Italy-China

Alibaba VS Aliexpress: How to import from China through the web

April 22, 2013 by Furio Fu Leave a Comment

So you dream to set up your online shop or your import business? In both cases the best way is to begin your research on the internet.

But how to get started?

Well I’m not an expert. This is why I asked some advices to my friend Fredrik, who’s been helping Western companies to import from China since 2008. Here’s what he has to say!

Alibaba.com and Aliexpress.com are well known among importing business worldwide. Both websites are owned by Alibaba Group, based in Hangzhou, China. The difference between the two websites can be hard to spot at a first glance, but its two very different business models with equally different strengths and weaknesses. This article will help you to choose which one you should use. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Italy-China, work in china Tagged With: Alibaba, Business with China, survive in China

Interview to Pinuccio Melis, who started to import from China in 1982

January 14, 2013 by Furio Fu 4 Comments

Import from China A Comochi’s production line.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk with Pinuccio Melis, who started to import from China in 1982, the year I was born.

Pinuccio is the founder of Comochi, a chemical factory based in Sardinia, Italy.

He’ll tell us why he started to import from China and will uncover some import/export mechanism (common to all the world) and a couple of behind-the-scene activities concerning the Canton Fair and the “war” among the importers to get the monopoly of the strategical products.

Importing from China during the 80′s

Pinuccio, thanks for accepting this interview. You have been one of the first Italian businessmen to import from China. What pushed you to start?

There were many reasons. Let’s say that the most important was the feeling to rebel against the big importers from mainland Italy (for who doesn’t know it, Sardinia is an island). I understood that the difference of price between buying from a middle man and a Chinese suppliers wasn’t the 10%. It was the 50 or even the 60%.

What kind of difficulties you had when you began to import from China? [Read more...]

Filed Under: interviews, Italy-China, survival tips Tagged With: Business with China, Interview, survive in China

Interview to Marta, who is 16 years old and is studying in a Chinese high-school (Part 2)

December 13, 2012 by Furio Fu 1 Comment

Study in China Marta and her classmates.

Today we continue with the interview to Marta. If you lost the first part you can read it here.

Studying in a Chinese high-school

Even if you were already studying Chinese in Italy, moving to a Chinese high-school has probably presented some difficult to you. Which are your biggest challenges?

I don’t know whether is a good or a bad thing. However here it works like that:

“You are a foreigner so you don’t have to follow all our rules.”

This is a good news as if I had to respect all the rules I would have already been punished or even expelled. In the same time it’s a bad news because [Read more...]

Filed Under: interviews, Italy-China, survival tips Tagged With: Interview, survive in China

Interview to Marta, who is 16 years old and is studying in a Chinese high-school

December 10, 2012 by Furio Fu 8 Comments

High-school in China At the Chinese Great Wall (Marta is on the right side, in the foreground).

Anatomy of an interview

At the end of November I received the following email:

Hey,

I’m Marta, I’m almost seventeen and this year I live in Nanjing, I study in a Chinese high-school, I have a Chinese mom and sister (I mean, they host me at their house), I live the life and follow the rules of a traditional Chinese adolescent.

When I arrived here I thought that I knew everything about China. But after only a week I understood how wrong I was.

So I began to read a lot, till I also found your blog. Now I’m trying to open myself to all these new experiences and forget what I knew about China from Italy.

My answer was quite predictable: [Read more...]

Filed Under: interviews, Italy-China, survival tips Tagged With: Interview, survive in China

From Italy to Mongolia in a Fiat Panda (Part 2)

October 26, 2012 by Furio Fu 1 Comment

From Italy to Mongolia A wading in Mongolia.

Today we continue the interview to Pietro, which in 2011 crossed in a Fiat Panda the sixteen thousand kilometers that divide Italy from Mongolia. Here you find the first part of the interview.

Mongolia and China

Mongolia is often described as a “very poor” country. What’s your take on this subject?

The word “poor” has a western connotation. The Mongolian population that doesn’t live in Ulaan Baator (the capital of the country) is simply nomad. We think that they are poor because their difficult life conditions are completely out our standards.

Poverty as we intend it is increasing because of all the people that are moving to Ulaan Baator giving life to whole neighborhoods of gher (the nomad tenths). Now that the nomads left their natural environment we can define them as “poor,” but only in a urban context. [Read more...]

Filed Under: interviews, Italy-China, travel Tagged With: Interview, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Panda 4x4

From Italy to Mongolia in a Fiat Panda

October 25, 2012 by Furio Fu 4 Comments

From Italy to Mongolia The heroine of this adventure.

Pietro contacted me a couple of weeks ago because he’s playing with the idea of moving to China. In one of the emails that we exchanged he told me that last year he traveled from Italy to Mongolia by Fiat Panda.

Wait, wait…

…in Mongolia with a Panda?

I got curious and asked him some more questions. He even wrote a short book about its adventure (you can download the pdf of the book here but is only in Italian).

This interview is the result of our discussion (don’t blame Pietro for the English, I translated from Italian both my question and his answers).

Organizing a travel to Mongolia

[Read more...]

Filed Under: interviews, Italy-China, travel Tagged With: Interview, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Panda 4x4

Interview with Marco, Hangzhou TED’s leader

July 18, 2012 by Furio Fu 2 Comments

I had the idea to do this interview the day I stumbled upon this article: Ten outstanding TED talks on China.

Marco, who lives in China since 2009, founded the Hangzhou TED’s group two years ago. Here what you will find out in this interview

Read the interview to know what Italian people think about TED, which are the challenges of organizing a TED meeting in China, how “face” culture influence this kind of events and, most important, how to get a free coffee at Starbucks! [Read more...]

Filed Under: interviews, Italy-China Tagged With: Hangzhou, Interview

When a Chinese person makes you lose face…

April 1, 2012 by Furio Fu 10 Comments

work in china I ask myself whether in my situation she would lose face or not…

This year I find my April fools joke on Repubblica.it, one of most important Italian newspapers, while I taste my coffee and delete the usual spam from my email account: The prime minister Monti to China “Invest in Italia.”

I smile and think when, in the middle of the European debt storm, I attended the last [Read more...]

Filed Under: Italy-China, society, stories, work in china Tagged With: bai jiu, survive in China

Do they eat human foetus in China?

January 19, 2012 by Furio Fu 7 Comments

urban legends China Train ticket office at Milan’s China town. 火车票 (huǒchēpiào) means “train ticket”, where 火 means “fire” and 车 means “vehicle”. Hence, 火车 literally means “vehicle of fire,” that is “train”.

Maybe it is because of its special glamor. Or because since the economic crisis began it became quite fashion.

“Ahhh the crisis, used to say my grand mother…”

No matter the reason, every time I come back to Italy I receive a ton of questions about China. Last time even my primary school teacher, who didn’t talk with me since ages, came to say me hello:

“How do they cook the dogs?”

“We can see the Great Wall from the moon, right?”

“Is it true that in China the water is so polluted that your skin will peel off, if you take a shower every day?”

It’s time to debunk some urban legends about China…

It’s true that Chinese restaurants give you dog meat without your knowledge?

Dog meat is really expensive. The cheapest – and then the most popular – are chicken and pig meats. Hence, the worst case is to receive chicken meat while you ordered dog, not the other way around.

Is the great wall the only man-made object we can see from the moon?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Italy-China, society Tagged With: dog meat, Great Wall of China

Alibaba VS Aliexpress: How to import from China through the web

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