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HSBC Sibos Spotlight Podcast Series: Sibos 2024 Survival Guide
17 Plays6 months ago
TMI’s CEO, Robin Page took time out to chat with Xiaoling Che (HSBC) for a crash course in basic Chinese in advance of the 2024 Sibos conference, taking place 21-24 October in Beijing.
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Transcript
Introduction to HSBC Global Viewpoint
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Welcome to HSBC Global Viewpoint, the podcast series that brings together business leaders and industry experts to explore the latest global insights, trends, and opportunities.
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Make sure you're subscribed to stay up to date with new episodes.
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Thanks for listening.
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And now onto today's show.
Special Edition: TreasuryCast Cybos Survival Guide
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Welcome to this special edition of TreasuryCast, a Cyboss survival guide.
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I'm delighted to be joined in the studio by Zhiling Shih, Head of Marketing for Transaction Banking at HSBC.
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Zhiling, welcome.
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Hi, thank you, Robin, for having me on the show.
Navigating Language and Culture in Beijing
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Now, with Cyboss this year at Beijing, I was thinking that for many, this will be their first trip to China and a country where European languages are not widely understood.
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And English, well, only really understood in sort of hotels and in some restaurants.
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And even then one needs to be sort of double checked that one's being fully understood.
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So I thought we could teach our treasury listeners some basic survival Chinese.
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And in my experience, the last 15 years, a little bit of effort to speak the local language goes a great way for that sort of cultural bridge.
Zhiling Shih's Background and Identity
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But first of all, Shalding, tell me a little bit about your family heritage.
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Yeah, sure.
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So I was born and raised in Shanghai, mainland China, and left for university to do my master's degree to Scotland.
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So I've lived in China for about 22 years, and now I've lived in the UK for coming up to about 20 years.
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Shows my age.
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So I'm kind of half Chinese and half British by now.
Understanding Mandarin and Cantonese
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Brilliant.
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Brilliant.
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Now, listen, I'm fascinated with the complexity of the Chinese language.
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And perhaps you could tell our listeners a little bit about the difference between Cantonese, Mandarin, traditional, simplified.
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What's that all about?
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I know it's quite complicated.
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So Mandarin simplified Chinese and Cantonese, which is also called complicated or traditional Chinese.
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They're very different.
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So I grew up and been taught in simplified Chinese, which is also called Mandarin, also called 普通话 when you're in China.
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And they're all the same thing.
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And I don't understand Cantonese, not at all in the spoken form.
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But when I come to reading characters, I can pretty much guess 70 percent what things mean.
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So Cantonese is mostly spoken in southeast of China.
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So namely Hong Kong, Macau, etc.
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and Guangzhou.
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And Mandarin, the simplified Chinese, is mostly spoken in mainland China.
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So a bit of a fun fact.
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Apparently, Mandarin has 10 times more speakers than Cantonese.
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But if you're going around Chinatown and looking to order the right food in places outside of China, like London, Chinatown, for example, Cantonese is a mostly frequently spoken language.
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So they're both useful, depending on where you are.
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So, yeah, and there's like 50,000 characters in the Chinese dictionary and about 20,000 are being used.
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And most educated Chinese will know about 8,000 characters, but only need 2,000 to read a newspaper.
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I mean, it's a vastly complicated language.
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Absolutely.
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And very importantly for any listener coming to Cyboss in Beijing, you'll need to speak Mandarin,
Basic Chinese Phrases for Travelers
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which is also called simplified Chinese.
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Important part.
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Now, talking about which, let's give our listeners the crash course, all the bits that they need to know to survive, what is it, five days in Beijing.
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So now I'm going to put you on the spot, Jalyn.
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So let's start off.
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How do I say hello?
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Ni hao.
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So that's ni hao.
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Perfect.
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I'm a natural.
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Very natural.
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Excellent.
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So that's it.
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Ni hao is your hello.
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So that's obviously greeting.
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And what about thank you?
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That's xie xie.
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Thank you.
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Bukocchi, Bukocchi, Bukocchi.
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Perfect.
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Yeah.
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Bukocchi.
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Bukocchi, Bukocchi.
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Okay.
