美語情景對話 第1049期:Business in Bali 在巴厘島做生意

Todd: So now Dan you live in Bali, Indonesia, which is a very beautiful place and you do a lot of business in Southeast Asia. Why do you think Southeast Asia is a good place to do business?

託德：丹，你現在生活在印度尼西亞巴厘島，那裏非常美麗，你在東南亞有很多生意。爲什麼你認爲東南亞是適合做生意的地方？

Dan: Well, one of the primary reasons is the lifestyle. If you are generating a reasonable income on western standards, you can—what we do is, you know, perform some global arbitrage. You can take that western level salary and move it to a developing area of the world like here in Southeast Asia, and your purchasing power is much greater. So if you're selling products in a higher valued economy like Germany and you're living in Vietnam, you're going to be able to experience a much higher lifestyle. And we call that concept arbitrage. You know, currency markets and stock traders have used that kind of concept all the time because they're dealing with very liquid assets. In our case, you know, our locations weren't always so liquid. It wasn't always so easy to change your location. Now with internet style business, it's getting easier. So primarily, the lifestyle, I found that that's a great tool for recruiting because staff, they want to have a great lifestyle too. So if you can set up an office in a place like Bali, Indonesia, it's like paradise on earth. It's so beautiful here, people want to join you, and so it's great for recruiting as well.

丹：其中一個主要原因是生活方式。如果按西方標準，你能創造合理的收入，那我們就可以進行全球套利。你可以拿西方標準的工資，然後搬到東南亞等發展中地區生活，這樣購買力就會大幅提高。如果你在德國等較高價值經濟體出售商品，但是生活在越南這樣的國家，那你的生活質量就能大大提高。我們把這種概念稱爲套利。貨幣市場和股票交易商一直在應用這一概念，因爲他們要處理流動資產。而在我們的情況下，我們的地點並不總是流動的。有時更換地點不是很方便。不過現在商業進入互聯網模式，所以事情變得簡單多了。我認爲這種生活方式非常有利於招聘，因爲員工也想有優質的生活方式。如果可以在印尼巴厘島等地設立辦公室，這裏就像地球上的天堂，非常美麗，那人們都會想加入你的公司，所以這很利於招聘。

Todd: Do you find it's harder to get work done in a beautiful place. I mean, Bali is basically paradise. Can you still follow the nine-to-five work grind and get things done?

託德：那在一個美麗的地方工作會不會很難？我的意思是，巴厘島像天堂一樣。在這樣的地方你還能遵循朝九晚五的工作模式，照常完成工作嗎？

Dan: I find that I get more work done in Bali because the cost of living here is lower on all fronts. Not only is food cheaper, rent cheaper, but it's easier to get people to help you out to do things. For example, in United States, I can't afford to pay somebody to do my laundry. It's too expensive. But here in Bali, I have somebody do my laundry and that saves me two hours a week. Simple things like that start to add up. It's a very relaxed and healthy place that helps me focus on work. I have a lot of friends that live in New York city for example and they spend so much time traveling on the train, making money to afford living there, and I see that as a much more stressful, difficult environment to really be productive and creative. Here in Bali, I have no problems focusing on my work.

丹：其實我在巴厘島能完成更多工作，因爲這裏各方面的生活成本都很低廉。不只是食物和租金更便宜，而且也很容易找到人幫你做事。比如，我在美國負擔不起找人幫我洗衣服的費用，因爲太貴了。可是在巴厘島，我可以找人給我洗衣服，這使我每週可以節省兩個小時的時間。還有很多這種簡單的事情。巴厘島是放鬆又健康的地方，這使我能更集中於我的工作。我有很多朋友生活在紐約，他們要花很多時間坐火車通勤，努力掙錢以承擔在紐約的生活開銷，我認爲那種環境太壓抑太艱難了，很難產生生產力和創造力。而在巴厘島，我並沒有那些問題，所以我能更集中於工作。

Todd: So what kind of work schedule do you follow, like do you work every day? Do you work like eight hours straight? Do you work at night? Because you're dealing with different time zones with people all around the world. You said your market is mainly in the States. Could you talk a little bit about your work routine?

託德：那你的工作日程是怎樣的，你每天都工作嗎？每天連續工作八個小時？你晚上也要工作嗎？因爲你要和全世界各地各個時區的人打交道。你說過你的市場主要在美國。你能談談你的工作日程嗎？

Dan: Sure. It's actually defined by what I feel like my biorhythms are. To use a really colloquial phrase, car guys in United States use a term called torque band. And that's when your engine is the strongest—at what time your engine the strongest? And for me that's 7:00 to 11:00 in the morning, and 7:00 to 11:00 in the evening, and right now it's sort of 2:33 PM. This is generally a time that I would relax. I would close my computer. I would get in the pool. I'd meet with some friends, maybe take a walk, listen to some podcasts, and relax until dinner time. After dinner time have a coffee and continue working. So, it's primarily for me, that just seems to be when I'm most creative and I have no idea why.

丹：當然可以。其實我的工作日程基本由我的生物鐘決定。美國的“汽車小子”經常用扭矩這個詞，這是一個口語說法。意思是當引擎達到最大馬力時，那對咱們來說，什麼時候是引擎達到最大馬力的時候？對我來說是上午7點到11點，晚上7點到11點，現在是下午2點33分。這通常是我休息的時間。我會關掉電腦，去泳池放鬆，或是見見朋友，散個步，聽些播客，一直休息到晚飯時間。吃過晚飯以後，我會泡杯咖啡，繼續工作。對我來說，那個時間段是我最富創造力的時候，我也不知道原因。

Todd: It sounds like a nice life.

託德：聽起來真是不錯的生活。

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重點講解：
1. all the time 一直；始終；
例句：He remained silent all the time.
他一直保持沉默。
2. add up 加起來；累積；
例句：She made a mistake when adding up the bill.
她在合計帳單時出了差錯。
3. help out 幫助…做事；
例句：He helps out in his father's shop after school.
放學後他在他爸爸的店裏幫着做事。