“All the girls in our class had the biggest crush on boy xyz because he always got the best grades”

or equally classic

“I duped my wife to go out with me because I told her that I was in this prestigious physics competition. Actually， it was my little brother that was in the competition, not me.”

Hey…I don’t see any hands?!? But yes, true accounts told to me by some of my friends here!

It got me thinking, what if overnight, smarts really became the new cool? And the ‘popular’ kids in school were the smartest ones in school? Far-fetched I know, but it makes me wonder what kind of people we’d be churning out instead.

———————————————-
说实话，来了中国之后我听到几句话让我大吃一惊。。。

“在我们班里，很多女孩都喜欢上莫莫男孩因为他读书都很棒！” 或者
“当时我老婆愿意跟我交往是因为我跟她说我参加了莫莫全国物理大赛，其实不是我，而是我弟弟！ ”

第二句可能有一点夸张不过我的意思是在美国少数人会这样说（至少如果他这样说人家都会取笑他）。 小时候，受不受别人关注（无论同学或家长），运动好远远超过成绩好。 反而，有时候成绩好的学生会被别的学生排斥。哇，观点确实不一样。。。

简单的介绍一下：
垦一垦是一个个人化的网页分享站点,它可以然你：
-发现有趣味的网页，视频，音乐，等等。
-看跟你爱好一样的人都在看什么内容。
-消磨时间。
-分享你喜欢的网页。
-收藏你喜欢的网页。

我的主页 http://www.ken1ken.com/user/neb72/

It’s amazing to think that it’s already my second Chinese New Year in China, though instead of spending it in Shanghai, this year I spent it in Beijing.

The last (and only) time I was in Beijing, I didn’t have much of a chance to get my bearings since it was such a whirlwind tour with business school shuttling around between company visits and major tourist spots. This time, I had the chance to navigate the city on my own and I must say that I came away liking Beijing a lot more than going in.

First of all, the tourist stuff, here are a few recommendations if you plan to be in Beijing for a few days:

Sights:

• Great Wall – there are a few major places to see the Great Wall like ba-da-ling八达岭 but I’ve heard that if you want to avoid the crowds you can go to the ‘wild’ spots which just means that it’s unkept (read: free) but more ‘dangerous’ since it literally isn’t maintained
• Forbidden City – the emperor’s palace
• Summer Palace – where the emperor would hang out
• Lama Temple – used to be where once of the emperors lived but is now converted into a temple
• Tiananmen Square / Front Gate
• Temple of Heaven – I’d say the temple is just ok, but the more interesting part is the park because you get to see people dancing, playing chinese chess, writing calligraphy, etc.

There are others that I’ve been to, but I’d say these are the ones I’d recommend if you were to spend 3 days in Beijing.

Beijing delicacies

• Peking Duck
• Hotpot
• Egg pancakes

There are more traditional Beijing foods like fermented tofu soup, fermented green bean paste, and assorted internal organs soup, but there is a very high probability that you won’t like it. I tried them all and can’t say I was a fan of any of it. Even most Beijing people don’t eat that stuff anymore (unless they grew up eating it). But if you’re feeling adventurous or just want to say you’ve tried it, go for it.

Impressions:
I think the best way to sum it up is that Beijing is very much like Washington DC while Shanghai is more like New York. Here is why I say that:

Geographically more spread out – even though cab rates are cheaper in Beijing (10 rmb for 3 km and 2 rmb/additional 1 km) vs Shanghai (11 rmb for 3 km and 1 rmb/additional 0.3 km), people end up paying more in Beijing because places are much more spread out. In Shanghai it’s rare that I pay anything over 30 rmb but I would say that 30-40 is more of a norm in Beijing.

Government vs Commercial – there is a pretty stark contrast in that Beijing has much more of a government feel to it, whether in the sense of buildings (I passed by the mint, epa, etc) or the denizens’ mindsets

Suburban vs Urban – like DC, there are many regulations against high rises in certain places in Beijing so it ‘feels’ much more open than Shanghai. And like DC, you can forget about trying to navigate the city by foot. Even though 2 places may only be separated by a few blocks, it may take 5-10 minutes to walk an entire block.

Culture – On average, I’d say that Beijing’ers are much more politically and culturally aware. I’d guess it’s a function of the environment, but probably has something to do with self-selection. Most people who like Beijing tend to not like Shanghai and vice versa.

Weather – It can get really cold in Beijing. Lows were in the single digits while I was there, plus it’s windy! But it’s a dry kind of cold. I know, I know, single digits is cold no matter how you slice it, but in Shanghai even though it’s 40 degrees, it can feel super cold because of the humidity. Though people say weather sucks in the spring in Beijing because of the dust storms – which come from the desert up north. Luckily for me, it was really sunny the whole time I was there and I didn’t feel like pollution was much of an issue. My Beijing friends told me it’s only because it’s windy. Otherwise, it can get pretty bad.

Traffic – Since I was there for Chinese New Year there wasn’t much traffic to speak of, but I hear typically it’s horrendous. I think it has to do with the fact that you really do need a car to get to a lot of places. Luckily, I didn’t have to suffer through any of that gridlock. Oh, and there are a LOT less motorcycles – like almost none.

Misc
I hate getting 1 rmb bills because I feel like the denomination is just too small to be dispensed as a bill, but for some reason in Beijing everyone uses the 1 rmb bill whereas in Shanghai people predominately use the 1 rmb coin. It didn’t really occur to me until I realized that in the ENTIRE time I was in Beijing I didn’t get a single 1 rmb coin whereas I’d say in shanghai I’d get a 1 rmb bill once every couple weeks, tops. I wonder how these things happen?

There are lots of changes going on in Bejing due to the Olympics – most of them I find interesting because they are public announcements about how to be more ‘civilized’ and ‘refined.’ These things range from ‘don’t litter’ to ‘keep to the right on the escalator’ to ‘don’t buy pirated stuff.’ Overall, I must say I commend them for it, I just hope that people keep it up after the Olympics!

Receipts – as opposed to the standardized receipts that you get in Shanghai that just say you spent x rmb’s, beijing’s receipts are now all electronic and like the ones we get in the US. I find the system in Beijing better because it’s probably less prone to tax evasion for both the consumer and the business.

Temples auction the right to be the first one to light incense in the new year – I heard from the cab driver that a certain temple auctioned off the 1st spot for 170k rmb (~$24k USD!).

Here are some highlights from my trip!

Check out all the people at the temple on the 1st day of the new year waiting to light incense!

Lots of old style buildings getting torn down…which I think is unfortunate

A Chinese New Year fair… saying that there are a lot of people here would be an understatement

Crickets in a gourd – I am not really sure how they get them in there

Paper art – these are all paper cutouts!

You’re supposed to eat dumplings for the new year – so here is one filled with sesame seeds.

Seated ice-skating for lazy people

More incense burning

The local polar bear club

A local Beijing eatery – Mmmm….internal organs

Chairman Mao looking as fine as ever at Tiananmen Square

The front gate to the city

Beijing map – the city is basically square with the forbidden city in the center. It’s a pretty logical setup with higher numbered ‘ring’ roads as you move out from the center. Ie. the 3rd ring road is farther away from the city center than the 2nd ring road

A restaurant offering 爆肚 (bao-du) which means exploding stomach. Yet another Beijing delicacy…but I didn’t eat it

Another restaurant offering donkey meat

For 10 rmb, you too can ring this bell 3 times. Supposedly if you ring it 108 times your worries go away.

Cool looking lion

I am not sure why people were tossing coins at this thing

…I guess this sign wasn’t very clear, it says “please do not toss incense or coins”

Grass that look like worms

Expensive ginseng

Bird’s nest – for eating of course

Egg pancakes

Clockwise starting from the left – cold tofu in sesame oil, fermented green bean paste, fried dough, fermented tofu soup

My buddy giddy in anticipation of eating the duck’s blood (currently in a jello-like state)

Noodle twirling – who needs a noodle making machine when you have this guy

I’ll cheat a little and include pictures from my last trip (which was from a few years ago)
Forbidden City

Great Wall

Today, I opened up our application to my friends and started soliciting their feedback. A part of me is relieved that we made it this to milestone, but to be honest, my mind is much more preoccupied with “what if this app sucks and no one likes it?”

Of course, this is the prefect time to heed the advice of “don’t be afraid of failing,” but put it this way. After spending months of time, money, and effort and telling all your friends about it, failure seems that much more devastating. Though, the irony is that the risks are actually lower now than they were when I first started, because at least now I have the beta version out. But the truth is that once you put yourself and your product out there for all to judge, the stakes feel much higher.

Anyway, this got me thinking, are some people better at it coping with this fear than others? What about people who’s taken the big risks in life and failed? Are they more risk averse because they know how crappy it can be to fail? Or are they more immune to it because they’ve already experienced it. What about the reverse – people who’ve never taken big risks? Are they better at coping because they are ignorant of the consequences of failure? Or do they make the failure out to be worse than it really is?

想创业之前我听过好多次，“不要怕失败。”

当然这个理论我很清楚，不过现在已经投入了那么多心血，时间，金钱，加上到处跟朋友宣布了我要创业，失败的后果就不像那么一点小事了。

我正在深思熟虑这个问题因为今天我们的网站推出了测试版。 虽然我比较安心终于有一点成果出来了，但绝大部分还是担心如果没人喜欢我们的产品怎么办？

因为这个问题，引起另外个问题。 哪种人才能够克服这个担忧？失败者或未失败者？不是“一朝被蛇咬十年怕井绳”吗？还是有了失败的经历就会更坚强？

The day I put my servers in the data center was one of those days. I’ll spare you the details , but basically it was a string of unpleasant events after another, all of which I think wouldn’t have occurred if people were a little more mindful of their attitudes and more professional overall.

