Busy Life Started Again

The life as a consultant is interesting. The point is, I need to tell customers how the products and solutions help their organization (this part is easy) and make sure it does happen as I described (this part is not easy at all).

I still need some time to pick up the technical staff. So I stayed late these days and return to hotel later than 2300 at night. It was tough.

I found people have to be pushed.

New products release every week, new documents come out every hour and discussion emails pop up every minute – but if you don’t have a project on hand, you will never pay attention to it.

Sometimes you have to make a decision to open a door. After you step into the door, what you see, what you encounter, what problems you have to solve and what you learn are not dependant on you. You have to follow the new rule.

I chose the busy life over the easy one. This was my own choice, and I have to stick to it.

When I was a freshman in university, I strongly believe in that people cannot change themselves. The environment changes people. So our only choice is to choose an environment.

Just like people cannot commit suicide by stopping breath by mind – people just cannot do it. The only way to make it is to choose an external force to help… The inertia inside people’s minds is just like the life itself – it resists changing of any kind….

Well. I wanted to say, life is busy for me now but I love it. There is one thing I cannot bear, though, is I have to leave my home for terribly long time. I miss Wendy and home a lot.

The current project is big, bigger than I imagined. This is exciting. I am professional enough not to disclose anything related to my customer, so don’t ask. Thanks.

Travel Schedule

I expected it. In the next two months, I will travel a lot – once every week.

August 6 Beijing to Shanghai

August 8 Shanghai to Beijing

August 20 Beijing to Shanghai

August 22 Shanghai to Beijing

August 26 Beijing to Guangzhou

August 27 Guangzhou to Beijing

(if the project status permit, I may visit Hong Kong on the weekend)

September 3 Beijing to Shanghai

September 5 Shanghai to Beijing

September 13 Beijing to Hangzhou, Zhejiang

The plan is very likely to change without notice. It may help if you want to know where I am (Shanghai? Beijiing? Guangzhou? Hangzhou?…)

This is the 693rd Post on my Site

I just find out this is the 693rd post on wangjianshuo’s blog. What does it mean? The secret is, this is also the 693rd day since I started blogging on Sept 11, 2002. It also means, I have kept blogging for about two years with average one post every day. There are some pause (either server issues or personal issue. But the average post/day number finally get back to 1.0 after the Abandon of One Entry Per Day Rule. This is the longest attempt to keep doing something consistantly in my recent years.

Odds and Ends of Today

The real life starts after 6:00 PM. (Yes. Do you want me to explain the domains, ADMT, and Exchange Server stuff at work?)

IKEA again

We went to IKEA for the third time this week – the third time to buy many goods. I thought I have moved out of the target customer scope (src: this article), but again find it is more easier to choose IKEA stuff than other brand. (A reporter from Business Week interviewed me in Emal about my oppion on IKEA, I said, I love it very much!)

We bought new sofa and three Billy bookcases:

BILLY BOOKCASE

BILLY HT EXT UT 175 RMB

BILLY BOOKCS 80 495 RMB

BILLY BOOKCS 60 445 RMB

BILLY BOOKCS 60 445 RMB

BILLY N GLS-DDR 500 RMB

SOFA

EKTORP CVR S03 595 RMB

EKTORP N FRM S0 1000RMB

They ship everything to my door tomorrow – I caught the promoption that runs between July 23 or July 27 to void shipping fee (75 RMB).

Singapore

I got newsletter about the Singapore trip. The round trip flight + two nights 4-star hotel only costs 1999 RMB. That is unbelievable. Now round trip of three or four days in Singapore or Hongkong all drops to about 1999 RMB now. It is the same for other Asia destinations. No wonder why China is the fastest growing traveller exporting country. (The flight to Singapore departs at 23:55 and arrives at 05:00 AM the next day.)

Blogcn Resumes

Blogcn.com finally resumed. Thanks for the mistake in the dates, I found my some old articles in my Server Side RSS Reader.

Eric’s Love Story

Eric is one of my best friends. Check this beautiful love story with Minji. I am very happy with them and my best wishes for them. Eric should be in Hongkong right now to spend the precious three days (or four) with his GF.

Scoble Said Hello to Me

Owen posted on cnblog.org to forward Robert‘s greeting to me? Oh. My! Robert Scoble’s blog is one of my favorite blogs and he definitely leads the blogging movement in Microsoft. Thanks, Robert and Owen. If you want to hear Robert Scoble’s voice, visit this audio clip (via cnblog english edition).

Shanghai is Experiencing Energy Crisis

Not only Shanghai. The whole China is facing big challenge of electricity power shortage. Every morning, when I drive along the Zhao Jiang Bang road to work, the morning news from Beijing broadcasts about the shortage and measures the government has taken to overcome it. I have never seen such kind of storage before.

