AT&T Releases New Customer Service Game

For anyone with time to kill I stumbled upon a challenging puzzle game today. It's called the AT&T Customer Service Website Game. The object of the game is to try to find out what the service plan options are and to achieve the greatest cost savings. You get extra points if you figure out how to contact AT&T by e-mail and succeed in asking them a question.

Though the storyline is clearly not of Lara Croft standards, all that really matters in a game such as this one is that the action move quickly and the stunts be sufficiently enterprising to engage the audience. Credibility is the last prerequisite in a telecommunications adventure, as evidenced by the fact that if the gamer is not moving in futile loops within the Tomb o' Customers or into the Crypt for Email Us, one can get distracted into the misleadingly named U-verse Self-help section. Ah well, it's all in good fun, I suppose, and the customer not only kills valuable time searching for customer service, but can have a fine time playing along with the joke.

See-through bathrooms and No-show VIPs

I was in Hangzhou overnight for business but rather than stay by the lake I stayed at a hotel/resort in the nearby mountains. This was not a resort operated by an international hotel management company but it was lavish. The design was Californiaesque, adobe-colored, large pool, clean. But they apparently weren't looking for international tourists. There were close to 50 cable channels but all were in Chinese. The buffet, the only eatery in the resort, was strictly Chinese. Greasy fried bread soaked in soymilk is not my idea of a hearty breakfast.

After staying in quite a few Chinese hotels I have two observations to offer. The beds are uniformly uncomfortable - turgidly hard. I can't sleep on them. The other odd thing is that modern Chinese hotels have a weird obsession with glass-walled bathrooms in the rooms. The last four I've stayed in afforded no privacy whatsoever. This has got to be awkward for a family but convenient for exhibitionists.

One interesting tidbit I came across was told to me by a driver that pointed out the uniformity of the windows on apartments running the length of one of Hangzhou's widest boulevards. "Those hundreds of windows were put in at government expense back in the 90s when President Clinton was supposed to visit Hangzhou. But then after the government put in hundreds of new windows Clinton decided not to come. The government wasn't happy but Clinton is still a hero along this street."

Another person told me of a similar case in Anhui Province a few years ago. But this time it was a leader from Beijing that was due to pay a visit to a poor village in this, one of China's poorest provinces. Local officials, determined not to look bad in front of the Beijing visitor, bought furniture for the dirt-poor residents of the village. When that official also failed to show up (that happens a lot) the local government tried to take back the furniture but the village people resisted successfully.

So now I understand why Chinese love to have VIPs visit - even if they don't show up.

Real America

The tension between rural and urban America has captured the headlines recently because it's been made into a political issue between the "real America" and the rest of America. Some of the candidates are trying to make this a wedge issue, a part of the culture wars that have divided America in recent years. It's called playing to the base.

I have a hard time understanding the division that politicians are playing to because I've had the good fortune to experience living in both rural and urban America. I've lived in some of the smallest towns you'll find and in some of the largest cities on Earth. I feel equally comfortable in both extremes and enjoy the different kinds of life that are available in each. If I had my choice I'd have a home in both. They're both real.

But I will admit that I have a preference for order. Chaos is picturesque as long as you don't have to live in it. Safety is also a nice perk. Safe food, safe air, safe streets make getting to the end of the day a bit easier. These are the issues that Chinese politicians would have to face if they had elections. But at least they aren't fighting over which part of China is the "real China".

Resting Places No More

During our recent visit to Xiamen and Gulangyu I learned of a not so pleasant aspect of the island that is not mentioned in any of the tourist information on or about the place. As I mentioned before, the island was significantly developed by the foreign diplomats, businesspeople and missionaries that moved to the island starting in the 1700s. Naturally, many hundreds of foreigners died on the island and were buried there over three centuries. Many foreign children died of childhood diseases and were laid to rest there by their grieving parents. Many foreigners who devoted their lives to establishing schools and hospitals in Xiamen were buried here as well.