Anyway, despite being super pissed off the whole entire day and having to walk our way back to ‘civilization’ (the data center is a bit out of the way) we stumbled upon a pedicab.

Check it out:

For some reason, riding the pedicab with my co-worker back to civilization (or at least some place where we can actually get a cab) was a blast. Plus, this lady seems really happy in this picture…so that’s all it took to cheer me up. It got me thinking – it’s moments like this that make my life fun and interesting here.

Les I give you the impression that everything is ‘ghetto’ here – here is a good counter-example. What’s the most popular phys-ed class in the top Chinese universities? Golf. (it’s in Chinese – sorry)

Then I found out from my ayi that there are people willing to come to you and pick it up. Moreover, the guy not only picks it up, but also gives you a cut of the money he makes from selling the bottles back to the recyclers.

After 3-4 months, I amassed this many crushed bottles. Kinda makes me feel bad about buying plastic bottles. But at least I am recycling…

So for the fruits of my labor…er…laziness, I got this. Who says laziness doesn’t pay

I couldn’t really think of anything worth toting over because you can pretty much get anything you want these days in Shanghai. So the only answer I could come up with was “how about some taiwanese snacks?” I threw out things like 咸酥鸡 (salty peppery chicken nuggets) or 肉丸 (it’s a big savory meat patty in a rice flour wrap topped with a sweet sauce), but knowing she couldn’t actually bring those, she brought these!

It’s hard to describe, but these are basically snacks I ate as a kid in Taiwan so it brought back so many childhood memories! Some are available in China, but some aren’t. I’ll try to describe them without making them sound too gross…they’re good, I swear!

From the top row going left to right
1) 鱿鱼丝 jerked squid
2) 鱿鱼丝 more jerked squid (i must’ve eaten umpteen packets of these between the ages of 5-7)
3) chocolate flavored wafers – I think we have these in the US too
4) 乖乖 – rice puffs. like kids cereal they took on the tact of offering a prize in every bag. it worked on me because even though I liked the shrimp crackers that my sister use to get better, I would still buy these. It’s worth commenting that the name of these snacks is 乖，which is the adjective for well-behaved kids.
5) jerked fish
6) jerked tofu
7) jerked beef
dried seaweed – sorta like the ones wrapped around sushi rolls, but these have more flavor
9) milk chocolate with nugget inside

yeah, so it’s a lot of dried stuff…but it’s good, seriously…no, really!

then it was off to go-karting…

The track was decent and 60rmb bought you 8 minutes behind the wheel. In typical China fashion, no forms, no waiver, no nuttin’. I came away unscathed, but given some mishaps or dangerous things I saw, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some serious injuries once in a while. But it’s ok, it won’t deter me from going back again.

Next was a trip to the teahouse…where we filled up with more snacks.

Top row from left to right
1) Fried peas
2) Sesame crackers
3) “cat ears” they are called cat ears because they apparently look like them? but no, no animals were hurt in the production of these cat ears. They taste sorta like the wafers above
4) Chinese grapefruit
5) Roasted beans – I think they are cooked similar to peanuts? and then salted

and lastly, I leave you with this semi-related picture. I took this at a local Dairy Queen – which use to frequent once every couple days before deciding that can’t be healthy. Check out the toppings you can get with your hot dog

Mmmmm…pepperoni on my hot dog please! I will confess though, when I was little, a waiter asked me what I wanted on my hamburger and I responded with, “ham.” doh!

too lazy to write a chinese version…

I shrugged it off and didn’t think it was that bad here…until these past couple days that is. Yikes.

Guess I’ll be exercising indoors for a while.

整天坐在电脑前面不见得是一件好事，因此我又下定决心早上早点起来出去锻炼锻炼身体。 不过有人建议外面空气不良的时候锻炼会对身体产生一些损害。 其实我也没觉得什么， 不过最近看起来有一点恐怖。。。我看最近还是在室内锻炼吧。

Anyway, I was watching a CNN year-in-review program last week and I realized since moving out here these lists have taken on a new meaning for me. Instead of a ‘review,’ it’s more like a cliff’s notes of 2007 since 90% of it is new to me! I joke with my US friends that if they ever make a Trivial Pursuit 2007….err….let’s just say you wouldn’t want me on your team.

So in the spirit of lists and this blog here is a fun list of the Top 10 ‘what is’ and ‘how to’ search queries from Google and Baidu in 2007.

Top 10 ‘what is’ queries in 2007 – note the translations are mine
Baidu
1) 什么是基金 – What are mutual funds
2) 什么是权证 – What are options
3) 什么是股指期货 – What are futures
4) 什么是股票 – What are stocks
5) 什么是电子商务 – What is e-commerce
6) 什么是爱 – What is love
7) 什么是3g – What is 3g
什么是企业文化 – What is company culture
9) 什么是科学发展观 – What is “scientific growth viewpoint” – I know I butchered this one – as you can see sometimes I feel like I speak english like a chinese person now. haha Anyway, it’s basically a mission statement/framework for how the government would like to see the growth and development of China and its people
10) 什么是oem – What is oem

Google
1) what is love
2) what is autism
3) what is rss
4) what is lupus
5) what is sap
6) what is bluetooth
7) what is emo
what is java
9) what is hpv
10) what is gout

Top 10 ‘how to’ queries in 2007
Baidu
1) 如何减肥 – How to diet
2) 如何炒股 – how to trade stocks
3) 如何打开注册表 – How to open the registration form windows registry
4) 如何美白 – How to make my skin whiter (in the context of beautification)
5) 如何化妆 – How to apply makeup
6) 如何购买基金 – How to purchase mutual funds
7) 如何赚钱 – How to make money
如何创业 – How to be an entrepreneur
9) 如何接吻 – How to kiss
10) 如何理财 – How to handle my personal finances

Google
1) how to kiss
2) how to draw
3) how to knit
4) how to hack
5) how to dance
6) how to crochet
7) how to meditate
how to flirt
9) how to levitate
10) how to skateboard

Of course, it’s always dangerous to make generalizations based on anecdotal bits of data like this, but alas, I’ll do it anyway.

Based on the above list some Chinese netizens believe that it’s indicative of how Chinese people care more about money than Americans. I disagree – I think it’s just more indicative of the fact that everyone and their mothers are piling into the red-hot stockmarket in 2007, literally. To dig into this deeper I took a gander at the archives but unfortunately only Baidu had the same categories going back to 2006 while this was the first year for Google Zeitgeist to have these 2 categories. As I guessed, in the 2006 Baidu list, there are way fewer finance related terms.

Lastly, I think these lists are more interesting if you pretend that the Chinese list was compiled from the US population and vice versa. What would your reaction be then?

I personally think the “how to make my skin whiter” one sticks out like a sore thumb

It would’ve been nice to go home for the holidays but as a consolation prize I had a virtual Christmas Eve dinner via webcam with my folks back home. Santa had already made his rounds in China since it was already 7am here while my family back home were still waiting for Santa to come down their chimney.

On a related note, like many of you procrastinators out there I too spent my Christmas Eve shopping. Except it was to buy computer servers for my business. Try fitting THAT in your stocking! Well, all of this doesn’t sound that exciting, that is until you realize that with every purchase comes with a free ride on a motor scooter.

Check it out! In case you’re wondering, that’s not me.

So here was the deal, I bought the server from a local dealer to save some bucks and I originally planned to have them deliver it to my apt, but while I was double-checking the final product at the store they said, “do you want to take it home now?”

I said, “Sure, but how?”

She nonchalantly replied, “My husband can take both you and the server on his motor scooter.”

To be honest, I was highly doubtful this would have a pleasant ending plus comical thoughts of whacking pedestrians in the back of the knees with the server kept cropping up in my head, but apparently this is par for the course.

Luckily, my fear was unfounded and the dude was a pro so it went off without a hitch. Though it brings back memories of when my mom, brother, sister and I would all pile onto our scooter in Taiwan when I was little. Now THAT would be a good picture!

去年我说过了在中国圣诞节的气氛一点都不浓。 顶多有些地方会有意思意思的布置。不过没什么好抱怨的，我春节玩的很痛快的时候就会替你们郁闷了。

其实我一直以来已经习惯了自己四处跑但今年不知道为什么特别想家。 本来有抱着希望回家但现在脱不开身所以只能用webcam来跟我家人吃一顿虚拟巨餐。

另外， 像你们迟误者（可以这样说吗？） 我在christmas eve 也在购物，但我估计我买的电脑服务器不是典型的圣诞礼物吧。 其实也没什么大不了的，但没想到还配送一乘蛮有趣的scooter ride.

观赏以上的照片！说明一下，那个人是送我回家的，如果要我自己开的话这会就惨了！

所以这个有什么搞笑的？ 其实这种东西我在路上看了n遍了，但旁观者和参与者总是有区别吧！所以我买完服务器之后，那个老板娘就说“我先生送你回去吧。“ 随此就搭上了。 在回家的路上突然让我想起小时候我妈妈骑着一辆灰色的小摩托车带者我哥哥，姐姐，和我兜来兜去。 虽然这个节日不能跟我家人聚聚会但偶尔在中国可以让我回顾到这些美好的记忆也应该知足了。

In a nutshell, China sent a satellite traveling a quarter million miles away to explore the moon, making it 1 of only 4 countries to do so (others being US, Russia, and Japan). Check out some of the coverage.

for those of you that are too lazy, here are some screenshots from xinhua (the link above)

Granted I wasn’t born when man landed on the moon in ’69 so I can’t compare, but all I can say is that for a while this was all that was on TV – detailed shots of the moon, 3d virtual maps, interviews with scientists, etc. Appropriately timed, I then saw a documentary about China’s space expeditions and learned that in 2003 China became 1 of only 3 nations to send a person out to space.