Today, big posters start to appear in Metro City and surrounding areas, calling for electricity-saving. In the poster is a big thermometer inside the Jin Mao Tower, with two temperatures marked: 26°C and 35°C.

The posters suggest people and business to avoid using electricity when the temperature goes higher than 35 degrees in rush hours (morning, noon and night) and not to set air conditioning target temperature lower than 26 degrees.

To my surprise, this campaign goes further than posters outside. I noticed small round blue posters appeared besides the A/C controllers and power switches in the office I am working in. There is the same 26-35 thermometer logo, asking people to save power. It is obvious that the government has learnt much from the SARS campaign to use every media possible to deliver important messages.

According to today’s Sheng Jiang Service Guide, Shanghai Science and Technology Museum starts to create 9000kg ice every night when others don’t use electricity and use the ice as air conditioning power at day time. It is very innovative way to solve power problems.

Although no efforts have been spared to reduce electricity usage, there is still a big gap between demand and supply. I am ready for power cut off in my home this summer. This may happen at any time. This reminds me of the energy crisis in California several years before. I remember even the SFO airport stopped the automatic elevator and turned off most of the lights at day time to save power….

March 14 Activities

I don’t like to record what I did everyday so the blog entry will be very boring. This is an exception.

Buying FIAT Siena

I spent several hours in the car store of FIAT. I still didn’t make up my mind. Although I heard a lot of advice to choose either VW, or GM, GM is just too oil consuming and VW is too expensive, especially for the spare parts. Well. Almost all the doors to get a foreign car plate have been closed today. It seems the only choice for me is a Shanghai plate.

The Other End of the Maglev

shanghai-long.yang-maglev.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. Long Yang Road. Station of Maglev

The picture above was taken yesterday at around 5:00 PM when a Maglev train just left the Longyang Rd. Station, heading to the Pudong Airport.

Shock Wave Jiang

Unlike the MZM shockwave, which caused server down due to extremely high volume, the recent shock wave Jiang destroyed many sites completely and may continue to bring down more site. It is so dangerous that I am not brave enough to spell out the whole name. Yesterday, when I search the Chinese name of Jiang in Google, my access to Google was broken immediately and I cannot visit Google any more in the next five minutes. After the annoying five minutes, I can use Google again, until I attempted to search for the sensitive keyword. It seems the ban has been lifted today.

Using Contact Lenses

My glasses were broken the night before the last. I put it on the bed (what a stupid action) and put my arm on it (this will happen in the future if not today). It broken from the middle. Now I two identical parts of the glass. One is the left lens with the left leg and the other is the right lens with the right leg. I have to get a new frame but couldn’t find some time to go to a glasses store.

Fortunately, I stocked some contact lenses at the time when I started to learn swimming.

It was not easy to learn to wear contact lenses. I still cannot put it on. I have to ask Wendy to help put it on. I cannot relax and my eyes always closed tightly when Wendy attempted to put the lenses into my eyes.

It was terrible experience. So it was to Wendy.

It took up to ten minutes course to put the lens into both eyes in the morning and at least 5 minutes to take it off at night. Everytime when it was done, I saw a red-eyed face in the mirror, full of tear.

Was it me, the poor guy?

Learn Photography – Seriously

I was greatly influenced by my elder brother. He bought a second hand Huqiu (虎丘) camera when he was in university. It was back to 1989. I doubt whether this brand of camera still exists. It was the camera inspired my interest in photography. I took some pictures with this camera (including many sweet memories with Wendy). I selected Photography as my elective when I was a junior. That is the best course I enjoyed in my four years in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

New York Institute of Photography

I am reading the courseware of the NYIP course these days. Yes. Be serious, I want to learn the photography and develop better sense of photo. I even thinking about enroll some class of photography in the future. I didn’t find any school offer photography so far.

Equipment

I attended a exhibition of photography equipment. I took the picture below using my simple Sony P8. It looks not bad.

shanghai-cups-with.lights.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. With the right equipment, good picture is much easier.

It proof that if you have good lighting equipment and a frame for taking static objects (the white curve background that won’t show the annoying horizontal conjunction line), the chance to take better pictures becomes larger.

About Jian Shuo Wang

Welcome! I guess you have read at least one article of my blog before you arrived here. If you want to know more about the person behind these sentences, keep reading.

About Jian Shuo Wang

I am Jian Shuo WANG. WANG is the last name (or the family name) and Jian Shuo is the first name (or the given name). I am living in Shanghai, China. I am not alone in this city. There are more than 20 million other persons with me in this small area in Eastern Hemisphere. My time is 8 hours earlier than GMT (GMT +8), 1 hour later than Japan and 16 hours earlier than San Francisco.

