Metro Line #7 Opens (with Pictures)

Posted on by
14

Metro Line #7 finally opens yesterday on December 5, 2009, at 9:00 AM. I took this afternoon taking the Metro Line #7 and took some photos.

Overview of the Metro Line #7

Shanghai Metro Line #7 is an orange line – the color of this line. It goes from Meilanhu on the northwest of the city to Huamu Road on the southeast. The completed line #7 will have 33 stations, but currently, only the stations between (including) Shanghai University and Huamu Road are open.

Here is a list of the stations of this metro line:

  • Meilan Lake
  • Luonan Xincun
  • Panguang Road
  • Liuhang
  • Gucun Park
  • Qihua Road
  • Shanghai University
  • Nanchen Road
  • Shangda Road
  • Changzhong Road
  • Dachang Town
  • Xingzhi Road
  • Dahuasan Road
  • Xincun Road
  • Langao Road
  • Zhenping Road
  • Changshou Road
  • Changping Road
  • Jing’an Temple
  • Changshu Road
  • Zhaojiabang Road
  • Dong’an Road
  • Chuanchang Road
  • Houtan
  • Changqing Road
  • Yaohua Road
  • Yuntai Road
  • West Gaoke Road
  • South Yanggao Road
  • Jinxiu Road
  • Fanghua Road
  • Longyang Road
  • Huamu Road

The importance of this line is, that it connects many lines together. It can interchange to line #1 at Changshu Road, to Line #2 at Jing’an Temple and Longyang Road, and Line #3/#4 at Zhenping Road, Line #9 at Zhaojiabang Road, and many other lines in the future.

Photos of the Shanghai Metro Line #7

Below: This is the orange cart of the orange line.

Below: the problem with Line #7 is, it is still not very easy to transit between lines. Although it is not as bad as Metro Line #1 and #2 at the People’s Square Station, it cannot be called close. These three photos shows the transition tunnel and the elevator between Metro Line #2 and Metro Line #7 at Long Yang Road Station. I won’t complain about the distance, but won’t be happy about it either.

Construction is still going out outside the station to have the final work finished.

Below: The colorful seat with green designates the seat for disabled.

Good thing is, the Line #7 is completely equipped with glass walls.

Huamu Road Station, the terminal station of Line #7 is the gate to the Shanghai International Expo Center. It has the best station design I saw along Metro Line #7 so far. It has the two levels connected with a big courtyard in the middle. All the other stations are, hmmm, just stations.

Look at this amazing Shanghai Metro Map. For a city with just 15 years of Metro history, this is very quick.

The Metro Line #7 is equipped with restrooms. Yeah!

There are more equipments than other lines. Look at this. They even have two vendor machine inside the paid zone of the station, so people can help themselves to make up the shortage of ticket if they didn’t buy enough value.

The service center is also more modern than other lines.

People are Excited

With just one line running from Hongmei Road to Shanghai Railway Station, I can remember the name of each station and their exact order. I can even tell the station from the decoration – the color and seats in the waiting area when I just came to Shanghai. Now, about 100 stations are there, and I can hardly been to half of them, and even cannot remember all of them.

Before, there was just one transit station – People’s Square, and later, with the network of Metro System extends, there are more and more transit stations, and now, it seems there are less stations which are not transit stations in the urban area of Shanghai than those are not.

I brought Yifan to the system today. He is so excited. Besides the metro staff who are there on duty, Yifan is always another person who wait until the train went out of sight before moving an inch. For two days, Yifan fall asleep on metro trains. He just don’t want to leave the subway system – just like his father.

Less is More in Coding

Posted on by
1

There is a saying within eBay that the lines of codes of eBay is more than Windows and Linux combined. Well… It is not a compliment from where I stand. The less the code is, the more powerful it can be.