Aside from all this hoopla, it got me thinking, why do some countries spend choose to explore space and not others? Here is my cut at a pros/cons list for any nation contemplating a space program (feel free to disagree)

Cons:
REALLY expensive (money, time, and expertise)
Citizens may consider it a poor allocation of resources (ie. education or alleviating poverty is more pressing)
0 practical benefits in the immediate future

Pros:
Builds national pride and boost morale
Shows the rest of the world how cool they are
National defense/offense (??)

Thus, it seems to me that it only makes sense for countries far enough along the development cycle with superpower aspirations. Otherwise, either they don’t have enough resources or the benefits simply aren’t compelling enough.

Babbling aside, the end of the research and development phase is coming to an end and I am currently trying to ride the wave of excitement as long as possible before the next problem surfaces. Though every once in a while when things do look down and waves of self-doubt surfaces, I simply ask myself, wouldn’t it be better just to find a normal job? Answering that question requires the same amount of time it takes my synapses to fire and I find that it’s enough to be motivated again. I can’t express how lucky I feel to have the chance to do what I want to be doing.

Lastly, there has been one downside of doing this startup though, my chinese has gotten a lot worse. I find that I just sit in front of my computer all day and with 2 of us both coding away all day, we don’t talk a lot so my chinese has gone to the crapper. Actually, I’ve gone as far as trying to make myself think in chinese! It’s not really working because whenever I meet up with my former co-workers, they like to make fun of my chinese. Hence, from now on, I’ll be doing my best to write this blog in chinese as well.

很久没写博客了，今天要写的时候才发现一转眼已经过了两个月了。 奇怪，想起两个月之前的我好像没什么深刻的印象了； 当然不是因为两个月是多么长的时间而是在这两个月之内已经经过无数的高潮低潮。 我发现人在衡量时间不只是用实际的时间而是用经历来衡量的。 因此对我来说，两个月之前的事情似乎一年前的事情。

创业进展得还可以，研究及开发阶段快要完成了所以特别兴奋但我一直做好心理准备等待下一个难关。很多人说创业就是这样像一个过山车一样，高潮的时候兴奋得不得了低潮的时候就觉得天很快就塌下来了。 不过不管怎么样我发现好的时候没你想得那么美好，低潮的时候没你想得那么惨。 偶尔，特别失落的时候看到我周围的朋友有了稳定的工作过的轻轻松松的生活心里难免会一点羡慕，然后就会想那我也找一份工作吧，但想也不用想我也知道我心里是怎么想的，有了这个小小的动机就够了， 再也不会疑问自己的目标了。 反而有时候我会觉得我还是蛮幸福的，能做我所想做的事情不是人人都能这么幸福所以也要好好珍惜吧。

另外，创业有一点坏处之前没想到过，就是我的中文腿部好几晨。 我跟我员工整天坐在电脑前编程也没什么机会长聊所以中文腿部也不可能避免的。 现在一旦我跟之前的同事聚聚会他们就会取笑我说像跟一个小朋友在说话一样。 好郁闷所以不得不逼我自己找办法练习中文， 所以就借这个机会用中文写博客了！

But here are a few more entertaining ones in the spirit of ‘cleaning up’ society as of late:

1) Shanda, who produces online games, said that male players will no longer be able to play female in-game characters. Their method of validation? Proving their gender via webcam.

2) No more TV ads on bras, underwear, and ‘sexual medication’ as well as TV shows on cosmetic surgery and sex changes.

3) Reality tv shows that are too vulgar also got the axe. A dating show (the name escapes me at the moment) got the axe midseason because SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television) said so. Ouch.

4) No more audience participation via SMS voting during the primetimes of 7:30-10:30pm. Not sure the reasoning behind that, but one unrelated conclusion I can draw from this is that maybe US people stay up later on average? since our primetime is 8-11pm?

Unfortunately, this year’s national holiday isn’t as eventful for me as last year’s escapades since I am pretty much spending it working on my startup. Thus, I felt a little bit like the loser that’s staying at campus at xmas break while everyone goes home (or on a trip). But that feeling quickly dissipated upon a quick trip to the mall – the party was apparently brought to me – in the form of a gajillion people taking advantage of the holiday bargains

So the best I can do is pass along a few pics from Sina (one of the big 3 portals in china)

by the way, a few of you asked how I was doing….I am safe and sound in Shanghai. Luckily the storm weakened quite a bit before it got to Shanghai…they were projecting winds of around 100mph when it crossed the city.

Maybe I’ve been lucky or maybe I’ve been oblivious but I’ve never once felt like I was at a disadvantage in the US because I looked Asian. But yesterday, I finally knew what it felt like to be discriminated against for something that you have no power to change. I am not so naive as to believe that it doesn’t go on in the world, but nevertheless, it doesn’t lessen the indescribable frustration that you feel in pondering that such injustice exists in the world.

So here was the situation: a month ago at this expat networking event one Russian girl (with a noticeable Russian accent) told me that she just moved here from Siberia and got a really nice gig teaching english. She was like, yeah, I signed up at this website and got tutoring gigs right away at like 200 RMB/hr. (Keep in mind the avg college grad makes a little over 100 RMB PER DAY!). So in light of me doing my entrepreneurial thing I was like, hmmm….maybe this is a good way to spend a few hours to make some extra dough on the side. Plus, I can teach business english, which would be even more money.

Fast forward to yesterday. I saw an ad in the Shanghai Daily (english newspaper in shanghai）that said they are looking for english teachers. I called and spoke to them in english (so they knew that I was a native speaker) to arrange an interview. The lady was quite accommodating on the phone and said “How about saturday?” I said fine, no problem. Then she paused and said, “actually we’re really in need of good english teachers, can you do today?” Sure, no problem.

I venture over to this company’s office and immediately the people look at me like I am some alien. The receptionist goes to the ‘boss’ and notified him that I had arrived. He looks over and says to her and says “what’s he here for?” she promptly replied, “to teach english.” Then he said “WHAT?!? but he’s chinese“

So after 15 minutes of him dilly-dallying around, he comes to meet me in the interview room. I introduce myself and he writes down my very common english name (misspelled, might I add) on a piece of paper as if to pretend to take some notes and then point blank says “actually, sorry, but we’re looking for white people only”

I was livid.

“I know that native english speaking chinese people like you are responsible and likely better teachers, but our clients want white people”

He went on to say all this about appearances of white people at schools or as teachers at an institute is what gets students in…blah blah blah.

anyway, let’s just say that I didn’t stay for very long afterwards.

I knew that there was nothing I can do. I am obviously lucky in the way that I don’t *need* this gig but nevertheless it doesn’t take the sting out of being discriminated against – for being Chinese in China no less.

I think that’s an interesting phenomenon, because I do feel like IM will only become more and more the main mode of communication – just look at the teenagers in the US these days who say email is too slow and a thing of the past. It’s the exact same sentiment that I get here, except it’s not from a select group, but more or less everyone.

My hypothesis on why that is:

1) Email has been rooted in the US culture for quite some time, way before the existence of IM. Whereas here, IM was introduced soon after email

2) Less separation of personal and professional lines along communication methods. For example, in the US I would never consider IM’ing or SMS a client because it seems too casual and unprofessional, whereas here, I do it all the time. Thus, on my MSN contact list here in China, it’s a good mix of professional and personal contacts. Companies even take this too the extreme and offer business services over IM such as ddmap – they offer 411/mapquest services.

3) Along with the last point, IM isn’t as fragmented here. People here use MSN, QQ or both. There is a general perception that the QQ’s demographic is teenagers and college kids while MSN’s is grown-ups. I would say it’s true for the most part, though I do see QQ contact info on customer contact pages from time to time. In the US, I’ve used IM in a corporate environment (Sametime) but it was strictly for professional use, like I couldn’t add my non-company buddies if I wanted to. Here, my MSN contact list has the whole kitten kaboodle, thus making it more useful.

4) MSN signatures – this is something that I love about MSN. I know you can sorta do the same thing on Yahoo or AOL, but it’s not really the same, and I never see anyone using it back home. It’s basically adding a signature next to your username (or replacing it altogether) so that you can customize how your buddies see you. What makes this cool? People end up putting up new 1-liners all the time about their moods or recent happenings. So for example, I put up “looking for recs for programmers” recently and people who had me on their contact list would out of the blue IM me and say “oh, what’s going on? what kind of people are you looking for? did you start your own company?” You could say it’s a question of push vs pull. ie I could’ve done the same thing by blasting out emails to all my buddies, but by simply adding a signature on my MSN, people who were curious or had recs could IM me.

On this last point, I think it’s worth dwelling into further in the respect that I think people are lazy and like to know what’s going on but don’t want to work at it. So by having a signature, I can get little mini-updates from the person without having to actively communicate with the person. It’s a lot more non-committal and this way I don’t even feel obligated to communicate back if I don’t want to.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think email is going away, but I think it’ll be more and more relegated to things where it’s about documentation or conveying something complex.

PS. somewhat related, despite the trend of moving to instant gratification in communication, push email systems (a la blackberry) haven’t really taken off here. For the most part, people feel like SMS is a sufficient substitute.

at first every time people pointed to something, like say on the menu, I’d do a double take and internally be thinking “why are you flicking me off?” but after a split second, I’d realize that they didn’t mean anything by it.