About this Site

I am the author of Wangjianshuo’s blog. If you don’t know yet, blog means weblog or daily updated web pages. It is very popular nowadays. I started the blog in September 2002 and kept writing one article everyday. Now, there are 800+ articles in the previous 800+ days. (Update January 24, 2006: now over 999 entries). This site was voted as Top 10 China Blogs in 2003 and was mentioned by Business Week, MSNBC, UK Telegraph, Slashdot, Salon, China Radio International. According to the server log, there are 15,000 page views everyday andn visitors came from 109 countries. It served 51G of data in Sept 2004 alone. (Update January 24, 2006: now it has 2 million page view per month.) It is well known as a frequently updated website with personal perspective and practical information about Shanghai and China.

That is all. If you are in a rush, you can leave this page now and get back to the content of this site, or leave for another site. If you are not, I appreciate your time to continue reading.

My Job

I am 28 years old – some readers were surprised that I was too old while most were surprised that I was so young. Now I enjoy being the head of Kijiji, an eBay company, in China. Before current position, I was with Microsoft for six years. I tried seven different roles in Microsoft, including Support Engineer, Project Manager, Business Development Manager (OMG, I found a name card with time title that I almost forgot), Trainer, Team Lead, Channel Manager for Microsoft JV, and Consultant. I mostly enjoyed the work with combined experience of technology and business, project management and people management.

My Family

Another thing I am so proud of is my wife Wendy. We got married last year after dating for 7 years. She is lovely, smart and sweet. She also runs a blog but does not update it as frequently as I do. It is the most interesting book I can find in this world. She is a project manager of Microsoft.

I am not native resident of Shanghai. I was born in Luoyang, Henan Province and moved to Shanghai in 1995. I could not get used to the city in the first two years but hopelessly fell in love with the city.

Jian Shuo Wang is…

  • Jian Shuo Wang is the owner of this website.
  • Wang is the last name (family name), and Jian Shuo is the given name. A space between “Jian” and “Shuo” is preferred, although it is not required.
  • Jian Shuo lives in Shanghai, China.
  • English is not his native language. He has never lived outside China and has never attended private English classes.
  • Jian Shuo majored in automation at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
  • Jian Shuo enjoys pure geek happiness.
  • Jian Shuo owns a site that is now the 11,000th busiest site in the world, according to Alexa.
  • Jian Shuo’s site has been mentioned by MSNBC, Telegraph.co.uk, and Slashdot. His voice was featured on hundreds of radio stations in the US.
  • Jian Shuo can drive stick shift and has a driver’s license in the People’s Republic of China
  • Jian Shuo will be happy if you link to his site or post a comment on this site.
  • Jian Shuo can solve Rubik’s Cubes in four minutes.
  • He can recite 85 digits of pi after the decemal.
  • Jian Shuo has a wonderful wife Wendy.
  • Jian Shuo Wang also writes Chinese blog

Jian Shuo Wang belongs to

Signed Life Ensurance

Got my life ensurance today. There is a big progress in the insurance industry that people in Shanghai no longer treat it as lier. Mr. Xu is a very good agent and I will be happy to recommend him to others. Let me post his contact information on the web later. (Short entry today)

At the Age of 27

There is not much change in my life recently. The weather is still cold and became colder these days. It seems the cold weather has frozen my life too. I no longer think about going out and won’t do crazy things like cycling to Taihu or visiting a degree confluence point. The city life is the same – wake up, rush to crowded metro, step into office and sit down. The world is as small as a computer screen. The connection to the out side world are two lines – one network cable and one telephone line. Friends become smiley faces in my MSN Messenger. A dinner at a hot pot restaurant is not expensive and can always please two of us. :-) Life at the age of 27 is not as exciting as that in younger ages. — I still remember a dinner at KFC needed two weeks’ planning when I was in university. Now KFC has became the last place I will go for dinner. That is progress. That is also the lose of fun.

My Speech and Training Record

By the year end, I summarized some kep speeches and training I have delivered in the last three years, just as I did in Jan last year. I never been a full time trainer, but my passion for training is always there.


Format

Date			Speech Title

Event or audience


Conferences

August 10, 2000		BizTalk Server in .COM Ages

China CEO/CIO Summit

September 19, 2000	BizTalk - Beyond the Limitation of Enterprise Application

Microsoft .NET Launch (1500+ attendants)

September 28, 2000	Microsoft BizTalk Integration Practices

China CEO/CIO Summit (CIOs from Sina, Sohu?

