Navigating Domain Brokerage in China with Kris Hou | Saw.com

Speaker 1: 0:00

Today on the uncomfortable podcast with Jeffrey Gabriel, we dive into Chinese negotiation strategies, their culture and, of course, domains. Our guest to do it with is Chris Howe. Chris and I have worked together for seven years and he's best known for such sales as coolcom, fancycom, perfectcom, kecom the list goes on. Chris is going to give us some valuable insights into the Chinese buying behaviors, cultural differences and, of course, a little bit of the Chinese involvement, of the government's involvement. But before we begin, please make sure to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio. You can watch us on YouTube. You can also visit wwwsodcom or you can always send us an email to buzzedsodcom. And thank you for listening. All right, Today on our show we have a domain broker, Chris Howe, who we have worked together for just under seven years. He's worked with me here at SODcom for three. Chris initially started his career selling insurance for Prudential Insurance in China and he's been born and raised in China to a military family and he moved around China quite often as a child and then moved to England Manchester, England for college and pretty much never left Getting right into it. Being a domain broker, Chris has worked on countless different opportunities with me. He has sold tens of millions of dollars worth of domain sales and I thought, talking to him about the Chinese market, the perception of the Chinese towards certain domains and what they like, what the meanings are of certain things, of letters and numbers, and then going over his resume a little bit with you to show you of his experience. So some of the names that he has sold while we've worked together are coolcom, commentcom, perfectcom, kecom, virtualcom and even fancycom. Those are all really great names. One word, com, powerful names worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. But they're not all winners and you've sold many of thousand dollar, two thousand, five thousand dollar sales as well, and you know your five, ten, twenty thousand dollar names are obviously the most common, which a lot of the times take the most amount of time and the most amount of work. So I'm going to get right into it with you, Chris, Now that you've been selling domains for seven years and working with being fluent in English and fluent in Mandarin.

Speaker 1: 2:56

One of the things myself, as being in the domain business for now almost 14 years, was surprising to me was when I got into it and starting to deal with the people in China and the way that they negotiate and the way that they approach different opportunities. And one of the things that always made me scratch my head was is why is it that, if somebody wants to buy a domain name from China from somebody from, say, the United States or Canada or someone like that, that either themselves will pretend that they're multiple people or they will hire multiple brokerages to all converge on the same domain name at the same time? What is the thinking in the strategy there? Because in the United States, if I'm a domain owner, I would think, holy shit, there's a lot of people who want to buy this. I better raise the price or I better wait it out to see what people do. All of those are not beneficial to the person in the end writing the check for the domain name. So why does a Chinese buyer think that that is a good strategy?

Speaker 2: 4:03

Yeah, good question. So basically, I think that's part of the culture. I think it's not just Chinese culture, it's more like Asian culture. When people are buying something, they always want to compare prices. They always use those. I'm sure you get a lot of comparison website in the US If you're buying home insurance or car insurance. You just try different companies and get different quotes. Same as buying domain name buyers. They always want to try to use different brokers and then get a domain name. Whoever quotes him the lowest possible price, he'll use that broker and get a domain name. That's just a simple way that Asians. I think most of the scenarios are not helpful. It's kind of give this seller a feeling that there are many buyers interested in acquiring the domain name. I gotta raise the price or do a bidding war, but in the end there's only maybe just one or two buyers there. This thing is like deep in the culture. Even myself, if I'm buying something on Alibaba, I talk to different shops, ask for discounts all the time.

Speaker 1: 5:40

But the thing is the difference is if you're gonna buy a television and you look at at least the United States had Best Buy and you go look at Target, you look at Walmart and, even if it's all the same, sony television it's obviously up to them to they might have promotions with the manufacturer or they are willing to make a lower margin on the sale.

Speaker 1: 6:00

But there is, in essence, an unlimited number of those TVs to choose from, and so going and offering, making bad offers at all three of those places don't really affect the price of the TV it's a question of whether the retailers willing to make nothing on the sale or lose money on the sale to get the sale. But the difference is is that there's only one TV to be had in all the land and everybody is going to the guy who owns the only TV.

Speaker 1: 6:30

And then when making all these offers from all various places and IP addresses and companies and places like that, don't you think that that would make the seller kind of shut down and make the price as favorable, I mean, I would think the outcome is you know, it's hard to break culture, right, Because I guess people don't think into it as that much because we're on this side of the fence. But you know, thinking about it that way, you know, kind of leaves me scratching my head, right?

Speaker 2: 6:57

Yeah, it's a little bit annoying sometimes. You know we represent the seller most of the times we knew that. You know the broker is trying different ways to try to get this domain name. But I mean, if they believe this works, we just have to let them waste a bit of time and then give up different brokers and then choose one broker to talk to us. That's it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:26

Understood.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:28

All right.

