Symptoms of excessive caffeine intake include restlessness, insomnia, gastrointestinal discomfort, cardiac arrhythmia and random muscle twitching. Yet insufficient caffeine intake leads directly to mental and physical sluggishness, and is strongly correlated with a tendency among staff to miss project deadlines and blow sales leads.

Employers in the United States typically walk this fine line by promoting self-medication through free soda kitchens. As staff in China are rarely accustomed to this sort of perk, once you've begun hiring you will need to be more proactive about medicating your employees. But how aggressive should you be? Is the drip really necessary? Join us in this podcast as we share some more subtle techniques we use at Popup Chinese to keep staff working far longer than is reasonable without the need for constant injections.
 said on
April 12, 2010
I think the staff at some of the Chinese companies I've seen would actually take the drip without flinching. Assuming they'd get to sit down while doing it.
 said on
April 12, 2010
Hi! Could you give me the Chinese name of that movie again? It wasn't clear in the podcast.
 said on
April 12, 2010
Hi Susan,

The film is 张艺谋's 有话好好说. IMDB link here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120543/

"Great movie." (running commentary from Brendan here - we're in the middle of a recording session....)
 said on
April 13, 2010
I believe the peasant in question here hails from Henan. The distinctive "中!" was a dead giveaway. Good movie indeed.
 said on
April 14, 2010
@paglino9,

hehe, in Shandong we also say 中!!!It's ok. 不中!!!No.咋不中?Why not?

 said on
April 15, 2010
Thanks for taking the time during your recording session! Sure hope it has English subtitles--can't do without them yet.
 said on
November 16, 2010
@Trevelyan,

你说得一点都没错!《有话好好说》这部电影真好看!两个名人,赵本山还有张艺谋在这个电影里演过民工的角色,真好玩!

更何况看这部电影我学会了一些(河南)方言。

有人来问问我,《有话好好说》这部电影好不好看的话,你知道我会说什么吗?

你猜对了,“中”!

有人不让我看《有话好好说》而凭这个电影“不中”这个道理的话我会闹了,“咋不中?”

Anyway, “Be Cool” was a pretty cool movie. I'd recommend it to my friends.
 said on
November 16, 2010
@Paglino9.

The peasant in question was played by none other than director Zhang Yi Mou himself.