September 7, 2000	Microsoft BizTalk Preview

Microsoft TechEd. Shanghai (400+ attendants)

October 11, 2000	Achieving Highest Availability with Microsoft Solutions

Microsoft/Intel Banner Exchange Conference (250+ attendants)

November 26, 2000	BizTalk Architecture and ebXML

National Standard Committee Conference on eCommerce

November 28, 2000	Developing BizTalk Solutions

DevDays, Shanghai (300+ attendants)

November 11, 2000	Logistic and eCommerce

PGL Logistic Technology and Management Conference

December 8, 2000	Next Generation Internet

Microsoft/Intel Banner Exchange Conference (250+ attendants)

June 1, 2001		Microsoft .NET

Intel APAC Summit (Internal Event) (Intel's key IT staff in APAC region)

October 30, 2001	Microsoft .NET Scenarios

Siemens Global IT Summit

April 22, 2002		Understanding .NET (General Session) EN

Microsoft Asia MVP Summit (200 attendants from around Asia)

December 5, 2002	Designing for Usability

Microsoft Developer Community Summit

Microsoft University Relationship Program

December 8, 2000	Microsoft .NET in Universities

Shanghai Tong Ji University

April 19, 2001		XML - The Corner Stone of Next Generation of Internet

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Min Hang Campus

April 24, 2001		The Road to eCommerce

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Min Hang Campus

April 25, 2001		Microsoft .NET and Its Components

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Min Hang Campus

May 11, 2001		Secrets of Microsoft's Success

Shanghai Jiao Tong Unv. / East China Normal Univ.

June 6, 2001		Microsoft .NET Framework Startup Camp

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Xu Hui Campus

Enterprise Customer Training

December 1, 2000	Microsoft .NET, SOAP and Web Services EN

Microsoft Premier Customers ( from Thailand/Singapore/India)

September 22, 2000	Microsoft .NET Overview

Siemens (China)

Octomber 12, 2000	BizTalk

Guangzhou Sigma Software Co.

April 2, 2001		Enabling Smoother B2B Transaction with BizTalk

Alibaba

May 5, 2002		Microsoft Development Team Practices

Shanghai Shock Exchange

Internal Training

July 4, 2003		XML for Support Engineers

Windows Online Support Team, GTEC, Microsoft

April 1, 2001		Learning XML via Demos

Service Camp 2001, GTEC, Microsoft

August 8, 2000		What A Support Engineer Needs to Know about XML

Office Online Support Division, GTEC, Microsoft

April 25, 2000		XML in Depth

ME Charlie Team, GTEC, Microsoft

May 31, 2001		XML for Non-Technical People EN

Communication Specialists Technical Education, GTEC

Jun 28, 200		BizTalk Training

Microsoft (China) Sales and Marketing Team Training

September 22, 2000	Jswang's Perspective on Microsoft .NET EN

Company-Wide Tech Talk, GTEC, Microsoft

November 1, 2001	Microsoft .NET

Microsoft Service Camp XP (Best Trainer Award)

November 1, 2001	The Minimums you Need to Know about Microsoft .NET

Wicresoft New Hire Training

July 10, 2003		Microsoft .NET ?What the Video is Talking About

Microsoft Technical Festival, WOD, GTEC

October 13, 2000	SOAP and BizTalk Overview

Guangzhou Office, Microsfot(China)

Support Services Operation

December 19, 2001	Microsoft Call Center Operation

SHEAC

April 15, 2003		Understanding Customer Service

Wicresoft ESS Camp III

December 9, 2003	Processes, Metrics and Best Practices Behind GTEC Operation

Guangzhou Unicom

Presentation and Training Skills

October 21, 2002 	Facilitating Interactive Workshop

GTEC, Microsoft

March 1, 2003		Facilitating Interactive Workshop

Wicresoft

July 30, 2002		Presentation Skills

Orchestra Camp, GTEC, Microsoft

Development Management Training

Microsoft Development Management Training, covering the team model,

bugs tracking, source control, team coding facilities, and culture building.

Sept 28 - 29, 2001	Guangzhou, Guangzhou

December 3 ?6, 2001	Changsha, Hunan

January 30, 2002	Nanjing, Jiangsu

May 22 ?26, 2002	Wuhan, Hubei

July 6 ?10, 2002	Suzhou, Jiangsu

August 22, 2002		Suzhou, Jiangsu

Sept 24 ?28, 2002	Chengdu, Sichuan

January 21 ?22, 2003	Shanghai

I tried very hard not to mix the professional life and the personal life in this blog. I avoided posting anything related to my employer or the job I am doing.

This post is an exception. Why? I justed joined the LinkedIn.com network per Isaac‘s (Chinese site) invitation. It is a good professional network focusing on business and employeement opportunities. ThenI begin to build up my profile (requires free membership to view). I also invited some of my best friends and asked them to give me endoresement on the position I have ever been. Among them, I listed Speaker and Trainer as a position. To make sure I have evidence that I was qualified for this position, I took about one hour to create a summary of major events I spoke or training I facilicated. The result is amazing. I’d like to share how frequently I attended all kinds of events in the last three years.