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So that's Xie Xie and then followed up by Bukocchi.
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Perfect.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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And I think that actually one thing which I would say to our listeners, when arriving in Beijing for your first time, get off the airplane, you've held a taxi.
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This is where, for me anyway, my experience,
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Things have gone horribly wrong.
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And what I would urge you to do is phone your hotel, get through to the reception, and then hand the phone to the driver and just say, please give the driver directions on how to get to my hotel.
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There are about three intercontinentals, about four or five brown plazas.
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and all the major brands are there, and I have many a time been taken to the wrong side of Beijing, and it's a good hour and a half to get to the right side.
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But there we go.
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So let's have that one.
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How about to please take me to my hotel?
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Please take me to hotel.
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Something nice and simple that you can say to the driver.
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Yeah, of course. 请带我去酒店。
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But for goodness sake.
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Or simply if you have a dress and that's what I did in Glasgow, actually, when I first landed in Scotland, I thought I could speak English.
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And then it turns out my English wasn't good enough for the glass region.
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So what I did was I written the dress in the hotel on a piece of paper.
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And that's something you can do as well and take screen grab of the dress and show it to the
Top Tourist Spots and Tips in Beijing
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driver.
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It might make your life a lot easier.
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Yeah, actually, with no offence to our Scottish friends, I wouldn't even be understood up in Glasgow.
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But so, 星大我去九尖?
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Yes, 九尖, hotel, yeah.
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OK, that means that 九尖 hotel.
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So, actually, if you're into just south 九尖, and that means for a hotel.
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Perfect.
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Now, if, and let's hope we don't, but if we do get into trouble in Beijing, and...
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Quite genuinely, you need help from someone on the street or, you know, try to get someone's attention.
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How would I say, please help me?
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You can say, 请帮我。 请帮我。
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Yeah, very simple.
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Ching is please, and you can use it in all different type of situation.
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Oh, ching, okay.
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Yeah, and bang wo is help me.
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Bang wo, okay, bang wo.
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Pretty simple.
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So that's a useful one to have in your pocket, should you need some help or get lost or not being unsure or whatever.
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So brilliant.
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Now, as you find me on the translation list, how would I say I would like to place all my business with HSBC?
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I wish everybody say that to me and to all of my colleagues.
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So the term that you say, you can say, 我想把所有的生意都交给汇丰。 So that's, I, 我想要, I want to,把所有的生意, for all my businesses, to 汇丰银行, which is HSBC.
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Oh, wow.
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So HSBC has its own Chinese name?
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Yes.
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Fantastic.
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I think it's just easier just to pass the mandate over and sign it.
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I'm not even going to start on that one.
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So brilliant.
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Brilliant.
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Okay.
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Right now.
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So Saibos is over and we've got 24 hours before our flight home.
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Now I need some top five things to do in Beijing or maybe a short drive away.
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But what would your first go-to thing to do?
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Saibos has finished.
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We've got 24 hours.
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So I've been to Beijing a few times.
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My personal top favorite is definitely the Forbidden City and the Tianwen Square.
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And they're not far from central.
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So, but be prepared for a lot of queuing.
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And if you can, book it in advance.
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And then secondly, I would highly recommend going for a long walk around the Great War of China.
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And my personal favorite place for a drink is
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is Houhai, which is also called a back lake area.
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So it's a beautiful lake area in central Beijing.
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They're surrounded by bars, restaurants, shops, if you fancy a bit of shopping, souvenir buying, tea houses, opera stage, traditional Beijing courtyard buildings.
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So it's really nice.
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And I went ice skating with my husband once when the lake was frozen.
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So it's a very beautiful area.
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And if you have longer time, if you have more than 24 hours, you wanted to go on a taxi or get to slightly outside of Beijing, then Summer Palace is certainly worth the stroll.
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How fast is Summer Palace from Beijing then?
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I'd say it's less than an hour by car.
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And it has beautiful lakes and stunning gardens.
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Oh, wow.
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Wow.
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So the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, they're side by side.
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So you can do both those together.
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Great Wall of China.
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So there are about four or five places you can go.
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And they're about, what, an hour's taxi, well worth doing.
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But I would wear trainers because I've done it and it's quite steep.
