实战口语情景对话 第1049期:Business in Bali 在巴厘岛做生意

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?
托德：丹，你现在生活在印度尼西亚巴厘岛，那里非常美丽，你在东南亚有很多生意。为什么你认为东南亚是适合做生意的地方？

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：其中一个主要原因是生活方式。如果按西方标准，你能创造合理的收入，那我们就可以进行全球套利。你可以拿西方标准的工资，然后搬到东南亚等发展中地区生活，这样购买力就会大幅提高。如果你在德国等较高价值经济体出售商品，但是生活在越南这样的国家，那你的生活质量就能大大提高。我们把这种概念称为套利。货币市场和股票交易商一直在应用这一概念，因为他们要处理流动资产。而在我们的情况下，我们的地点并不总是流动的。有时更换地点不是很方便。不过现在商业进入互联网模式，所以事情变得简单多了。我认为这种生活方式非常有利于招聘，因为员工也想有优质的生活方式。如果可以在印尼巴厘岛等地设立办公室，这里就像地球上的天堂，非常美丽，那人们都会想加入你的公司，所以这很利于招聘。

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?
托德：那在一个美丽的地方工作会不会很难？我的意思是，巴厘岛像天堂一样。在这样的地方你还能遵循朝九晚五的工作模式，照常完成工作吗？

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：其实我在巴厘岛能完成更多工作，因为这里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帮你做事。比如，我在美国负担不起找人帮我洗衣服的费用，因为太贵了。可是在巴厘岛，我可以找人给我洗衣服，这使我每周可以节省两个小时的时间。还有很多这种简单的事情。巴厘岛是放松又健康的地方，这使我能更集中于我的工作。我有很多朋友生活在纽约，他们要花很多时间坐火车通勤，努力挣钱以承担在纽约的生活开销，我认为那种环境太压抑太艰难了，很难产生生产力和创造力。而在巴厘岛，我并没有那些问题，所以我能更集中于工作。

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?
托德：那你的工作日程是怎样的，你每天都工作吗？每天连续工作八个小时？你晚上也要工作吗？因为你要和全世界各地各个时区的人打交道。你说过你的市场主要在美国。你能谈谈你的工作日程吗？

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：当然可以。其实我的工作日程基本由我的生物钟决定。美国的“汽车小子”经常用扭矩这个词，这是一个口语说法。意思是当引擎达到最大马力时，那对咱们来说，什么时候是引擎达到最大马力的时候？对我来说是上午7点到11点，晚上7点到11点，现在是下午2点33分。这通常是我休息的时间。我会关掉电脑，去泳池放松，或是见见朋友，散个步，听些播客，一直休息到晚饭时间。吃过晚饭以后，我会泡杯咖啡，继续工作。对我来说，那个时间段是我最富创造力的时候，我也不知道原因。

Todd: It sounds like a nice life.
托德：听起来真是不错的生活。