What brought this on was today I read an article a friend sent to me about how this woman and her adopted chinese daughter of 12 just picked up and moved from NYC to Shanghai. As I read it, I identified with her sense of “wow, this is how they do it here, it’s so weird and interesting” but it also made me a little nostalgic that the daily excitement I experienced with every new revelation is now replaced with a sense of normalcy and non-event. But the truth is I welcome it because it is only with that frame of mind am I able to feel like Shanghai is my home.

Living in a foreign country has been great for me in a lot of respects. At the very basic level, it’s given me a chance to understand more about my cultural background, family, and heritage. It’s all great and has allowed me to be infinitely closer to my family members and not to minimize it, but I mostly expect that. What I didn’t expect was that it has given me a clearer sense of self-identity.

Before you dismiss is as self-help mismush, I’ll tell you why. It’s because now I feel like I have truly made a conscious decision about where I stand on various beliefs and issues. It wasn’t always that way – like I remember I did a debate back in 6th grade where we had to talk about violence on TV. I took the position that violence on TV has no effect on children because people know it’s make-believe and can separate reality from fantasy. Stepping back from this issue, I failed to realize how much social conditioning happens in every society and you don’t realize how much you take things at face-value without ever questioning it purely because it’s the social norm (both depicted in make-believe and real-life). Well, finally when you get transplanted to another country with vastly contrasting views do you see how much that happens.

So does that mean I have done a 180 since I’ve been here? Nope, actually quite the contrary. In some aspects, my ‘western’ beliefs and positions are stronger than ever because now I feel like I’ve seen enough of the ‘other’ viewpoint to make an informed decision to (not) believe in it and realize why I made the choice.

So where does that leave me? Well, it leaves me with the sentiment that I couldn’t have made a better choice to move to Shanghai. I have learned so much not just in terms of being more worldly and tolerant, but just growing as a person when you live in another country. If any of you have a chance to take the same opportunity, you should. You won’t regret it.

On a separate, but lighter note – I had my first friend ‘casualty.’ Shanghai being a transient city for foreigners, the rule of thumb is that people usually leave before 2 years is up or stay for a long time. There isn’t a whole lot of tweeners. Well, one of my better friends moved away recently….so I was a little sad to see her go, but glad that I’ve gotten the chance to make really good friends that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

I proceed to cross the street and stuck around to see what the ambulance would do once they got the green light. Oddly enough, when the light turned green, the sirens started blaring and the ambulance went about its business.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen drivers not getting out of the way for ambulances so I asked a few people here why that is. The usual response that I get is that it’s like “the boy who cried wolf”

Drivers feel like the siren privilege gets abused a lot. There are stories floating around about how people get access to these police cars or emergency vehicles just to whiz by the bad Shanghai traffic. So people tend to not give way to them anymore.

It’s kinda sad in my book….I suppose I can see why drivers feel this way. Talk about “a few bad apples ruining the barrel”

I just hope I never need an ambulance because I am serious when I mean that I don’t think I’d ever make it to the hospital.

I’ve been trying to prepare myself for the rollercoaster ride of emotional ups and downs of doing a startup, but it’s tough. While the challenges I’ve been experiencing are hardly earth-shattering, but nevertheless I can’t relate to you the feeling that awashed over me a couple weeks ago when I was exhausting my list of potential candidates. They fell into these buckets

1) unqualified
2) too expensive
3) didn’t think this startup had a shot
4) liked the startup but didn’t want to take a risk

so the best commitments I was getting were “I like this startup and I like you, so how about I work part-time?” For many reasons, I thought that was a deal-breaker.

I was beginning to wonder if I would be able to find the right people and furthermore would they be willing to take the risk with me? It was looking glum…but now, it’s a big relief to have the first guy under the belt! woohooo!

One of my friends who I am trying to recruit surprised me when he said this:

“I know you’re looking for young smart recruits for your startup, but the truth is that here in China you have to worry about what the parents think. Parents want their kid’s first job to be very stable.”

While I was busy figuring out how to persuade the candidates to come work at a yet-to-be-formed startup and spouting what a great opportunity it would be while they were young, but never thought I’d have to have a story they could sell to their parents too!

I think this just speaks to the fact that parents play a lot bigger role in an adult person’s decision-making than in the US. I think it can be generally summed as up as the following:

In the US, we mull over the decision ourselves and once we’ve decided what will make us happy, THEN we tell our parents the conclusion.

In China, people generally discuss the decision with their parents and COLLECTIVELY make the decision.

Of course this is a gross over-generalization, but I certainly feel a tangible difference here. I have a few hypothesis about why this is:

1) A lot of young people still live with their parents – thus whether they like it or not, parents butt in

2) There is A LOT of comparing amongst parents regarding what their kids are doing. So in order to have the most face, you’d like your kid to work at the most prestigious jobs and earn the most money, thus you’re likely to have an incentive to give your kid your input

3) As far as the stability thing – private companies haven’t been around for decades, so for the people in their 50′s+ the perception is that it’s best to work at a big State-Owned-Enterprise (SOE) or be a government official

Looks like it’s going to be an uphill battle…

A couple years ago, while still in the US, one of my Hong Kong-ese friends IM’ed me and said “I have a favor to ask, do you have time to talk?” I said “sure” but at this point, a myriad of possibilities were popping into my head ranging from helping her with her homework to taking her to the hospital.

A few long seconds passed, and I answered the phone as soon as it rang. She was like “uhmmm…can I borrow some money?”

What? Huh? Say that again?

Trying not to sound too shocked I said “how come?” To be honest, I can’t really remember what she said, but something to the effect that she had some sudden cash flow issues and needed $500 or $1000. She said she would give it back to me in a few days. I had no reason to doubt her ability to pay it back, I mean she paid for her bschool education out of her own pocket for god sakes. But for some reason that didn’t stop me from making up some lame excuse saying why I couldn’t lend her the money.

She didn’t make a big deal about it at all and was just like “ok, I’ll try another friend then”

At the time, I couldn’t fathom that she asked to borrow money from me! Of course part of it is that we weren’t super close, but mind you, even if my best friend asked to borrow money from me, I think it would still be pretty awkward no matter what the amount. I don’t know what it is, but when it comes to money, we americans set very clear boundaries around it. We are very generous with our time and possessions, but when it comes to money – it’s an entirely different ballgame. I am not sure what it is besides just chalking it up to a social norm.

Well, I’ve come to realize that it’s an entirely different social norm here. People here don’t place such a clear cut boundary around money like we do. It’s not that people lend/borrow to/from from casual friends all the time, but I would place it on par with letting them crash at your place, ie. if you are willing to let them stay over at your house, you’ll probably be ok with lending them money.

Just think about that? For all those people that you’ve offered up your spare bed, couch, or air mattress, would you be willing to lend them money? Or rather, just imagining them asking them in the first place! Yeah, it’s awkward.

This all came to me because I was trying to transfer money to someone, but due to some complications it’s best to find someone who banked at the same institution as the recipient. So long story short, someone offered to help and was like “I’ll transfer the money for you today and you can just give me the money tomorrow” and as if it was no big deal.

So my point is that I think it’s interesting that for a culture known for it’s generosity both in terms of monetary and time philanthropy, we are super sensitive about lending money between friends.

Anyone have any thoughts on why that is?

So in short, I haven’t made a ton of tangible progress. In an effort to remedy that, I am trying to figure out the company registration process. Not that I’ve done it in the US, but I know the basic process. Sure, you have to figure out what type of company you want to incorporate (S Corp, C Corp, LLC, LLP, sole proprietorship, etc) and in what state given tax ramifications and desired corporate and capital structure, but to be honest, compared to China, the US process is a cakewalk.

I’ve done a bit of research and asking around, but I haven’t officially filled out the paperwork so don’t take what I say as gospel (not that you would anyway), but below are some things you have to consider before registering a company

Foreign vs Domestic
As a foreign company, there are various limitations on what kind of business you can do in a lot of industries. In highly regulated industries like banking and media, a foreign company can never be the majority owner nor can it ever obtain certain operating licenses. While the concept of licensing exists in the US (ie. banking license), here, a requirement to obtaining some of those licenses is having to be a domestic mainland company.

To operate as a domestic company in China, the legal representative and stockholders must be local Chinese citizens.

Licenses
Here in China you need a license for EVERYTHING. For example, if I wanted to put up a personal webpage on the web in China, I need what I’ll call a basic ICP registration. That’s just to put up some random static webpage! If I don’t have that registration number displayed on the page, my site is technically illegal. Now, if your website provides any kind of interaction with users (ie. blogs, bbs’es, forums, etc) you’ll have to go beyond the ICP registration and get a full ICP license. The basic ICP registration is not a big deal, but to get the ICP license, you have to be a domestic company (not sure if it’s a law or they just reject foreign companies) and have at least 1,000,000 RMB in registration capital!

Registration Capital
To register a company, you are required to put up registration capital. Basically, the concept is like permanently putting money in escrow. I believe this was instituted to provide some kind of insurance and credibility indicator since many small companies have been known to cheat their customers just to fold and open up under another company the very next year. So theoretically, with registration capital in escrow, it’s the consumer/client’s insurance policy that if the company runs away with their money, they can get some of it back. Thus, in business-to-business dealings, people will often ask how much is your company’s registration capital to get a gauge of how much credibility you have. In actuality, it’s not much of an indicator of anything – but rather just how much money you’re able to borrow. Because for the most part, people register with a certain amount of capital only to take it out shortly after – effectively defeating the spirit of the regulation in the first place.

