What does Happiness Depend on

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Thanks for everyone who posted comments to my entry Helping by Hiring. There are 38 very high quality comments in the discussion about the social welfare system in China. I am very happy that my article draws some attention to Ayi who badly needs help. I will continue to monitor and see if there is opportunity I can help. I am working on a website to help people to hire an Ayi so to create more opportunities for them.

At the same time, I am thinking about the question: “Are we happier than them?” We refers to the circle I am in – my colleagues and my friends who have university degrees and earn well. Them means people who have very low income, like Ayi.

The answer is obvious. But sometimes, it may not be the only answer. My question can be paraphrased as “Will money and education bring happiness after the basic living is covered?”

Shanghai is the Second Unhappiest City in China

As the report figured out, people in Shanghai generally are not happy. It is very true.

Over-Time

Over-time working is common in IT and Media (advertisement) industry, and not rare in other industry as well. Get up early, go to work, go back home after 11:00 PM or even 1:00 AM, sleep, and go to work… The most interesting part is that, when we gather, people like to show off of how late they work. It is a symbol of exciting life and a sense of achievement.

To survive in Shanghai is not easy. Wait a minute. A sentence painted on the wall of the transition hub of the World Trade Center site in New York just jump out of my head: Man who can survive in New York can survive anywhere in the world. Didn’t we sense more pride instead of sadness in this sentence? It is the same in Shanghai.

Compeition and Education

Students on campus are preparing for TOFEL, GRE, TOIEC.

My friends in a team are working hard to pass MCSE, MCSD and all kinds of certificates.

People who already worked for some years study to pass PMP, ITLE. People get one certificate after the other and still keep asking: “Is there any other hot certificate I can pass?”

For senior managers, they have started their MBA or EMBA courses. It is hot in Shanghai. The 290,000 RMB annual tuition for Fudan EMBA does not stop people joining the program.

No one in this city can escape from the competition. Taxi drivers, for example, are learning English on the day off – remember that they have worked 24 hours continuously and still need to spend several hour to learn English on the 24 hours of break.

Well. Certificate is something you can “shine in the eyes of strangers” (as Wordsworth put it). Strangers certainly include future employers.

Sports? Friends?

I feel very happy and relaxed after Wendy and I just get back from badminton court. We drove 15 minutes to Lujiazui for it. It reminded me that when we lived in Puxi, the badminton court, the swimming pool and all kinds of sport facility were just on the other side of the road – I can even see people playing tennis from my window, we didn’t went there during our two years for sports – I was in the circle to work harder and get more certificate at that time.

In large city like Shanghai, friends are far away. I miss the time in smaller city – my friends live next building with me. There are many friends in the same area. Even the whole city is not far. Now, when I want to visit a friend, he is on the other side of the city and it costs at least 1 hour’s drive. I am not happy about it.

A Family of Life-destroying Emotions in City

Alain de Botton commented about the city life in his the Art of Travel:

The poet (Wordsworth) accused cities of fostering a family of life-destroying emotions: anxiety about our position in the social hierarchy, envy at the success of others, pride and desire to shine in the eyes of strangers. City dwellers had no perspective, he alleged, they were in thrall to what was spoken of in the street or at the dinner table. However well provided for, they had a relentless desire for new things, which they did not genuinely lack and on which their happiness did not depend. Andy in this crowded, anxious sphere, it seems harder than it did on an isolated homestead to begin sincere relationship with others.

It is admirably to the point. We change mobile everyday, we buy many goods that poor people cannot buy, but it has nothing to do with our happiness. As de Botton or Wordsworth put it, our happiness did not depend on those fancy stuff.

Everyone is seeking for something he/she doesn’t actually need to be happy. To rank higher in the hierarchy may not bring more happiness than a shine afternoon tea with friends.

Jia You, Shanghai Metro!

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If someone claims that the Shanghai Metro Line #1 is approaching its limit, he/she is not telling 100% of the truth, but not far from it.

Seeing is Believing

See the pictures I took these two days at the peak time of Shanghai Metro. For visitors to Shanghai, no matter visitors from outside Shanghai or outside China, I suggest them to try transition from Metro Line #2 to Line #1 between 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM on weekdays. Sorry that I may encouraging people to add burden to the Metro at its peak time. :-) It does help to understand how the city works.

Heard of the huge population of Shanghai, you will see the most amazing gather of people – everyone is going or running in the river of people.

Head of the economic power of this magic city? Look at the faces, the dresses, the paces of the people during this specific time frame. You will NOT see so many these business man, engineers, or office ladies on streets after they enter their office building.

