5 Billion SMS Sent Yesterday

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The number I got from CCTV today is, 5 billion SMS (Short Message) were sent yesterday. With the adoption of SMS, this is not surprising any more.

The Spring Festival of last two years were already full of SMS:

This year, I am not as passionate as before, since all kind of group send tool has made greeting as part of automatic process. When I receive a SMS, I am not sure about whether this person send it to me, or just to confirm that my mobile phone number is in his/her address book.

As always, my mobile phone doesn’t have any signal in my bedroom – I need to complain to China Mobile when they uninstalled a station nearby. When I bring my mobile phone to my garden, and get back in a few minutes, I "harvested" 97 unread SMS. Thanks for my friends who still remember me, no matter it is intentionally New Year’s Greeting, or the result of auto-sender.

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In the morning, the result of the fireworks is everywhere.

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After days of snow storm, it is sunny today. Yifan and the family went to Super Brand Mall in Lujiazui.

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The family – Wendy, me, and Yifan are together!

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Yifan had a wonderful bath today – the white cotton in his ear is to prevent water from running into his ears.

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Watching Spring Festival TV Show Now

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I am watching tihs year’s Spring Festival TV Show on CCTV now. It is from 8:00 PM to 12:30 AM next day.

This is the 20th year of the same TV show. According to the latest statistic, 500 million people in China are watching this program, and maybe the TV program with the largest audience.

Fireworks are everywhere outside the window. However, with the Snow Storm across China, this Spring Festival is not as excited as the previous few.

P.S. For the next few days, I am on vacation, and I bought some DVD to watch. The interesting thing is, most of the DVD I bought are the latest movies that were just put into theatres, and they are GENUINE copies. Also, these genuine copies are selling at very cheap price – 15 to 12 RMB (2 USD). I talked about a copy of the genuine DVD before, but this time, they have so many genuine copies! In a store of 1,000 completely pirated DVD, 10 genuine DVDs are still not too much.

Snow Scene in Shanghai Again

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This is the snow scene of my garden again, taken in yesterday morning.

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Compare the photo above to this one. The below one was taken on Feb 1, 2005, in my article Heavy Snow in Shanghai. I should not have called it heavy snow compared to this year’s snow. Of cause, everything is relative. It is nothing for many places, like Canada, but it is really rare in Shanghai.

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In Feb 2004, when it  snowed, I said:

Wow. Shanghai is Snowing

Hey, Hey, Shanghai is snowing…

Incrediable! Wowo. It is snowing in Shanghai!

I even explained to many friends that there IS snow in winter in Shanghai, although it snowed just once every two or three years.

Below are the photos I took the yesterday morning.

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The car – after cleaning the day before yesterday, it is covered by snow again.

Why Snow Caused Power Failure

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I was wondering why snow in south China caused large scale power failure – snow is snow, and electricity power is electricity power. What is the connection?

Wendy sent me the photo, and I was shocked. This is what happened in South China in the last two weeks…

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The Most Severe Disaster I Experienced

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Recently, I experienced the most severe disaster I have ever experienced in China. The snow + the Spring Festival transportation peak made the country a mess. To be exact, this may not be the most severe disaster, but I didn’t experience it personally in the previous few, but this one, I feel people around me are impacted, and can imagine how bad the situation is.

On the way home, I listened to the radio and there is a story about a woman and her 22 day old infant was stack in the middle of the highway for 7 days, and were sent to hospital. This is just one of the almost one million of people on their way home.

Due to the snow in South China, many roads are completely blocked, and long distance bus were stuck there for 7 or more days. Instant noodle is reported to raise to 80 RMB from 1-3 RMB – and you can get it only after you still have money (after spending it to buy expensive goods), and you are lucky enough to find a seller. I cannot imagine to be stuck in the bus for so many days in snow – of cause there will be no air conditioning.

Zhangzhou in Hunan enters its 8th days out of water and electricity. Many places are the same. The whole country suffers from electricity shortage, and half of the 30+ provinces experience electricity pause.

There are still so many people rushing to train station and bus station, although there are no bus departure or train there.

