The Forbidden City of Terry Gou

ElvaWSJ writes "Hon Hai churns out iPhones and Wiis, and provides a window into China's secretive world of outsourcing and manufacturing. With a work force of some 270,000 — about as big as the population of Newark, N.J. — the factory is a bustling testament to the ambition of Hon Hai's founder, Terry Gou. In an era when manufacturing has been defined by outsourcing, no one has done more to shift global electronics production to China. Little noticed by the wider world, Mr. Gou has turned his company into China's biggest exporter and the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics."

Comments

No joke, do it! Learning Chinese is easy...

[The Underwriter]

I've been teaching myself Mandarin Chinese for 6 months now. Some reasons why you should pick it up:

- It's way easier than Westerners make it out to be...similar sentence structure to English, and the verbs stay the same between different tenses. No conjugations, declinations, etc. In many regards it's much easier than "Romance" languages.

- You will be able to communicate with a quarter of the world's population.

- Though there are 13 different dialects of spoken Chinese, they all share the same writing system. You get to read and write 12 additional languages for free. Japanese uses many Chinese characters, too.

- Because it's so hyped as the world's most difficult language, your Western colleagues and employers will think you're a freakin genius. Imagine having "Fluent in Chinese" on your resume?

- Future study in languages more closely related to English will become comparatively easy. You'd be surprised how much French, Spanish, and German you already unknowingly speak on a daily basis.

- It's utterly fascinating to learn, especially the characters.

- If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

If you want to get the hang of Mandarin Chinese quickly, Pimsleur is hands down the absolute best.