Regardless of whether this actually serves its originally intended purpose, how much registration capital you have can gravely impact what you can and can’t do. A concrete example is what I said above about needing at least 1,000,000 RMB if you want to get an ICP license. Oh yeah, and you gotta renew this license every single year.

Geographic Location of Registration
Businesses are technically suppose to register according to their physical place of business. This means that if your business is in a suburb of shanghai, you must register with that local bureau. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the tax policies were consistent across all parts of the city and suburbs. Except it’s not. Thus, people typically ‘virtually’ register in another part of town to take advantage of the friendly tax policies in these developing areas while physically locating in the bustling parts of town. Though as of late, the government has cracked down on this practice.

Aside from tax considerations, there is another side effect regarding where you register. Again, it has to do with credibility. If you are registered in the city-center districts you are seen as more credible because in the suburbs, it’s much easier to bend the rules.

While it can be quite cumbersome to navigate the complexities of this process, if you take into account the evolution of business and its context in China, I can totally understand why these regulations are in place. Though nothing says that I have to like it!

Not sure if there is any more appetite for these companies to go public in the US, but in any case, all this competition is great for consumers. They are great, clean, and cheap hotels that cater to budget business travelers in China. As an international tourist, I think it’s a great option to consider.

Check out some pics I took

Even embroidered towels…

…China Telecom’s announcement that its executive vice president and executive director Huang Wenlin would leave on July 9 to work at China Mobile and be replaced by Zhang Chenshuang, former executive director and deputy general manager of China Mobile, China Unicom has now announced that the company’s executive director Li Jianguo will leave take a post in China Netcom.

In state owned enterprises, I hear this is common so that the execs don’t get to comfortable and too powerful, but nevertheless it’s a foreign concept to me.

Imagine if you were the CEO of Verizon and one day the US govt told you, “hey buddy, you’re switching jobs with the Sprint CEO effective tomorrow.” Yeah.

Another important side effect, guanxi is clearly important here, but how much would it suck if you’re chummy with the China Mobile exec (China Mobile is the defacto leader which I would argue operates like a monopoly) moved to China Telecom? As they say “you can live by the relationship, but also die by the relationship”

I’ve read his previous articles and I totally identify with 90% of his experiences – though this particular one, I can’t say I completely agree with it.

The jist of the article is about how there are different expectations from people in China for Chinese-looking foreigners vs Wester-looking foreigners.

…Chinese-American friend who is also fluent in Cantonese and learning Mandarin, and who tells me she has been harangued so many times by cab drivers and others for not knowing her “native tongue” that she has taken to telling them she is Korean. That was only after repeated attempts to explain that she was American were met with “No, you’re Chinese.”

Her Chinese is, in fact, far better than mine, yet I often get copious praise for uttering simple phrases. While many Chinese are pleased to hear a Caucasian’s fumbling attempt to speak their language, they seem to expect nothing more than full fluency from someone who looks like them….

My korean born Norwegian has expressed this exact same sentiment to me before, but to be honest, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have elicited this reaction from people here, but actually quite the opposite. When I first got here, I was conversationally fluent, but I had the vocabulary of a 1st grader. People told me on multiple occasions that they felt like they were talking to a elementary school student. In any case, cabbies that I’d meet would ask me where was I was from (since I still have an accent). When I’d answer the US they usually responded with, “wow, your chinese is pretty good!” My point isn’t to toot my own horn but that I am not sure why my experience differs. Maybe once you know enough chinese to get your point across, people can readjust their expectations? Or maybe that the cabbies I’ve met have met an abnormally large percentage of non-chinese speaking ethnic chinese?

Visual Disconnect
On the flip side (western-looking foreigners who speak fluent chinese) – I can attest to this visual disconnect in chinese people’s minds. Heck, it happens to me. When I was learning chinese from my prof in the US who spoke perfect chinese (but is Caucasian) I felt somehow like was watching a dubbed movie. haha Not sure why, but it just didn’t process in my brain, and to a certain extent it’s not completely natural to me. It’s like this – imagine you were talking to a very petite slender cute girl, but she had Barry White’s voice. See what I mean?

Outsider vs. Insider
On another related note, because of this visual disconnect, a perfectly fluent chinese-speaking Caucasian (they btw make me feel guilty about my chinese) will still always be treated as an outsider, no matter how long they’ve lived here and how much they understand the culture. For example, at my last job, one of my coworkers lived here for 8 years, his chinese is way better than mine, but nevertheless I felt like he got more of an outsider treatment from the other coworkers. I am not sure why, but I think a lot of it has to do with this visual disconnect. People can’t get over it subconsciously.

Let me just finish with another observations – I think a large part of this has to do with the fact that Chinese people as a whole don’t regularly come in contact with people who look drastically different (ie. brown hair, brown eyes, with asian features). I think we’re better about it in the US just because it’s more of a ‘melting pot’ but even then think about the ethnic discrimination that occurs sometimes either consciously or subconsciously.

• 1) The diversity of the people. Sitting on a subway in NYC, it’s clear that NYC is a melting pot. Here everyone looks chinese
• 2) Drinking water out of the tap
• 3) When the waiter says the drink is cold, they actually mean it
• 4) Service staff are much nicer (most of the time)
• 5) TV programming and commercials even are soooo much better (on a related note, i miss my tivo)
• 6) Building elevators are really fast. They actually save time over using the stairs
• 7) Loading times for US internet sites aren’t painfully slow (this is slightly unfair, but whatever)
• More courteous citizens, not the usual pushing and shoving to get on the train, and more personal space
• 9) A dryer
• 10) Driving – people actually obey the traffic rules

But on the flip side, there were a couple things that I wasn’t too keen on

• 1) Food aside from being overly large in portion, it was either extremely salty or sweet, I guess my tastebuds were numb to it before
• 2) Packaging up the wazoo. I bought a virgin mobile phone and I think it was about 3 separate layers of plastic wrapping before I actually got to the phone. Pretty wasteful if you ask me.

Check it out…

the ad on the back of the windshield says “股票融资找中国典当” translation: “If you need money for the stock market, visit China Pawn Shop”

If this isn’t a sign that the market is a bubble – I don’t know what is…

Which is a perfect segue into how the tv viewing experience for the general population is still in the dark ages here. People watch broadcast tv not via rabbit ears but through a coaxial cable from your respective apt complex. Getting tv this way is perfectly fine (I have about 50 channels of programming, most of it provincial channels, the rest national) except something very important is missing – a program guide.

People here don’t have set-top boxes thus no program guide, so I find that I have reverted back to how I watch tv back in the mid 80′s – channel surfing incessantly with no idea what’s on when. I just hope I stumble upon something interesting serendipitously, which inevitably nearly never happens. To make things worse, programming times can be absolutely arbitrary. Consider exhibit A below taken from an online tv guide.

See what I mean? It’s not that I have to have everything start on the obligatory hour or half hour but how am I suppose to find anything when programs start at random minutes of the hour like 9, 12, 13, 14, 46, 55, etc? And it goes without saying that each channel finds their own unique schedule superior to others, so you can tangled web of tv scheduling.

Though I think it’s only fair that I mention that they do make a slight effort to rectify the situation. They put the tv programming title in the margins. It doesn’t help much, give me a TIVO instead.

So back to the original problem at hand – finding when this popular american idolish program is on. I look online and see that program is on Friday night at 7:30pm. Huh? Friday night? In this US this would be the kiss of death. The best programming in the US is on Thursdays and Sunday. Here it’s Friday night is prime time. Apparently a lot of people stay home to watch TV.

I started thinking about this because I came across a really funny post by Dilbert’s author, Scott Adams. I forwarded to a chinese friend and she clearly didn’t think it was as funny as I did. Couple possibilities

• 1) Scott Adams isn’t funny (doubtful)
• 2) It hit a nerve with my geeky-side and I thought it was funnier than it was (very possible)

Actually, I think it neither of the above, but rather that humor is a very cultural thing – that’s why you can’t just translate jokes and have it be funny. Something gets “lost in translation.” In this case, to find Scott Adam’s post funny, there are inherent assumptions that doesn’t “translate” across cultures

• 1) you know what a blackberry is
• 2) you know what a “geek” is and the associated behaviors of the stereotype

I found it funny because I was able to read between the lines, invoke a feeling or image in my head and get his punchline.

Not so for my chinese friend – it doesn’t conjure up the same thoughts in her mind after reading this post than it does in mine. Hence, it’s not funny.

Back to my original point – to be humorous in another language, it’s not just a mastery of the vocabulary, grammar, and intonation (things we associate with learning a new language), but you need to accumulate a ton of cultural context! So that when you hear a chinese joke, it’s actually funny to you. Otherwise, you’re just a deer in headlights forcing a semi-hearty fake laugh because everyone else around you is laughing (but you have no idea why it’s funny). Clearly, I speak from significant personal experience.

So when I am able to tell a chinese joke, I’ve can finally legitimately say I’ve graduated to full chinese fluency.

On another note: why is it that when you explain something it no longer becomes funny? I tried explaining why the post was funny (to me) but needless to say, it was futile

So yeah, I quit my job. It’s been about 6 short but intense months, but I feel like a totally different person before and after (queue up the Jenny Craig commercial). I know I had some qualms at first and reached out to some of you for advice about whether I should take this job. Looking back, I couldn’t have made a better choice. First of all, I think I saved myself a lot of mistakes – how I would manage and work with my employees/partners now is much different than what I would’ve done had I made the plunge on day 1. I’ve also made a ton of great friends – my coworkers were surprisingly great about putting up with my 5th grade chinese and my silly western approaches, but nevertheless, I think a few could be life-long friendships.

