There's two things I've noticed about the taxi driver photo ID's that are mounted on their dashboards in Shanghai; 1) the higher the number of their ID or license, the more recently they got their license and the less experienced they are, 2) if they speak some English or have other skills they are awarded stars that go on their license or ID. The most stars I've ever seen in Shanghai was a four star driver - he must have been the equivalent of a taxi Admiral. On the rare ocassion that I find a taxi driver whose license is in the very low digits - say 5,000, I feel a certain amount of awe because such a person has survived driving in Shanghai for something like 20 years. From the photo here, you can surmise that my driver had started his taxi driving career earlier this morning.

There's one more thing I've noticed about the photo ID in taxis - the driver often doesn't resemble the photo at all. I asked about this before and was told by a local that taxi drivers often ask friends or relatives to take a shift for them - or even let other's sublease shifts from them. Everyone's an entrepreneur here.

No sidewalk space in China goes unused. This shoe repairman set up shop in front of the Shanghai Foreign Affairs Office. He, like all other sidewalk retailers, place their shop on a blanket that can be quickly snatched up and carted off over the shoulder when the police come by - which is rarely. Sidewalks in Shanghai are used for everything, markets, clothes drying, car parking - everything but for pedestrians.

Mooncakes and Shrieking Executives

The Chinese holiday / festival of "Zhongqiujie" or Mid-Autumn Festival is almost upon us. The traffic in and around Shanghai was worse than usual today. It wasn't until I asked the taxi driver why the traffic was so bad that I made the connection. "Everyone is out ether buying mooncakes or going to dinner", he said. Tomorrow is actually the festival day so I expect the traffic to be particularly bad on the way home from work tomorrow. Most people don't get the day off for Mid-Autumn Festival but many offices close early so workers can get home for family festivities.

I spent much of the day going to, and coming from, Nanjing. I was there to attend a company grand opening that featured Chinese, Japanese and American executives giving speeches. The difference in presentation styles of the three nationalities were on display - capturing the cultural stereotypes well. The stentorian formality of the Chinese executive that nearly shrieked into the unbearably amplified sound system. The quiet, humble obliqueness of the Japanese company patriarch. The chatty informality of the jacket-clad American.

Politically Incorrect Toothpaste



I picked this tube of toothpaste up on my recent trip to Xiamen. The brandname, "heimei" in Chinese, means "black sister". This could be an offshoot of the Darlie (previously "Darkie") toothpaste that has been around China, Taiwan and Hong Kong for decades. As you can see in this post at Sinosplice, Darlie toothpaste only changed its name in English - in Chinese it says, and always has said, "heiren" or "black person". Despite the offensiveness over the decades, Chinese toothpaste companies continue to come up with racially insensitive brands like this.

Wipha is Coming

It came as news to me this morning that a typhoon was headed for Shanghai. I just don't listen to, or watch, the local news enough to catch the weather reports. When I do, the reports are so inaccurate that I usually just don't bother. But when I got to work and checked the Internet I could see the projected track of Typhoon Wipha as coming right over Shanghai on Wednesday.

I've been in a couple of mild hurricanes and typhoons but Wipha looks like it could be an "undiluted" storm - the media is calling it a "super-typhoon" because the winds are over 130 mph. It started raining in downpours this afternoon. On the way to and from an appointment the streets were already overflowing the sidewalks and water pouring into shops. One old man in blue shorts and a dirty singlet was seated at the doorway to his little shop shoveling water back out the door with a plastic scoop. Young women were wading barefoot through the streets to try to get a taxi, holding their high heeled work shoes in their hands.

We've been asked to take plants and other objects off of our balconies least they become lethal projectiles in the 100+ mph winds that are expected in a few hours. This is my chance to get rid of a few items that are too large for the trash can. I hope my neighbor enjoys my old bike with the wobbly wheel.

Shuffle Off to Shanghai

It's not often that a Broadway musical comes to Shanghai so it was special fun to see 42nd Street at the Majestic Theatre Friday night. The Nederlander Theatres brought the musical to China for a few weeks and it has been booked solid for the two weeks it's in Shanghai. The music and dancing were first-rate but I think I enjoyed those smiling American faces just as much. I mean big, toothy, seemingly genuine smiles you don't see often around Shanghai.

As I watched them perform "I'm in the money!" it struck me that on this old stage, some 30 years ago all I would have been able to watch were the anti-Capitalist Revolutionary ballets approved by Madame Mao. I wondered if any of the older Chinese in the audience were in this theatre back then - and thinking about the irony as well.

World's Highest Pizza Hut

One of the highlights of Xiamen is the Pizza Hut on top of a skyscraper overlooking the harbor and Gulangyu Island.

Traveller's Items

For my one-night stay in Xiamen I stayed in a 3-star hotel near the train station and was amused by some of the menu items, signs and products they had on sale in my bathroom. Some of the items in the bathroom display are best left unsaid but the compressed towels and underwear were something I hadn't seen before. You have to wet these for them to expand so I'm not sure why one would want to wear wet underwear. The Gilleny razor brings back fond memories of my Gillette razor.