In the next few days, my friends and colleges are heading back home. Good luck to them!

Shanghai Snows Again

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I cannot imagine Shanghai could ever have such heavy snow! I simply cannot believe this is Shanghai!

The following photos were taken this afternoon – I am sure now it is completely covered by snow. Do you know why it looks blur and not so clear? Because of the heavy snow this afternoon.

I do doubt whether airplane can take off.

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Snow of the last few days

These are the photos I took the other day.

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I even have a small piece of video:

On Flickr, I found jutech‘s good Shanghai roof in snow:

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Stock Market is the Same

For China stock, it is the same – sharp dump from 6000 points to 4300…

Feb 1 is a Big Day

I can comfortably say that I deserve a good sleep tonight – really good sleep, after the work for one year.

DEVP203 – Old Documents

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Just found out a lot of old documents in my computer. There is a folder called DEVP203 – Development Process No. 203, or Microsoft Development Management Training Serious – Microsoft Development Process Overview. We did put a lot of effort into that training course, and delivered many times of the training in many different software parks, in many different cities back in 2002.

I also found a folder called WebRAID, another half year project. There are almost 100M of documents and code. I was so surprised how much effort we spent to create that project. They are in a height that I even cannot imagine that I have ever being there.

Wendy wrote about the same feeling (Chinese) many days ago. In short (her article was already very short), she said when she thought of the old good times, she still could remember the excitement and devote people put into the projects. She used the word “war” – hmm… that is exactly the word to use (war for excellency).

Crazy New Year

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This is the craziest new year I have ever experienced. Just to list a few.

  • It is snowing. Crazily heavy in Shanghai – the heaviest snow in recent years. Looking outside our office – I feel I am in Beijing.
  • No railway station. From today to the Spring Festival, many stations have stopped all ticket selling. No ticket at all.
  • Highways closed. In provinces like Anhui, all highways have been closed because of snow.
  • No electricity. Shanghai’s storage of coal to product electricity has been left for only two days, according to media today. What happens after two days when there are not enough electricity in Shanghai?
  • Things get expensive. Due to half million people waiting in the train station, someone are selling boxed meal at 10 times or higher price.
  • My friends in office called people who have ticket. The price as been 3-4 fold, from 300 RMB to 1000 RMB, and increasing.
  • Snow caused the most important railway line – Beijing to Guangzhou line – broken for 20 hours. People with tickets cannot leave the city.
  • Many airports are closed. No aircraft have left or arrived since then.

Disclaimer: I didn’t personally see the facts with my eyes except the Shanghai snow. I rely on the sources in news in this article, and those sources are not always reliable.

Traveler Tide in Spring Festival

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In the next half an month or so, we will experience the largest transportation tide. It is maybe the largest scale of people move in the planet. It is because of the Spring Festival.

Why So Many People Need to Go Home

Although people do not treat spring festival as serious as the previous generations (some may ignore the Chunlian, or couplet, some may ignore the traditional events during the festival), most of people still keep the tradition of going back home during the Spring Festival.

Spring Festival is the biggest holiday in China. For many people, it is maybe the only holiday for them to have a chance to leave where they work or study and get back to home. No matter where you are, most of the people will try to get back home.

How Many People

I don’t need to mention the population of China: 1.3 billion or 1.6 billion (depends on which source you get the information). The change in the recent few years is clear, more and more people are mobile. They move out of their home town and move to larger cities, like Shanghai, Beijing or move from smaller village to cities nearby. This adds to the demand to transportation capacity during the Spring Festival. During this peak time, many train stations are sending more than 200K passengers per day.

No Way to Get Ticket

Every year, during this period of time, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to get a train ticket. People have to wait in cold for hours, or days, just to hear the person in the ticket counter to say “no” with their own ears.

Let’s just imagine this scenario. If I decide to go back to Luoyang, my choices will be:

  • Go to Train station to get ticket. Definitely no way. There are no train tickets, and even the tickets without seat (standing there for 19 hours) are sold out. For every ticket, there are at least thousands of people there waiting for it.
  • Pay high price – even those resellers who charge double to triple the price cannot help you. You have money, but you cannot get the ticket.
  • By Air? No way. All tickets are booked long time ago.
  • By Bus? All bus tickets are sold out. No way to get more. Don’t dream about cheaper price. Full price tickets already disappeared.