Although we cannot claim you see how Shanghai works just by the 30-minute ride, at least people can get the vivid feeling of heart beat of the city. To be honest, I very seldom transit from Line #2 to Line #1 at morning rush time. I heard about the story and know what I should expect, but I was still shocked. Only after I set my foot to the transition tunnel can I understand the meaning of what we call “a lot of people”. The more interesting part of it is, with so many people, we still move so fast – exactly the same pace as the elevator.

The Transition

shanghai-people-transition.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. People transit from Line #1 to #2

Waiting

shanghai-people-line1.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. People waiting for Line #1

The Train is Coming

shanghai-train.foot-light.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. The Train is coming

Leave the Training? Not Easy?

shanghai-not.easy-get.out.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. People inside are not easy to get out

Closing the Door? Hardly

shanghai-metro-closing.door.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. People trying to get the door closed

Next Train? Yes. That is the Only Choice

Immediately after the first train leaves, there are still a lot of people on the platform. The good news for them is, they have a larger chance to get on to the next train.

shanghai-metro-after.leave.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. Immediately after train leaves

Solution?

I believe the interval of Shanghai Metro #1 is short enough (two and a half minute I remember). Adding more metro lines is the solution. On one hand, it offload a lot of traffic; on the other hand, maybe it will enable more people to transit at People’s Square and add the burden of Metro Line #1. So Jia You (cheers), Shanghai Metro. I am expecting the Metro Line #7 complete sooner – there is a station near my current apartment. It is expected to be completed by World Expo 2010.

Comment RSS Feed

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From today, you can use the Comment RSS Feed to get notified of new comments posted to this site

Comment Feed

Add it to your favorite RSS reader now. To reseve bandwidth resources, do not set the refresh interval too short. :-)

This Post is Sent at Internet Cafe

I visited the Hui Yuan Internet Cafe at the opposite side of Shanghai Jiao Tong University on Hua Shan Road to post this article. It is the first time in the recent two years to visit an Internet cafe. I am waiting for my friends Mao and Hengge to have tea soon, so I still have some time to kill in the middle. I paid 3 RMB for one hour’s time.

The Internet connection is good, and the computer is not bad, except someone is smoking beside me while he is playing Tian Tang II. Someone is cleaning his dirty mouse rolling balls with his hand, and others are ordering their fast food dinner from the waiter. I guess there are about 500 computers in this Internet cafe and more than 80 of them are occupied. It is the best place to learn the Internet industry and culture. Majority of them are playing game (either Shanda’s or CS), some (1 out of 10) are watching movie (stored locally) with earphones. Some are chatting with QQ or other IM – I didn’t see MSN Messenger user in this Internet cafe so far. There are five persons out of the 70 seats in my room surfing on the Internet – one is on Sina, the other on Sohu, the third on Hotmail, I don’t know which site the fourth guy is visiting (seems like a portal). The fifth, which is me is editing this blog entry.

Helping by Hiring

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Note: This is the response to people’s comment on my last article: Life in a Low Cost Labor World to clarify the reason I wrote it.

Well. It seems I need to clarify the reason I posted the article so Jimmy and Kevin won’t have the impression that I am making fun of the Ayi or something.

There are very serious problems in the way we treat people without a city Hukou here. As everyone here mentioned, they don’t have medical insurance; they don’t have much protection by the society; not many people care about their lives; and they are leading the miserable life. That is the dark side under the sunlight of the city.

However, if donation can solve the problem, we all donate. But it does not, Kevin. Let me tell you why.

If you go out and see the long line outside any Ayi service broker these days, and look at the faces of them, you’ll know personal donation cannot help them all. Even if there is enough donation, you can help them today but not tomorrow, not to mention their lives in the long run.

I talked with an Ayi with surname Zhang when I went to hospital the other day. She wait at the gate of a service broker at Hua Shan Road (near Huai Hai Road). She has been there waiting for someone to hire her since the 4th day of the Spring Festival. More than two weeks past and she still didn’t get a job. She worried a lot about her future. She may not survive in the city. She has child with her and they were feeling hungry. She refused to go back to the village she came from because she don’t have much money to pay the train ticket.

Well. At that time, I thought of some ways to help. To give money to her is one choice, but not the best choice. If I did help by giving money, well, look at the other 30 people in line – how can you help. Even you can help them all that day, but how about their lives tomorrow, and the next year?

So I thought of promoting the service of Ayi. I have made up the mind that if I have any chance to tell people, I will convince people to hire some one who badly needs help so they can make a living. The world is harsh for them, and what we can do it to help them to survive in Shanghai. I know there are some readers of my blog, and I want to say: If you have anything you do traditionally, like my scanning job, instead of paying more for equipments, give the business to those poor people so they can find the job. Post Spring Festival is a hard period of time for most of them because most of them are returning to the city and to find job is not easy.

