Economist, May 4, 2013

choi

(1) Singapore’s economy | Bashing the Metal-Bashers; Manufacturers struggle as the city-state changes its economic model.
http://www.economist.com/news/as ... shing-metal-bashers

Quote:

"Manufacturing and industry account for about 30% of the country’s [Singapore's] GDP, a strikingly high figure for an advanced economy. In Britain and France the figure is about 12% and in America even less.

"In 2012 the economy grew by just 1.3%.

Note:
(a)
(i) Facts About Manufacturing in the United States. National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), undated
http://www.nam.org/Statistics-An ... turing/Landing.aspx
("In 2012, manufacturers contributed $1.87 trillion to the economy, up from $1.73 trillion in 2011. This was 11.9 percent of GDP")
(ii) US Manufacturing in Context
www.manufacturing.gov
("The manufacturing sector continues to be a mainstay of our economic productivity, generating $1.8 trillion in GDP in 2011 (12.2% of total US GDP). U.S. manufacturing firms lead the Nation in exports: The $1.3 trillion of manufactured goods shipped abroad constituted 86% of all US goods exported in 2011. * * * After ranking as the world’s largest manufacturer for more than a century, the United States has lost ground to China in terms of share of global manufacturing output")

(b) Chuan Heng Signcrafts  泉兴牌业
www.chuanheng.com.sg/‎

* I can noot find teh Chinese name for its "boss, Iris SEAH," but Seah in Singapore is 佘.  

choi

(2) Construction in the west | Build It and They Might Come; Western provinces can still be a wild place for development.  |
http://www.economist.com/news/ch ... and-they-might-come

two consecutive paragraphs:

"Lanzhou itself is set in a narrow valley of the Yellow River surrounded by mountains, and has long lacked enough space for its 3.6m people. For decades local leaders have contemplated expansion into the unforgiving landscape of dry sandy hills just north of the river. Now * * * it is going ahead [as 兰州新城].

"At the heart of the project is the work now under way—in Xuanmagou and other nearby villages—to shear the tops off 700 mountains, use that dirt to fill the valleys in between, and so create a plateau fit for new construction.

Note:
(a) Xuanmagou village" should be 马家沟村 (see next)--rather than 甘肃省庆阳市 庆城县 玄马乡 林沟村.
(b) Lanzhou New City  兰州新城 (位于兰州市城关区 青白石

青白石街道
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9 ... 3%E8%A1%97%E9%81%93
(includes 马家沟村)
(c) Lanzhou
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanzhou
(section 3 Administrative divisions: including 城关区 and Lanzhou New Area  兰州新区)
(d) Regarding the first sentence of quotation. For a map of Lanzhou valley, click and view Figure 1 ("Location of the large factories and the monitoring stations in the Lanzhou Valley")
in

Ta W et al, Gaseous and Particulate Air Pollution in the Lanzhou Valley, China. Science of The Total Environment, 320: 163–176 (2004).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/sci ... i/S0048969703004820
(e)
(i) ZHAO Zhong  赵 中
LI Ding  李 丁/ Lanzhou University  兰州大学
WANG Nai'ang  王 乃昂
(ii) "one of the main developers, China Pacific Construction Group, a private firm headed by YAN Jiehe, a flamboyant tycoon often described as 'China’s Donald Trump.'”

中国太平洋建设集团有限公司/ 严介和

(f) My previous posting on this subject:

choi, 新愚公移山 兰州. Yilubbs.com, Dec 7, 2012
http://www.yilubbs.com/thread-32426-1-1.html

choi

(3) Private schools abroad | On the Playing Fields of Shanghai; Some of England’s best-known private schools are rushing to set up satellites abroad. But the market may be reaching saturation point.
http://www.economist.com/news/br ... p-satellites-abroad
("In schools with a mixture of locals and foreigners, the Chinese pupils tend to dominate orchestras and maths competitions")

Note:
(a) "Harrow led the way in 1998 by setting up a school in Bangkok, where its straw boaters greatly amused the locals."

boater
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boater
(also straw boater; men's formal summer hat; worn by FBI agents as a sort of unofficial uniform in the pre-war years; nowadays "as part of old-fashioned school uniform, such as at Harrow School. Since 1952, the straw boater hat has been part of the uniform of the Princeton University Band")
(b) "Sherborne, a private school in Dorset, has opened a branch in Qatar"
(i) Sherborne School
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherborne_School
(a boys school; located in the town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset, England; Established 1550; has close partnerships with the nearby girls' school Sherborne Girls)
(ii) Dorset
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset
(section 1 Toponymy)

(c) "From next year Wellington, a boarding school in Berkshire, will compete for Shanghai’s pupils with Dulwich, a south London day school, which already has a franchise there."
(i) Wellington College, Berkshire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_College,_Berkshire
(co-educational; was built as a national monument to the Duke of Wellington, after whom the school was named; Established 1859)
(ii) Dulwich College
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulwich_College
(for boys; in Dulwich, London; Established 1619)

(d) "Schools also tout their foreign branches to British parents, who increasingly want their offspring to learn about fast-growing bits of the world and, particularly, to pick up some Chinese (though in practice some offshoots of British private schools in China are so rigidly Anglophone that pupils are told off for speaking the language [the Chinese])."
(i) Anglophone (adj, n; First Known Use 1900):
"consisting of or belonging to an English-speaking population especially in a country where two or more languages are spoken"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anglophone
(ii) tell off (vt): "REPRIMAND, EXCORIATE <told him off for his arrogance>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tell%20off

(e) "Pupils tend to sit the international GCSE, which some consider tougher than the standard British test, and often the International Baccalaureate."
(i) For GCSE, see General Certificate of Secondary Education
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen ... Secondary_Education
(ii) International Baccalaureate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Baccalaureate

(f) "Dulwich is the nippiest, with schools in China, Korea and one opening in 2014 in Singapore. It also runs sponsored A-level programmes for Chinese students in Zhuhai in Guangdong province"
(i) nippy (adj): "brisk, quick, or nimble in movement : SNAPPY"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nippy
(ii) For "A-level programmes," see GCE Advanced Level
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCE_Advanced_Level

(g) "The latter arrangement solves an irksome problem for educational expeditionaries."

I do not know what it means. Try as I may, all American and English (including Oxford and Cambridge) online dictionaries have expeditionary as an adjective, not a noun.
(h) "But the King’s School in Canterbury recently pulled out of a partnership there [China], concluding that the constraint was inappropriate given its association with the cathedral, the historic seat of the Church of England."

King’s School, Canterbury
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_School,_Canterbury
(it is often claimed * * * to have been founded in AD 597 by St Augustine [founder of English Church] therefore making it the world's oldest extant school)

Please take notice that all schools above (whether called college or not) matriculate 13- to 18-years-old.