Down Fujian Way

Just back from Xiamen (sometimes known as Amoy) just across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan. This seaside city in Fujian Province is actually an island just off the Chinese mainland. A small island called Gulangyu, just a 10-minute ferry ride from Xiamen, used to be the foreigner enclave and location of many foreign consulates. Today, Gulangyu is a tourist attraction because the old European-style archetecture has been preserved and bicycles and cars banned from the island. Tree-lined lanes crisscross the island and lead from one historic building or site to another. I hope to get back to Xiamen on a leisure trip because Gulangyu would be worth a stay of 2-3 days.

My 36-hour impression of Xiamen:

Police at the airport actually stop taxis and make passengers that skipped the taxi queue get out of the taxi and get in the back of the line! I've never seen that happen in Shanghai.

While it's hotter than Shanghai there is an ocean breeze.

There are beaches - I saw them from the taxi as I whizzed between appointments.

The old downtown has been preserved rather than destroyed. The coastline is beautiful and well-organized. The area around the train station is an ugly mess. The Wal-Mart is a mess.

Not counting the trade show I went to, I only saw two other Westerners during my time in the city.

Car horn honking is banned in the city - and almost universally obeyed!

There was a big demonstration in the city back in June over a chemical plant a Taiwanese company had started to build near the city. The construction has been halted temporarily but people in the city are still abuzz about it. The story is off limits to the media in China.

Living Buddhas Need Beijing's Stamp of Approval

Earlier this week the Chinese Government put into effect a new edict requiring all reincarnated Living Buddhas to get approval from Beijing. This is widely interpreted as an effort by the Communist Party to keep the exiled Dali Lama from having a say in reincarnations in Chinese-controlled Tibet.

However, as is often the case in China, the edict promulgators neglected the details and don't seem to have thoroughly thought through the implications. Beijing did not, for example, specify what government forms a would-be Living Buddha will need to fill out and file and whether there is an open filing period. The new law raises many metaphysical questions and answers none. If the reincarnation is rejected by the Communist leadership where is the soul supposed to go? Is there an appeal process? What will happen to scofflaw Living Buddhas that ignore the new regulation and continue to do Living Buddha things in defiance of Beijing?

The Dali Lama could tie this package up nicely by simply decreeing that all Chinese Communist Party Politburo members will henceforth be reincarnated as Living Buddhas. Beijing's reaction would be delicious.

Getting Away

Work recently took me back to Hawaii for the first time in 15 years and I had the opportunity to take a weekend and go the the "Big Island" for the first time and see something I had wanted to see for a very long time. When I was about 10 years old I wrote to the staff at the Hawaii Volcanos National Park and in reply I had received information about the park and a brochure on how to make my own volcano. My mother didn't appreciate my attempt at making my own volcano but I still have the National Park flyers and had dreamed of going there for a few decades. It's one of those things you've got to do in your lifetime - and I finally did it. It was not a disappointment.

The park is huge and open 24/7 - and not too crowded. The first night I was there I drove the Chain of Craters road from the Kiluea Cauldron to the seaside cliffs where the lava runs into the sea. There were very few people here and as it turned dark I found myself alone - for the first time in a very long time. It was great. I drove back up the road to a point about 1,000 feet over the ocean and stopped the car and walked to an overlook where I could see for miles in each direction. A full moon was reflected in the ocean before me and not a sign of human habitation could be seen. Not a single car, house or boat was visible anywhere. There was a soft breeze coming off the ocean but the surf was so far below that it could not be heard. In fact, there was no sound at all. The only thing I could hear was my own breathing and my own neck creaking. After being in crowded, shreaking, and pushing Shanghai for almost two years straight the silence and feeling of complete aloneness was overwhelmingly moving. I was filled with joy - and sat on a boulder of volcanic pumice, gazing at the heart-stopping beauty before me, soaking it in for a very long time.

The River at the Center of the World

A few weeks ago, while on a cruise down the Yangtze River, I finished Simon Winchester's "The River at the Center of the World", his account of his mid-1990s trip from the mouth of China's most important river to its source in Qinghai - a journey of almost 4,000 miles. For most of the trip Winchester, a Britisher who lives in the USA, travels by boat upriver but when the Yangtze (Changjiang in Chinese) becomes unnavigable in Tibet he goes by car and bus.

I had enjoyed Winchester's books about Korea, Krakatoa, the Oxford Dictionary etc and so it was a pleasure for me to hear him talk in Shanghai recently and have him sign my Yangtze book. During his talk I sat next to his American wife and learned that she is also a writer and journalist, having until recently been a correspondent for NPR. Winchester had been inspired and encouraged to become a writer by Jan Morris, the famous Welsh travel writer that shared the Shanghai platform with Winchester. At one point in his life he worked as a geologist at an oil company's now closed research facility near my home, at the time, in Peavine. In fact, it was at Peavine University that I first heard Winchester speak. I've enjoyed his writing style of mixing science, travel experience and history into an entertaining and educational package. It comes as a bonus to find that Winchester is also a pleasant person.

I highly recommend The River at the Center of the World, not only because I find common ground on his observations about China and Tibet but because it's an interesting journey told well.