OK. There may be better solution to this, like remove the Hukou system, or increase the basic salary of Ayi. But I don’t like to just talk about something without action. You may find it out in my previous blog entries. I know what we are proposing is more complicated than what I think. What I CAN do is, give more business to either Ayi or Kuai Di or those who need help. Remember, they are not beggar. They don’t want your easy money. They just want a chance to work so they can raise their child. The solution I am proposing is, visit a Ayi Service broker, call them – I have some phone numbers – and hire an Ayi. Giving them more business and mean time, you also save time and money – that is a win-win situation. It helps them today, and help them to build a future.

I talked about the great contribution of Ayi, Expressman and other people who come to Shanghai to help build the city in this article: https://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20050130_picture_news_of_shanghai_2005.htm when they leave the city to go back home. You don’t need to worry that I have the feeling to be the RICH and look down upon them. I am more concerned with the status of this unique group of people that the lives of so-called white collar (which I am part of). That is the reason I talk with them, and I write about them. The first step to help is get people’s attention to them, I believe.

I am sorry I have to say I feel bad when people think I am happy about hire some one for a very cheap price. I enjoy the fact that I can create a job opportunity for someone better. If we go to gym, the 100 RMB per entrance is not so critical for the business owner of the Gym. But if you call an Ayi and say, help me on this and I pay 7 RMB for you. That 7 RMB means a lot. Is there anyone here proposing me to call an Ayi everyday and say, “Come here and I give you 7 RMB for free”, I believe it is insulting them and I refuse to do it. You may feel comfortable to do it, I don’t.

When I helped those five cats in my garden, and people criticized me “Hey! Why help those cats! I’d rather help more human being”. When I am working on the personal funding proposal to personally donate money to the fund every month from my salary, someone argued: “Why help those people who are rich enough to go to college? Many people in China villages are starving now.” Well. It seems whatever I do, someone will guide me to do some more meaningful things. So I learnt that no matter how small the good deed is, just do it. One personal cannot make an impact to the world, but at least can help one or two other people. Help people one by one.

Of cause the reason I didn’t put the reason behind this in the article directly is, we cannot ask people to do something only to HELP others. It is not the way the world works. We need to explain it in a way that people find it beneficial for themselves. So I used the relaxing tone and samples to tell people – Hire an Ayi, hire an express man – it costs little but help YOU a lot. Does it make sense?

Life in a Low Cost Labor World

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Living in a world where labor cost is relatively low – especially those low end labor like Ayi cleaning or Express man, is very different from the developed country.

Some people suffer from the absence of effective and secure way to transfer goods. The EMS by China Post Service does not work as I expected. A package from Shanghai to Changsha cost me 3 days. It is not even a guaranteed delivery time, while UPS or Fedex can deliver the same package to any large cities in the world in 24 hours. The surface mail with 0.60 RMB postage is worse. It is something like UDP package in the TCP/IP protocol – you send it but there is no guarantee that the package will be received. :-D

However, other people are enjoying the low cost delivery already if the destination is at the same city. It is called Kuai Di or the Express man. The market price for a common service is 5 RMB per delivery. They ride motor-cycle or even electronic empowered bicycle. They are flexible enough to deliver the good to everywhere – even somewhere without an address – they can find it by calling the recipient. :-) Express man has been the standard department for many organizations, no matter foreign-owned or small private business. The typical scenario is: “Hey. I have the contract ready. I can ask my Kuai Di to deliver it to you or you ask yours to come to my office to pick it up?”

Ayi is another good service that is not comparable in any city in the world. Due to the high demand, the large supply (many woman come to Shanghai and pick Ayi to be their first job), it has been a very powerful business. The standard price for one hour of work is 5 RMB in Xuhui district, and it is 7 RMB in Pudong (Why? I guess more Ayi wants to work in Puxi)

You can ask them to help – from cleaning the house to taking care of the baby, from cooking dinner to doing the repeatable work. It is quite amazing how Ayi changed the life of people in Shanghai.

Ayi as an occupation can be classified as servant in modern terms. But they are more flexible. They are paid by hour and one Ayi can serve more than one family or company at the same time. It is highly commercialized industry. Many companies hire Ayi to keep the office clean, serve tea, and help employees on their personal stuff, like paying the electricity bills or fetch the laundry clothes. As everyone is so busy with their own business, to ask an Ayi to help do the simple work seems to be effective than doing it by themselves. Companies, whether small or large, has find it very effective to hire Ayi.

Many broker help to connect the Ayi and the host together and charge commission. Some professional Ayi or Express man management companies emerge, so it is no longer the personal business of the Ayi or the Express man. It is the same for Safe Guards.