Speaker 1: 7:28

So, moving on, and typically from what we've experienced with the Chinese market in general, is that they really like onewordcoms that are pretty popular words in the English language, like coolcom that you sold to you know, a Chinese company, yeah, and many other single words that are, you know, normal understood words in the US. But at the same time as again, something I didn't understand when I got into the industry is the Chinese culture is wrapped around a lot of numbers, and culture is also various letters and strings that don't really make sense to people from the English speaking culture, right, and so when you see those letters together, it's an unpronounceable string of letters, right, whether it's two, three, four, five letters, and it means nothing. And even if you were to pronounce those letters out loud in Mandarin, a lot of those times wouldn't make a lot of sense, but phonetically they mean something. So why don't you tell us a little bit about numbers and how they relate and what, how much they mean in the Chinese culture, and then we can get more into the alphabet and the letters?

Speaker 2: 8:40

next, yeah, so generally numbers is is deeply attached to the Chinese culture as well, for thousands of years. I mean, I don't want to go into too much details. Obviously we can talk about this for like probably a few hours, until tomorrow, but you know.

Speaker 1: 9:07

We've got all the time in the world we don't move it on the podcast. Let's go.

Speaker 2: 9:11

Yeah, so I just want to share some simple, interesting, you know facts. You know like Number four so means that because it has the same pronunciation at that in Chinese. So so people don't really liked number four, especially on the fourth floor or the 14th floor or on the fourth floor.

Speaker 2: 9:43

is is just normally the fourth floor and 14th floor will be on any you know apartment buildings or even like commercial buildings will be empty or just leave it as a storage thing so nobody wants to work there. You know there's this, there's there's no even like 14th or about.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Let's get this so. So in the US, 13th floor and a lot of hotels and other commercial buildings don't exist.

Speaker 2: 10:17

So it's similar, a similar thing, right? Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1: 10:21

But the number three isn't considered bad in the US, right? But you're telling me that in China, if you have the fourth, the 14th, the 24th, 34th, 44th, going on and on having a floor ending in four is not a good idea, right? No, so do they skip the fourth, 14th, 24th, 34th, 44th floors every time there's a four?

Speaker 2: 10:46

Not everybody want to skip this, but if it's a business owner, it seems it's not a lucky sign. You know people will tend to go to the sixth floor, eighth floor or ninth floor and try to stay away from. You know, the levels got four involved, especially 14th. It's like it means like going to die. So what is what is four for me? So it's still not very good. But you know, if I'm a business owner in China, I skip, you know, fourth floor. I'll stay away from there. I'll go to third or fifth or sixth, which is I prefer, you know.

Speaker 1: 11:36

you know it's just a bit of a culture thing, thinking, and then in the Chinese culture would, even though I say I'm building a commercial building and you have the first floor, second floor, third floor, fourth floor, like in the real plans. But if it goes first, second, third, fifth, people know it's the fourth floor.

Speaker 1: 11:55

Yeah Well, they still skip it and still want the sixth over the fifth, because they know it's the fourth and they know that after the third floor things are all off. Or is it really just the number that makes it unlucky?

Speaker 2: 12:06

They will build fourth floor but you probably a low roof floor, and then for storage purposes only, like I said, oh, really, yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:15

Okay, they put all like the ace units in there or something like that.

Speaker 2: 12:18

Yeah, yeah exactly, yeah, like, and they do put like different, you know stuff in there and then on the 14th floor, I think on most of the residential buildings there won't be a 14th floor. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Do you think to this day that when people talk about that, they say, oh, that's an old wives tale. Or like a black cat crossing your path or walking under a ladder in the US where you know, 100 years ago people like actually believed in some of that crap, but now they don't really pay that close attention to it? Do you think in China that the newer generations don't pay as close attention to the number four or the meaning of that?

Speaker 2: 12:58

Yeah, yeah, I think they still do. I mean it's deeply into the culture and in mind. I mean you get to know this since you start talking and learning stuff around and then it's deeply attached. I mean there are people they don't care. I mean that's fine. I mean I think I heard of there were people buying cheaper house or cheap apartment on fourth floor, or even they have a 14th floor. They want to buy it for cheap. That makes sense.

Speaker 1: 13:32

Yeah, it's like the same as my wife doesn't. We were looking at buying houses and there was one near a cemetery, like right next door.

Speaker 2: 13:38

She wasn't having it. She's not moving there.

Speaker 1: 13:41

No, I would never, that's your best neighbor you're ever going to have. What are you talking about?

Speaker 2: 13:48

All right, I've never, never I wouldn't leave.

Speaker 1: 13:55

Would you rather live next to a jail than a cemetery? Yeah, really. Yeah, I'll live next to a jail. Okay, so let's move on to some other numbers. So I know that six is means like wealth and prosperity. You know, triple six in the United States Eight. Six is luck. Yeah, okay, yeah. But in the US, triple six is like the devil. Yeah, I know, you know. So six is luck. And if you had 666, which is a really strong term 666.com, how would you pronounce? You just say the same name, same word, three times.