So I’ve asked myself is 6 months long enough? Well, to be honest, it’s not very long, but now that the learning curve has leveled off this is as good a time as any to make that leap of faith. I know I still have a long and arduous road ahead of me, but I feel ready.

I will miss working along side with my co-workers – I know there has been a lot of talk about how there is a lack of management talent in China. That’s definitely true to a certain degree, but I’ve come across some of the most responsible, proactive, and mentoring people in this company and any company around the world would be ecstatic to have them. Granted they are few and far between, but it’s not like they are a dime a dozen in the US, either. I think the difference is that it’s more uneven in China – meaning that there is a huge chasm between the great ones and poor ones, whereas in the US, the spread isn’t quite a wide, thus not as obvious.

So with great anxiety and anticipation, I make the leap into entrepreneurship – something that I’ve always wanted to do. I’m betting the farm on it, but hopefully in the process, I’ll be able to bring you even more interesting ‘observations’ as I navigate the chinese business world as an entrepreneur instead of an employee!

As they say….less talking….more doing. Wish me luck!

In the meanwhile, I’ll be taking a trip back to the US for a few weeks, so stay tuned as I face the realities of repatriation!

Yesterday I was in an unique situation that made me realize how different the dynamics are when in an international environment. Let me set the stage.

Coworker and I: between the 2 of us some basic shanghainese, fluent english, mandarin, and taiwanese
2 people in Party X: Fluent english, mandarin, cantonese, shanghainese, and basic hangzhounese
2 people in Party Y: Fluent english, mandarin, and taiwanese

As we go over the document in english the conversation is in mandarin. But I noticed something that doesn’t really happen much in the US – sidetalk. I feel like in the US, you go into a presentation with a set strategy and while you can kinda whisper or whatever, you try not to because it looks bad (unnatural and draws attention to yourself) plus you don’t want the other side to really hear what you’re saying. But in this particular meeting, there were tons of sidetalk. Party X were speaking amongst themselves in Shanghainese because they assume that no one else in the room knows shanghainese and Pary Y were speaking amongst themselves in Tawianese for the same reason.

As the middle man and being able to understand Taiwanese and a little shanghainese, it was like I got to see a behind-the-scenes view of the whole discussion. Through this, I finally realized how advantageous it is to be able to communicate internally in private as the meeting unfolded because I could see how each parties’ strategy was rapidly changing as they were discussing issues internally.

So what’s the moral of the story? Know lots of languages! It could give you a HUGE advantage – while it’s a no-brainer that’s the case, I never thought about it in the US because 99.99% of the time english is usually the only language that people use in the US. Oh, and don’t assume the other side doesn’t understand your language. Could be a very costly mistake

This highlights what I like about being in China, it’s given me a much broader international view. I realize how different things can be when you throw more than 1 language in the mix. So it’s motivated me to start learning Shanghainese and Korean. I’d love to master the major languages in Asia, but mastering the dialects would be impossible. There has got to be hundreds in China alone. To give you some perspective, even places that are only 30 minutes to an hour by car from Shanghai has their own dialect.

One step at a time…

There are 2 main categories of articles:

• 1) Normal journalism as we know it. The reporters decide what they want to write and interview a variety of sources – it can be investigative or can be more lifestyle oriented
• 2) “Advertorials” According to one of my friends who works at Newsweek, this is the official term used in the industry. These are basically articles that read like company PR. Of course there are different degrees but first and foremost, its main objective clearly isn’t intended to present an objective 3rd party perspective

With advertorials, at the extreme, many of you may have heard that reporters get paid by companies to write about them. This is pretty much how it works. Say you’re company X and you have some new product that you’re bringing on to the market. Well, the product may not be the most exciting product, so to ensure coverage (and positive one at that), you tell all the reporters about the press conference. The reporters come to the conference EXPECTING to receive a hongbao (红包 – money in an envelop). That’s actually how many reporters make a living. The interesting thing is that people will open it right then and there and many of the reporters will compare who got how much. If people are unhappy with the amount, they might choose not to cover you at all, or rather write nasty things about your product. Sounds really out of this world to most of us, but that’s the way it is.

Another not so extreme, but commonplace example is people will contact someone in the media, whether industry mag or whatever and basically provide them an outline of what the company would like the article to say. Sometimes the company will provide a write-up to the writer and the writer will just make a few simple changes and put it to print. For many, the less work the writers have to put into it the better. I’ve even seen some articles where the writer left some of the pronouns in 1st person instead of 3rd person! In other cases, the writer will let you see the article before it’s submitted and let you make changes! Yeah, totally a different world.

So it’s not to say that there isn’t any of the investigative journalism around, but by and large, it’s a lot less. Most of it is glorified PR or “advertorials” lacking in any meaningful analysis. I think it has created some unfortunate side effects because aside from the clear conflict of interests, if you really have something cool that people write up – people are still skeptical, so it’s hard to filter out what’s genuine and what’s not – which seems to defeat the point of journalism in the first place.

So why did I take a picture? Well, I think I am numb to it now, but until today I realized that I’ve gotten use to cleaning ladies milling about and cleaning while I pee at the urinal. Yeah, now that I just read what I wrote, it seems a little funny. I don’t know what it is but 90% of the time the cleaning staff are women and they pretty much come in whenever to clean the men’s bathroom without notice.

This isn’t the worst story I’ve heard. One of my coworkers said he’s been to showers in health clubs and the cleaning ladies come in while people are taking a shower. Yikes.

I came to China with the goal of making 1/2 local friends 1/2 expat friends.

Ok so it’s kinda weird to have a goal like that, but after a couple initial trips here I’ve come to meet some expats who have been here in China for years but still know just barely enough chinese to get around and live in an expat bubble. To be honest, it’s everyone’s prerogative to live the way they want to live, but I decided that if I wanted to move here, I needed to immerse myself in the local culture. Easier said then done.

While there are more foreigners here than you would think, by all measures, it’s still a very small population. Regardless, it’s quite easy to make expat friends in Shanghai for a few reasons:

• 1) You look visibly and strikingly different than the local population (dress and talk differently too)
• 2) Expats are fully aware that it’s a transient community and realize how hard it is for them to make friends, so will go out of their way to introduce you to their friends
• 3) The expat circle is quite small – a lot of expats do business or hang out socially with other expats
• 4) Places expats frequent are usually full of other expats

So that’s a major reason why I decided to work at a local company, because I figured that was my only legitimate shot at making local chinese friends. Now I can honestly say after almost a year, about half of my friends are locals, but you know what I noticed? My 2 worlds rarely, if ever mix.

I chalk it up to 2 key reasons, one more obvious than the other

• 1) Language barrier – unless your chinese is at a certain level, it’s quite difficult to have a deep meaningful conversation. Same is true vice versa, thus even when I have tried to bring my 2 worlds together, I find that the 2 groups immediately segregate after the initial chit chat.
• 2) Little interest overlap – as a young professional in the US, I think I spent much of my social life out at bars or cafes with friends. Well, given how expensive a beer can be, the average chinese person thinks it’s not worth the money. They’d rather do something else. Furthermore, the bar going culture hasn’t really been ingrained in the chinese psyche.

  Of the people that do go to bars, the style is WAY different. There are expat bars, and then there are local bars – very different atmosphere. For one, the local ones are full of tables because Asian people like to sit while Westerners like to meander around.

So what do I do when I hang out with my local friends? Eat, go to chinese bars, and play sports. Playing murder mystery (sorta like a live version of Clue the boardgame) with a big group is quite the rage these days….but I’ve overdosed on it so I’ve stopped. Also people love to play cards and mahjong at teahouses but I am not really into that.

Since being here, I’ve adopted quite a few sports that I haven’t played since gym class in middle school – badminton and ping pong.

Playing soccer with some friends on the rooftop of a building (it’s caged in) – very cool

and lately, I’ve been playing a lot of basketball – which is much more enjoyable for me here because I am no longer the small skinny dude filled with the fear of being swatted every time I go to the basket.

Looks like the film is a success in China. It recorded 65 million RMB (~8.4 million USD) in the opening days 5/2-5/7 according to the Beijing News (note: it’s in chinese). It also said that it brought in 18 million RMB in its opening day, which is a record for an foreign film. Though I suppose this pales in comparison to the 59 million USD that it raked in in the US on opening day. But guess what, at least I have the satisfaction in knowing that I got to see it on the big screen before you guys! Booyah!

Anyway, the overall movie-going experience is pretty similar to the US except that I got to select my seat when I bought my movie ticket! That seemed pretty cool to me – I’ve always wondered why we couldn’t do that in the US? Similarly though, the movie ticket was quite expensive at 90 rmb per ticket (~$12 USD). It’s not far from NYC prices and 18x the going rate of a dvd on the streets. Gladly though, the medium coke was only 18 rmb! a bargain at any movie theatre…except to keep it in perspective a 20 oz coke costs 3 rmb at a convenience store. Doh!

So this is an interesting pricing strategy considering the income levels and cheap alternatives. I was told by my friend who works at warner brothers movies here that when they price the tickets, they basically ignore the dvd prices. There is no way they can come close to it, so they might as well target a select segment that’s willing to pay for the big screen experience. If you’re interested, I write a bit more about the media biz in china here.

Here are some fun pictures I thought I’d share

I saw the movie at XinTianDi (新天地）and they clearly were doing some heavy promotions. Check out this giant spiderman – though in my opinion it’s just about the ugliest and most disproportional spiderman I’ve ever seen.

here is a cool spiderman promo poster in chinese

an overly skinny spiderman….I guess this is the chinese rendition

Lastly, Spiderman 3 with chinese subtitles. the shot turned out much better than I thought it would

This place is called tomato farm village (番茄农庄) fan qie nong zhuang – at first I was skeptical since the name sounded so silly, but all them were like, the name is really cool – so basically that was enough to convince me.

