English Corner

I’m on my way back from another trip to China, and despite the fact that I didn’t think there’ll be anything to write about when I left, it seems that there is always something to write about China…

Spent the first weekend showing Dan (cow-orker) around the city.  Dan had never been to China before, so he was both a little apprehensive about his limited communication ability but at the same time also interested in exploring.  We started by walking around People’s Square, Nanjing road and the Bund.  There were lots of people at the square, mostly Chinese enjoying a sunny and very pleasant Sunday.  Nanjing road, OTOH, is quickly becoming a hassle.  It’s crowded, I guess that would be a given for THE pedestrian mall of Shanghai, but that is not the problem, the problem are the hawkers.  It’s hard to walk a block down that street without being “attacked” by a mob of people offering anything from “authentic” Chinese antiques to massages (not sure what’s involved here, but I am guessing they are not promoting the legit massage places you see all over the city).  It’s even worse at night, where the number of “massage” offers increases significantly.

More interesting than Nanjing road is walking through the alleys of old Shanghai.

You quickly run into the market (it’s hard not to, almost all streets look like a market in that part of town) and a very different cultural experience.  People are nice, they often seem as curious about the foreigners as we are about them which is a bit surprising, there are more and more laowai roaming the not so beaten paths of the city these days.  Anyway, the market is always interesting because it gives me a glimpse into Chinese people’s life – you learn a lot about people from looking at what they eat.

Next to the usual offerings – fresh fish in plastic tubs, food being cooked and served on the street and a variety of spices I recognize but don’t know the names of – there were fruits and vegetables I had not seen in the markets before.  Fruits that used to be found only in stores that catered to foreigners are now available in the market (not sure if they are seasonal or if there is access to some of these fruits year around).

It seems that at least in Shanghai, even the people that live in Hutongs have developed a taste for fruits not native to the area and are willing to pay for it.  I saw a cart with reddish round fruit being sold on one of the streets.  People were snacking on this fruit by breaking the hard shell and eating the inner white parts.  I just had to try it.  Turned out to be pretty sweet and very tasty, but don’t ask me for the Chinese name, because I can’t remember it now…

 

Another change (not really new, but more obvious now) is the demolition of many of these Hutongs in the older parts of town to make room for even more high rises.  The Xiang-yang market was closed last summer, at least according to Xinhua (Chinese news agency) due to IP violations (it was the premier market in Shanghai to buy fake goods).  They forgot to mention a $450M deal to build a new development in the vast tract of land that was home to that market…

The same thing can be seen in residential areas of old town.  Block after block of old houses being replaced by new high-rise complexes.

The following weekend I organized a trip for my cow-orkers to Hangzhou to see Xi Hu (West Lake, one of China’s most famous lakes) and the Lingyin Si, a Buddhist temple near the lake.  The trip there and back was an adventure in its right, but I’ll talk about Chinese driving (again?) in a minute.  We started by visiting the temple, and North Peak, the mountain just behind it.

Lingyin Si was first built in the 4th century C.E., but has been destroyed and rebuilt many times.  Today it’s preserved in typical Chinese fashion by replacing the old worn sections with new (but identical to the old) ones.  It’s a bit disappointing, but it does give you a much better look at what the original looked like.

The climb to North peak was tough.  It’s a long path that is mostly wide steps almost all the way to the observatory.  Yes, there is a cable car, but we didn’t take it.  From the temple we went to have lunch by the lake walked around some of it and went to learn about tea in a local “tea museum” and farm.

And then it was time to drive back to Shanghai.  Another change I have noted is that many Chinese drivers have started to gain some real speed on the roads.  It used to be that they drove cars like they ride bicycles, but at speeds where it was silly but entertaining to watch.  Now, when they still drive as you would ride a bicycle (no lane discipline, no following distance, allowing the car to drift between lanes and never looking down the road any further than the end of your hood) but add real hwy speeds it becomes a little more worrying.  It’s like one long close call from the moment you leave until (hopefully) you arrive.  And traffic is only getting denser an denser everyday as more people get private cars and companies
expand their fleets.

The Shanghai stock exchange has been in the news regularly in the last few months.  It seems to be growing at an amazing pace, fueled by ever growing numbers of investors in the Chinese stock markets.  It sure makes the local papers every day.  I read earlier this week that there is a shortage of Ayis (house maids).  It seems many are either quitting or taking only part time jobs so that they can spend more time investing in the market.  It’s understandable, the Shanghai market has been returning amazing gains in the last few months, nobody wants to miss on the action of getting richer.  Everybody is investing in Chinese stocks.

Since everything goes up constantly, it doesn’t seem to matter what stocks you pick, you always look like you are the next Warren Buffet.  Reminds me of the early 80’s in the Israeli stock market or late 90’s in the US.  Everybody is in, and many are in way over their means, with margin loans, second mortgages, etc.  When the bubble pops it’s going to be ugly.  Many years ago in Israel, Shalom Hanoch wrote the “Messiah is not coming” (to save them when the bubble burst) and about how people were jumping off the roofs due to the financial losses.  Shanghai has a lot of sky-scrappers.  It’s sad to think a lot of people will making use of them when the bubble pops.