With OOP (Object Oriented Programing), and the right level of abstraction, code can be very simple, very concise, easy to read, but remain more flexible and powerful. I spent the last few weeks rewriting some code with one principle in mind – just to push the limit to have less code. I have successfully turned a 2000 lines code into 250 lines, and another few thousands into 250 lines. I just feel 250 lines of code is a magic number to accomplish a lot. My goal of writing PHP code is, put less than 7 lines (ideally 3 lines or 1 line) into a function, and as less function as possible, while still maintain a very high level of flexibility and functionality. I believe one day I will share some sample codes.

Retaliating and Forgiving

Posted on by
3

It seems this Sunday morning is a perfect time to do something mental work (Yifan and Grandpa are in the park, and Wendy is in university studying). I want to continue to think about the topic of retaliating and forgiving as I first mentioned in this article: The Reason to be Friendly – Part II.

I am not a big fan of hate – I am always so. It seems more natural for me to forgive, but not so easy to retaliate. (Strange person, isn’t it?) But the game theory and the X, Y game I played the other day is a time changer, and I started to see the need for retaliating (or a better way to put it, the need for balancing retaliating and forgiving).

Retaliating is the punishing force to keep everyone playing friendly card. Without retaliating, the X player will always win, and there is no way to fix the problem, and thus hurting the whole society. In our real example, our team played an always-forgiving-never-retaliating role, and ended up with the lowest score (-$38). Although we claim spiritual success, it is a real failure in cash. It is the same for other two Y teams.

With the right retaliating, you help to keep the society stable. With the right retaliating, the “bad guys” are punished, and thus turn them into good guys in the future. A prisoner’s dilemma without retaliating is a complete disaster for everyone, except the defector.

Tit for Tat

The problem with old wisdom and idioms are, they only state part of the truth, and they conflict each other. There is saying of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, and there is another saying “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” How confusing it is!

Now, I read it as the balance of retaliating and forgiving. We cannot just do the one side. People need to the power of courage (to be strong and ready to fight) and the power of empathy (to be ready to forgive). Maybe something in the middle is, a tit for two tats.

My major was automaton in university. I didn’t learn too much from the automation theory, but one thing I remembered was, you have to add some attenuation in a feedback system to keep the system stable. A tit for tat strategy is not attenuation strategy. At least, we should apply 99% tit for a tat strategy in this world.

P.S. I do want to create a small computer program to prove the tit for tat strategy.

More Thoughts on Win-Win Strategy

Posted on by
Reply

Continuing the discussion about Prisoner’s Dilemma, which leads to the win-win strategy of the 7 Habits course, I think further about the win-win. Basically, it is another application of the Game Theory.

In a zero-sum situation, it is pretty hard to find a win-win. The best is a compromise, since the resource is limited and fixed. The more you get is the more the other party loose.

The non-zero-sum game is more often in our life, but this fact is very easily ignore. Basically, it is about the total of someone’s gain, and others’ lose is not zero. It can easily become negative total or positive total. The best example for this is a couple: one won’t be happier if the other party is sadder.

That also echos to another simple observation of any trade: a trade has to be in a non-zero-sum environment. If the good I deliver is exactly the same in value as the good I receive, there is no reason to do it, since the transaction cost will cause the total value decrease. With trade, both party should get something better than what we give, from our own perspective. If we cannot reach it, then no-deal.

Many times, we encounter the problem of being angry, like a encountering a crazy driver on the road. In these circumstances, it seems making the other party feeling bad is the best way to make our self feeling good – we all know the result. Interestingly, why the idea of zero-sum is so dominate in our mind? In personal relationship, there is very few occasions that is a zero sum game.

The Reason to be Friendly – Part II

Posted on by
1

Continuing with the discussion I had yesterday, the key to the Prisoner’s Dilemma is the round of the game.

If there is only one round, it is obvious that everyone should simply choose X – since although you loose $1, it is better than being the only Y loosing $3.

If there is 10 round, except the last round, for the other 9 rounds, cooperate and having Y seems a good idea. Although by theory, there is no difference, but most people only think one step future (like this game).

If the game is running forever, or ending randomly, the best way to deal with it is always give Y. It is simply because, the others has the power to punish you if you choose to give X.