In 1956 Britain and France bombed Eqypt over the Suez Canal and in a strange chain of events China decided to retaliate by destroying the foreigners cemetery on Gulangyu. Local residents demolished the gravestones and dug up the graves - leveling the once peaceful cemetery. In 1978 the government built a music hall on top of the former cemetery and today concerts are held on the site. There's no mention of the atrocity at the site or in any literature handed out by the local government tourism bureau. While I was there this weekend a German orchestra was playing a benefit concert in the music hall. I'm sure they did not realize they were creating music on top of their ancestors' graves.

The same awful thing happened in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. The large foreign cemetery in this city was destroyed and dug up by the Red Guards, the tombstones hauled off and used as construction material, washing stones, etc. I have searched in vain for the location of the once large cemetery but cannot find a trace of it.

The government here has not apologized to its own people for the terrible things it did to them during the last half of the 20th Century but that day will come. We should not hold a grudge - we should move on, but I still hope that at the same time the government will apologize to the descendants of the former foreign residents whose resting places were destroyed in fits of vengence by government edict.

Gulangyu Retreat: relaxing among ruins

I needed to get out of Shanghai. Get away from the crowds, the pollution, the traffic. We headed south to Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian Province, only 100 miles from Taiwan. Our specific destination was Gulangyu (Gulang Island), a 2-km-wide island just a ferry ride away from Xiamen, itself an island. Xiamen, formerly known as Amoy, was one of the first Chinese port cities opened to Western and foreign trade. Gulangyu is where most of the foreigners and their consulates, churches and businesses settled.

We stayed at the Bayview Inn, a small hotel behind the former British Consulate and current Communist Party office. Over two days we roamed the island's walled alleys, clambered up the boulders and gawked at the run-down mansions that foreigners and rich Chinese had built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many tourists visit this island of 15,000 residents but I saw fewer than 15 obviously foreign tourists over the course of two weekend days. Many of the tourists arrive in tour groups led by flag-waving tour guides speaking various Chinese dialects depending on which province the group originates from. Many school groups also visit the island.

What struck me was the rundown nature of the grand old buildings. The islands building boom ended when the Japanese invaded in 1938 and things began falling apart after the Communists kicked all the foreigners out in 1949. China's economic boom still hasn't reached Gulangyu's infrastructure. Once-beautiful old buildings continue to collapse - many of them vacant and rotting. Others are occupied by multiple families that moved in during the Cultural Revolution. Given the tourism already coming to Gulangyu it's surprising that more hasn't been done to rehabilitate the old buildings - to at least halt the entropy.

Oddly enough, the one bit of foreign presence still on the island is a McDonalds. As a fan of Western breakfasts I was glad of this because the only other dining options on the island seem to be seafood restaurants where the menu is displayed in red plastic tubs on the floor. This was the first McDonalds I've ever seen that featured dancing girls in McDonalds uniforms.

Missing Children and Hopeless Parents

This is a sad story about a big problem in China that the media here ignores. But it is illustrative of the way things work here.

Searching for the Canidrome

In search of the old Canidrome of Shanghai this week. I came across a reference to the Canidrome while reading "Shanghai, The Paradise of Adventurers" published in 1937. The author, G.E. Miller (pseudonym) recounts going to the dog racing venue for gambling but describes it as an elegant club for the rich. I had never heard of this place in Shanghai so I searched online for its location and found that it had been demolished in 2006 soon after my arrival in Shanghai.

According to Wikipedia:

The clubhouse and racetrack became a multi-purpose entertainment venue, but became a place for political rallies after the founding of the People's Republic of China and a mass execution facility. Later it became a theatre and exhibition space before it was demolished in 2006. The original Canidrome grandstand was demolished as part of the reconstruction of the precinct to become a park incorporating various cultural venues^[2].

I found the location of the old Canidrome and circled the block looking for any remnant but found nothing but walls, grungy shops and a hidden construction site. A small sign next to an easily overlooked archway says Cultural Park Plaza and features a fading architects drawing of a Cultural Center that must be under slow construction behind the walls. Sadly, nothing at all remains of the elegant building described in Miller's book.

I walked north on Maoming Road to find the famous old French Club that Miller also described in his book. I found it, but it's been turned into the entrance for the Okura Hotel. Walking inside I was disappointed to find that it had been completely gutted and redone in modern style - sickly modern 5-star hotel style.