On Sunday I met with my friend Dave.  He lives in Portland but it has been a while since we had a chance to meet.  He was in Shanghai for business, so we took advantage of our free time there to catch up.  I was showing him around Hengshan Lu when he asks if I ha been to English Corner.  It sounded familiar, but I know I had not been there, so I asked what is it?  He says – You’ll see.

We go to the People’s Park and as soon as we get there I remember.  English Corner is where people meet to practice their English on Sunday afternoons.  It’s right next to the spot where Chinese parents come with what I call “spec sheets” to match-making for their son/daughter.  It’s funny to see them walk around with the print outs of their offspring, showing it to other parents and taking notes on possible matches.  But we weren’t there for that, so we continue to English Corner.

As soon as we get there, this large Chinese guy comes over and says – Do you speak English?  We say yes, he grabs us and leads Dave to one group of Chinese standing in a circle and me to another.  It started with simple introductions, then some typical basic questions, but as soon as they warmed up to me, it got interesting.  The levels of English were varied from very basic to very good.  We talked about almost everything that has been in the news lately, work, life in China and the US, travel, etc.  The only topics that were not touched directly were politics, or at least anything that could lead to a critical discussion of the govt.  I wouldn’t have touched it anyway, even if someone had brought it up.  I have no interest in finding out what Chinese police/secret service stations look like from the inside.  I found out that even more than in the market, you learn a lot about people and how they perceive the US from the questions they were asking.  I hope I did a good job representing you guys.

Before I knew it, I had been standing there for almost 4 hours, people came and went, but there was a group of people that stood there and chatted with me all that time and they wouldn’t let go.  When Dave came to drag me away from them he was giving me a hard time about my new girlfriends, as I had accumulated quite a few e-mails and phone numbers in those 4 hours…

Zaijian,

Gustavo

Three Chinas

It has been 4 years since my last visit to China. Previously, I had only visited Shanghai. This time, Shanghai was the last stop. My impressions of Beijing were obviously biased by what I remembered (or thought I remembered?) from Shanghai 4 years ago. Four years in today’s China, especially in Shanghai are like an eternity.We arrived at Shanghai’s main train station about mid afternoon. The place was as busy as the train station in Beijing. I was very relieved to find out ramps leading to the underground crossings from the train platforms. I had schlepped my bags up and down several flights of stairs in Beijing and Nanjing, and was very happy to see that they hired somebody that thinks people actually have luggage when they travel by train. It also made the flow of people much smoother, as the bottle-necks at the top and bottom of the stairs/ramps are
almost eliminated. Almost.

 

The New Asia hotel is close to the Bund and Nanjing Lu, so we headed out for a walk after checking-in. It was hard to miss the significant increase in high-rises on the PuDong side of the river. Sure, the landmarks like the Pearl of the Orient and Grand Hyatt towers are still there, but there are many more, maybe not quite as tall buildings around both. Nanjing Lu was full of people walking around, carrying full shopping bags and filling most restaurants along this stretch of
road. It’s hard to walk around Shanghai these days (at least if you look like a tourist) without getting 5 offers per block: “Rolexes, Gucci, DVD, looky looky”. At the beginning I tried to refuse politely (in Chinese, English, Spanish even Hebrew ;-), but that turned to be a fatal mistake. As soon as you engage them in any sort of
conversation, they keep following you for blocks. The best recourse was to ignore
them. They usually didn’t pursue further if you did that. Some are rather aggressive, they will grab you by the arm and pull you. Most of the girls in our group found this to be a little intimidating, most are not used to such aggressive vendors. Rather unpleasant, as sometimes it really ruins the experience wandering around Shanghai.

Interestingly enough, the further away from the tourist places you got, the better the experience of wandering through the streets of Shanghai is. For starters, there are no fake goods vendors. Most people look at the big-nosed or white ghost person as the Chinese often refer to white people, with curiosity but with respect. I wandered down the streets, trying my broken Chinese on the innocent bystanders. It usually took several tries to get them to understand my mispronounced tones. 😉

I walked down some markets over the weekend that were so busy you could not make progress at any normal walking pace. The busiest one was XiangYang Market, home the largest collection of IP infringement stalls I have ever seen. Callaway golf clubs, Nike shoes and clothing, Louis Vitton, Rolexes, CDs, DVDs, software. You name it, they had it. And they had it really cheap. But, since this place didn’t have anything I couldn’t live without (other than my wallet, seemed like fertile grounds for pick-pockets) I decided to not waste my time there and went to see Fuxing Park instead. It was a much better choice. Fuxing Park is a place people gather on sunny Sundays like this to enjoy some time away from the big city. Kids were playing, older people too, lots of tables to play cards, chess and maijan.