This is an interesting output from the game theory. When I relate it to all kinds of religions, it matches each other perfectly. In either Buddhism, or Christian, the story is, your life does not end as you die. There are life after that. By helping people to imagine the game is not over after you die, they artificially increased the round of the game. If my game is endless, the best way for my OWN interest is to play nicely with others.

Anatol Rapoport’s findings are so interesting. In an iterated prisoner’s dilemma, the best way to win highest personally is follow the following rules [src]:

1. Nice

2. Retaliating

3. Forgiving

4. Non-Envious

What an amazing conclusion it is that selfish people in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma tends to end up as nice, retailing, and non-envious?

That is maybe the cornerstone of how this human society works.

The Reason to be Friendly

Posted on by
Reply

I just finished the training of 7 habits of highly effective people of Right Management by facilitator Jessica Cao. To be short, it is a wonderful training and better than what I expected. The most impressive game in the training was the XY gambling game. That gives me the true strength about being friendly and doing the right thing, despite of other people’s behavior. Let me share the game with you.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma

The game is a famous example of game theory: the prisoner’s dilemma. I have read about it before, but never played it in real life. The actually result is shocking. The game is like this:

There are four teams.

Every team can choose to bet X, or Y at their wish.

The rule is like below:

If every team choose X, every team lose 1 dollar.

If every team choose Y, every team get 1 dollar.

If there are both team choosing X, and Y, every team with Y need to pay money to X.

3X – 1Y: Y loses $3, and every X gets $1

2X – 2Y: every Y loses $1, and every X gets $1

1X – 3Y: every Y loses $1, and X gets $3

There are 10 rounds.

It is obvious, that X is a better option than Y, since by choosing X, you always have a better winning chance than Y, but the problem is, for the 4 teams as a whole, the only win-win situation is everyone chooses Y.

The actual result was: our team continued to choose Y for 10 times – the crazy guys! and there is one team always choosing X, and other two teams turned from X to Y along the game. Interestingly enough, when the three Ys get the consensus that Y is the right thing for the group to do, they insist it, and the X also considered X is the best option for them to get money out of the pockets of other teams. Along the game, the facilitator changed doubled and even 20x of the winning/losing amount.

The result was: one team (us) looses $38. Another team looses $36, and another $28. The X team won $102.

The Choices

It is obvious to everyone that by choosing X (especially when everyone’s choice is Y), you get the immediate reward (money), but only when you at the game, you can feel the tension between the 3 Y team and the X team, and the increase in trust level amount the three Y teams. As the game continues, it is more and more clear to everyone that if there is a second day, the three Y teams will choose to play together, and leaving the X team alone.

Taking the goose and the golden egg example, X team is actually trading the future rewards for immediate return. People will choose to play with people they trust. That is how this society works.

Y is the Friendly but Vulnerable Bet

When you are not clear about what your players are, the safe bet is X (protective). Y is actually a friendly card. It shows to your partner that you are harmless, and you want to cooperate. That is vulnerable, but in real world, it often gets kind response.

By believing taking the initiative of being friendly, and be the first (and promise to be the last one) doing good thing, that is investing to the future of one’s life, and is actually the smartest thing to do, although it is seen as foolish in the early days.

Thanks Jessica for sharing the game.

P.S. Metro Line #7

Metro Line #7 of Shanghai Metro opens for trail operation today. I don’t have a chance to take a ride today, but will surely try it tomorrow. It only opens from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM.

Yifan Loves to Sing

Posted on by
3

Yifan grows up quickly. Recently, he started to find a tune by himself, and created the lyric. He even gives his own first song a name: Ma Ni Ma.

That sounds like:

Ma ni ma ni ma ni ma ni la,

ma ni ma mi ma mi ma….

Whenever he is in good mood, his little song will fill every corner of the room. Amazing!

Pedestrian in Hangzhou

Posted on by
12

Hangzhou is a city full of innovation in public transportation.

Look at what they did to traditional pedestrian in Hangzhou!

They put an arrow on the right side of the pedestrian to indicate the side for people to walk.

What do you think?