Snow and Bad Weather Cause Bigger Problem

I just read the news. Due to snow, there are already 0.6 million people jammed in the train station. More and more people are coming. The Metro Station in Guangzhou has been used to hold these passengers.

I just talked with some people who decided to go back home, but don’t have a ticket. All the door closed to them. It seems there is only one door left for them: walk.

I run into the same problem before, but this time, we decided not to go back home. My parents visited us before the festival, just to avoid the rush hours.

More Transportation Capacity Seriously Needed

The huge demand for transportation and the relative weak supply caused the big problem. In the future, I do want to see the government put more money form the huge tax dollars into transportation, and do something to help the people to get the ticket they need, and help them to get back home (including me).

Finally, My Daocheng Video is Online

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Thanks to YouTube, I am finally able to post the Daocheng video XGE helped to create 6 years ago online.

The Daocheng Trip is the most amazing trip and memoriable trip I had. As you can see from the video, it is a great place.

P.S. I also got another comment (the first comment I got on YouTube) about the other video I posted:

worst video in history of videos in the world of videos

Not surprisingly, the video got a 1 (out of 1 to 5) rating. If you are interested in this “worst video”, here is the link.

Labor Day (May Holiday) Canceled

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I know this is not news. That was announced last December. The interesting thing is the other day, I talked with my good friend from California in Xintiandi. He talked the T.I.C (This Is China) moment.

He asked his friend what they are planning to do during the May Holiday this year. His friend told him very easily: “It was canceled”.

“What? Canceled”, he was very surprised, “It is just like U.S government suddenly announce Thanksgivings is canceled, which is unbelievable”.

Well. It IS possible in China. Personally I do not think negatively about the change, and the quick move of the change, like this. I mean I think so personally. However, I know many people in travel and hotel industry really hate the news.

Backed Up All My Documents

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Before I install Windows Vista tomorrow, I want to back up all my files on my Drive D.

My rule of file management is always:

  • Reinstall Windows system every two months.
  • Reinstall all software again.
  • Backup my all my documents during this time

I bought a new 60G Mobile Disk with USB 2.0 Interface. It costs me 470 RMB (I know I over paid but I didn’t have too much time). It has a HITACHI 60G Disk with a SSK disk case.

E:\>dir
 Volume in drive E is Jian Shuo Wang's Mobile Disk
 Volume Serial Number is 108C-60BB

Directory of E:\
01/22/2008  02:03 PM              2007
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
         1 Dir(s)  61,669,658,624 bytes free

Hopefully, I will have full back of all my docs every year.

P.S. A New Tooth

Just found out I got a new tooth in my month – pretty painful. I am expecting my son Yifan to have his first tooth, and finally, I got one.

Skyscrapers in Lujiazui

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What a day!

This is a not completely-normal normal day. It is not normal, since my typical working day is in office. It is also normal, since this is a typical day in Shanghai. Let me tell you what exactly the life here looks like – since many people didn’t get the change to visit Shanghai yet. Today, I am visiting several places in the Lujiazui area.

Shangri-La

The hotel of Shangri-la is still having a good business. The UBS Greater China Conference 2008 was going on in many floors of the hotel. So many people with black suits and ties attended. Well. Business meeting of a wealth bank is much more luxurious than a meeting of Internet company.

From Shangri-La to Jin Mao Tower

I admit that I haven’t been to the Lujiazui area for a long time. To my surprise, many new buildings appeared. By “new buildings”, I mean those skyscrapers higher than 40 floors, or something around 200 meters.

Side by side with Shangri-la, is the Hopson International Tower. I don’t know when they started construction, but it seems to be opened to public soon in 2008. Behind it is another tower as high as the CITI Bank Tower.