Express man is a frequently used method for e-commerce in Shanghai. Ayi has been a more cost effective way to do many things than IT solution. For example, I once thought of inputting all the ISBN number of the books I have into a database. Besides the system, I need to buy a bar code scanner, which is at least 200 RMB. Later, I found with 200 RMB, I can hire an Ayi to help me do the work. If they are given a computer and 10 minute of training, they can pick up a book, check the ISBN from the book cover and enter the ISBN numbe into my Excel. It only costs several hours. It reminded me the experience of my friend. After he moved to his new apartment, he paid 200 RMB for after-renovation clean up. That morning, 20 Ayi showed up at his door and worked for the whole morning. It was quite amazing.

My Favorites in Shanghai

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My favorite place for afternoon tea: Xian Zhi Xuan (Ambroise)

My favorite book store: Ji Feng Book Store

My favorite working lunch restaurant: Wei Qian La Ma

My favorite bus line: 926

My favorite place for wireless Internet access: Starbucks

My favorite Starbucks store: People’s Square store

My favorite Hunan Cursion: San Xiang Masion

My favorite tea house: Tian Qu at Dong Fang road

My favorite restaurant in Pudong: Qin Feng Tang Yun

My favorite road: Hua Shang Road (the section between Urumuqi Road and Jiang Su road)

My favorite university campus: Shanghai Acdemic of Theatre

My favorite theatre: An Fu Road Theatre

My favorite hotel building: Ritz-Carlton Portman

My favorite office building: Corporate Avenue

My favorite car make: Volkswagon Polo

My favorite gallery: Shanghai Gallary of Three on the Bund

My favorite luxrous store: Three on the Bund

My favorite book: The Art of Travel

My favorite hotel to stay: Ressainance Hotel

My favorite airport for business: Hong Qiao Airport

My favorite express way: A30

My favorite new area: Biyun International Community

My favorite church: Shanghai Community Church

My favorite Sichuan Cusion: YuXing

My favorite gym: Physical

My favorite view: The turning point from Yan’an Elevated Highway to the Zhong Shan East Rd.

My favorite furniture design: IKEA

My favorite Karaok: Cashbox

My favorite swimming pool: Sports Hotel

My favorite tennis court: Shanghai Tennis Center

My favorite car rental: Shijong Rental

My favorite airline agent: ctrip

My favorite number to call: 114

My favorite newspaper: Oritental Morning Post

My favorite technology book store: Only Bookstore of Shanghai Jiaotong University

My favorite broadband provider: ADSL from Shanghai Telecom

My favorite mobile service provider: China Mobile

My favorite taxi company: Dazhong Taxi

My favorite hosptial: Hua Shan Hospital

My favorite English Magazine: That’s Shanghai

Update: Related posts on this topic Feb 28, 2005

  • Micah posted his favorite list immediately after my post.
  • BingFeng’s Tea House also posted a list
  • Fons proposed “My Favorites in Shanghai” as the next Shanghai Weblog Meetup topic
  • I encourage people to write on this topic and notify me so I can add your list to this update

I can Recognize Orders Now

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I’m reading Shi Jian’s The Soul of the Land (《大地之灵》) (Chinese book, ISBN 7-80603-252-5). I learnt the three orders or organizational systems of classical western architecture. I am very happy about the new knowledge. Whenever I look at a western style building now, I can quickly recognize the language they use – it’s like a secret code between the architect and me, so I get more information about the building.

I browsed my old photo gallery on my computer. Many buildings in Shanghai borrowed the orders from Greek. I admire the small country who spread its culture to the world.

Photo 1: The transformed Doric Order of the Shanghai Exhibition Center:

shanghai-exhibition-doric.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang.

Photo 2: The Ionic order of the Shanghai Concert Hall:

shanghai-shanghai.musical.hall-doric.orders.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. The Shanghai Concert Hall before it was moved to the new location

The Shanghai traditional resident buildings are mixture of both Chinese and western architectural style. I took the picture below on Oct 21, 2004 in the area near Xintiandi. Look at the Ionic orders on the second floor. It is a resident building with traditional Chinese roof and Ionic orders. This should be the last photo of this beautiful house. It was tore down about one month later. It is the typical fate of nice Shanghai traditional houses. When one small apartment of the building on the same land raises to 7000 USD/sq. meter, who can resist the offer to tear them down and build something new? When I was interviewed in New York, I talked about this issue.

shanghai-old.buildings-ionic.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

The area in Luwan District still remains large areas of such houses. Take of the picture below. I hope after 2 years from now on, they are stil there.

shanghai-resident.buildings.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. Large area of old houses in Shanghai. Taken from the top of the Corporate Avenue Building

Next time, I will visit the Bund again. I believe it will no longer be the previous Bund I saw.

I will continue to read about the Chinese traditional architecture part and hopefully, be able to read more from the silent houses. Maybe I will visit the Zhuo Zheng Yuan for the third time with the new knowledge.