If you are starting to get the idea that I am in Shanghai on vacation, you’d be wrong, of course. Well, at least TMSAISTI. 😉

We actually went on several very interesting factory visits. On Tuesday we went to Bao Steel (~5 largest steel manufacturer in the world). Their site is like a city. And that doesn’t include the real city that grew around the plant to support the needs of the workers. They are pioneers in China is employing modern (read western) style management, i.e. merit based promotions rather than through party affiliation and seniority, despite being a State Owned Enterprise. China is full of contradictions. We also visited the Shanghai VW plant. The VW part was rather lame, they did not send a person with the right knowledge to answer any interesting questions, but the petrol-head here had a really good time wandering around the assembly line for Passats and Tourans. An interesting observation I made there was that all the Passats were black. Turns out 70% of the orders in China are for black sedans. I can only guess that since black is often an official’s car color, people find it a status symbol to drive (or rather be driven) around in a black sedan. There are a lot of black cars on the streets of Shanghai.

This week was Karen’s birthday, so we went to celebrate. The place that was recommended to us goes by they name of Park 97 and is a hangout for the rich and beautiful Chinese as well as lots of ex-pats. The collection of Benzes, Porsches and other luxury cars would have not shamed a decent Roponggi establishment. The restaurant/club was packed with people, it was loud and it was smoky. The only thing I got out of this escapade was a sore throat and a lingering cough. Certainly, I am getting too old for this type of nightlife. 😉

Shanghai is China’s most prosperous city. As a result, it has the largest number of cars, scooters, busses and vans fighting for that premium piece of asphalt ten feet away. And I thought the drivers in Beijing were nuts. I have officially seen it all now. Cars driving down the wrong side of the highway because the missed their exit, cars and scooters driving on the sidewalk or in the opposite lane to cut
around traffic. After the lights turn green you can usually expect another ten cars, busses, vans and bicycles to make a run from the side that just turned red. And, there are a lot more accidents than I saw previously. I started seeing one or two daily. They are easy to spot because they usually draw large crowds who are looking for free entertainment. Everybody stands in the middle of the street, blocking most traffic through that intersection, and traffic comes to a
standstill. Unbelievable.

On Friday afternoon, as I was leading an “expedition” to the Yu Yuan classical Chinese garden I ran into a friend from work standing in line for dumplings. He was here on vacation, and had also met with our friend Bob (in Shanghai for SemiCon China) who I had not seen in about 10 months since he retired from Intel. You don’t need too many excuses in China to go to a feast, but this really was a good one, and on the recommendation of Gary (ex-pat living in Shanghai) we went to a Manchurian restaurant. It was very interesting food, as they had
several dishes I had never tried before.

OK, so why 3 Chinas? I have been thinking about this almost since our first visit with a government official in Beijing. Some figures I have seen on this trip indicate that the average per capita income in Shanghai is over $4500/year. Obviously, a few people have managed to make a lot more than that. Compare this to the average in other (mostly on the east coast) cities where the income is $1300/year and to the rural areas where it only averages $360/year (yes, that’s less than a
dollar a day). “Only” 450 million Chinese live in the larger cities, the rest, about 850 million people, fall under the less than $1 income level. In Shanghai, people live like they were in any modern, western city. Cost of living is very high, apartments now costing about the same as they do in many large US cities.

Our new friend in Nanjing comes from a small village out side of Shanghai. He didn’t have money to go to college, so he was drafted to the army. He learned construction techniques there, and after a few years working for other people he is now a real estate developer. Ten years ago he couldn’t imagine driving, let alone owning, a car. Today he lives in a nice apartment and drives an Audi A8 that costs a small fortune in China. He made it through very hard work and some good Guanxi. Not everybody is smart enough to go it the right way. Despite harsh laws
against crime, I hear about increases in thefts and break-ins in the big cities (getting caught can send you to prison until you are a very old man). Some people are desperate enough to risk it for a scooter or some cash.

There has been unrest in several interior provinces. I don’t think most of this makes the world media, but Chinese people are talking about it.

Even the government officials we have talked to mentioned changes in economic and growth policies, targeting more equal distribution of the economic boom in China.

It was obvious that many people from the interior are not waiting for the government actions. The amount of migrant workers at the train stations was staggering. Much more so in light of the draconian enforcement policies against population movement in China without the government’s permission (all Chinese are restricted to 3 day travel outside their residence area without applying for a special pass or moving permit I am told). It’s easy to forget that when you are wandering around Beijing, Nanjing, Suzhou or Shanghai. To me this is like a live thriller. Will they make the changes in time or will the economic boom blowup in their face (sorry for the pun)? You can feel the energy in the big cities. Young (educated) people come here looking for good jobs and a better future (it’s easy to get a residence permit if you have a job offer). So do the migrant workers, they just don’t work in nice offices of multinational corporations.

I wonder if anybody is taking odds in Vagas or London for another revolution…

Zaijian,

Gustavo