Speaker 2: 14:37

We'd probably say it like triple sixcom.

Speaker 1: 14:40

You'd say triple six. Yeah, you wouldn't say. How would you say six in Mandarin Lil.

Speaker 2: 14:47

Mil M-I-L, no, l-i-u like Lil yeah. I pronounced that wrong.

Speaker 1: 14:53

So lu, lu lu.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, online gambling companies would love to have a website like that, but probably blocked by the government in a few months. And then you know we have a website that's like you know.

Speaker 1: 15:10

We have a website, that's like you know. You know you can get into that in a minute. Yeah, so we have four, six, and then, you know, I've always seen like Chinese restaurants called Dragon88, dragon.

Speaker 2: 15:20

Dynasty, eight stuff like that. So what does eight mean? Eight means wealth, which you know. Business people love that.

Speaker 1: 15:31

I used to work on 18th floor for potential. Yeah, hey how you doing All right, so keep going. I used to work in the 18th floor.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Yeah, I used to work on 18th floor in central Beijing for potential insurance. I mean, you know they pay a lot of money for the floor, like every year, so, and then potential is a British insurance company and then, yeah, they were team up with the city group in China. So you know, even British have to to take Feng Shui thing seriously in China.

Speaker 1: 16:21

Okay, yeah, Got it. And do you at your own personal house? You're talking about Feng Shui. Do you actually have your bed pointed in a certain direction and things in your house in certain ways?

Speaker 2: 16:33

Good question. I mean I turn not to like the previous thing we discussed. I would never live in a cemetery or close to a cemetery or within a mile in a cemetery, because that's it's not something that you know. Like my mom always said, we have to respect the people that passed away. That's why we don't really celebrate like Halloween in China.

Speaker 2: 17:03

You know, on the Halloween, there's, like we call it more like a ghost festival in China. We burn paper money, like fake money to family members that passed away. And then you know we, we, we, we, we pour wine and bring home cooked food. You know, you know to to remember them, to, to tell them we still miss them, and you know we, we do things like this. We don't really celebrate. Oh, like with, with ghosts and stuff is it's quite an important thing in China. You know, in Asia, cultures, you know ghosts and humans are two different things. You go separate ways, you don't interfere with them.

Speaker 1: 17:55

Yeah, I think. I think the thing is with the US and Halloween. Was it had to do with more or less the end of the harvest before the winter?

Speaker 2: 18:03

Oh right, Okay, Right.

Speaker 1: 18:05

So it's like it's like you need to be done harvesting your crops, and then it just kind of turned into this party that had to do with the harvest, but then they added in like ghouls and ghosts and kind of commercialize it.

Speaker 2: 18:16

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was all about.

Speaker 1: 18:18

I think it was just all about death it's not like in Mexico a day at the Muerte, where they have sugar spells and things like that, all right. So let's play a game. Okay, I got dice to my kids. Okay, in their game I actually have five dice, but we're going to roll. We're going to start with three dice and we're going to roll them right now. Actually, let's do four first, let's make it now. Let's do three first, let's make it complicated, all right. So 362 or 236 or 632, or however you want to do it. What would that mean if you had those in order? 236.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Okay. So if it's 236, it's got a six in the end. Which online gambling companies would love to have that? And then, on the other hand, they call it a really good chip, you know, because two times three equals six. You know domain names like 236 or 248, you know, is just loved by these online gambling companies in China, or you know how would you market that to people that they would know to go to that domain to make it?

Speaker 1: 19:41

It's just a shot.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Yeah, it's just a shot, easy to remember and catchy domain name. You know I could never get the what gambling companies you know really like, but these 236 or 248, they definitely love it.

Speaker 1: 20:03

And so, even though depth is in the middle of the two and the eight, they like it, because it's two times four is eight.

Speaker 2: 20:08

That's right. Yeah, it's not a bad thing then. No, no, it's not. If it's just 48 or 46, it's still a good one because it's very short, only two digit. But it depends on different, you know online gambling companies, they always want like six or eight. In the end, they'd love it.

Speaker 1: 20:37

So what about one, the number one?

Speaker 2: 20:39

One is is less popular, I think, but it's not as less popular as just number four. Okay, so if it's 111, okay, that's really good. 123, really good, you know, but there are still big companies are using one at the beginning, like 188.com. The company span like probably $3 million or 2. Something million dollars bought 188.com. 163.com is a very popular like like online news website in China.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Well, I remember when we had pagers in the US. 143 means I believe I love you right? Does that? Does that mean that in Mandarin.

Speaker 2: 21:28

No, I love you, in Mandarin will be 520.com. 520. Yeah, 520. Yeah, so it's yeah, I mean I love you in text.