Shanghai Weblogger Meetup – Feb

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I am happy to meet K W (blog://K W in Shanghai). We talked about his first impression of Shanghai: “Not so boomed city with crazy taxi drivers.” :-)

Michel also blogged about the event. I am so happy that some one use eloquent to describe me (when I am talking in English). :-)

I missed Maria‘s other four cats who were sent to others. But I enjoy the drinks and the place as such as the previous meetup.

It was a great time to chat with Tek, Vicky, Lucy and others who attended the meetup. To view the same city in a traveller’s view or expat’s view help me to be more senstive, cheerful to stay in the city.

I LOL when Tek shared his story with Wendy – as a native speaker of English, he went to Jin Men of Hunan Province to teach English, but he really had hard time to communicate with the local English teachers. That is the reason why students studies English for 12 years but still cannot communicate with foreigners. :-D

Calling Card in Shanghai

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Making phone calls using the fixed-line telephone for local calls is cheap (0.12 RMB per minute?) but it is expensive for international phone calls. Here is the standard price:

Normal time

International phone call: 0.48 RMB / 6 seconds

Domestic long distance call: 0.07 RMB / 6 seconds

Between 0:00 – 7:00

International phone call: 0.48 RMB / 6 seconds (for 15 countries, including U.S, Japan, Australia, France…)

Domestic long distance call: 0.04 RMB / 6 seconds

Source: Shanghai Telecom

Calling Card

I am not sure how the foreign carrier’s’ calling cards work in China, such as AT&T, MCI cards. In China, there are many IP cards that can save money. For example, Unicom 17910 IP Card (0.30 RMB/minute DDD or 2.40 RMB/minute IDD to U.S. and Canada (3.60 RMB/minute IDD to other countires), Unicom 193, China Mobile 17950 IP Cards… The best thing with these cards is, if you buy it online, you can easily get 50 RMB of value with less than 20 RMB. The website I use everyday is cnard.com. I can use my credit card to pay there and they send me the card number and the password. I can directly use the card at the fixed-line telephone in my home. No card deliver required. It is really cool.

Buy the Card?

Besides the online store, telephone card dealers can be found at Pudong or Hong Qiao Airport. You can find it at the Arrival Hall (Pudong, Hongqiao).

Alternative

Skype is a much better alternative to fixed-line. It offers around 0.20 RMB/minute to telephone everywhere around the world. It is even cheaper than the mobile phone in China (0.40 RMB/minute). Just use the SkypeOut feature.

Yes. It Snowed in Shanghai

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My friends outside Shanghai didn’t believe it snowed in Shanghai. I can understand that, because the last time I clearly remember it snowed in Shanghai was in 1996. OK. Let me proof it.

shanghai-goudaner-snow.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang. Goudaner covered by snow.

The picture was taken at 1:01 PM, Feb 19, 2005. It snowed at the night of Feb 18 and my car looked like this when I walked to my car in the afternoon. It took me quite some time to clear part of the window so I can drive the car to somewhere in the Sun. Very soon, it all melt so I can start my journey.

It is rarely snow in Shanghai. The year of 2005 is abnormal. It snowed many times – I guess more than 5 times already. The temperature varience is big. It was 0°C on Sunday and today, it is 11°C already (all according to the meter in my car).

Professional Web Hosting

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It is prooven that professional web hosting like iPowerWeb is really better than the hosting environment at my home :-D and better than my previous hosting company. I was suffering for server down [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] at the begining of 2004. Then I migrated the server to professional web hosting service. The cost doubled but the result is better than tripled. I checked the availiablity report today and the result is not bad:

screen-home.wangjianshuo.com-uptime.png

© netcraft.net

From the table, we can clearly see since April 2005, my server was not restarted so the uptime continued to grow. Before the migration, the uptime was in a mass, as shown in the number – the 90 day average never reached 15 days. :-(

Blogger Meetup this Wednesday

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I will attend the Shanghai Blogger Meetup this Wednesday. This is the second time I join the meetup and I definitely enjoy my previous one. A new friend Matt is among one of the best archivements that night. The topic for this Wednesday night, as Fons put it, is:

What makes you blog? We already covered “making money” last time, now this seems a nice follow-up. How often do you write, and how do you pick your subjects every day? Do you have an audience in mind when you blog, and who is that? What is your philosophy for using links?

If you are a blogger and want to join, I guess it is OK to register on the website. RSVP required. I will be there around 7:00 PM.

More Cats in My Garden

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Recently, it keeps snowing or raining in Shanghai. Meanwhile, I found more cats in my garden. Besides the original two (I have named them), three more often drop by and eat what I feed. Since my parents are here and they can cook something other than the cat food I bought from super market, we can offord to help more cats.

