Word: cheaping
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...increase traffic and trade, began blasting and dredging a stretch of the river running from Burma and Laos to Thailand, clearing away islands, reefs and rapids that once blocked the passage of ships. Since then, sleepy Southeast Asian river ports have morphed into boomtowns, with boats from China disgorging cheap electronics, fruits, vegetables and every kind of plastic gadget imaginable. River traffic runs both ways: in December 2006, the first shipment of refined oil chugged up the Mekong bound for energy-hungry China, opening up a potential alternative shipping route to avoid the pirate-infested Straits of Malacca through which...
...Private Chinese cash is flowing in as well. More than 20,000 Chinese now work in Laos, up from a few hundred a decade ago. Some are farmers who were lured by land so cheap they can grow rubber, corn and fruit and sell their crops back home at a profit. Others have grander ambitions. Lin Bo graduated this spring with an accounting degree from the Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics in Eastern China, and he has come to make his fortune along the Mekong. "Many students at my university had never even heard of Laos," says...
...patronage of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, which oversaw the deaths of an estimated one-quarter of the population. And even in countries with less complicated historical ties to China, suspicions of an economic overpowering endure. Farmers in northern Thailand complain that they cannot compete with the influx of cheap Chinese-grown garlic, apples and onions. Even Thai customs official Ratchaphol expresses reservations about the future container port he is helping oversee. "We don't get many of the benefits," he says. "Most of our own people are not very educated, so the Chinese just bring in their own employees...
...Ancient Street is for the casual fossil buyer, of course; Chinese moguls and Western collectors head instead for dealers like Wang Facai (literally meaning "fortune"), whose store called Rare Stones, carries no precious jewels, just some dusty Ming vases (likely fakes) and cheap fish fossils scattered on the shelves. The bulky Wang, in a muscle T-shirt, glances around before beckoning me into one of two back rooms. From a secret closet behind a mirror, he pulls out a slab of rock which contains the profile of a half bird, half dinosaur, Confuciusornis sanctus, whose discovery in 1994 helped scientists...
...managed forests and their products a stamp of approval. This fall, the first FSC-certified corks will appear on the U.S. market from Willamette Valley Vineyards in Oregon. The tactic may very well appeal to screwcap-averse American wine drinkers. In a 2004 study, 62% of Americans surveyed said "cheap" was the first word that came to mind when they thought about screwcapped wines. Americans - along with Canadians, Danes and Germans - have been slow to give up the "pop" of their wine-drinking experience. But in other countries, notably the U.K., the acceptance of the screwcap has shot...