Using Contact Lenses

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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?

Old Houses in Shanghai – Part III

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This is to follow up the hot discussion under Old Houses in Shanghai – Part II.

In that post, I put one of the 35 private villas in Lane 120 of Tai An Rd.

JH commented:

I believe that all (or most) of these houses are still state owned property. Based on the newspaper article, each two story house has about three families — not a very comfortable living condition. This actually reflects an interesting reality: There are many beautiful old houses in some very nice areas in Shanghai. But the actual condition there may not as good as it seems.

JH’s comment is quite true. Most of the houses are owned by the government, not private. But it really depends. There are several types of status of the old houses. Here is a breakdown.

Old Houses with Harsh Living Conditions

Many old houses are in this status. I visited a house that is owned by a rich family. It is a three story stand alone villa on Yong Jia Rd. After the state occupied and “assigned’ many residents, the origin owner only owns the part on the 3rd floor. When we visited the house, the living condition was really harsh. Many people lives there – I remember 7 old men/women lived in the narrow space of the stairs – they have no room, just a bed put into the stair corner with simple cover. It was really hard to march to the 3rd floor. Other families occupy the rooms. In one word, it is a hell.

It is a pity that the old house was very nice for one family but was too crowded with the many families living in the same house. The apartment on the 3rd floor was sold at 6000 RMB sq. meter at that time. The apartment was very good by itself, but it is unacceptable to live with so many people. You even have to pass many people’s bed before you reach your door in dark if you go back home late. There is almost no light in the stairs since they don’t want to save the electricity.

Standalone Houses

If someone bought the 3rd floor of the house I mentioned, and later, persuade other families in the same house to move out (by promising enough money), then buy the whole house and decorate it, the house will be super expensive.

Take this property as an example: A 350 sq. meter standalone old villa sells at 30 million RMB. It is almost 100,000 RMB/sq. meter. This is the average price of a Stand alone old villa. The picture I show before (Old Houses in Shanghai – Part II) is of this type. As rogi pointed out, the owner has a BMW, so only they can afford a house like this.

So the key is, whether you own the WHOLE villa or part of it. If you own part of it, its price is almost the same (if now lower) than other new apartments. If you own the whole villa, the price will be 10 times higher.

Other Villas

Look at the lane of 120 An Tai Rd. This is the view from the villa I posted before. There are many similar villas. They are not decorated so well. I suppose these houses are owned by more than one family.

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© Jian Shuo Wang. Villa in Lane 120 of Tai An Rd.

Famous Villas

There are some famous old villa in the city. There are about 400 listed historic buildings that is under strict protection. Here are two examples.

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© Jian Shuo Wang; Located at 22 Pan Yu Road was the residence of Sun Ke (Dr.Sun Yat-sen’s son).

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© Jian Shuo Wang. Mr. Muller’s private residence at 30 Shaanxi Road. Now it is the office of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League.

Old Houses in Shanghai – Part II

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Old Houses in Shanghai continued.

Wendy and I wandered along the Tai An Road (map) and entered a lane numbered 120 on the road. We were quite impressed. There are more than 33 stand alone old houses in Shanghai. They were built almost one century ago and are still in good shape. The area is so quiet that I can hardly believe that it is in the downtown Shanghai.

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© Jian Shuo Wang. West side of one of the houses. Image in courtesy of the house owner – I didn’t got permission from the owner when I took the picture. I hope they are not incomfortable to see their beautiful house here.

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© Jian Shuo Wang. House picture.

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© Jian Shuo Wang. North door of the house.

I believe every tourist to Shanghai should spend one hour or two in these area – it is a different life style in the same city.

Just Few Steps Away from My New Car

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I am picking up the plan of buying a car in Shanghai again. I thought I have dropped the plan already when I started to seek for apartments in Puxi again. It is disappointing. I have to re-consider my plan. I visited some car stores. It seems my first car is only 100 meters away.

I started with Buick Sail. I only want to have the cheapest car as my first one to start with. Obviously, the Buick Sail at 78,000 RMB (9,390 USD) is the cheapest on the Shanghai market. I mean the cars with well known brand. I don’t consider cars like QQ.

Later, I found FIAT Palio and Siena is almost at the same price range as SAIL but looks much better. More importantly, it is bigger.

I checked the Internet (http://pcauto.com.cn, http://auto.sina.com.cn) regarding Siena. It sounds not bad. I want to have a test drive this week and maybe buy it within this week.