If you take my garden as a country, I will say, Huahua and Liangliang hold the passport of my garden, so they are the permenent citizen and enjoy the well fare I provide (including food, home, water and sometime my time with them). The other three are visitors holding visa I granted. They can enjoy the food, but there is no home for them. :-D

When looking at these small animals, I forget about all the troubles I have. Just like what William Wordsworth said: “Animal helps to keep the peace of our mind…” True.

P.S Shanghai News.

To keep the public service for those who comes here for real time Shanghai information, let me summarize what is going on in the city in short sentences.

1. It snowed. It is 0°C outside, according to the meter in my car.

2. It has been raining since end of Jan (with only two days exception)

3. The Spring Festival can be claimed to end by next Monday – many people will take vacation in the next few working days after the vacation.

Is This London Undergrand?

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Microsoft launched series of “Realize Your Potential” print advertisements to communicate about its mission “Enable people and business to realize their full potential”. Among them, the ad named HAT got Eric‘s attention when we talked about Subways in New York. “Which subway station was the picture taken?” He asked.

screen-ulas-reaize.jpg

© Microsoft Corporation. Src

I didn’t know the answer before a picture on the Shanghai Weekly came into my sight. It was a report on the city of London with some pictures and a subtitle – “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” – Samuel Johnson. The picture shows another underground station in London. It seems very similar with the one shown on the Ad.

From the Ad, I can only tell ULAS from the wall. I guess it may be a station near Universities of London Air Squadron (ULAS) in London? Is it the underground station in London named “Brompton Road Underground Station”? If anyone who can recognize this picture, it is appreciated if you can confirm where it is.

Curiosity on Life

This is a vivid example of curiosity for life – the rational motivation for many things we did. I enjoyed the time to search for the answer for the simple question “Where is this station”, and enjoyed the excitement when I happen to see the picture on my dinner table. The research time and the excitement moment are quite rewarding to me. It brings something new to life, so the life is not boring at all. Sometime the reason we travel, ask, research, and study is simply out of curiosity. Curiosity is the genuine human being’s instinct that must be satisfied. The city life, sometime, has killed the passion so people feel boring, while there are millions of poorer people who are happier.

To raise the question is more important than the research. Eric gave a good question (and interesting one) so I want to continue to research like a Sherlock Holmes. The other projects I participate sometimes are also started as good questions. For example, there is a question on the website of Confluence Project web page: What does the point 30N 119E look like? The only thing I knew was, it is a point in the Zhejiang Province which is 300+ km away from Shanghai. To find out the answer (or to satisfy my curiosity), I spent two days traveling there and one night at the miserable 10 RMB per night hotel. Upon my return, I recorded Incomplete Visit to 30N 119E. There is nothing to do with money, nothing to do with project schedule, or customer, or work item, or coding, or anything that is common in daily life.

London?

Samuel claimed that “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”. It is true. I would rather further state the same sentence to be “When a man is tired of ______, he is tired of life”. There is a blank space there and you can put almost every place name or even any noun to the blank space and I still believe the statement is near the truth. For example, we can put the follow terms. Try to read it again with the new terms.

  • Shanghai
  • Xujiahui
  • Pudong
  • China
  • my neighborhood

It is a simple philosophy many books kept telling. Some uses extreme samples. Xavier de Maistre wrote the Journey Around my Bedroom (mentioned in Art of Travel) revealing how much he could discover within his own bedroom – he got more than people travel to the world. The same philosophy was repeated in Helen Keller’s Three Days to See. It is purely about the way we treat life. Both set us thinking, wondering what we do under similar circumstances.

Update It is Paris Subway Feb 20, 2005

Thanks DongXi and Carsten to confirm the subway on the poster is Paris Subway. To be more accurate, the Porte de Lilas Station. I recognized te Lilas to be ULAS. The subway of the subway in these two cities are so similar.

Look at this picture castern found for me. It is exactly the station the poster was taken – it is even from the same angle to take it.

paris-porte.de.lilas.png

Image in courtesy of CREDS report

Thanks! I know I will get an answer within two days.

A Chinese Blogger in America

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I was called a Chinese Blogger in America. :-D The third installment of my audio blog in America was on air at KQED and other radio stations in U.S. Click the audio archive and click the a Chinese blogger in America (Part 3) to listen.

BTW, I have started to write on my Chinese blog. I suggested Christina not to write on two blogs, since I rarely see someone who successfully manage more than one blog. There will be a strong preference from the blogger about which one to post. Examples: Jian Shuo Wang (blog I, II), Eric (blog I, II), Isaac (blog I, II). Recently, when I read books on philosophy , art and traditional Chinese culture, it is not easy for me to translate it into English. So..

Grassroot Art in Shanghai

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Art in Shanghai is also prosperous and is becoming better and better. Not many people noticed it. I have a private list of galleries that really attract me.

