jeanne boden

cowry used as coins in ancient china

coins from the zhou dynasty (±1000 - ±250 bc)

coins from the ming dynasty

coins from the qing dynasty

chinese renminbi design anno 1960 front

chinese renminbi design anno 1960 back

chinese renminbi design

The value of the Chinese Yuan or Renminbi 人民币 or ‘People's Currency' has been under discussion for years. When I went to China first, the design of the bank notes was really 'socialist' showing the 'soldier, worker and farmer' ideals. Now Mao Zedong is on the 'yuan' notes. China's minorities are depicted on the 'jiao' notes (1/10 of a yuan). The beautiful small 'fen' notes (1/100 of a yuan) have disappeared by now.  

money in ancient china

 

geely - 吉利

When I was in Xinjiang last winter, it occurred to me that many of the cars there had brands I had never heard of. In spite of the heavy snow and winter dirt I took some pictures. This Geely brand caught my attention because somehow - with the blue and white in the logo, and the white characters in the black circle at the top - it reminded me another logo.....

 

Geely not only developed a logo inspired by BMW, it also discovered another brand with a blue logo: VOLVO!

 

Geely bought Volvo. This event shook the West. All of a sudden I got all these telephone calls from the media asking what was happening and how suddenly China had become so strong. For the longest time I have seen it happening. It is not happening suddenly but going on for decades now. Many people in Europe never really wanted to know. Still today many do not want to know. But reality is there I am afraid.

And in good Chinese tradition Geely reflected on it's branding so it choose a fortunate name in Chinese: 吉利 means auspicious and advantages. What else do you need in life?

And if you ever decide to take over a Chinese company, remember why it is important to find a good Chinese translation of your company name, I explained that on a post on David's Blog here.

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