Oh. I also listed another funny position – Founder and Major Contributor of Wangjianshuo.com. Haha. If you’d like help to endorse my work on this site, please also join the LinkedIn.com and add me as your connection. My display name at LinkedIn.com is Jian Shuo Wang.

My Digital IQ = 190

Stonese’s comment on my Starbucks page led me to his blog (Chinese site). Really interesting to read all the funny stuff he has gathered. I was interested in the analysis of the Xi’an Anti-Japanese movement (via Kairen) and the Ditigal IQ Test on MSN.

Here are some sample questions among the 68 questions in the test. I also posted my explanation since it is a good way of explore my digital world. I agree that it really reflect one’s Digitial IQ. :-) Very interesting!

  • Do you buy computer online?

    No. Ecommerce in China is not that advanced now. I only buy CD and book online. BTW, I bought my last computer four years ago when I didn’t even buy book online.

  • Do you have broadband Internet access at home? Yes. I had Great Wall broadband at the beginning and then switched to ADSL from China Telecom.
  • Do you open attachments from people you don’t know?

    Never. I don’t open attachment with .exe extension from any of my friend either.

  • Do you have Wi-Fi Internet access on your laptop?

    Yes. Happen to have embedded wireless NIC in my Dell laptop

  • Do you know the closest free “hot spot”?

    Yes. There is no free hot spot in the area I live, but I know the nearest Starbucks, where you can access the Internet using the Tian Yi Tong I subscribed.

  • Do you use wireless Internet access while on the road? No. I don’t often do so. I do have experience to access the Internet using GPRS of my Alcatel OT715
  • Do you use your cell phone to access the Internet?

    Yes. I have WAP in my current mobile phone. I also play with Wendy’s SmartPhone Dopod 515

  • What does the “MP” in MP3 stand for?

    Moving Picture. Haha. Although MP3 is popular, seldom shall people know it is Moving Pictures for the MP. What is the relationship of Moving Picture with music? Hehe. It is a long story to tell.

  • Have you ever written a virus?

    Yes. Very small virus that is too dangerous and too easy to be killed. It was in the DOS era in my university. A ten line .BAT file that copy itself to all the shared (Novell) network folder and then make a copy of the current parent folder, then make copy of the resulting folder again, util the disk is full. :-( I was so naughty in the old times.

  • With today’s software, the amount of memory doesn’t matter as much?

    No. I don’t think so, but I know some people who think so.

  • I have a Weblog

    Yes. If you don’t know yet, it is at home.wangjianshuo.com

  • At least five other Weblogs are linked to mine

    Yes. 553 website link to home.wangjianshuo.com and 326 website link to wangjianshuo.com. (There are duplicates in the result but I heard Google return result from websites above PR3 only for link: function) Most among them are blog sites.

  • Do you have a home network?

    Yes. It also went wireless on June 17, 2003.

  • When you meet someone new, do you Google them?

    Yes. Yes. I do. Those guys behind the questionnaires are genius! How can they think of such interesting question. I do Google new friends to learn more about them if I think he/she has a high Digital IQ.

  • Have you installed Google toolbar?

    Yes. I cannot live without Google. My homepage is also set to Google.

  • Do you have dual monitors hooked up to your PC?

    Yes. I connect my monitor (big CRT monitor) into the dock of my laptop. So every morning, when I dock my laptop into the dock, the CRT shows the screen and I begin to use my keyboard and mouse on the desktop instead of the mini laptop. My laptop is powerful though. Some times, when I do a copy or backup things, I will configure to use two monitors together – just extend the main monitor to the other.

Why not have a try and know your Digital IQ? Of cause, do treat it as a joke instead of serious psychology test.

AIDS Comes Closer to Us

World AIDS Day on Nov 1, 2003 is approaching, just as AIDS itself approaching ourselves.

Via Sina.com.cn, I learnt there are 1 million HIV carriers in China, which means there is one AIDS patient among every 1300 people. It is predicted that the number of AIDS patients will rise greatly in the next five years.

I first learnt AIDS from a campaign on AIDS in Luoyang when I was only 15 years old (in 1987?). The knowledge of AIDS and how to prevent it were displayed on the board on the central square. However, I never saw such kind of campaign again. Now in Shanghai, it is reported that there are 685 AIDS patient in Shanghai – I don’t believe in the number. I saw the astonishing news that half of the caught 26 chief in Hangzhou were tested to be HIV carrier.

I really begin to worry about the society now. The recent horrible mass killer was caught after he killed 60+ people in the last two years. Also, another one just killed 20+ children before he was caught. What astonishing news! It is much more serious than SARS.

