but as you’ve seen, there are plenty of extremes in either direction.

A country I look up to: South Korea roars again

                               South Korea roars again

Thirty years ago, Korea was poorer than Malaysia and Mexico. Since then, its GDP per capita has surged by a factor of 10 to $17,000, more than double the levels in those countries. GDP growth (...) is estimated to be 6% this year. Yet when I left Korea in 2000, it was an open question whether its success could continue. The embarrassing memories of the 1997 Asian financial crisis were still fresh, and Koreans were worrying that they would lose out to a rising China.

Over the past decade, however, Korea has reinvented itself — it's an Asian miracle again. Korea has become an innovator, an economy that doesn't just make stuff, but designs and develops products, infuses them with the latest technology, and then brands and markets them worldwide, with style and smarts. Samsung and LG, not the Japanese electronics giants, are dominating the hot new LCD-TV business. In 4G phone technology, Samsung is poised to become a leading force, while Hyundai Motor, an industry joke a decade ago, is a top-five automaker, its rising market share fueled by quality cars and nifty marketing. "'Made in Korea' used to be synonymous with cheap and imitative," says Bernie Cho, president of DFSB Kollective, a start-up that markets Korean pop music internationally. "Now it's become premium and innovative." New industries, from online games to pop music, have emerged as powerhouses. 

Politically as well, Korea is stepping out of Washington's shadow and becoming an influential voice in its own right. Symbolic of that new role, Seoul is hosting the G-20 summit on Nov. 11 and 12, the first Asian country to do so. This nation is a global leader-in-waiting.

Part of Korea's success is simple commitment. Koreans spend some 3.5% of their GDP on R&D, compared with 1.5% in China and less than 1% India. (...). Koreans have become more accepting of diversity and outside influences and quicker to shed old prejudices. Such an outlook was brought about by a fundamental (and continuing) reformation of Korean society. Koreans are breaking down the barriers that held the nation back, a process fostered by political freedom and a passionate embrace of the forces of globalization. 

Letters of Korean Alphabet,
neither Chinese nor Japanese

After (the 1997) crisis, Koreans had to rethink the ways they did business, managed their careers — even their entire economic system. The crisis "was the catalyst" for change, says financier Tom Kang. "The old ways didn't work."
The number of foreigners living in Korea has exploded, from fewer than 250,000 in 2000 to more than 870,000 in 2009. Business before the financial crisis "was more like a club," Kang says. Now "there's a lot more competition, and that's forcing people to be innovative. If they don't, they're going to die."

In the early 90's, smart, young Koreans had a very narrow path to success:  Not anymore. Koreans have become much more accepting of different life choices. That's encouraged an army of young people to start their own companies, often in innovative IT or high-tech businesses.

All said doesn't mean the Korean system is perfect. Despite its progress, Korean society still remains too wary of foreign influence and too biased against women in the workforce. Businessmen complain that too much red tape clogs their way. The outdated education system is so rigid that parents flee the country in droves to put their kids into high schools in the U.S. and elsewhere. 

However, the Korea I know is a country that confronts its challenges. I asked my old friend at LG, Sue Kim, what Korea will be like in another 10 years. With more and more Koreans gaining international experience, she believes the great globalization of Korea will continue. South Korea has 75,000 students enrolled at U.S. universities — third highest, behind giants India and China, according to the Institute of International Education. "I think you'll find a much more cosmopolitan Korea," she says. "I think Koreans will bring in more diverse ideas and backgrounds. We're going to extend our presence more globally. We're going to continually grow, and you're going to see a much better country in 10 years." I don't doubt it.

— with reporting by Lina Yoon / Seoul

To learn about Korea, visit www.korea.net

4 films: Spring, summer, ... ans spring - Kim Ki-duk -2003

Hangul 봄, 여름, 가을, 겨울 그리고 봄
RR Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom
English Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
Directed by Kim Ki-duk

the film page from Sony

The film is divided into five segments (the five seasons of the title), each segment depicting a different stage in the life of a Buddhist monk (each segment is roughly ten to twenty years apart, and is physically in the middle of its titular season).

Spring We are introduced the of the very young Buddhist apprentice with his master on a small floating monastery, drifting on a lake in the serene forested mountains of Korea. The apprentice and his master live a basic life of prayer and meditation, using an old rowboat to reach the bank of the lake where they regularly go walking, for exercise and to collect herbs. One day...
...and Spring Finally, returning to "Spring", the cycle is completed: the new master lives in the monastery with the abandoned baby, now his apprentice. The boy is shown to torment a tortoise and, wandering into the rocky hills, echoes his predecessor, forcing stones into the mouths of a fish, frog and snake.
synopsis