The reason I have to be rush to get a car is, I MAY re-consider to move to Pudong. Also, I can get a car plate in nearby areas if I am hurry. The door to get a non-Shanghai plate is closing soon. Last month, a car plate in Shanghai has risen to 40,000 RMB. That is more than 50% of the car price already. In contrast, a plate in Zhejiang is only 3500 RMB.

There are some limitations of foreign plate car – they cannot use the elevated high way in rush hours in working days. I don’t really care this limitation. This is a simple calculation.

Days of working day per year: 260 (days)

Times to use elevated high way per day: 2 (/day)

Years the high-price plate policy exists: 4 (years)

Price of the plate: 40,000 (RMB)

Cost of using elevated highway per times= 40,000 / (260 * 2 * 4) = 20 (RMB)

It means I have to pay 40 RMB per day for using the high way, which means it is among most expensive roads in the whole world.

Meanwhile, the road under the high way is typically less crowded. Sometimes it is faster to use the normal road than the elevated high ways. The elevated high way sometimes becomes the elevated parking lot. Why bother to pay the high price?

Control It or Encourage It

It is reported that the high price of a car plate has greatly changed the way people in Shanghai buying a car. KIA shipped a new model that is less than 10K RMB last year. However, people in Shanghai are less interested in it since the plate price is 3K+ already. Why not add a little percentage to buy better cars? KIA sold 5000+ cars in Beijing last year while sold only 1000- in Shanghai. That is the difference.

My personal view is, the high price plate policy will be abandoned in one year. The high price does not help on the transportation system too much while it hurt the automobile industry greatly. Shanghai is not Singapore. Shanghai has mess areas outside the outer ring. Without cheap cars, that areas can hard catch up.

Siena

I will go ahead to get a Siena if no strong reasons found in one week.

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Image courtesy of Sina Auto. The dashboard of Siena

Dynamic Traffic Display Board

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© Jian Shuo Wang. The dynamic traffic display board on the elevated high way of Yan An. Rd. near Jiangsu Rd.

From the display board, drivers can clearly see the traffic condition of the ways ahead and choose one of the three channels to go to Pudong – the tunnel, the Nanpu Bridge and the Lupu Bridge. The green lines mean normal traffic. Sometimes, it is red, meaning the traffic is high on that road. It also gives drivers estimation to the Bund.

I think this is very cool.

Automatic Door in Metro

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Did you notice the automatic door in Hengshan Road Metro Station?

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© Jian Shuo Wang. The automatic door experiment of Hengshan Rd. Station of Metro Line #1

It has been installed for almost one year I remember, but very few people noticed the doors. It is for experiment. According to a old news report, the door will be installed to all underground metro stations after it is proved to be functioning. Now, when metro train comes, the door opens and closes with the doors of the train. Since it is installed on one end of the station, the train does not actually use it. It opens and closes, just to test whether it always works.

Learn Photography – Seriously

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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.

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© 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.

Benz Taxi Accepts Credit Card

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Benz Taxi accepts credit card and the price is the same.

I took a picture of the Benz taxi yesterday. From the picture, you can see the taxi begin to accept credit card. It is not news in U.S., but in Shanghai, it is historical change in a city where even PizzaHut does not accept credit card.

The price is the same as any other taxi, 10 RMB per km. I begin to wonder it is reasonable? They have to pay the service fee, and equipments for using credit cards.

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Benz taxi on the road.

Continue to Seek for an Apartment

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After I decided not to move to Pudong, I continued to seek for an apartment near the Hua Shan road. I cycled around the decent area of nice old houses today (taking annual leave). The more apartments I saw, the more hopeless I were. There is almost no chance for me to move into this dream area.

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The area within the red line is among the best areas in the Xujianhui

There are many old houses (built in early 1900’s) alone the quiet roads. I have to say, the architecture of that times are wonderful. They have large gardens, nice design, and perfect decoration. Each house will have its own history back to the beginning of the last centaury. Their price is typically 20,000,000 RMB or higher. (Yes. I am not wrong with the zeros).

At the same time, there are some very badly designed, old, dirty, and crowded apartments among them. They are the legacy buildings of the 1970’s. Even these houses are more than 10,000 RMB per sq. meters. Although there is no doubt that their locations were perfect, I cannot be convinced to relate it to high quality life. The stairs have been full occupied by residents so one have to struggle to find his way to home. Not to mention to the typical bad habit of old Shanghai style (the major reason why Shanghainese has bad reputation in other places of China). For example, I found myself monitored by everyone in that area and some old ladies gathered and talked about my visit to an apartment. I only heard they mentioned that I was the forth person to see the apartment – if they want, they will know all the details of your life. :-(

Good luck for me. I still have a dream to enjoy the decent life Shanghai has to offer.