Besides AIDS, SARS and the massive killing criminal, suicide is also a society problem. 0.28 million people successfully commit suicide every year in China and another 2 million people try suicide but fail every year. That means one person kills himself/herself every two minutes in China.

Without a strong religious common belief, it is really a hard time now for China.

All Work and No Sports Made Jack a Dull

I am sleeping late recently. So I am feeling tired all the day. I am somewhat worried about health. I didn’t excise much in the last few month – actually the excises has been stopped quite a while. Regarding the sport facility in Shanghai, I have to say, it is bad, very bad.

Bad Sport Facility

For the football, there is very few football court that is publicly available. I know I can go to the Jiao Tong University and join the students. It is free but too far from my home. For most public facilities, it charges for the venue. Especially for sports like football and basketball, you always need a team to rent the venue – the court is useless if I go there by myself. :-)

Ping Pong seems to be popular here. I can find a lot of Ping Pong tables at fee of 10 RMB per hour. Vanke Waltz Garden even have one, which is almost open for reservation.

Swimming is good but the expense is also a problem. For the nearest swinging pool at the opposite site of my house – the Ever Bridge Sport Center in Ever Bright Hotel, it charges 90 RMB to use. Well, it is still far from free sport facilities.

Schools are Locked Up

There are many schools nearby. Their exercise fields look good. The bad news is, all of them close their gates tightly at all time – only students and teachers are allowed to get in or go out. This situation is worth after SARS.

Parks <> Sports Facility

Standing before my window and looking outside, there are all buildings in Shanghai. Buildings after buildings but there is not many places for exercise. In the last four years, I am very happy to see many old factories and buildings in Shanghai and green land and parks were built, but parks are still not sports fields.

Running on the Road? Are you Joking?

Exercise on the road? It is a very good idea for small cities. Going out for a walk or slowly run along the road is a pleasant experience in many cities, but no in Shanghai. The pollution air is full of smell of the gas from cars and dust. Also, there are so many cars that I need to stop at each red light to avoid being hit. There is no way for me to run along the road.

Bicycle

The city of Shanghai is not friendly for bicycles. Actually, it is a city planning to restrict bicycles. I support the idea expressed in the Shanghai Transportation White Paper: “The city will discourage long-distance bicycle transportation. The riders are encouraged to take public transportation facilities like Metro and Bus”. True. It does not make sense for people to ride the long way in Shanghai.

However, regarding cycling as sport, it is still good. The problem is, I have to first ride the bicycle out of the downtown area – it is definitely a hell in Shanghai to ride safely and happily. This may takes 1 hour. :-)

What Can I Do With My Own Mountain

I heard that I can buy a mountain in my home town of Luoyang at very cheap price. It is located in Luoyang, Hen Nan provide. It is 15 km away for the city. When I was young, I used to play on the mountains. I never thought of the possibility to own the mountai myself.

The only question, or the major question I face is, what can I do with my own mountain.

Disadvantages

According to the agreement, I cannot build permenant house on the mountain. It is far from Shanghai – 12 hours train plus 1 hour bus. It also not suitable for planting trees. The scene of the mountain is good, but not that kind of scene that can attract tourist.

My Idea

The only thing I can think of is to take a lot of digital pictures for the mountain and put it online. Then I announce I am the owner of a mountain, maybe put it under my signiture. Is it cool? That is all I can think of to do with the mountain…

Late Payment for My Gas Bill

I have to show the expression of :-( Sadly Smiley when I became aware that I have to pay 196 RMB as late payment fine for the 280 RMB gas fee for December 2002. That is the bill of half year ago. I was amazed by myself that I can delay paying a bill for over half a year. How bad memory do I have.

I am a very careless person in my pesonal life. I often forget to pay the bills. To be honest, I don’t care most of the bills like water, electricity, gas since the amounts are small. The only bill I care very much is the telephone bill, which was always higher than I expected. Especially the ADSL monthly fee of 150 RMB (combined with Tian Yi Tong – the wireless service) drove me crazy. It is one of the most expensive household fee I have to pay.

I have never paid bill or heard of bill before I come to Shanghai. Yes. It is true. In a lot of cities in China before, the household fee was deducted from the salary directly, as my parents’ company did. It sounds strange but it was true before. People live in the house assigned by the company (or unit, in Chinglish). Serveral family share the same electricity meter and people don’t have bill, since the company will pay the electricity department of the city and deduce the distributed amont the families from their salary….

On Late Payment will Doom You

The headline of MSN.com frightened me.

screen-late.payment-bill.jpg

Image coutersy of MSN.com

It claimed that

One late payment can doom you

Credit-card companies and insurers are combing your records for any reason to justify a rate increase. Just a single late payment or over-limit charge could ripple through all your unrelated accounts.

Reading the article made me get aware of the importance of paying bill in time. Will a late payment doom me? If so, how about a 8-month late payment? Will it doom me twice?

