World

China Holiday Makes Business, Cultural Waves Around World

Published

9 years ago

February 18, 2015

A performer from Taiwan dressed as the “Third Prince” poses for a photograph in front of the sheep decorations during the rehearsal of International Chinese New Year Night Parade in Hong Kong Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015. Decades ago the Chinese New Year holiday, also known as Spring Festival, had little impact outside of China. But as the country has gained outsized economic influence, the holiday, which has enormous cultural significance in the Chinese-speaking world, has become more prominent. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer

HONG KONG (AP) — Decades ago the Chinese New Year holiday, also known as Spring Festival, had little impact outside of China. But as the country gained outsized economic influence, the holiday, which has enormous cultural significance in the Chinese-speaking world, has become more prominent. This is how it ripples around the world.

— FACTORY FREEZE

Chinese factories shut down for the holiday and then some, with hundreds of millions of migrant workers heading to their hometowns, part of the world’s largest mass movement of people. In the lead up to the holiday, factories run flat out to fill orders before shutting. The holiday itself runs from Feb. 18 to 24 this year, but workers start setting off as much as two weeks earlier on packed trains and buses. After the holiday they may take the same amount of time to return, or not. The holiday is a prime occasion to switch jobs.

It all means an annual headache for retailers and importers overseas who rely on China. Shipping companies warn customers that China’s transport and logistics networks are at capacity and their shipments must be at ports two weeks ahead of the holiday to stand a chance of getting on a boat before the country shuts down. This year, shipping delays are compounded by a slowdown at U.S. West Coast ports.

— QUIET MARKETS

Stock market trading shudders to a halt as mainland China shuts for an entire week and financial hubs such as Hong Kong and Singapore take a break as well, albeit shorter. Numerous other countries including South Korea and Vietnam also observe Lunar New Year holidays. Muslim majority Malaysia and Indonesia, with large Chinese minorities, take holidays too.

Trading volumes “drop off considerably” about three working days before the start of the holiday, said Andrew Sullivan, managing director at Haitong Securities in Hong Kong. This year, Friday was “the last day that you can sell in Hong Kong and get your money before Chinese New Year” under trading settlement rules, he said. Foreign investors also tend to wind down trading in Asia as the holiday nears, Sullivan said.

— GLOBAL SHOPPING

The festival is traditionally the most important time of the year for family reunions, but as China has become prosperous, an increasing number of wealthy Chinese are opting to travel abroad. That translates into big business for global luxury brands. Many British department stores, for example, are pulling out all the stops to woo mainland Chinese shoppers. (Designer handbags, watches and jewelry can be up to 30 percent cheaper in Europe because of high luxury taxes in China.)

Harrods is selling its own brand of red envelopes traditionally used to give “lai see,” or lucky money. Selfridges and luxury brand Burberry are each offering cards and envelopes personalized with Chinese calligraphy. Designer label Vivienne Westwood has launched a collectors’ necklace featuring a sheep pendant. Shoppers at Fortnum & Mason paying with UnionPay cards — China’s homegrown payment network — will get bonus gifts.

Chinese spending in Britain last February jumped 23 percent over the same month in 2012, said Gordon Clark, manager at Global Blue, a Switzerland-based firm that tracks luxury retail spending worldwide. Chinese shoppers spend an average 739 pounds ($1,137) per transaction in Britain each February, mostly on luxury jewelry, watches and designer clothes.

— ECONOMIC DISTORTION

Because the Lunar New Year never falls on the same date, it plays havoc with Chinese economic data at the start of the year. Economists are cautious not to read too much into figures from January or February, and prefer to wait until March to see the trends lest they make an incorrect interpretation of the world’s second-biggest economy. Last year, the holiday started on the last day of January which meant activity was more compressed as factories rushed to get their orders out the door. This year, the holiday falls about two and half weeks later, so factories had more time to work on orders. The result is that this year’s January trade data, for example, was artificially weak.

“We always warn about the CNY effect and the risk of reading too much into these figures at this time of year,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics. “This affects most of the data out of China in January and February as well headline export growth in countries such as Korea that are heavily dependent on the Chinese market.”

— CHINESE ABROAD

The holiday is celebrated by Chinese communities around the world. In San Francisco, where about one in five residents is of Chinese descent, the celebration is stretched over a few weeks, with fairs, beauty queens, bazaars, lion dances and deafening firecrackers in Chinatown. The festivities culminate in the San Francisco Chinatown Chinese New Year Parade, complete with feisty 270-foot-long (82 meters) dragon. It’s such a big deal that schools close for the holiday.

Pius Lee, chairman of the city’s Chinatown Neighborhood Association, said its Chinese New Year celebrations resemble those in Hong Kong and Shanghai, especially the parades and family reunions where food is abundant and children get red envelopes filled with crisp “lucky” dollar bills.

