Fall Comes to Shanghai

The sticky Shanghai summer is gone, replaced by the two weeks of fall, soon to be followed by the long, clammy winter. But for now, the weather is comfortable. The house owners left a huge pumpkin on our porch, presumably for us to carve for Halloween. Where Westerners gather the scary holiday is observed - but Chinese find the whole jack-o-lantern, black cat and witches thing quite puzzling (try explaining it sometime). It doesn't, after all, make as much sense as the tomb sweeping holiday they recently observed.

Along with the nippy weather and the early darkness comes traffic gridlock. Gridlock that goes beyond the normal Shanghai gridlock. When it starts getting dark at 5:30 pm the Shanghai driver gets more aggressive than ever. This could be caused by the thrill of not being able to see the bicyclists and pedestrians darting out in front of them in the dark or the delicious anticipation of being able to escape into the dark after knocking the wheels out from under them.

A colleague offered up an insightful explanation for the worsened traffic in the last few days - it's bill-paying time. Most rents, fees and other bills are due at the end of the month and in China, even in cosmopolitan Shanghai, you don't just mail a check or go online and click the "pay" button. You have to go to your bank, withdraw wads of cash and drive around paying your bills in person(or have your driver or ayi do it for you). China is still in the dark ages when it comes to financial transactions. Paying bills here involves tons of cash, lots of receipts, stamps and paperwork. The result is high inefficiency and traffic gridlock. I can pay my bills in Peavine, America by clicking a mouse in Shanghai but if I want to pay a phone bill in Shanghai I have to round up the cash and travel in person to China Mobile's office and fight my way to the payment counter.

Tomorrow - trick or treat.

Taxi University

Most taxis in Shanghai now have a video screen mounted on the back of the front seat headrests and among the videos and commercials shown are some English language lessons such as the one shown here.

Don't sweat and type

When I go, this is not how I want to do it. www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200707/20070730/article_325330.htm

Red Banner

This banner celebrating the Chinese Communist Party's 17th Party Congress has been appearing all over the Internet in China. The rolling hills and green trees conjure up an image of pastoral benevolence that harkens back to the Conservation Corps or the Boy Scouts of my youth.

clipped from chinadaily.allyes.com

But have fun!

Babies with High Tech Toys

Have you ever wondered what would happen if babies got their hands on high tech toys? Here's the result you can expect.

G-man's Excellent Adventure

G-man spent the entire week hiking through the mountains of Guizhou Province with his class. It's the annual school field trip through parts of China. On this trip he stayed in a Miao village, learned how to make paper, and hiked through some beautiful countryside. Sure beats the non-existant field trips my high school had.

China's Great Firewall Growing

I haven't been able to post to this blog for about a week because my access was blocked by the Great Firewall. Normally, I can post to this blog but I cannot view it without using a proxy to get around the censors. But for several days this week I couldn't even access the input page.

China has also begun to choke off access to RSS feeds which enable computer users to get news updates and to download podcasts which are delivered through RSS feeds. Nearly half of the 120 podcasts I subscribe to are now inaccessible. This is quite disturbing for a news junkie like myself. The last straw will be when they cut off my access to Prarie Home Companion.

Censorship is such a part of daily life in China that the citizens and the expats that work in China grow used to it and complacent. People stop complaining because they know that short of rioting in the streets (and getting locked up) there's nothing they can do about it. But we shouldn't forget about how outrageous it is for a government to block its citizen's access to information. It's pathetic when a government is so insecure that it feels it must hide the truth from its own people.

German and Chinese Cultures Contrasted

This from Hellishhumor.com is a very interesting visual representation of the differences between German and Chinese culture. Something tells me this was created by a German.

Shanghai Taxi

Lotus Pond in People's Park

Special Olympics in Shanghai

The Special Olympics are taking place in Shanghai this week. This is a great atheletic event for intellectually disadvantaged people. I believe it was started by Eunice Shriver. I had the pleasure of attending an event today and had a chance to meet many of these atheletes from all over the USA and the world. I also got to meet Ernie Banks, Michelle Kwan and Bart Conner (friendly fellow) among other great atheletes. Shanghai has really put a lot of effort and resources into hosting this event and have done a great job.

The Web and Political Transparency

I'm thrilled to see this new website at www.earmarkwatch.org that lets Americans track political pork legislation. And when added to www.maplight.org they can't hide it has well as they used to. This is something that has been historically difficult to track. They certainly don't have anything like this in China - when they do, it will be even more interesting than what goes on in DC. I can't even see that far into the future though.

This Is Not a Bargain

Recently, I began seeing women walking around Shanghai carrying large handbags that had "I am not a plastic bag" embroidered on the side of the bag. I assumed it was a lame gimmick dreamt up by some cheapo handbag maker in Shanghai. The design was amateurish to my eyes. I later saw these bags on sale at a market in Shanghai that is full of famous brand knockoffs.

I was surprised today to find that this design is a creation of a famous luxury brand designer, Anya Hindmarch of Britain. I am even more amazed to find that women from London to Taipei have fought each other to get in line to buy one of these bags. I checked the price of the knockoffs in Shanghai - the pre-negotiation price was US$5.00

I still think a duffel bag will do fine.

Something Sucpicious in People's Park




On weekends in Shanghai's People's Park (人民广场）anxious-looking adults gather in a shady area near the lotus pond to quietly exchange information. Passersby will notice knots of up to a dozen men and women gathered around a poster chatting earnestly. I've noticed this before and thought something suspicious was going on. Perhaps they are engaged in a hot political discussion? Maybe plotting anti-government activity? Yes, it would be wise to keep such talk confined to the shady corners of a park.

Today, the first day of a week-long holiday in China, I found the plotters gathered in the same location. Dozens of them standing around or setting on benches. Many had laminated signs in their laps or pinned to bushes. I moved closer to see if I could overhear anything about the big plot - which must by this time have mushroomed into an imminent coup. To my disappointment I find that the signs are promoting sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, as potential marriage mates. These people are trying to arrange marriages - not political upheaval.

One signs advertizes a 29-year old daughter that weighs 110 lbs., has a job as an accountant for a French company, and white skin. Another advertizes a 35-year old man, a party cadre, that makes over 1,000 yuan per month.

Matchmaking by parents is an old tradition in China and one that is still practiced. While a lot of young urban Chinese have turned to the Internet for matchmaking, it's still common for parents to have a say in who their children marry. The less hi-tech parents show up in the parks of China on weekends to do their matchmaking the old-fashioned way - face-to-face. Of course there are professional matchmakers as well and they can be found in the Yellow Pages or in the parks. At People's Park today I noticed several matchmakers promoting several clients at once.

There was a noticable focus on pragmatics - physical attributes and incomes. None of the signs said anything about nonesense such as "has a great sense of humor", "fun-loving", or "long walks on the beach".