Other innovation includes

  • LED display board to show how far the next bus is from the bus stop.
  • Dynamic car lanes that changes according to traffic
  • Real time traffic camera on cable TV
  • A big camp at every interaction on the bike lane so people can rest in the shade of the umbrella at the Sun, or when it is raining.

Coins or Paper Money

Posted on by
8

We talked about the network effects of a real society many days ago. Hopefully, that explains why Chinese don’t use voice mail, calendar, or classified. We talked about it in YLF 2009 conference, and there are people who don’t agree with what I said.

Then I have another great example. When I was in Chengdu, no one uses coins. They always use the paper money of 1 RMB. Everyone hates coins. Why? Not for a rational reason. It is just because when you have a 1 RMB coin, you cannot spend it. People won’t accept it, and they ask you to change it to 1 RMB paper money. Just because you cannot spend it, you don’t accept it, and because you don’t accept it, others cannot spend it. The stronger the current feedback loop is, the harder it is to break.

On the contary, people in Shanghai LOVE coins. They don’t want paper money, although they unwillingly accept it. People will be surprised to get 7 coins as change to buy a 3 RMB ticket with 10 RMB note.

That is the network effect. Before debating about whether coin money is better than paper money or not, we need to look at where you are going to spend it, Chengdu, or Shanghai.

Did you Observe the Decline of Blogging?

Posted on by
15

In November, I just feel some changes in the blogsphere. It seems to me that blogging activities are getting declining in the past month. I check my Google Reader few times a day in Oct, and every time I can get many updates, but recently, I check it daily and still didn’t get too much update. I didn’t change the feed source. It turned out that people blogged less. Did you observe the same decline in blogging?

P.S. Me? Don’t worry about me. It was just occasionally travel times, mixed with my passion for coding this week. Will be back to normal soon.

November Turbulance

Posted on by
2

November 2009 is the month with most turbulance in blogging in the recent year. The frequent travel to Xiamen, to Chengdu made regular blogging harder than ever, and recenty, I was highly devoted in defactoring some of the code of the production environment. I found out code is really what my passion is at. I love to code any way, especially the design pattern, and defactoring. Hope I will have time to sit down at my computer to get videos, pictures of my trip out of my camera, and camcorder, and upload some of them to this blog. Please be patient for another few days.

Back from OOB in Chengdu

Posted on by
2

Sorry that I didn’t post it earlier. I was out of blogging to Chengdu with the team in the last few days, and just got back to Shanghai. The continuous trip made blog posting hard, especially in a relaxed, and fun city like Chengdu. We had great fun, and return to hotel after 2:00 AM. I will make up some post to tell you more about Chengdu.

Xiamen Photo

Posted on by
Reply

Let me put some photo I took during my Xiamen stay here. I do not remember how many times I went to Xiamen – this is the second time I visit Xiamen this year.

2009 – Young Leaders’ Forum 2009

2009 – Baixing company outing

2008 – 3rd China Webmasters’ Conference

2006 – 2nd China Webmaster’s Conference

200x – Microsoft Channel Meeting

200x – Microsoft Company Outing

Gulangyu:

Xiamen island:

Back from Xiamen via Spring Airlines

Posted on by
12

I wrote about Spring Airlines three years ago. At that time, the low cost airline just celebrated its first anniversary. Now, it not only broke even, but also made decent profit, and grew very fast. I am a Spring Airlines fan. Let me tell you why.

I Always Fly China Spring

Recently, I really enjoyed flying with China Spring. Wendy, me and Yifan fly back to Zhengzhou via Spring Airlines, and fly to Xiamen and back via Spring. The 99 RMB flight ticket is very attractive. But there are more than that. As a business person, I appreciate what Spring Airlines did.

Low Cost with Relatively Bad Experience

Many people complained about the airline. They complained this and complained that, but they never complain about the price. The secret the airline keeps the ticket so low is very wise.

The seats are very tight. It is very compact. They re-arranged the seats to allow 20% more seats than most other airlines. It is tough and painful to sit there, but other than complaining about it, how can people refuse to take that airline? The ticket price is low!

