"Now the Chinese are second after the Dutch in overnight stays," Mr. Noll continued, adding that about 100,000 Chinese citizens visited Trier [Germany] last year, and about 40,000 of them spent at least one night.
"And they come all year," he said, "even in the low season."
Try to guess why, but you will find the answer under the fold...
Trier is a worthy destination by any standard, having impressive and
important Roman ruins as well as an 11th century cathedral built in the
very place where Emperor Constantine’s mother first built a church in
the fourth century.But the Chinese clearly come to see the
place where Marx was born in 1818 [my emphasis], and the local authorities try to
take full advantage of it, promoting their city in China itself and
with the travel agencies that serve Chinese tourists.They even
offer cultural sensitivity training for merchants, restaurateurs and
others in Trier, instructing them in the finer points of dealing with
Chinese customers. The number 250, for example, which is a kind of
slang for "stupid" in Chinese, is to be avoided, and so is wrapping
paper in white, the color of funereal robes, or yellow, by custom
reserved for the emperor. It is also important to hand over visiting
cards rather formally, with two hands, not just one.
Here is the full story.
Well, the NYSE used increments of 1/8 of a dollar for increments of stock prices until just a few years ago. That was an artifact of the US dollar having been adopted from the Spanish dollar with its “pieces of eight” and picayunes, which were half of those. A quarter being “two bits” is also a remnant of that, even though with our having no half or quarter pennies, we are not able to use such units as media of exchange, only as units of account.
tylerh,
You may be right about the 1/8 tick in the stock market, although I have
not double checked. But in the Jeffersonian range/secton system, the section
is one ninth of a range, so ninths not quarters, at least at that level.
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