But unlike in China, San Francisco workers will take just two or three days off, said Lee. “We can’t follow China’s system because the cost of shutting down for many days here is a lot higher than in China,” he said. Lee said many grocery stores and other shops close for two or three days but a handful remain open to tend to the tourists who flock to the downtown neighborhood for a glimpse of China.

The festivities have also embraced foreign culture. For example, the traditional red envelopes, usually decorated with gold Chinese letters, are sold by Chinatown merchants with pictures of Pokemon and Disney characters.

New York dazzled crowds with a 20-minute fireworks display Tuesday over the Hudson River organized by the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, which said it was the first time the holiday had its first major celebration outside of China.

— HOLIDAY SURPRISE

Just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean there won’t be any major surprises. Chinese officials are notorious for releasing big news during important holidays, unexpected announcements that “hit you with your pants down unprepared,” said Francis Lun, CEO of GEO Securities. The timing may be an attempt to reduce the impact on financial markets, or for the more skeptical, to bury bad news. In 2011, the central bank raised interest rates at the tail end of Chinese New Year.

___

Associated Press writers Kristin J. Bender and Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco, Sylvia Hui in London and Cara Anna in New York contributed to this report.

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Barbara Lee

Congresswoman Barbara Lee Issues Statement on Deaths of Humanitarian Aid Volunteers in Gaza 

On April 2, a day after an Israeli airstrike erroneously killed seven employees of World Central Kitchen (WCK), a humanitarian organization delivering aid in the Gaza Strip, a statement was release by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA-12). “This is a devastating and avoidable tragedy. My prayers go to the families and loved ones of the selfless members of the World Central Kitchen team whose lives were lost,” said Lee.

Published

1 week ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Congresswoman Barbara Lee

By California Black Media

“This is a devastating and avoidable tragedy. My prayers go to the families and loved ones of the selfless members of the World Central Kitchen team whose lives were lost,” said Lee.

The same day, it was confirmed by the organization that the humanitarian aid volunteers were killed in a strike carried out by Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Prior to the incident, members of the team had been travelling in two armored vehicles marked with the WCF logo and they had been coordinating their movements with the IDF. The group had successfully delivered 10 tons of humanitarian food in a deconflicted zone when its convoy was struck.

“This is not only an attack against WCK. This is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the direst situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable,” said Erin Gore, chief executive officer of World Central Kitchen.

The seven victims included a U.S. citizen as well as others from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Palestine.

Lee has been a vocal advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza and has supported actions by President Joe Biden to airdrop humanitarian aid in the area.

“Far too many civilians have lost their lives as a result of Benjamin Netanyahu’s reprehensible military offensive. The U.S. must join with our allies and demand an immediate, permanent ceasefire – it’s long overdue,” Lee said.

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Bay Area

Nigerian Bank Chief Killed in Helicopter Crash on Way to Superbowl XVIII

According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dept., the crash occurred near Nipton, on the edge of the Mojave Desert Preserve. The poor weather conditions — rain, wind and snow showers—may have contributed to the accident, although the investigation is not complete. All six aboard were killed. Herbert Wigwe, 57, founded Access Bank in 1989, and it became the country’s largest competitor, Diamond Bank in 2018.

Published

2 months ago

February 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Herbert Wigwe with his wife, Chizoba Wigwe, left, and Abimbola Ogunbanjo, right. ENigeria Newspaper image.

By Post Staff

The co-founder of one of Nigeria’s largest banks died with his wife, son and three others when the helicopter transporting them from Palm Springs, Ca., to Boulder City, Nev. to attend the fifty-eighth SuperBowl at the stadium outside Las Vegas crashed on Feb. 9.

Herbert Wigwe, 57, founded Access Bank in 1989, and it became the country’s largest competitor, Diamond Bank in 2018.

More recently, Wigwe was planning to open a banking service in Asia this year after making successful expansions to other parts of Africa, including South Africa, Kenya, and Botswana.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu described Wigwe’s death as an ‘overwhelming tragedy.”

Oakland resident and Nigerian immigrant Kayode Gbadebo agrees with Tinubu. He met Wigwe in Nigeria but crossed paths with him in London in 2006. Wigwe, he said, “took risks.”

He was young and people thought he couldn’t do what he intended, which was not so much about money but community.

“He was more like Jesus in washing the feet of the poor– Wigwe was culturizing community,” Gbadebo said.

“There will never be another like him. This is a deep, deep loss” and he hopes everyone will eventually “be comforted.”

He was also disappointed that a replacement has already been named even before Wigwe is buried. “It is not reasonable. You don’t want a vacuum, but it’s” not fair to the family, Gbadebo observed.

Wigwe had also been working to solve the migration issues from African countries, believing that “investing in higher education was key to controlling mass migration, which “is destabilising countries across the world,” BBC News reported.

“We need to take a holistic approach to address global migration, starting with our traditional framework for international development,” Wigwe wrote.

To that end, according to BBC News, Wigwe was preparing to open Wigwe University in Niger, where he was from.