Here is the entrance. It costs 30rmb to get in person. I thought it was going to be another one of those manufactured towns to attract throngs of tourists on the promise of its authenticity…but I was very pleasantly surprised

It’s basically a big park/farm. It used to be purely a farm a long time ago, but now they’ve included more recreational stuff to attract more tourist. You can ride horses, sleep in hammocks, stay overnight in little cabins, or even fish there. It was pretty cool actually

Believe it or not people BBQ here a lot too….here’s my friend C doing some prep work (buttering up some clams)

Peeps grilling away by the lake (we had a good variety including lamb chops, lamb on a stick, steak and chicken wings basted with chinese bbq sauce )

Clams – post-grilling

A was very pumped about the chicken wings (they turned out really well)

Dessert – fruit and man tou （馒头）toasted buns dipped in condensed milk

Doh! one guy dropped a toy into the lake and had to get a random dude to fish it out

Guess who’s relaxing in a hammock taking a nap

My buddy A relaxing in a neighboring hammock

All in all, it was a great way to spend a saturday afternoon with friends and get away from the city (helps to have friends who have cars!). If it wasn’t for the chinese people and lamb on a stick, you wouldn’t have thought you were in China.

Significant dates like this are always interesting to me because it’s become very apparent to me that there is a very big cultural focus on family and it permeates many aspects of everyday life (from movies to social norms to ‘holidays’). I know that I’ve always been a very independent person growing up and it’s a value that’s strongly emphasized in the US, but I also really like the focus on heritage and family here. Not surprisingly, I feel like I value my relationships with my family even more now since I’ve been in China – which is a good thing in my book.

Anyway, not to move completely off topic, but traditionally for Tomb Sweeping Day (qing ming jie), you’re suppose to eat qing tuan (青团) which literally translates to green balls, but I think it’s a more appropriate to call it sweet green rice balls. As with just about every culture, dates of any significance usually has to involve food. In this case, you’re suppose to eat qing tuan – the first word is the same sound as the “qing” in qing ming jie.

They sell it everywhere – like this convenience store advertising that they’ve got the qing tuan

this is what one looks like with the packaging still intact

With packaging layer number 1 stripped away

with packaging layer number 2 peeled away and bitten into

So what does it exactly taste like you may wonder – it’s basically a glutenous outside made from rice (like mochi if you’ve ever had it or rolled pizza dough) and the inside is a sweet red bean paste. I am actually not a big fan of the outside (never was since I was a kid) so I just ended up eating the inside.

his name is Jason from Jiao You Hao Nan Er (加油好男儿), a big reality tv program here in China. It literally translates to “Go! Good Guy!” but it’s translated as Superhero whenever they refer it in english because there is a female counterpart call Supergirl, which is a knockoff of American Idol. Ok, you may be lost already but that’s ok, no big loss. The point is that for one of the campaigns we did for our clients, we hired “Jason” a C-list celebrity (at best) to promote the event.

He wasn’t exactly a natural under the spotlight and spent the night being shuttled around by his manager. To give you a little background, Superhero, like American Idol basically takes contestants from the population at large, so it’s a bit to be expected. Still, after seeing him in person, it’s obvious to me why he didn’t win the Superhero title.

In any case, this has been my only celebrity sighting so far….I am hoping for more, but then it occurred to me that 99% of the people I consider to be celebrities here in China, you guys are going to be like “huh? who’s that?”

Sony promotional picture

Granted the reasoning is that May 1st is the beginning of a Golden Week (1 of 3 yearly weeklong holidays) and May 5th is a Friday (typical US release) thus it makes sense from a timing perspective. With that said, I still think it’s symbolic that such a blockbuster movie would release earlier in China than the US. Does that mean that China is the new media frontier for US movie studios – ehhh….not really given the piracy issues.

Anyway, it’s one movie I think I’d actually go and watch in the theaters given the early release and the generally better viewing experience.

So why do I think it’s only a symbolic move? For starters the money just isn’t here. Take for example, a big budget blockbuster movie opened back in on December 15 called Huang Jin Jia (黄金甲）and is packed with superstars like Jay Chou (周杰伦), Gong Li (巩俐) and Chow Yun Fat (周润发）and only made 50 million rmb (~6 million USD) over christmas weekend across all of China. Furthermore, with the weekend ending Jan 3th, the movie netted a total of 270 million rmb (~34 million USD). Believe it or not, that’s huge box office numbers for China (Titanic is the all time highest grossing at 350 million or 44 million USD). So why are the numbers so bad for a country with so many people? Here is my take:

1) Theatre tickets are insanely expensive considering the income levels. Full price during weekend primetime is 100 rmb (~13 USD). That’s even expensive for NYC.

2) If you’re willing to wait a few days or a couple weeks, you can get a great dvd on the street for 5-7 rmb. If you can’t wait, you can get a poorly in-the-theatre-camcorder version the day after (if not before).

3) There is a culture of getting content for free – even the most prominent search engine Baidu (a US listed public company no less) has a mp3 search engine (and is largely responsible for its rise to popularity). If you don’t believe me, give it a try.

So for media content companies that want to come here to monetize their content via traditional methods – they are fighting an uphill battle. This then begs the question, how does the China media business survive?

China Media more like US TV
From my view, in China the money seems to not lie in selling content, but the other peripheral revenue sources. For example, the pop stars here do a ton of concerts (and charge an arm and a leg for it) and even the biggest movie stars do commercials (except for a couple superstars – but you can count them on 1 hand). Whereas in the US, movie stars NEVER do commercials. Why would they? They make enough money from the movies themselves (because the box office numbers mostly justifies it) and there is no need to dilute their image. I think that the media industry here much more parallels the US TV industry than the movie industry. Most of the monetization is driven off advertising. It’s difficult to monetize any other way in China (many reasons for this). But since China consumers still don’t have the spending power that American consumers have (yet), based on this model it’s natural that there is less money in the biz for everyone.

Given the context above, it’s not hard to see why the media industry is the way it is and it probably won’t change anytime soon.

Effect on Quality of Content
Does all of this have an effect on the quality of content? I am inclined to think so, but are movies of higher quality than TV programming in the US? I am not so sure about that…..thus, I think that the key in China may reside in elevating the consumer power of China instead of trying to fight a losing battle (until the gov’t enforces IP protection that is).

IP Protection
The last point is somewhat tangential to all of this but it’s the issue of IP protection. People say that as more and more China IP becomes worth protecting, there will be more incentive from the government to focus on it more. I couldn’t agree more – just look at the Beijing 2008 mascots. They are so expensive and the chinese government is cracking down hard on any imitations because god forbid that foreigners coming for the beijing olympics view the country as a land of rampant piracy. Certainly there are still some floating around, but I’ve actually tried to look for them (albeit not hard) and I haven’t found imitations at all. I can’t say that for much of anything else. Now if only they could try that hard in other industries….

Population growth
According to Sina, the official shanghai population grew by 2 million from 2000 to 2006 to 18.15 million! From this article in Shanghai Daily, it looks like it includes 5.8 million migrant workers. To provide a bit of perspective, if Shanghai were a state in the US, it would be #4, behind California (~36.4 million according to July 2006 census estimates), #2 Texas (~23.5 million), and #3 New York Sate at (~19 million). Yeah, that’s a lot of people. Said another way, Shanghai grew by 4 Washington DC’s between 2000-2006! It looks like most of the growth is from migrant workers though (grew 1.94 million from 2000-2005). No wonder Shanghai has been making it hard to move residency to Shanghai from other parts of China.

That brings me to another point – there is a concept of immigrating from city to city unlike the unbridled mobility in the US. Because of such disparity in wealth across the country, there has been a huge influx to the wealthier cities (shanghai case in point). Part of it is the higher wages, another part is the social benefits. Different cities offer different social benefits and the taxes you pay are attached to the city (as opposed to our predominately federal system). So as someone who has residency in Sichuan and moves to shanghai to work, they can’t enjoy the social benefits provided to shanghainese (usually better than other cities) unless they get residency here (which is a very complicated and arduous process).

KFC Family Pack
A friend and I were craving some chicken so we ordered a family meal. When we got it, I thought to myself, “hmmm, this seems a little small for a family pack. And why did it come with 3 cups?” It just dawned on me that in the US, the defacto size of family pack is 4 while here it’s 3 (single-child policy). Duh!

Here’s what’s included (picture taken off KFC’s chinese website)
6 chicken wings
5 pieces of chicken
2 small rolls
1 corn on the cob
1 .25 liter pepsi

Fengshui
I am sure many of you have heard about the concept of fengshui. Basically it’s the notion that via placement or arrangement of space, one can achieve harmony with the environment and in turn have things go more smoothly. It’s still quite ingrained in the culture here, especially when it comes to business. Our CEO was looking for new officespace and they were about to step out the door to check out the new offices options, but before they did, they went around asking people if they had a compass so they could more accurately assess the best fengshui 风水).

Numbers
Like fengshui, numbers take on a great significance in Chinese culture. I posted about the dislike of the number 4, but here are a few more significant digits. For example, I see a ton of things that are priced at 168 or discounted to 88%. A VC fund even raised a fund that closed at 168 million. Why do Chinese people like these numbers so much? It’s because 8 is pronounced “ba” which is close to “fa” and is associated with “facai” which means to get rich. So 168 is pronounced yiliuba which sounds like yilufa (一路发）which literally means a “road of fortune.” A better translation escapes at the moment (my english has progressively been getting worse and worse), but you get the gist. Another one is the number 0 because it’s pronounced ling 零 which also means great （灵）.