There are no food, not beverage, and no any service on board – just a bottle of pure water. My guess is, if it is not required by the government, they will remove that also (since it is not allowed to bring any liquid on board, they have to offer something to drink). You have to pay for anything else.

They sell things! This is the part they got most complain. From the beginning of the trip to the end, the flight attendants sell stuff at the front of the seats, and use the on board broadcast system. People complain that they cannot fall asleep. They sell from Disney toys, to MP3, to shaver, and they have plan to sell real estates, and cars. Everyone complain about it, but that is the way they keep the flight ticket price low. I would say they are genius to make the decision to intentionally offer bad experience to keep the cost low, and it works very well. Everyone complains and most of them continue to choose that airline.

On the baggage allowance, they are the lowest. On the time for reserved ticket, they are the shortest (if you don’t pay in 30 minutes after reservation, your reservation will be automatically canceled). On the turn over time, their flight will take off again after 20 minutes of landing, so they push the limit to move passengers as quick as possible, no matter you like it or not. They require you to use their website or call center to book (no other agents and dealer), and you have to have your online payment account ready before you are qualified to buy a ticket from them. Bingo! I love their style.

They also have unified aircraft – A320, and they fly 14 hours out of the 24 hours – compared to 11 hours of the industry average. It is common sense that aircraft only makes money when it is in the sky.

They are also planning to sell standing seats if they get the approval from the government. Yes. You see it right – standing seats on the plane. I believe if approved, they can further push the cost from Shanghai to Zhengzhou, or Shanghai to Xiamen to under 10 USD on regular basis.

I Love China Spring

I admit the operating philosophy of Spring Airlines sounds great for me. Every business wants to use good words to describe themselves – the best experience with the lowest cost! But we are not genius. The only way that works is to give up a dimension of value, and only focus on the other. Spring Airlines stands for low cost airline, and they stand firmly on that area. I firmly believe they will be doing very well in the future, and will buy their stock if they go to IPO.

Concluding my YLF Trip in Xiamen

Posted on by
1

I am currently in a small hotel called Yoyou Inn (photos) on Gulangyu. We have finished the 3 day of YLF 2009 Forum in Xiamen, and the three day extension trip, and got back from Zhangzhou, Quanzhou to Xiamen.

In the later 3 days, I was always on the road roaming from one city to another. Not just our American counterpart, I, myself, hasn’t been to other part of Fujian other than Xiamen an Fuzhou. Although I tried my best to avoid saying “China is blah-blah-blah” on this blog, I still make the mistake to pretend I know what China is on this blog. Obviously, the part I saw with our American YLFers is not exactly the China in my mind.

I will fly back to Shanghai tomorrow, and when I settle down in Shanghai, I will try to write more about this wonderful trip.

I’d like to take the time to thank Jan, Jon, June, the National Committee on US China Relationship and all participants of the conference of this year. I am so happy to spend 1/52 of my year of 2009 with the great people here this year.

Day 2 of YLF 2009

Posted on by
3

During the discussion at night, we started to talk about voice mail – why there is no voice mail in China. I happened to write a Chinese blog about it more than one month ago: The Network Effect of Technology Application. In that blog, I argued that Chinese don’t use voice mail because of lack of network effect. Voice mail is only useful when more people (at least more than half) will actually check their voice mail if you do leave one, or people will often check their voice mail only when you get at least one voice mail once every year! (I setup an answer machine with Wendy’s and my greeting at home, only to receive one valid voice mail during the first half year before I gave it up). The reason there is no network effect (no other people using that technology) is because voice mail emerges far ahead of mobile phone, and people in China just frog leap from no phone to mobile phone. The same situation happened to Video Recorder in VHS format – the tapes of video. Chinese directly entered VCD era – the first home video system in most Chinese families are VCD. The same for fax machine, and newspaper classified. Oh. I remember I also wrote about it in an English blog: Why People don’t Use Voice Mail in China and later, Whole Society is the Biggest Network Effect.