“The best place to limit migration is not in the middle of the Mediterranean or the English Channel or the Rio Grande. It is in the home countries that so many migrants are so desperate to leave,” he wrote, saying his university was an opportunity for him “to give back to society.”

Besides Wigwe and his wife, Chizoba Nwuba Wigwe, and one son, two crew members and Bimbo Ogunbanjo, former group chairman of the Nigerian Exchange Group Plc, were also killed in the crash.

According to Wikipedia, three other children survive Wigwe.

In his statement reported in People magazine, Tinubu described Wigwe as “a distinguished banker, humanitarian, and entrepreneur.”

“I pray for the peaceful repose of the departed and ask God Almighty to comfort the multitude of Nigerians who are grieving and the families of the deceased at this deeply agonizing moment,” the president said.

He added, “Their passing is an overwhelming tragedy that is shocking beyond comprehension.”

Besides feeling the tremendous loss, Gbadebo fears the disorder and greed that will follow. “It’s a mess,” he said.

People magazine, BBC News and Wikipedia were the sources for this report.

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Activism

No Valid Reason for Failing to Condemn Hamas’ Act of Terrorism

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists crossed the Israel-Gaza border and indiscriminately slaughtered Israeli civilians in their homes. They killed nearly 300 young people at a music festival and took at least 200 hostages including 30 children. The atrocities they committed included massacres of families, abduction of the elderly and children, burning of babies and rapes of women.

Published

6 months ago

November 3, 2023

Oakland Post

iStock image.

By Joe W. Bowers Jr.

California Black Media

OPINION

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists crossed the Israel-Gaza border and indiscriminately slaughtered Israeli civilians in their homes.

They killed nearly 300 young people at a music festival and took at least 200 hostages including 30 children. The atrocities they committed included massacres of families, abduction of the elderly and children, burning of babies and rapes of women.

The horrific surprise attack deserves universal and unequivocal condemnation. President Joe Biden called what Hamas did “an act of sheer evil” and pledged to defend the lives of Israelis and Jewish Americans.

He said, “Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel’s back. We’ll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have.”

Hamas killed approximately 1,400 people including 32 Americans. Citizens from 40 different countries including the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, and Thailand were killed or reported missing.

Hamas fighters breached Israel’s border defenses on the final day of Sukkot while soldiers were away due to the holiday and launched attacks on 22 towns outside the Gaza Strip. This security lapse has been described as a catastrophic failure of Israel’s intelligence agencies..

Hamas is an extremist Islamist militant organization that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. It is recognized as an Iranian-backed terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union and has a long history of violence against Jews and Palestinians, the latter of whom they often use as human shields.

While there have been plenty of groups who have unequivocally condemned the massacres, there are a number who haven’t, including organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Black Alliance for Peace, Red Nation, and independent Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapters (excluding the national Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation).

The DSA San Francisco chapter put out a statement on Oct. 9 that said, “Socialists support the Palestinian people’s, and all people’s, right to resist and fight for their own liberation. This weekend’s events are no different.”

Student organizations at a number of universities and colleges in California signed a solidarity statement titled “Resistance Uprising in Gaza” from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The statement attributes the violence of the Hamas attack to what it refers to as Israeli apartheid and occupation.

The SJP statement written by Bears for Palestine at UC Berkeley says, “We support the resistance, we support the liberation movement, and we indisputably support the Uprising.” Essentially, these students are indirectly associating themselves with Hamas’ barbaric acts under the guise of “resistance.”

Signing the statement were 51 student organizations including those from Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC San Diego, CSU Sacramento, and USC.

A statement signed by 34 Harvard student organizations said, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

Many university leaders, where these students are enrolled, have been guilty of failing to unequivocally condemn Hamas and for inadequately addressing their students’ expressed support for Hamas.

Several Stanford faculty members, including three Nobel laureates, condemned Stanford’s administrators’ weak response to acts of terrorism and the expression of pro-Hamas sentiments by students on campus.

Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It dismantled 21 Israeli settlements in the territory and handed them over to the Palestinian Authority.

The assault by Hamas on Oct. 7 was not an ordinary clash with Israel. Hamas’ actions resulted in the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.

While there are valid reasons for protesting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and a real reckoning with the Israeli government on its policies is long overdue, nothing justifies Hamas’ attack.

Israelis who were killed largely had nothing to do with the conditions of Palestinians in Gaza. Some of the victims weren’t even Israeli — they were just tourists.

The students blaming Israel for the atrocities committed by Hamas have faced criticism. Some groups have withdrawn their endorsements because of the backlash aimed at them. Others have doubled down on their activism. SJP held a “National Day of Resistance” on several campuses.

Several CEOs have asked Harvard to disclose a list of members from the organizations assigning responsibility to Israel to insure they do not hire any of their members. A Berkeley law professor has also urged firms not to hire his students who have publicly blamed Israel for the war.

This California Black Media report was supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library.