CCF10 – Turning your interest in Chinese into a business: The Chairman’s Bao
Speakers:
Sean McGibney studied Chinese and Spanish at University of Leeds and founded The Chairman’s Bao alongside Tom Reid in his final year of study in 2015. Currently Managing Director of The Chairman’s Bao, he has overseen the company’s growth from university bedroom concept to an international force in the EdTech industry with over 120,000 individual users and over 300 global partner institutions. In his spare time, Sean sits on the Board of charity Leeds Irish Health and Homes and volunteers with Alzheimer’s Research UK, as well as being a keen runner and cyclist.
Coming previously from an Investment Bank specialising in Mergers and Acquisitions, Oliver Leach joined the Team as Business Development Manager in February 2018 and became a Director in 2020. His existing broad role at TCB spans from marketing and branding to sales and customer service. Outside of work, Oliver is a long-suffering fan of Reading FC.
Outline: In this joint presentation we will cover:
the story behind TCB
our team, using Chinese in a work environment
business achieving success in thriving EdTech sector
The Duanwu (Dragon Boat) Festival falls on June 14 this year.
Duanwu Festival, 端午节 (Duānwǔ jié) in Chinese, is also widely known as Dragon Boat Festival 龙舟节 (Lóngzhōu jié) in the rest of the world, as one of its celebrative events – dragon boat race – has become so popular in the world. However, like last year due to pandemic lockdown in the UK, we are still unable to watch dragon boat races or to have cultural workshops on campus.
The head of a dragon boat in River Lagan. Image@LiangWANG
If you would like to review how we celebrated it in the past, here are some snapshots with links to full albums (via the Language Centre Facebook).
This time, while we cannot get together again, we have invited some staff and students to show and tell what they have done to celebrate the festival – making and eating zongzi 粽子(zòngzi), a typical type of food made of glutinous rice with sweet (e.g. dates, red bean paste) or savoury (e.g. pork, salted egg yolk) fillings wrapped up by bamboo or reed leaves, as the photos shown below.
Zongzi making – reed or bamboo leaves. Image@SharonFAN
Zongzi making – materials preparation. Image@YuZHAO
Zongzi making – wrapping up. Image@XinzhuPANG
Zongzi – wrapped and to be boiled. Image@LiangWANG
Zongzi – boiled in a rice cooker. Image@ChenZHANG
Zongzi – boiled and served in a plate. Image@XinzhuPANG
Zongzi – one unwrapped and ready to eat. Image@YuZHAO
Zongzi – wrapped up with dates as stuffing. Image@MengTAN
Zongzi – unwrapped and served with a plate. Image@XinzhuPANG
Zongzi – unwrapped and served with a bowl. Image@ChenZHANG
Zongzi – unwrapped and served in a bowl. Image@MengTAN
Zongzi – sweet taste with sugar. Image@SharonFAN
Zongzi – savoury taste with pork. Image@SharonFAN
Zongzi – savoury taste with pork and salted egg yolk, unwrapped and halved. Image@XinzhuPANG
Zongzi – served in a plate with decoration. Image@SharonFAN
In addition to the common festival greeting that you may say 快乐 kuàilè (happy), many Chinese people also choose to say 安康 ānkāng (peaceful and healthy) or 吉祥 jíxiáng (auspicious). This is because Duanwu Festival is considered having its origin from warding off diseases and illness mostly caused by the rising summer heat and humidity which invited the invasion of poisonous animals such as insects and reptiles. Therefore, you will be able to see people use a varied way of expressions:
端午节快乐！Duānwǔ jié kuàilè! – Happy Duanwu Festival!
端午节安康！Duānwǔ jié ānkāng! – Wish you a peaceful and healthy Duanwu Festival!
端午节吉祥！Duānwǔ jié jíxiáng! – Wish you an auspicious Duanwu Festival!
However, outside overseas Chinese communities, if dragon boat races are the only form of celebrations, i.e. beyond the context of traditional Chinese Duanwu culture, then people would find it normal to just express a happy festive greeting.
Statues of bicycle riding taken at Suzhou Dushu Lake Higher Education Town. Image @LiangWANG
Acknowledging the uniqueness, longevity and versatility of the bicycle, which has been in use for two centuries, and that it is a simple, affordable, reliable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transportation, fostering environmental stewardship and health, the General Assembly decided to declare 3 June World Bicycle Day.
Do you have a bicycle? What do you use it for? Read the story shared by Haiying LIANG(梁海映), a Queen’s graduate, from Beijing recently.
Haiying at graduation. Image @HaiyingLIANG
Haiying gave an introduction of guzheng before she performed. Image @LiangWANG
In Beijing, you can always see people riding bicycles of various colours on streets, which has become beautiful scenery in the city. These colourful vehicles are a type of newly emerged business known as shared bicycle service that has become one of the important aspects of daily life for many people in Beijing, as well as in many other places in China.
Shared bicycles also play an important role in my daily life. While conducting field work in Beijing for my doctoral research, I also take a research assistant intern at Tsinghua University. Its campus is so large that it takes over half an hour for me to walk from the office building to my favourite cafeteria. You may imagine that without a bicycle, I would have spent about two hours for a meal. So I really think that a bicycle does a great help as I can ride whenever I want. Moreover, unlike finding a car park, I can leave the bicycle at the designated parking area nearby, which makes my travel very flexible.
Shared bicycles are indeed a very convenient means of transport in densely populated places where traffic jams are not uncommon and finding a car park is far from easy. In addition, they are not only environmentally friendly, compared with cars, but also very economic – the price of a 30-minute ride is only one-tenth of the price of a single bus ticket in London – which is 1.5 yuan (about 0.15 pound), as this screenshot of the App shows. Image @HaiyingLIANG
Despite the great advantages, the lack of designated parking area for shared bicycles can also cause the problem of occupying space such as pavements and lanes. As shown in the photo, the intensively parked bicycles have caused traffic congestion and inconvenience for people who are walking on this road. When building the roads and pavements decades ago, engineers didn’t expect that there would be so many shared bicycles in the near future. Therefore, in the new urban planning, the parking sites for shared bicycles should be well planned, and roads and bicycle lanes can be expanded to accommodate more vehicles that may appear in the future. Image @HaiyingLIANG
Did you know that in Belfast there are shared bicycles as well? Have you ever used them? Share with us your experience in the comment box below.
A person about to use a shared bicycle parking opposite Queen’s McClay Library. Image @LiangWANG
