Xiao Ke is a German guy. His wife Kiki is my wife’s elder sister. They came back home to see the family, friends, and do some sight seeing. I think Xiao Ke is the first German guy I ever talked to. He has very good understanding of Chinese and Germany culture/philosophies.
I’m curious to learn how he think about the China, the economy development etc. Our conversation started when we saw the Starbucks at the mall. I said China is changing from a tea drinking nation to coffee drinking nation quickly. My point is China is taking (learning) everything from the west, good or bad. Xiao Ke did not agree with me fully. He said he was surprised to see how China blends western things into its own culture or systems. He talked it more from history point of view: after so many years, confucius, traditional holidays such as dragon boat and mid-autumn festival are still here. On the other hand, he thinks German are more “black” or “white”, they either take something or reject it fully. I think it’s a good thing to be precise on engineering: we want to make sure our cars, buildings and airplanes are safe, do we?
Related this to investing, I think it’s also hard to say a stock is absolutely good or bad. For example, recently many Chinese speculative stocks listed in US did very well, along with the big boys such as FXI and LFC. Yesterday I saw ATV and NINE jumped more than 20%. This certainly does not mean I endorse those stocks. I am a FA (fundamental analysis) guy and still think Mindray (MR, which I have some shares) is the best, considering both the upside and downside. Maybe that’s because I’m Chinese, and I like to balance things.
Is that one of the reasons Chinese living in the US like Japanese cars, because the those cars offers the best value in terms of quality, performance and price? Personally, if I have the budget, I will buy German because of their “black” or “white” engineering attitude 🙂