Actually, it is the fact of the credit system. Just as I never heard of bill before, I seldom hear about credit in last year. However, from the begining of this year, the city of Shanghai are working on the credit system. They begin to gather bank account information, late payment into the central credit system, just as that in other countries. This is a very big step forward for the city. Poor me. How about my credit now? Will it be of value zero? :-( again.

Lost My Passport of P. R. China

The Story

I lost my Chinese Passport

– last year.

I will be able to apply for my new passport again

– after the magic date August 29, 2003

Hopefully, I can get my new passport

– in the middle of Sept

During the half year, I made at least 30 phone calls, visited about 4 police offices, paid for the advertisement on the Wen Hui Daily and waited for three months to be able to reapply a passport.

At last, I am very tired and frustrated.

The Rules

The following are the rules I learnt from my experience to replace a passport in China. I didn’t know about it before I lost my passport.

  1. After losing an passport, the passport holder need to go the nearest police station to claim the lose of passport
  2. The passport holder need to publish an advertisement on national wide news paper about the lose.
  3. The holder can only apply a new passport after three months of the publish of the advertisement.
  4. A new passport will be issued in two weeks after the holder reapply.

I Lost My Passport

At the beginning of November 2002, I attended a conference in Hong Qiao Guest Hotel. The event was wonderful except that I lost my black V-ONE jacket with my passport in the pocket. I didn’t realize it be the beginning of the big trouble.

Looking for the Right police to Claim

I called the yellow page 114 to get the telephone number of the police station. I asked the operator to transfer me to the right police station. I was told that I could claim the lose at ANY police station. Well. It sounded good. I went to the Yan An East Road Station (near He Nan Middle Road) which was just below the building I worked in.

They simply didn’t want to continue to hear about what I had to tell them after they got aware that I worked in the nearby building – they said it was the Nan Jing East Road police station that oversaw the area.

I rushed to the Nan Jing East Road Station and asked to claim. This time, I wasn’t rejected. They told me to wait there for the policeman in charge of this came back after lunch. I waited and waited in the dark room only to hear the man tell me that I didn’t lose the passport in his area and I needed to go to the police station where my Hukou resided in. Hukou is the documentation about me – the mysterious documents that only the employers can see while I can never see in my life….

I clearly know my Hukou was located at #900, Yan An West Road. However, the staff in the police stations obviously didn’t know their business. I called the operator to transferr me to one police station, which always told me that they were not the right one. Sometimes they provided a pointer to another one which claim not responsible for the magic place where my Hukou resides. Did I wrote a wired complicated sentense with many clauses? The real situation was more wired if you count the times when they gave the wrong telephone numbers.

With everyone’s kind help, I finally successfully went throught the following police station (with no particular order – if they request for credit for what they did). It may be a complete list of the stations in that area.

Xian Xia Road Police Station

Jing Ning Road Police Station

Pa Yu Road police Station

Xin Hua Road police Station

Hong Qiao Road police Station

Even the operator of Xuhui police could recognize my voice at last and was very angry with me. She didn’t want me to bother her any more. I was even more anger than she was.

Found the Right Police Station

Finally, I quitted asking the human being in the stations. I looked up the laws and regulations and found by regulations, I need to report to the nearest police station that was in charge of the area where I lost my passport. I couldn’t be wrong this time. So I called Xian Xiao Road Police Station, with the document in my hand. I thought I can defense and claim I didn’t want to be transferred any more with the regulation. By the regulation, they should help me to claim.

Things went smoother than I expected. The policeman accepted my claim request happily and said, “Yes. You are at the right place. Why didn’t you call us earlier?” Well. “Why didn’t I call earlier?” I have to say, my knowledge of the police system was not good enough and I believed what the operator had said at the very beginning. I shouldn’t trust anyone on telephone, especially those from police stations.. :-(

Finally, I found I was too early to relax. He asked me to bring the safeguard in the Hong Qiao Guest House to the police station to be the witness. I asked “How can it be possible? I didn’t remember the name of the safeguard.” I did inform the safeguard in the hotel immediately after I found my passport was lost, but did my statement not valid enough to proof my passport got lost? The policeman was very professional. The answer was the same no matter how I explained: “No witness, no claim”.

I called Hong Qiao Guest Hotel. They just newly upgraded to a five-star hotel. It was still the hotel operated by the government for the state guests. Not surprisingly, they asked the name of the safeguard who witnessed and then refused to provide any evidence. His answer sounded reasonable: “How can I know whether you lost your passport or not?”

Till then, it seemed to be the deadlock. One side asked for witness and the other side won’t provide it. I happened to travel frequently after that and didn’t have time to give them a daily call to discuss this issue. The policeman obviously didn’t want to talk with me too. I just gave up my attempt until I realized doing nothing would not solve the problem three months later.