Speaker 1: 21:40

I'm looking at it back in the 90s and pagers are widely used. 143 was a quick way of saying it. Each number of 143 contains the letters of each word. One is love, four is you three, I don't know. But there you go.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Okay, yeah, good to know that.

Speaker 1: 21:57

So it's funny how it doesn't translate over, because you would think that in the Chinese market they make, they made the pagers, and 100 years before people were using numbers. But then it was created in the US in a different way. Yeah, it's quite different, but it's good to know that you have a number culture as well, that's.

Speaker 2: 22:16

that's something pretty new to me.

Speaker 1: 22:19

Yeah, all right, so I'm going to, I'm going to roll a five dice right here. Let's see. So at one point when Chris and I first started working together, the Chinese market got really hot and at the time when we worked at Uniregistry, we had a handful of clients that, over the years prior, purchased and owned a lot of two digitcoms, three digitcoms, four digitcoms, five digitcoms, and then two letter, three letter, four letter and some five lettercoms as well. And at the peak of the market, I would probably say it was 2014,.

Speaker 1: 22:57

2015 to the Chinese market.

Speaker 2: 22:59

Yeah, 15 or 16. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:02

Right, those names were being sold for considerable amounts of money and we can get into why they were selling for that and what they're referred to. But let's do one roll the dice of five dice. Let's see how lucky we are today. All right, one, two, three, four. Oh my God, look at this it was. I can't tilt my. Let me see my desk here it was one, two, three, four, five. Oh, I guess I'm not that lucky. I'm not going to do it, but that's where it is. That's what it says One, two, three, four, five. So I'll take a picture it just.

Speaker 2: 23:41

it doesn't have any meanings, but it's a great great domain name. I mean your hands are hot today, you should go do it. There's four, three, five, nice, nice.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Has no meaning. It's just a good brand, so easy to remember, you know.

Speaker 2: 24:07

I mean, I'm sure one, two, three, four, fivecom is owned by an online gambling company. I'm sure of it. They'd pay. I think they'd pay, at least, at least high five figures for this.

Speaker 1: 24:21

The most. Five-digit or six-digit names don't really mean anything these days, right.

Speaker 2: 24:27

No, I mean if it's five, two zero 99,. It'll be interesting. That means I love you forever. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:38

But the ones that don't really have much meaning or a very broad meaning, they're kind of not the market for those is what?

Speaker 2: 24:43

Just a standard five-digit yeah just a standard five-digit five-numbercom, but actually, if you talk to someone from an online gambling industry, they'll explain to you more about all these combinations because they have the idea about how to brand it, how to market it, and then from different ways.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Well, like in the US, in the US you have some pretty famous zip codes or five-digits right. So the most famous of them all is Beverly Hills 90210.

Speaker 2: 25:19

All right yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:19

If you own that, that's worth a lot of money. If you had a clothing store named 90210, that would be a great brand in the US.

Speaker 1: 25:26

In the United States, new York City's zip code, which I think is not as important as it was before. But being in sales for 20 years now, you get to know figure out zip codes and then area codes on phone numbers, which are three digits. I would know that 646 is Westchester County in New York where there's a lot of money. So if you have a sales lead with a 646 number it's worth something. 617 is Metropolitan Boston, 212 is New York as well.

Speaker 1: 25:53

You know those are valuable but like an Arkansas one, typically people in Arkansas don't have as much money as somebody in New York so you know instantly, you start to learn the area codes where the best leads are from, and so you just glance at a phone number and know and same with a zip code or an area, and those numbers are valuable. All right, so let's talk about letters. Yeah, so letters are similar in a lot of ways to numbers, where in the US language, in most cases you say like three or four letters, which would be considered an acronym. That has a meaning in a lot of ways, like USA, right, there's value there, but the U doesn't mean a million different things and the S doesn't mean a million different things and it doesn't usually like flow into something, unless it is a considered a word. So I asked you ahead of time for some examples. Ymsdcom, you said, is domain shop.

Speaker 2: 26:54

How would you? Pronounce that you don't really pronounce it, it's just like YM means domain.

Speaker 1: 27:03

How would you say domain in Mandarin?

Speaker 2: 27:05

Yuming like Y U M I N G. That's like the first letter of a domain name YM.

Speaker 1: 27:16

So is Ming the word name and you is the word name. Yeah, that's right. So what's another word that would go with name that starts with Y? Why would you assume that that's domain?

Speaker 2: 27:29

Yeah, good question If you're from the main industry and you own YMcom and then you know that's one of the best domain names you can.

Speaker 1: 27:39

So it's just associated with the group of people that you happen to be talking to, that they should know, but that Y could mean a million other things.

Speaker 2: 27:46

Yeah, that's right. It has probably another 30, 50 other meanings or other words.

Speaker 1: 27:53

So if I have K H S D, it would be Chris Howe shop.

Speaker 2: 28:00

K H S D okay. K H means like clients.