It’s been 7 months now and I’ve resisted the temptation for a few reasons.

a) I feel guilty since I’ve only got a 1 bedroom – I feel like I should be able to keep up with it myself
b) I feel bad having someone picking up after me
c) I am particular about people touching my stuff
d) It’s an unnecessary expense
e) I may never be able to live without one again once I get use to it

Well, my determination/guilt/pocketbook has finally given in. Part of the catalyst for giving in is that my landlord came over to collect the monthly rent and said “uhmm….your place looks dirty, are you sure you don’t want me to refer you a maid?” I was a little peeved because she looked through my stuff and scolded me like I was a 5 year old, but in the back of my mind, I knew she was right.

As I type this, there are 2 maids cleaning my apt. I gotta say, it’s a game changer. I no longer have to dread cleaning my apt and I now have 3-4 precious hours on the weekend to do other things. Lastly, they are charging 15 rmb/hr. It’s already on the high side, most charge 10 rmb/hr (~$1.30) but I think I can live with it.

One of my coworkers from Taiwan told me that there are quite a few things that he’s had a hard time getting use to here, but the one thing is loves is having an ayi. I think he’s right.

For example, there was a big fuss over Apple Ipod shortchanging the chinese consumers on the service of its products..

Starting last year, Apple’s after-sales service has been a frequent target of Chinese consumers. Chinese consumers’ complaints mainly focus on two areas: Apple’s shortening of the maintenance period from one year to three months for the iPod and its use of refurbished iPods to replace problematic electronics.

and thus a few days ago

“Apple has sent a letter to Shanghai Municipal Consumer Interest Protection Commission and said that it will make improvements on its after-sales service, which has seen many complaints from Chinese users.”

In any case, I’ve never heard of this date until I got here, I am not sure if any other country celebrates it, but sometimes I think China uses the word “International” a little too liberally. But with that said, International Women’s Day was on March 8th (it’s a holiday here and women customarily get a 1/2 day off) and it seems like other countries celebrate it too. In this case the US is the one that’s not so international because I’ve never heard of it in the US.

I suppose this topic is a couple weeks old, but I thought I’d share my 2 cents because even people who don’t normally follow the stock market in the US are asking if a lot of companies have been affected by the stock market ‘crash’ back at the end of February when the Shanghai index dipped 9% in 1 day.

Granted it’s a huge drop, but I think the real story is what’s happened in the last couple years. Check out these couple graphs I pulled up on Yahoo finance

This is the last 6 months – check out the runup

This is the last 2 years – check out the CRAZY runup

This is the last 5 years – check out the downtrend in 2004-2005

Basically the stock has tripled since May of 2005. Wow! So in economic terms, it means the value of all the future cashflow of all the companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange has tripled in the 2 years. China’s growing, but not that fast! My point here is that China’s stock market isn’t traded much on fundamentals but consumer hype (or fear). So I wonder if the subsequent ripple effect across the world was an overreaction because it’s on the assumption that something fundamentally changed – it doesn’t seem so at least from where I stand.

Of course, all stock markets are prone to bubbles and busts (US not excluded), but I think the China stock market is even more prone to it because it doesn’t seem to track the fundamentals very well. A few things to consider…

• China’s been on a blazing growth trajectory long before 2005, but the stock market was stagnant because the average consumers was still fearful of it because of the massive amounts of money people lost in the market previously. I don’t pretend to know what cause this turn from fear of the market to this hype, but you can see in hindsight that it’s quite clear.
• Overly reliance on retail investors. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson mentioned in his speech while he was here on March 8th that “excessive regulation has hindered the development of a base of institutional investors in China, forcing the capital market to rely heavily on retail investors who are more susceptible to “herd mentality.”
• Stocks aren’t traded on fundamentals as much. My anecdotal evidence is that on CNBC at least people talk about earnings, here on the Chinese equivalent of CNBC, it’s just all about trendlines – little or no mention of fundamentals
• There are a ton of retail investors. Even taxi drivers tell me about how he’s playing the stock market. Reminds me of the bubble in the US when everyone and their mother were in the market (me included…). I even see on TV shots of brokerages lobbies where people go to watch the stock charts go up and down all day and chat with other people there in the lobby
• Investors aren’t as experienced because the chinese market is much younger by comparison. The shanghai index was established in 1990.
• According to NY Times, a Chinese mutual fund raised $5 Billion in 1 day!

Another interesting article on this topic from the NY Times “Chinese United by Common Goal: A Hot Stock Tip”

China government recently proposed a unified tax rate of 25% for foreign and domestic companies. Expected to pass next week, it’ll end the preferential treatment of foreign companies…

Forbes article

“The CIT law will see the introduction of a unified, or standardized, tax rate of 25 pct for both FIEs and domestic enterprises.

FIEs currently pay a rate of 15 pct or 24 pct while domestic enterprises pay 33 pct.”

This is big news because it’s clearly a signal that China is less interested in attracting foreign investment but shifting to culture/cater its domestic enterprises.

I am interesting how this plays out because the foreign companies argue that it’s not fair to do this because domestic companies don’t really play by the rules while foreigners are held to a different standard. Thus, by giving foreigners and domestic companies a unified tax rate, the government is actually giving the chinese companies an upper hand.

This brings up a related point. Here, it’s not unheard of that companies keep 2 sets of books in order to evade taxes…and obviously this isn’t confined just to the corporate world. There are many people who finds all sorts of unsavory ways to beat the system, not in terms of loopholes, but outright illegal.

I ponder why this is, and here is my hypothesis: no one wants to be the sucker while everyone else is getting a free ride. It’s a classic free rider problem that people talk about in economics. I think people conceptually believe in the tax system and that people understand why it’s necessary (how efficiently spent is another story), but in the US, while there are people who definitely do sketchy things, by and large people believe that other people are paying taxes (despite the fact that the IRS doesn’t have the manpower to audit every single one who cheats on their taxes). So even though paying for taxes is painful, people do it because they feel like most of everyone else is doing the same.

So are people any less righteous here or amoral? No, I think ultimately people believe there should be a tax system in place, but it’s awfully hard to be paying the full amount when everyone around you is saying that only a fool pays the full amount. Once the general public believes that there is a free rider problem, the situation deteriorates fast. So that’s what it comes to, no one wants to be the only sucker.

Back to the original point – so with the unified tax rate for foreigners and domestic companies, I wonder if that’ll make chinese companies more tax compliant?

Currency Control
China is setting up a huge investment fund make better use of its foreign reserves which will make it not so dependent on dollar denominated assets, and ultimately help in their move to a free floating currency. As of right now China holds nearly a trillion USD, it’s easy to see why China doesn’t want the RMB to rise too much….

Also, while it’s a given that it’s hard to convert RMB to any other currency on a large scale, I’ve anecdotally heard that it’s becoming more and more difficult to bring foreign currencies into China.

In any case, I know many are wondering what Chinese New Year is like in…well, China. I’ll just say it was crazy…but as to why, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. I don’t have much time to post during the weekdays, but I should be able to get to it this weekend.

So to ease myself back into a routine, did anyone else see this? Well, probably, since Businessweek is not exactly an obscure publication.

The article isn’t super informative to me, but maybe that’s because I live here now. Regardless, I am not sure what it is, but to get this American publication with my newfound home city on the front cover – it makes me feel like I am in some nexus of excitement. In all honesty, after having been here for all of 7 months now, this place still seems really exciting, dare I say even more than NYC?!?

On a random note, I’ve probably lost a little perspective since I’ve been here, but it seems like China is still a hot topic internationally. I wonder whether it’s more or less than a year ago?

1) Rainy days are the worst – if you want to take a taxi that is. On any normal day, it’s easy enough to get a taxi, but during rush hour it’s hit or miss (though average is 5-10 minutes). On a rainy day, the average is more like 30 minutes, optimistically. I’d compare rainy days to trying to get a cab during new years eve in the US

2) When people travel for work, people stay 2 to a room.

3) Some people drink warm beer (cold drinks 伤胃 which means literally means ‘hurt the stomach’)

4) Cell phone etiquette is really bad – people take calls in meetings all the time and have 5 minute conversations

5) People are on time for parties, so don’t show up late or there will be no food/drinks left!

6) People like to sit and more or less in the same place. There is not really any standing up and mingling at house parties. Thus there is a big contrast to western style bars (stand up holding your drink and meeting lots of different people) and asian style bars (get a table and sit there all night with your group of friends)

7) At some stores people wear nametags with numbers instead of names. Brings a new meaning to being just a number!

It’s a pastime for people to stand around and watch anything (accident, shouting match, construction, etc). People will observe not from afar, but from like 2 inches away from the action

9) Buildings are mostly built from concrete and have no insulation – so they are cold in the winter and hot in the summer

10) There is a fascination with maintaining white skin so parasols and visors abound when the sun is out. I’d take this over going to the tanning salon exposing myself to harmful UV rays.

11) There are no nutritional labels nor ingredients list on food packaging

12) It’s customary and expected to give clients gifts for the holidays like Christmas or New Years

13) Restaurants don’t have lunch prices and dinner prices. They are the same all day long

14) At a lot of restaurants you are charged for napkins (1-2 rmb). My favorite hotpot place charges you 2 rmb to use their chopsticks.

15) This is sorta related to the warm beer thing – but cold beverages aren’t really cold here, it’s more like not warm

16) It’s not uncommon for people to wear the same clothes multiple days in a row.

I feel like I am quicker to notice some of the negatives….so to be fair, the next time I’ll post the positive differences