The Room with a View

The Room with a View gallery is a very famous one in Shanghai. It is on the 12nd floor of the Xianshi Building, No. 479 Nanjing East Road. It is very like the small gallery I saw in Seattle – a big empty room without any decoration in an old building. Although it is located in the Nanjing Road, there is only a misable elevator at the west side of the building to access it. Despite of the simply look, there are great exhibitions there. These days, there is an Lomo exhibition: Love . 37’2°C LOMO Show and Wedding Party. I heard of Lomo this time, remembered LOMO, feel the passion to try it, but later persuaded myself to get focused and don’t do too many things at the same time. :-) It was a perfect story that Zhang Qianli (the husband), and Tang Xiaomin (the wife) grew up together when they were very young in Shanghai and finally got married at their Lomo photography exhibition on the Valentine’s Day. Thanks for Holly to host me there and introduced Lomo to me. She thought all bloggers are wasting time and posting non-sense articles. :-)

Three on the Bund

There is a Shanghai Gallery of Art on the 3rd Floor of the Three on the Bund. That gallery is very fancy with nice decoration, nice equipment and located in the luxious building. It is what the traditional art gallery looks like.

Studio on Suzhou Creek

I heard of the art area along the Suzhou Creek. I didn’t visit it until recently. Many galleries and studios opened there. I guess there are more than 30. I have visited 798 Art District (mentioned) in Beijing and found those in Suzhou are very similiar. (BTW, Eric has a great video on 798 Art District). It was a old factory at 50 Moganshan Road, near the West Suzhou Creek Road. In the large factories, there are oil paintings (taller than a person) with strong and vivid colors, potery workshop (Mrs. Xie’s Studio there), and video/audio production studios.

The famous BizArt, Shanghart, ArtistLinks, eastlink are located in the same factory. I checked the rent price. A nice (in the eyes of artist) studio with 30 sq. meters only costed them about 1000 RMB per month, but allowing artists to work inside. The rent was 1 RMB per sq. meter per day, but now, it may doubled or even more expensive.

Passion for Life

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When asked about what do you still remember for the previous year, many people cannot tell too many. So do I. The more memorable things in life are seldom work related. It can be something you really feel passionate about, such as travel, or competition.

In the year 2005, I will work on three areas in my private life: Art, Charity and Relationship.

Art

My friends and I are planning to hold a photo exhibition in the first half. It was inspired by the Grassroot Art in Seattle. I will also follow the practices from the Art of Travel. I am start to learn drawing and painting.

Charity

I will personally sponsor a funding in university to help few (less than 10 students) excellent students to realize their potential. The fund will help them to go to museums, art galleries, exhibitions, and get chances to talk with other great people in big companies or successful business owners, artists….

Relationship

I will use the year to strength my relationship with all my new, current and old friends. Spend time with them and get to know more people. I am organizing a classmates gathering in Qingdao this July after we graduated from Luoyang No.1 Middle School for one decade.

I will talk about more details about each of the projects later. I hope when I welcome 2006, I at least remember these three meaningful things in 2005.

Talking with Friends is Great

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This is the last day of the Spring Festival. I caught the last chance to have tea or coffee with my friends. It is among the best things to do during holidays. I got to know more good places to meet and to have afternoon tea/evening tea. It is important part of knowledge for a city. I didn’t touch this area too much before, and I guess I will start to recommend restaurants, café, tea houses and bars soon.

I also better understood how lucky I am to have a bunch great friends around me. I know who to go to on specific topics. For example, for ideas on Confusions or the great thinkers, I will go to Steven. On the current society, I will see Hua. For great places to eat, I will pick up my phone and give Grace a call. For new ideas, I go to Isaac, and for travel and art, Claire and Edward are the best persons I can find around me.

The best part of life is to talk with friends. It gives new ideas or helps me to review my ideas to get a more systematic view. My mentor at middle school Zhu Hai Jun said to me for more than 10 times, that “people always ignore great people around them”. It is a good echo of Pascal’s “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room” (my second time quoting this sentence in one week).

Some Observations

There are some very interesting observations in the Internet world that I haven’t put onto the blog yet.

Google loves XinhuaNews and China Daily

When you visit U.S. version of Google News, you will find a very interesting phenomena: About 1/3 of the pictures or one of the two biggest news pictures are often from Xinhua News or China Daily. According to Google’s rule, it implies these two sites are most frequently quoted sites, which is very true.

Forget about Google. Use Baidu

I found the frequency I use Google in the last month dramatically decreased. I almost pulled my hair off when I use Google to search some common terms and get DNS error. It seems more and more content are not suitable for me to read. The easy solution is, switch to Baidu. It is a cleaner environment and they provide good service to censor the content so I won’t click an “appropriate” link before I am aware of.