Speaker 1: 28:08

Clients, customers, meeting. So you're so good at saying K? H equals customers, yeah. And then S? D would mean shop, yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:15

S, d has other meanings like wait, like speed time you know, lock or feel you know. There's just so many meanings, I know. That's why I'm getting into details, you know, yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:34

So let me ask you this right? So if someone owned a domain shop, they wanted to call or register our YM which obviously that sounds like a really good shorthanded way or acronym to call you know, register or more domain brokerage.

Speaker 1: 28:51

But if somebody bought a billboard and put it up in Beijing with just Y Y, m S, dcom on it, or even dot, cn Like that's, that's pretty much a pointless ad because there's just so many meanings to what that could be. So you would have to then obviously do a lot more further branding. Yeah, understand what you're offering, right.

Speaker 2: 29:12

So it's a pretty broad keyword.

Speaker 1: 29:13

It's almost like owning the domain cardcom. You think of greeting cards, business cards, you know, credit cards, you know playing cards like just all kinds of different things right, is it? That it's like almost that broad, like a shotgun spray of possibilities. Yeah, that's right. Okay, yeah, well, that makes sense, all right, so you guys don't really have, or the Chinese cultures don't really have, vowels, right? You don't really use vowels.

Speaker 2: 29:45

It depends If, let's say, if it's VVcom, vvvcom.

Speaker 1: 29:53

That's really good Victor, victor Victor.

Speaker 2: 29:55

Yeah, yeah, that's really good Like it completely depends on.

Speaker 1: 29:59

V is not a vowel A, e, I, o, u and sometimes Y.

Speaker 2: 30:05

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:06

So it's a vowel in the US. The letter V, you've told me, isn't really being used in the Chinese culture. No At all. Either right and X. Right or no. X is being used in the Chinese culture X is being used Well actually.

Speaker 2: 30:18

I mean because the Chinese culture has combined a lot of like other Asian cultures and even like US cultures and you know European cultures as well. So people are. You know the culture is always developing. You know it's changing. It's going to be like quite different from now compared to 50 years ago. So I'm sure, like all these vowels are being used in different ways in business, like in branding in the maze, and I think all these vowels are. I mean, the value is definitely slightly lower but if you use it in the right ways, it can be very brandable and catchy.

Speaker 1: 31:05

Got it.

Speaker 2: 31:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:08

Um. So let's go over a couple more quick. Jkkl means health and happy, yeah. Jkus means joke yeah, you know? Um, I don't know what the KL would mean.

Speaker 2: 31:20

KL is like happy. Uh, you know you want to. If you own JKLcom, you probably can builda like a kids like show website. Um yeah, so. So so you know the the meaning could be like health and happy. You know it's kind of good for the kids.

Speaker 1: 31:45

Okay, so, moving on um, from that, let's go back to 2015, 2016, 2017. Yeah, you know, crypto is really cooking then going up substantially. There was a lot of you know interest in that. Um. The Chinese market was buying mostly, you know, two letter, two digit, three letter, three digit, four letter and some four digit and then up to five digit dot coms.

Speaker 1: 32:13

I saw some people like six and seven digits for sale, um, and what people were doing and correct me if I'm wrong is they were buying these different names based on the quality that we went over for different reasons. Some were better than others and when they would buy that in China, um, they would call it a chip because they can put their money into that, and then there was always kind of like a value. So, in essence, it was almost like the first cryptocurrency, because it went up and down so fast and people were able to use them to get money out of China, because they could buy it with their Chinese money and then sell it in the United States and have a US bank account and get their money put in there.

Speaker 1: 32:52

Or they could just hold on to it as something like a Bitcoin or a Bitcoin or something like that as well, but with crypto and different regulations, the Chinese government didn't really have limitations on the amount of money people could spend on domains for a period of time, right, but then that changed in the last few years. Am I right about that?

Speaker 2: 33:14

Yeah, so, um, it's uh, it's a bit complicated to explain that. You know, because of the? Um the Cold War. What's the Chinese government doing? Um, you know, on different things. I'm I, to be honest, I I don't want to, you know, go into details, but people in China tend to move their properties, um uh, or money or their fortunes out of China into um, put them into different bank accounts in different countries, like, um in the UK, uh in Singapore, in Japan, in Korea, in the US, which is um you know, a lot of Chinese uh uh have saving accounts in the US, um, because also, in the in in in, like Vancouver we've seen the price of real estate is absolutely astronomical because the Chinese have have come in there and bought.

Speaker 2: 34:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:13

Very trendy place to buy. We saw when I first started coming to Manchester working at Uniregistry. Yeah, chinese investors started coming into Manchester to buy commercial properties and and residential properties. Yeah, and the prices just went, you know, through the roof. And so to the building right so people could get money out of China.

