User Comments - podster

Posted on: Hospitality Series 2: China Union Pay

shanghaichanges, you are welcome. By the way, for whatever it may be worth, here is a a wallet card that may help persuade merchants that you are not scamming them. If nothing else, you can use it to practice reading Chinese!

https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/help-center/faqs/assets/DN_CUP_Wallet_Card.pdf

I forgot to mention that Discover Card is also part of the Diners Club network (effectively is a Diners Club Card). So if the merchant happens to recognize that name you may be in luck also. Happy spending!

Posted on: A Tricky Text

You are probably right (in China's case, anyway) but I think there is a distinction between 金字塔 and 传销公司. In it's home country of the USA I think Amway has no problem being described as a "multilevel marketing" company. A pyramid scheme, by contrast does not require any merchandise to change hands necessarily, just that newcomers push money up through the levels of the pyramid to those who got in earlier. Another term for this in an "investment" context is Ponzi Scheme. Multilevel marketing means participants are paid sales commissions based on their own sales and the sales of recruits that they have cultivated. In theory there should be no individual income without sales. In other words, nobody is making money of membership or initiation fees, or compulsory inventory purchases. A few people have probably gotten rich with Amway, and many have probably been disappointed, but I don't think it is fair to describe the company's business practice as that of a 骗子。

Posted on: Hospitality Series 2: China Union Pay

Discover Card is part of the Union Pay network, but stupidly they don't put the Union Pay logo on any of their cards, so no merchant in China will believe it. You will be told that foreign cards can't be used, etc. etc., but if you can persuade them to try swiping it through the card reader it will work (most of the time). It should be treated by the merchant as a credit card (not a "debit" or "bank" card) that does not require a PIN. If prompted for a PIN just press the enter key on the little keypad. In Shanghai you will find a few merchants that actually display the Discover Card logo on their storefront.

Posted on: Farewell Dinner

typo: 饭，不是 反 ：

Posted on: Finding Things in the Supermarket

Thanks, Vera. Re "the staff will help you . . ." I guess that sort of defeats the purpose of saving labor cost, but maybe its a matter of training customers in the short term. Actually I often end up needing help at self-checkout! Based on my experience in shopping in China I get the impression that shoplifting a pilfering more strictly guarded against than I have seen elsewhere, so maybe managements would be reluctant to implement anything that has an element of an "honor system." (For example, I routinely see cashiers in Shanghai looking inside packages to make sure that something else hasn't been hidden inside. )

Posted on: Hairwash

Its a mistake by Chinese Pod. 头发 means hair, not "to wash hair."

Posted on: Finding Things in the Supermarket

Vera, can we get an answer on this? Did you mean to say that "self-checkout" is not appropriate for China? I'm sure you did not mean that cash registers are not appropriate for China, but I'm still at a loss if you mean that the word 收银机 is not used for "cash register in China.

Posted on: Ordering a Cake

Thanks. By the way, does your name have an "e" at the end? If not, you should let Chinese Pod know. ^_^

Posted on: Ordering a Cake

Jenny： 阴谋论? 唯恐天下不乱? 晕！我倒感觉 Adam 想要用幽默提醒你们错过了很多好机会通知用户他们应该知道的事情。 比方说， News and Features, Weekly Newsletter 都没有介绍新的网站，或者新的员工。请你冷静一下，好好考虑考虑你们的用户不满意的原因， 感谢他们的评论。

Posted on: Ordering a Cake

Hi Shanell. Nice photo. How do you paste a picture into a comment? Also, is the personal messaging function permanently disabled? Sorry, I know you are not the webmaster, but maybe you can give some advice or pass along some concerns. I definitely recognize your avatar/screen name. Lots of good commentary over the years. Have fun working at Chinese Pod!