Google Maps

Google released beta version of Google Map. Google chanllenged people’s imagination of client scripts after it did with Gmail. It is a fantastic application. I love the drag and drop in IE and the navigation with keys. Google is a real Internet company!

203 Mining Workers Died

Liao Ning mine blaster killed 203 workers there. It is terrible news.

Happy Valentine’s Day

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I enjoy the Art of Travel more when I read more. I especially love the chapter IX On Habit and chapter VIII On Pocessing of Beauty. It suggested people to draw pictures of the world as a great way to help observe the beauty in the details and look at daily life as a stranger or visitor does. I read the chapters twice in Starbucks in the Super Brand Mall in Lujiazui. I also spent 3 hours to draw the Valentine’s Card for Wendy – it is almost a project as big as the Balloons Reach the Roof. Just kidding. :D

This year’s valentine’s day falls into the Spring Festival long holiday, while the previous several V-Days are many days after Spring Festival. For example, the Valentine’s day is the 24th day of second month in Lunar calendar in 2004, and in 2003, it is the 14th day of the first month in Lunar calendar. That means, some people will have the opportunity to stay together the whole day this year, while more may be apart due to the long vacation. That affected the red rose price. This year’s rose is only at the half price of the last year, which is about 6 RMB per piece [1] [2]. I guess it is due to many people do not go to office so the senario of dating at night with rose in hand decreases. Meanwhile, the production of rose was raised this year.

Valentine’s Day is a holiday adopted from the western tradition. Just like Christmas, young people like to celebrate these western holidays instead of the traditional Chinese holidays. I am returning to the traditional value of old China, and appreciate the traditional Chinese new years.

The Rose House on the first floor of the Super Brand Mall is another great place to enjoy afternoon tea after I found Ambrosia. Unlike other days, today, all the seats were occupied and there were no more tables. The servers said: “It is because of the V-Day”.

It is the same in Starbucks. Waiters have to ask the youngh couples to find a seat inside the store before ordering coffee. Every details in the store – from the special menu, the hand-drawing on the black board in the store, to roses on girls hands or decorated in the store, imply it is a special day – a day of love.

Nice Afternoon Tea at Ambrosia

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Wendy and I had great time with our close friends this afternoon. They happen to have blogs (some hosted on my site) and their blogs are famous. The name list is (in alphabetic order):

Claire https://home.wangjianshuo.com/claire

Eric https://home.wangjianshuo.com/mvm (Chinese blog) (with GF. Do you have a blog?)

Gao https://home.wangjianshuo.com/gao

Grace http://blog.joycode.com/grace

Jian Shuo https://home.wangjianshuo.com

Wendy https://home.wangjianshuo.com/fanfan

They are all excellent people with independ ideas and observation of life. Grace recommened the Ambrosia (Xian Zhi Xuan 仙炙轩) to us. It is the best place I can find out for afternoon tea so far. Located in a villa with large garden, it provides very good view, free parking (under a bridge of flowers) and large glass rooms on top of the flatform on the second floor. It is like a green house with sunlight (if there were sunlight) pouring into the room – warm and quite. The good view of the garden is clearly outside the huge glass from the top down to the floor.

The afternoon tea is only served on Saturdays and Sundays, from noon to 4:30 PM. There are 38 RMB coffee and 58 RMB tea (unlimited water refilling).

Claire just returned from her trip to Vietanan, Laos and Thailand, with excitement of the buddism and the mindation. The idea of ten day class of meditation in India seems to be a great course – to keep silent without talking for ten days to look into one’s soul… I am reading Aliain de Botton’s book named The Art of Travel (Thanks for Chen Wang to share it with me). There is a very wise quote in the book

The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room – Pascal, Pensées

We also talked about the idea to hold Photography Exhibition from our trips (hers trip and our trip to U.S.) in Shanghai. It seems a new idea for non-art related people like us. We call it grassroot art in Shanghai. BTW, any of my readers know how to organize it? How to finance it? and where is the a good place to host it?

XGAO is suffering from the two dogs adopted from his friend. To serve the two dogs is not an easy job for this IT professional. I guess it is not the only reason that he didn’t write on his blog these days (weeks or months).

Welcome back, Eric. The months in Beijing didn’t change a people as much as I imagined. Eric is still the Eric we are familiar.

P.S. Ambrosia 仙炙轩 is located at #150 Fen Yang Road 汾阳路, at the corner of Tai Yuan Road 太原路. Telephone: 021-64313935. It may be expensive (depending on how you define expensive) to have dinner, but for the afternoon tea at weekend, it is of super value. Map. This commentary on Shanghai old fashioned lunch restaraunt is a very good reference. (Chinese site)

Update Feb 15, 2004

Swing posted some photos of Ambrosia on her blog.