Speaker 2: 34:30

Yeah, actually, um one of one of my friends, uh one of uh uh the a good friend of mine who I met at uh potential insurance. This guy bought like five apartments in Manchester.

Speaker 1: 34:45

So there you go, cause they're. They're well priced and the rent supported it right, yeah. And they're doing good investment for his and get his money out of China. But recently, to my understanding, china has started to tighten their grip on the money leaving their country, which has affected people investing from China and crypto and those buying those four letter, three letter, four digit, three digit domains right.

Speaker 1: 35:10

And they put a limitation on a common person without a license of $50,000 a year, right. So if I wanted to spend $100,000 on a condo in Manchester or use it as a down payment as a, as a standard Chinese or a normal Chinese citizen, I wouldn't be allowed to do that. Is that what is happening there?

Speaker 2: 35:32

Yeah, it happens a lot. I mean uh, one of the. I think the most important reason that Chinese are trying to invest uh internationally is because you know the political side of uh. You know reasons Um, the Cold War between China and America and even the Cold War between China and European are getting more and more concerns Um it's, um, it's it's. It's hard to explain, but they just don't feel it's a safe environment to invest in China. Uh, in, in in all the markets Um, you know the the currently the um, the stock market, the profit market in China are all going downhill since the pandemic.

Speaker 2: 36:30

You know people are losing like confidence to throw money in there. I mean, uh, a lot of people lost a lot of money in there as well. It's, and there are no other ways to invest in China. So that's why people start buying cryptos and buying domain names. And then you know, move.

Speaker 1: 36:52

I would think there's a lot of Chinese citizens that, let's say, you know you had $50,000 in the bank. Then the idea would be is every week you go and take a thousand dollars out and hide it under your bed because you're afraid that maybe the government will take it from you. Is there that kind of fear, or is there no fear in that it's more like your? Your money would just sit there stagnant because that's right.

Speaker 2: 37:12

Yeah, it's more, more about just losing value. It's not about a government taking the money.

Speaker 1: 37:18

It's not that's me as a crazy Westerner saying the Chinese government will just take their money and do what they want.

Speaker 2: 37:25

It won't happen to ordinary people.

Speaker 1: 37:29

Uh-huh.

Speaker 1: 37:29

So let's pretend you know you're back in China and you wanted to buy a property in Manchester and you get a hundred thousand dollar down payment and you're going to get a loan, you know for whatever amount of money, and you go to send the money. You have to go down to the bank to wire the money, so you're going to go over your. You go over your limits, so they're going to ask you why you want to send it and you have to wait for them to say no to you. Is that kind of how it works?

Speaker 2: 37:51

Yeah, so in China every citizen will have like $50,000 US dollar limits to wire money out of China every year. So if it's over $50,000, they will ask you what is this money for? They will ask you about money laundering. You know questions. And then if you say I'm looking to purchase a house or a property, a real estate property, some country, they ask you to fill in a form and they want to charge you tax.

Speaker 1: 38:27

Okay, you can still get the money out.

Speaker 2: 38:29

You can still get the money out. But this was about like this kind of they kind of raised the bar like since about three, four years ago.

Speaker 1: 38:40

Okay, so it's a lot harder yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:41

It's a lot harder. So that's why crypto currencies and domain names are so popular for investors to kind of use them as a tool to move money out of China.

Speaker 1: 38:54

Okay. Yeah, and then so is that on a like you know, if I sent 50 grand today, is that reset on the Chinese New Year or is that 12 months like kind of roll?

Speaker 2: 39:04

like 12 months.

Speaker 1: 39:08

So what do you mean?

Speaker 2: 39:09

So like, yeah, it'll be like from January, the 1st, to December the 30th or the 31st. You got you can buy it 50k out, got it?

Speaker 1: 39:18

So then the calendar year changes and then you get another 50 grand and another 50 grand yeah, so then what would happen? I apply you go to do buy this place and I just say, hey, yeah, I'm buying it with Chris and I got 50, he's got 50. We both, why are there? They're really not going to say much, are they?

Speaker 2: 39:33

Because they will. They will ask for a contract and then see the details, and then all they're trying to do is stop you buying money out of China. So so they all, they want to charge you tax for it. Okay, yeah, so interesting, All right.

Speaker 1: 39:51

So moving on from that is one of the things that I've noticed selling domain names to Chinese citizens is that we use escrowcom you know quite a bit as an escrow company. We use escrowcom domains as an escrow company. Why is it that, if they're limited, buyers are limited to paying $50,000 a year out? Why isn't that? Typically Chinese buyers of domain names are really against paying for domains on a payment plan. I would think that they'd want to pay on a payment plan to spread out you know that amount of money, but it seems like whenever we pitch the idea of a payment plan, a Chinese person is adamantly against not doing it. Why do you think that's the case?