How Interviews were Conducted

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I received a series of photos disclosing how an interview were conducted. It seems the picture were taken in a small city. I was curious when I was in Luoyang that why everytime some major conferences or policy change, there will be some “encouraged” people expressing their happiness because of the conference or the new policy. Maybe some of the conversation were conducted this way. No description is added since it may mislead. I am not a witness of this. The order of the photos may not be in the original order.

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Hardship of Living without Twix

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Image courtesy of Twix. Twix logo is trademark of Mars, Incorporated

nostaljia’s blog described her boy friend’s life in Shanghai without Twix:

He’s American, and he really likes Twix. The times I was in the United States before, I had never noticed Twix at all. He told me that you can’t buy Twix in China, so he was conserving his Twix, eating them slowly and not letting me eat any. This made me realize the hardship of living in a foreign country so I felt “sympathy” for him. I bought him a whole bunch of Twix in the U.S., and then again in France. I hope that if he really likes Twix, he can eat them to his heart’s content, hahaha!

Ops. I never heard of Twix or saw one before. This smallest detail of live educated me that a foreigner living in Shanghai is definitely not as easy as I think from a local person’s perspective. There are so many stuff that I never saw or be aware but they are essential for their life.

BTW, what is Twix? Sounds like sort of candy.

Bye Bye, Pudong

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There is something that I didn’t disclose in this blog. At the end of last year, we planned seriously to move to Pudong — the green land. We bought a new house with very big garden in Pudong and planned a car. However, in the recent weeks, I was convinced that Pudong is not the place for me. I decided to say “Bye bye, Pudong”.

I can assure you that it was not an easy decision. It is the choice of the two distinct different styles.

Actually, I never lived in the best areas of the city. My previous two houses (including the one I rented in Meilong) was both out of the inner-ring. During my journey to seek for an apartment in the quite and beautiful Hua Shan Road (华山路), Xin Hua Lu (新华路) in Changning District, I found so many good places that we never thought of before. Think about the trees, the beautiful 1930’s houses, and the nearby universities, even the names of the roads! Everything there represents a romantic, convenient, and culture-rich life of Shanghai.

I started to ask myself: Why to spend my best time in Pudong to experience the fresh air and green land instead of what a fantastic city has to offer? Why I need to spend my young life to see the boring nights in Pudong just for investment? Pudong is not Shanghai in terms of cultural relationship. I’d rather to have a high quality of life, not money.

It is not easy to develop any place from nothing to a rich and decent place. We talked with the real estate agent in Pudong seeking to sell the house. The woman agent (with very bad mandarin) maybe grew up in the former village in that area and found the job. She actually knows nothing about the real estate and even doesn’t know the rate of a bank mortgage. She even got very angry when I challenged her on that: “I am an agent. It is not my business. You need to talk to the bank.” It is something I can never imagine in Puxi. It takes one generation or more to change this.

P.S. If you are new to this site, here is some simple Chinese words. Dong 东 means east. Xi 西 means west. Pu is the abbr. of Huang Pu River. Pudong is the area east of Huang Pu River and Puxi is the area in the west.

Rent an Apartment in Shanghai

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There are basically three major types of apartments in Shanghai. They are service apartments, newly built communities, and old simple apartments.

Service Apartment

For example, the Chang Fa Garden (map) at 290 Pan Yu Rd. has good location. They have satellite TV and large clubs (in a five star hotel nearby). The rent price is 6000-8000 RMB per month for a 100 sq. meter apartment with two bed rooms and a guest room. Many foreigners choose this kind of apartment. They offer hotel like services.

There is a piece of very interesting history service apartments like Chang Fa Garden. If the service apartment was built before 2000, chances are, they were foriegner-oriented apartments, which only foreigners could buy. Meanwhile, foreigners were not allowed to buy non-foreigner-oriented apartments. There is a big price gap between. Chang Fa Garden was label a price of 3000 USD per sq. meter when it was sent to market while local apartments nearby only costs around 5000 RMB per sq. meter in 2000. If you are interested, the current sale price for Chang Fa garden is around 10000 RMB per sq. meter.

These apartments tend to be old and the furniture may be out of date. However, they have very good locations. There are some newly built service apartments and their price will be higher.

Newly Built Communities

Vanke Waltz Garden, which I bought, is an example. These are very good choice since they offer good view, safety and brand new houses. It takes 5000-6000 RMB to rent an 98 sq. meter apartment there, although this is already relatively far away from Xujiahui (3.3 km).

