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.