I Lied, Therefore I Succeeded

Finally, suggested by my experienced friend, I rushed into the Pan Yu Road Police Station on one Wednesday noon. The police station was located on the quiet road near the back door of Jiao Tong University.

I saw a lady in behind the thick glasses. I told her that I want to claim the lose of passport. She asked me to wait until 1:30 PM. That was 1 hours later. The reason was, it is the noon break time and they don’t accept any application. I continuously asked her to do me a favor since everybody was in the room and why I need to wait so long… The 10 minutes noise I made worked and she accepted my request – actually, she had nothing to do at that time except chatting with others. The topic seemed not interesting enough for her to ignore me.

When she asked where I lost my passport and when, I answered as I have repaired: I just lost the passport near the police station, just at the gate of the Jiao Tong University yesterday. I found myself a gifted liar that even I believed that I lost it yesterday.

Before she tend to reject my claim request, I insisted that there is no witness and no proof – “I was….”, I thought hard, “alone and wandering on the road…”. It was not easy to make a story just-in-time. “…and suddenly found my passport went away…..”

It worked like a charm. The angel of mine quickly wrote on a piece of paper and stamps her powerful stamp. In 30 seconds, my Lose of Passport Claim was ready.

Why I Have to Lie to Keep the Ball Rolling?

I felt sad that the system in the society made thing to be so hard if people insist to be honest. There were so many stamps I needed to get and any one can stop you and say: “Hey, look. You need to get the stamp from this department before I can give you mine…”

I just read about a true story that happened in the middle east. The title of the article was Don’t Want To Be A Chinese From Now On. It was firstly posted on Zaobao.com and was widely quoted and discussed. The story was about a young Chinese mother who married an Indian. She insisted to register her son as Chinese citizen although her husband didn’t agree at the beginning. When they went to the China Embassy, they asked her to provide a lot of documents, including the proof that she didn’t owe money from her former employer, the non-criminal record certificate and the agreement from the Foreign Affair Administration of her home town….

After traveling between China and India for many times, she still could not get the document and stamps needed. Finally her India husband got so angery and shouted to everyone in the Embassy. Then he easily got the application form. This time, it was the mother who refused to sign the application. She was so heart broken and applied India passport for her son. The passport was ready in three days.

Soooo….. sad…… to know this.

Publishing the Advertisement

Let me get back to my story. After getting the Lose Claim, things became easier. According to the regulation of Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration, I need to publish an advertisement on the national wide news papers claiming the lose.

I was suggested to go to the People’s Daily since it was the largest one. I didn’t do it since it asked for 300 RMB. Xin Min Evening asked for 100 RMB. I finally choose Wen Hui Daily since it cost only 50 RMB to publish an advertisement – the smallest advertisement possible.

On the day of May 29, 2003, for the first time in my life, I went to the newspaper dealer to buy a copy of Wen Hui Daily. I never personally pay for this newspaper although I can read it anywhere in Shanghai – on air plane and on the newspaper window on the street. That is the advantage to be an official newspaper of the Party. I personally prefer Xin Min Evening, Shenjiang Service Guide…

On the edge of the news paper, I saw the advertisement I paid for:

Wang Jian Shuo Lost Chinese Passport No. XXXXXX. Claim to be Invalid

Way Ahead

Hopefully, three months after that day, which is August 30, 2003, I can go to the Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration to apply for a new passport. My experience told me that it may not be as easy as I thought. They may ask for stamps that I can never imagine. I just hope the less stamps, the better.

My Hope

Perhaps it is the nature of an I.T. Professional. I always believe the process need to be simplified and the public service should continously improve. I have less tolerance for low efficiency. Don’t get me wrong. I hope the city becomes better and better with efficient public services instead of bureacracy.

P.S. Just the day before yesterday, my wife’s ID card was stolen. The police station asked her to get a stamped letter from her employer to proof that she really lost the ID card before she can claim it at the nearby police station. It is the beginning of another cycle…..

I Got My Income Tax Rebate

It is still hot today with reported temperature of 37 degree C again. It is the 11th continous boiling day in Shanghai. Maybe it will break the high tempature record of 18 continous high-tempature days in 1930’s.

Just on this hot day, I completed all the registration process for the tax rebate. That is the rebate of all the personal income tax from the next month the house purchase contract was signed till the May of 2003. The personal income tax rate is 20% for more people – with monthly salary of 1400 RMB (do not remember the exact number though). That will be a large amount of money. :-)

This policy has stopped since May of this year. I feel lucky that I made the decision to buy a house two years ago. Now the price per sq. meter for the house increased by almost 50% and the income tax rebate also brought benifit. That is great.

The money is expected to be ready in 3 – 4 months.