Old Simple Houses

In Shanghai, the most impressive buildings were the Old houses. I mean the house built after 1950. They look ugly and are similar. They are typically 6 stories with a flat roof. Local people will choose these apartments and seldom do I see a foreigner will like it. It should cost 2000 RMB to rent a small apartment with 60 sq. meter around the area of Chang Fa Garden (I marked it in the map in my second paragraph).

Where should I look for Apartment

John sent me mail and asked (quoted with permission)

I am regular reader of your website. I love it. I would like to ask you a few questions about apartment in shanghai. I will be moving there soon to live. Can you recommend me a few websites that I can go and rent an apartment. After work, I need night life to survive, so i really need something close to bars, night club, disco, shopping and foods etc… do you know which area is best for me? oh, safety is also important for me.

Thanks so much!!

I would definitely suggest the Xuhui District, Jin’An District and east part of Changning District. I marked the “good areas” in my mind in the map below.

map-shanghai-good.areas.jpg

If night life is important for you, never think of living in Pudong. The quite and dark night there will kill you.

Regarding website, if you can read Chinese, soufun.com and anjia.com are two leading websites in Shanghai.

Update: Open for Apartment Submission. May 27, 2004

Since this page is No. 1 search result in google for keywords rent apartment shanghai, it may be a good service for people renting aparments and people who look for an apartment in Shanghai. If you have an apartment to rent, please submit your apartment infomation to me via Apartment Offered Form.

Update: December 2, 2004

A cheap house at Panyu road available for rent immediately. 360 USD/month (Rent out. Not available now)

Update: Octomber 6, 2005

700 USD: Biyun Oriental Apartment:

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What’s On in Shanghai

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Oh. The recent two film posters (one, two) reminded me of the old question my foreign friends asked me: “Is there any English film in town?”

Yes. Yes. There are many English films in the city with original voice and Chinese subtitle. As JH and I discussed under the article Mona Lisa Smile, China is following the international tradition to show the original film now. Many foreign films like Fanfan La Tulipe are introduced.

Here are some website you can get film information in Shanghai:

That’s Shanghai

Tickets.com.cn (Chinese site)

Cinema Guide

My favorite is the Kodak Super Cinema in Metro City. They are so far the most professional theater I saw.

For example, the UME in Xintiandi I went the day before yesterday is not as professional. Why? The devil’s in the details. I see a big space for the management of the theater to improve. The design of the theater is very cool. So does the poster. But the schedule was printed in normal A4 paper causually and posted everywhere. Many of them are broken already. It is the minor things like this that damages the brand of UME or any theater.

Film Mona Lisa Smile

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Wendy and I went to the UME theater at Xintiandi. The film is named Mona Lisa Smile by Julia Roberts.

Late Movie

It was the latest show of the day. It started at 11:10 PM. I am lucky to live in a city that there is a theater serving film as late as 11:00 PM. Of cause, we were really tired after we got out of the theater around 1:20 AM in the morning of today.

There are only 8 persons in the well equipped theater. So the film was almost exclusive for us.

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Credit: Sony Pictures

Original Movie

It is worth noting that many American movies are shown in original language – English – in theaters with Chinese subtitle. I often watch movies but didn’t watch any translated film yet. What does it mean? Is it an indicator of internationalization, or the lose of local language? I don’t know.

Reviewed by ChinaHerald.net

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Fons posted a review of Wangjianshuo’s blog on Chinaherald.net. It is the first formal and long review of my site. I guess I am the most interested person in the world to read this article. It gives me some feedback of the site from another point of view.

Feedbacks are always encouraging. I am very happy to see people posting comments on my articles; I will be happier if I see an incoming link; then you know how happy I was when I saw a review for my blog. Thanks, Fons. (I am not very sure whether the review was written by Ann Arbor, as signed at the end of the article, or Fons, who notified me of the review, or the two names are the same person. Let me assume Fons is the author. Correct me if I am wrong here, Fons.)

The IT-engineer Wang Jian Shuo is one of very few English language web logs that does not have the overly pretentious approach like most English language weblogs on China – including the China Herald. Here is Jian Shuo, telling about the daily worries of a Shanghainese citizen. Read on… (quoted in courtesy of chinaherald.net)

I don’t Mention my Employer Anymore

In the review, Fons observed that “The only thing he does not mention anymore is his employer.” Fons guessed “that they (the employer) called him in and had a talk. Companies do not like it when their employees blog about them. They might easy lose control.”

“Called me in and Have a Talk?”