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And it's a good long stretch, I must say.
Travel Tips Beyond Beijing
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So we do the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, quick stretch of the wall, back to Hu Hai for a cold drink.
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Actually, more importantly, how do I say beer in Chinese?
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Ah, pijou.
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That's my husband's favourite word.
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我要啤酒.
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That's I want pijou.
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So that's the only sentence he keeps repeating a lot in China.
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OK, so back to the back leg for pijou.
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And then a long, lengthy summer stroll in the Summer Palace.
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But now for all of those perhaps who managed to steal one or two extra days and tack it on to the end of Saipos, a little bit more time to spare.
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What would your what would your go to be there?
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Well, if you have a bit more time, I would highly recommend a trip to Shanghai.
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My Hongtong is a unique combination between the West and East.
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It has a beautiful traditional gardens and traditional buildings.
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and also a combination of modern worlds featured in one of the James Bond movies which was Skyfall.
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And then secondly, if you have time, bullet train to Xi'an and potentially look at the terracotta warrior and the soldiers.
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It's definitely worth a visit.
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It's amazing.
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Yeah.
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And both actually, I think, so from memory, the bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai is about four hours?
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Yeah.
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And similar to Xi'an is for us.
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So you could, and I know there is a tour, you can do a six o'clock train from Beijing to Xi'an, four hours, four hours doing the terracotta warriors and the horses, and then four hours back.
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So you get back about 10 p.m.
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completely jiggered, but it is doable.
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And one piece of advice on...
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On the bullet train, there is standard class, there is business class and first class, but they call business class first class and first class is called business class.
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So if you want to go first class and there's a lovely VIP carriage at the front, it's business class.
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You buy a business class ticket, not a first class ticket.
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Otherwise you'd be disappointed.
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And it's a great viewing deck and it is the most amazing four hours journey and just see...
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China and the growth of China and all these wonderful cities is quite special, I must say.
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Yeah.
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Now, all of that walking and all that sightseeing is maybe jolly hungry now.
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And I guess no trip to Beijing is complete without eating the famous Peking duck or Beijing roast duck.
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Now, I'm going to jump in with two of my favourites, which is Dardong, which is in the Dongcheng district.
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and Duck Duchin, which is a hidden away, you can't really see it from the road, but it's a wonderful, both of those places I would highly recommend.
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And there's also a restaurant called Made in China and the Grand Hyatt, and there's the Horizon in the Beijing Kerry, both really famous for your Peking duck, very different from the sort of crispy duck you get in the UK.
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Two other places I would recommend also would be there's a Michelin star French restaurant called TRB Hutong.
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I can put it in the comments along with some other things.
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And there's a brilliant dim sum restaurant called Yin Din Juan.
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I think I pronounced that correctly.
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I don't know.
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Yeah.
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Great recommendations.
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I think I haven't been to any of those places that you suggested.
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They are on my to do list now.
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Brilliant.
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What about you?
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Where would you go?
HSBC at Cybos and Closing Remarks
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Well, I would certainly recommend the Mandarin Oriental.
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HSBC is hosting an event there on a Tuesday night.
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So if you haven't connected with the HSBC representative, please do check in with us.
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Yeah.
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So actually on that, what else can we expect from HSBC during Cyprus?
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What have you got on offer apart from obviously Franco, the barrister?
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I hope he's going to be there.
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Absolutely.
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We have the best coffee at Cybors always over the last few years and great people.
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We have amazing people at the stand, some wonderful content, video and creative look and feel.
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So come and visit us.
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And we also have a lot of wonderful branding of HSBC from the moment you arrive in the airport to the coach and all across to the hotels and at Cybors, loads of great content and speakers.
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Mostly I look forward to seeing you all in Beijing.
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Fantastic.
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And so all that leaves me to say is zaijian.
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Perfect pronunciation.
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I'm impressed.
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Tell the listeners what that means.
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That means goodbye.
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Yeah, zaijian and see you soon.
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OK, Xiaolin, thank you so much.
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It's been great to have you.
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Thank you, Robin.
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Thank you for joining us at HSBC Global Viewpoint.
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We hope you enjoyed the discussion.
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