Speaker 2: 40:33

Yeah. So I think it's just it kind of made the buyer feel insecure about the whole thing. So you you normally if it's a payment plan, you do like 30% down payment and then you pay the rest, let's say, within six months or within a year. But for payment plan they feel like I paid like 30% but I'm still not the owner. What if the owner changed his mind? I then I can't get my money back, or they want to. They want a lot more than than the original price we agree to, and even explaining that espritcom holds the domain and they're going to connect with it.

Speaker 2: 41:16

No, they wouldn't believe it.

Speaker 1: 41:18

They wouldn't trust it because I wouldn't trust it in China either. So I don't blame them if it was the other way around, I'm just curious.

Speaker 2: 41:26

Yeah, but the other reason is when situations like this, If the seller, let's say if the seller, changed their mind, we probably have to go to the court and then you know that would. That means extra costs on the lawyers and international, maybe traveling.

Speaker 1: 41:47

But they can do the same and like escrowcom, they don't trust it. When you pay the full amount can then just keep the money and never transfer the name. I mean, there's that still that possibility? Then you know, still the spending risk. I mean, it's just drawn out longer, but it's still a similar risk that you're taking right Rather than okay.

Speaker 1: 42:06

Yeah, I'm gonna go here on a left field question what language do you dream in, since you're so well versed in Mandarin and in English and you speak pretty much perfect English with me, and then, obviously, at home with your wife and children? We're both from China, or all three of them are from China. You speak Mandarin, so what, when you have dreams at night? What?

Speaker 2: 42:32

language is it? I think I speak Chinese. Yeah, I feel yeah, okay. All my dreams, most of my dreams. I think it's all about something happened in China when I was a kid, or when I was with families, and then you know, I think most of my dreams are in Chinese. Okay, yeah. I never had a dream that I was wearing like a British, like knight armor sword, killing a dragon or something. I haven't had one of those yet either.

Speaker 1: 43:08

All right, so then let me ask you this question as well. So you've lived in, you know the Western world in Manchester now since you know college. Until now I know you went back for a short period of time, but then you're back to England. So you've been in England for like 15 or 20 years now, yeah, and then you lived in you know China for actually less time, if you actually think about that.

Speaker 2: 43:31

Yeah, but you grew up in the military, as I mentioned before.

Speaker 1: 43:34

What's the biggest difference for your kids living in England and growing up, born and raised there, and you know you growing up as someone where your dad was in the Chinese military.

Speaker 2: 43:45

Yeah, so, yeah, it's quite different. To be honest, my dad was born in a small village in Shandong province, china. So his life, if he stayed there, he's going to be a farmer or some construction worker in that small village or in Shandong province for the rest of his life. When he was 16, he decided to make huge change to join the military, and then he was only 16. Yeah, so he traveled like thousands, over a thousand miles to a different province, joined the Air Force and became a pilot for five years and then start doing like ground, like officer works after that.

Speaker 2: 44:39

My dad was a very strict father. I mean, I can be quite honest with you, he was very strict to me but I wasn't listening to all his orders. I mean, I'm sure you can imagine, you know what. I remember one of the joke my friend kept mentioning. It's not a joke, it's something happened to me when I was in middle school, that's like seventh or eighth grade. In the US we have to do the like a thousand meter run test to go to high school. My dad was dragging me out of the bed and then run, practicing the thousand meter run with me every morning, almost every morning, and then my classmates or, you know, classmates from other levels. They saw my dad kicking me in the butt, chasing me in the playground and forced me to run that to. You know, it was just. You don't get too many.

Speaker 1: 45:48

He was treating you like a recruit.

Speaker 2: 45:49

That's what he said yeah, yeah, like some soldier in the military, like he was very strict, he doesn't care, like who is around he just want me to get the job done and then go home.

Speaker 1: 46:02

That's it yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:06

A lot of my classmates in middle school did remember that moment, and then they kept asking me about how is your dad still treating you the same way? Well, I mean, my dad is a very good father, you know.

Speaker 1: 46:22

But I mean, you told me that when you were a little kid, sometimes like the military car would come pick you up.

Speaker 2: 46:27

Yeah all the time. Yeah, that's like you know the military car we were driving to my school. You picked me up in front of thousands of students.

Speaker 1: 46:39

But it wouldn't be your dad driving. It would be like a friend. No, it wouldn't be my dad.

Speaker 2: 46:42

No, it would be my dad's driver, and then it was.

Speaker 1: 46:45

So you were driven around like a general in the back of the military car.

Speaker 2: 46:49

Yeah, you know, I kind of. Yeah, I took a lot of advantage of that sometimes. You know they, you know the military cars can go through the red lights, they don't have to stop.

Speaker 1: 47:02

Okay.

Speaker 2: 47:04

And they can drive on a one-way traffic road. You know, I'm not proud of this, I'm not proud of this, but I feel like, okay, that's just wrong.