Another thing that people don’t mention was, calendar. Do you have a Calendar briefly discussed about it, but again, it is something with some sort of network effect – calendar is only useful when everyone has one if you want to keep the exact time for meetings. Otherwise, your life will be miserable with delay of meetings, and no shows if you are the only person who are not flexible enough to move meetings randomly on that day.

Buddhism

One of the sharpest question about Buddhism during our visit to South Putuo Temple was about the high ticket price to enter most temple in China. In my personal view, with the systematic destruction and a little bit construction of religion in China, the Buddhism temple has gone to a path to tourism location. The original meaning of quiet meditation and peace in soul have been forced to count the revenue of donations, so they build bigger houses to attract more people. The improvement of buildings in a temple certainly cannot meet the stronger religious needs from the confused people.

A Generation of Confusion

I know our American friends were confused by the Confucius ideology and the materialism and needs for a higher moral standard in China. When asked how I feel, my quick answer is, I am confused.

China has entered into a stage of conflicts. Within a short period of 30 years, the rich and the poor, the money-centric culture, and the traditional virtue, the new laws, and old conflicting laws, the materialism and the remaining internal pride not to talk about it — all these things mixed together, in a chaotic way that many people including me are quite confused, and one way out (as many people take), is don’t think about it, if you don’t to be more and more confused. I talked a lot about that confusion in my daily life on this blog in the last 7-8 years.

American Songs

Heard an interesting song when going to Karaoke with American fellows: Love Shack. It is an interesting song – very funny for me to listen and with a nice MTV attached to it. The closest song I can find to match that style of 1980’s American song is the Mice Loves Rice about few years ago in China. It is nothing serious – just that type of song completely for fun with repeated sentence: “I love you, just like the mice loves rice”. It is an expression of simple, stupid, but true happiness, and people love that popular folk song. I am happy that people in China started to appreciate those songs without high morale standard in it (as opposite to those propaganda songs)

Xiamen

Another note about Xiamen. It is, as I always say, an amazing city. This is maybe the third time I am in Xiamen this year. Xiamen is just 299 RMB or 1.5 hour away from Shanghai, and the airport is pretty close to the hotel area (not the downtown – the hotels with beach), and you can safely treat Xiamen as the back garden for Shanghai (although most people say Hangzhou is the back garden). I love Xiamen and I love to put my meetings in this amazing city.

Day 1 of YLF 2009

Posted on by
7

Day 1 of YLF 2009. Just finished the morning sessions, and the afternoon will happen in Gulang Yu (the tomorrow’s afternoon session will be in Nan Putuo Temple). The morning session was wonderful – the success and failures. My notes about the topic is, it is all about dimension, and the diversity of the standard, and acceptance for the failure. Will write about it later when we are back from the afternoon and night session.

Let me post some photo of the noon view of the nice hotel room.

Luggage (Me) is Still in Hongqiao

Posted on by
3

My Spring Airlines 9C8807 to Xiamen is further delayed to 18:20. I am still at Hongqiao Airport waiting to get on board at a restaurant. Yesterday, I just read Feld’s suggestion: Pretending You are Luggage when you are traveling by air. I agree. Luggage never complain and is never in a hurry. The reception at the outdoor grassland of YLF will start soon, and this big luggage is still in Shanghai. Hmm…. Don’t complain. Drink some water, and continue to pretend I am a luggage.

Update November 04, 2009

I finally sit in my nice sea view room at Seaview Hotel. The flight was delayed by 3 hours, so I was stuck in the airport for 5 hours today. When I arrived in Xiamen, it was already 9 o’clock.

It was so nice to my old friend, Jan, Jon, June, Matt, Stacy, Rose, Jennifer, Biao, Reihan, and new YLFer there. Will go to bed now, and expecting the great session tomorrow.

Flying to Xiamen for YLF 2009

Posted on by
1

I am flying to Xiamen tomorrow to attend the YLF 2009 (Young Leader’s Forum). Very excited and cannot wait to see the great people there.

I will be in Xiamen from November 4 to November 11 with the main session from November 5 to November 7, and the extension trip from November 8 to November 10.