Well. It was a reasonable guess. I would draw the same conclusion if I were an outsider. However, the real story behind that is just the opposite.

I never wanted to hide the fact that I am working for Microsoft, which I am very proud of. Microsoft is very open to blogging, more open than I could imagine. There are dedicated people within the company to drive the community effort, including newsgroups, online chat, web forums, and blogs. As you may know, I was the team lead for the Asia Community Support Team responsible to drive Microsoft employee in Asia (every single person within Microsoft) to join the newsgroups or local communities to help customers and listen to customers. The effort is continuing.

Regarding blogs, Microsoft encourages its employees to setup blogs and share his/her work “in a personalized, influential way, and to read about what (the) community is doing”. Check http://blogs.msdn.com/ to get a list of Microsoft guys who just started a technical blog. They are there to share what they are working on in a “personalized, influential way”.

More Microsoft bloggers are not on the http://blogs.msdn.com list than those on the list. For example, we have energetic and influential bloggers like Robert Scoble. He has made big impact with his blog.

In short, no body called me in and had a talk. If there will be some talk, there must be someone call me in and ask me to put more Microsoft information onto this blog. You know, it is the style of a Microsoft manager: “Hey. Do you think by sharing your knowledge on technology will help our customers? So just go ahead to do it!”

As an insider of the company, I observe so many changes inside the company that strike for better customer and partner experience. That is the reason I am still so passionate about this company after working here for 5 years.

The Real Reason

The real reason is simple. I just want to be known as a normal person, “telling about the daily worries of a Shanghainese citizen” (as Fons commented). Talking about job related stuff is out of the topic of this site. Actually, I am seriously thinking of creating another blog (not hosted on this site. Maybe another business oriented domain) and share my job related stuff with people who do business with my team outside Microsoft. Blogging is a better tool of effective communicating, then email, even website.

Back to Topic

OK. It is enough about the reason why I didn’t mention the little M in my blog in the recent one year). Thanks Fons for giving an opportunity to talk a little bit about the topic. Please be sure I am not defensive at all. If you give me a chance, I will tell you the happy life I am leading in business hours as I did for my personal hours.

I didn’t put the employers name because I don’t want the visitor to ignore that fact that I am just a normal citizen in this big city with 16,000,000,000+16,000,000+ people. (Thanks for Xu’s correction.)

P.S. another short correction: I rent cars and don’t own one yet. :)

LookatChina.com

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John started the Lookatchina.com website after his trip back to Shanghai (he was born in Shanghai) after staying in U.S. for six years. (I am not sure whether John from lookatchina.com is the same John who won the Top Commentor of the Month award on this site)

John took many pictures in Shanghai and covered almost all major places in Shanghai. You can find pictures of Xujiahui, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Yuyuan, Nanjing Rd., Metro, Buses… almost all aspects of Shanghai. I like the photos he took.

Please visit his Shanghai page. (I knew his site by recommendation of Kathy).

The Devil’s in the Details

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I heard of the English proverb “the devil’s in the details” in a presentation delivered by my friend Peng Gao when he talked about project management. It was about two years ago. I didn’t realize how wise the proverb is. It was recently that I pick up the term and see how the details make so big difference.

When Wendy and I were shopping at B&Q in Pudong, we discussed about why most dominators on the consumer markets are foreigner companies. For example, B&Q in decoration materials, IKEA in furniture, Carrefour in retails, and KFC in fast food business.

There are many promising local companies in every single business listed above, but generally speaking, they are less attractive than the leader. Why? What is the difference?

It is not culture issue. Taiwan/Hongkong companies seems domanating the entertainment business. I always buy book at Schorlar. They have a store in Metro City. It is owned by Taiwanese. I go to excercise in Physical (also in Metro City). I guess it was a Hong-kong based company (may be wrong). I go to Chatea 一茶一坐 for lunch (38 RMB for business suite) – Taiwan company. I have my hair cut in a very small hair salon downstairs – even it was opened by a Taiwan business man. I have alternatives. For example, Da Niang Dobbling (大娘水饺), or any other salon, I just wanted to go there for better service. Why?

The devil’s in the Details

Today, I read an article (Chinese) talked about details. It is very reasonable. Many leading companies are paying attention to small things which makes big difference.

I was surveyed by a lady when I shopped in IKEA yesterday. I was not surprised and I won’t be surprised if a shop I don’t like never survey me in my whole life. :-D

Devils are in the details is in my mind when I look at those leading companies again. I can always find BIG difference in many aspects between the stores. I didn’t notice that before. The differences are all in the details…