Speaker 1: 47:16

How often are you seeing military cars in and around China driving around? I can't imagine you see them that often. You have to see them once in a while.

Speaker 2: 47:25

Yeah, you don't see military cars too much on the road, but if it's officers car, they will have special place like registration plates like AF-001, AF-002. Yeah, so, yeah, so with a military sign on it. So I was All right. So let's move on.

Speaker 1: 47:51

What are your feelings? And then we'll wrap it up, because we're getting right close to an hour and this is where we want to kind of keep. It is Well, most importantly, how can people contact you if they have some questions about their own domains or they want to work with you or talk to you more about the Chinese market?

Speaker 2: 48:08

You can always send me a LinkedIn message or just search on Google chrishowcom, you can find me, or you can email me at chrishowcom. So that's chriswithk K-R-I-S at s-a-wcom.

Speaker 1: 48:25

What's your WeChat?

Speaker 2: 48:27

Oh, wechat, that's my will be my UK mobile number so I can share that. I think it's on my LinkedIn or WhatsApp can reach me out so many ways.

Speaker 1: 48:39

Okay, perfect. So before we wrap it up, as an American I hear. I listened to a lot of different podcasts, and one of the things that I've been listening to a lot about is social credit scores in China. Is there a social credit score right now in China? Have you heard about it, or is this a lot of just?

Speaker 2: 49:00

Yeah, they are building a credit system in China. They have been building this for about, I think, for almost 10 years. It's working. I'll give you a quick example. If I, before I moved to Manchester, if I borrowed like 10,000 or 100,000 Chinese currencies in a bank in China, and then didn't pay for it, pay it back and then moved to Manchester.

Speaker 2: 49:33

So that means if I ever travel back to China and then please and please department, and then of some local debt department company, they will try to track me down and find me and ask for those money back.

Speaker 1: 49:53

Yeah, they did that in the US too.

Speaker 2: 49:55

Yeah, so I could never get on the train. If I have a debt on me for like 100,000 Chinese currencies, I could never take a.

Speaker 1: 50:06

So if you have a debt and you don't need to get to work, like if you can't afford a car, how the hell are you supposed to get to work? If you owe someone 100 grand, just ride a bike.

Speaker 2: 50:15

Figure it out.

Speaker 1: 50:16

Yeah, tough shit. So they start shutting down social services on you. Yeah, if it owes somebody money. What if you're caught protesting?

Speaker 2: 50:26

Oh, there's no protesting in China. This is.

Speaker 1: 50:30

All right. What if you're like a habitual speeder with your car? Does that hurt your social credits?

Speaker 2: 50:38

That's not a criminal record. But if I drink and drive, that's a serious crime in China.

Speaker 1: 50:47

So if I drink and drive, they're gonna take away the train, so I can't use that mode of transportation, so I have to drive my car again.

Speaker 2: 50:53

No, you have to just get on public transport like bus tram and Do you?

Speaker 1: 51:01

think it's to the point where they will limit, like, the amount of television you can watch or the amount of internet you can use or what you can look at on the internet for so long. Do you think that that's all kind of in the works?

Speaker 2: 51:18

No, that won't affect. But since you mentioned this, with the Cold War going, Chinese government started to put a huge fight on people trying to watch YouTube and then use Twitter or use Instagram. They didn't want people to read information outside of China. They just want you to stick with whatever they're telling you to believe.

Speaker 1: 51:53

So one of the things that I've talked to my friends about is a lot of the new cars these days are having autonomous driving and then they're connected to the internet and to the car companies and there could come a day where a Senator or President wants to limit the number of miles you could drive in a period of time. I mean, imagine you go to get in your Tesla, which is wired into the internet and you've driven 600 miles that month already and they believe that anyone who drives over 650 miles they don't need to go anywhere else and they're making that decision for you or we were laughing. I think I was talking about this like a month ago. Imagine you don't pay your car payment and then your car just drives itself back to the dealership.

Speaker 2: 52:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:40

So you go outside to get in the car to go to work one day. They didn't pay a repo company to get it, they just had the car drive itself back. Or maybe you're even in the car and the thing just drives right into the dealership and shuts itself off.

Speaker 2: 52:51

Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1: 52:52

and you could have like your son, your wife giving birth, and you're racing to the hospital and the thing just pulls in the dealership and you know there you have it and too bad, you know. So it's just interesting. You know, tinfoil hat stuff that sometimes you think about.

Speaker 2: 53:07

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 53:09

Hey, you have anything else to say, because we're going to wrap this baby up.

Speaker 2: 53:13

That's it, and thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to have a chance to you know, talk to you about different topics, about China, and then, you know, apart from work, I'm really, I'm really excited to hear this online.

Speaker 1: 53:26

All right. Well thanks for coming as always. And always a pleasure, my man.

Speaker 2: 53:30

All right, thanks a lot, jeff.

Speaker 1: 53:40

MUSIC.