Turning the corner, is the new twin tower (260m) of Shanghai IFC (International Financial Center), or with the new name – HSBC Building, Shanghai IFC. In the same tower are the Ritz-Carlton hotel (second in Shanghai), and the W Hotel (first in China). It is to be completed between 2009 to 2010.

Meeting in Jinmao Tower

The meeting in the afternoon is in the Jinmao Tower. We talked about the office rent price. Compared to the office building of 3.8 RMB or 0.5 USD per sq. meter per day, I guess the price of Jin Mao must be high. I am right. It is more than 1 USD per sq. meter per day. My host told me that the World Financial Center on the other side is asking for pre-leasing price of 3.3 USD per sq. meter per day.

It was a law firm, and they are expanding rapidly. Their staff is working days and night (seriously, till 2 AM sometimes) but still cannot meet the demand. With more and more office buildings and the moving-in companies, I can see their business must keep growing.

The other side of Jin Mao

When I stepped out of the busy Jin Mao Tower, I realize the restaurants on the other side of road were already closed, and many of them were pulled down. That is also a reserved space, called Z3-2. That piece of land is for the future skyscraper named “Shanghai Center”. The final design has not be chosen, but the idea is to have something between 550 to 700 meters in height. Hmm…. Another tall building.

Crazy? Pre-Bubble?

Maybe the photos in this post: World Financial Center give you some idea about what the skyscrapers in Lujiazui looks like.

Everyone is very optimistic about the future of Shanghai. I am so too. However, most of the bubble happens when people get over optimistic.

Shanghai Car Plate is NOT Investment

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This is a follow up post for my entry Shanghai Car Plates IS Investment I wrote 4 months ago. Within just 4 months, the high valued car plate dropped dramatically.

My Record on Car Plate Price in Shanghai

From my blog post on Car Plates in Shanghai, you can get some idea about how the prices of a car plate in Shanghai changes over time.

Shanghai’s Car Plate Bidding

Shanghai is the only place in China to have Car Plate Bidding practices. Every month, around 7000 car plates are issued to the public and people bid for the plates in a public auction. With the high demand for private cars, and limited number of car plates, the car plate price in Shanghai went all the way high to more than 50,000 Yuan last month.

This Month

This month, the lowest bidding price for car plate dropped to 8,100 Yuan, and the average winning price is 23,370 Yuan, less than half of the record high of 56,042 Yuan in December, 2007.

What Caused the Drop?

The most important change is, this time, the authority made the bidding price of all the other buyers public, so people can see how much other people want to pay. Also, people are given a second chance to change their bidding price according to other’s price. This helps the higher bidder to lower down their price, and the lower bidder to raise their price – to finally make the bidding price more concentrated among a certain number.

Before that, the price guideline is given by the car dealers – they have some sort of information sources to tell the buyers about the finally winning price, so everyone has to pay higher than that, and this guidance price always raises.

The other reason is with the Spring Festival in Feb, they pause the Feb bidding and double the amount of car plate supply this month.

The final reason is because of the bottle neck of the Telephone and Internet system of the authority, many people could not dial in via telephone or logon to the web site. This further reduced the number of Would-be buyers.

Is it an Investment?

Everyone is trying to predict the future. I am the same.

Four months ago, I regret that I didn’t bid for a Shanghai Car Plate in my post: Shanghai Car Plates IS Investment. I changed my mind this month, and very likely, I will change my mind again in the next few months if the car plate price goes all the way high.

P.S. This post should have another title: Shanghai Car Plate = 8100 RMB

Third Day in Nanyuan Hot Spring

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Still in the offsite in Nanyuan Hot Spring, Ninghai, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.

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Photo by Jian Shuo Wang

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Photo by Jian Shuo Wang

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Photo by Jian Shuo Wang

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Photo by Jian Shuo Wang

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Photo by Jian Shuo Wang

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Photo by Jian Shuo Wang

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Photo by Jian Shuo Wang

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Photo by Jian Shuo Wang

P.S. Just found out PayPal started its referral engine in China also:

Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.

Update: January 20, 2008

In the morning, the fog of the mountains winding among the hills:

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This is the villa – Bamboo Villa we stayed. It has hot spring water in the room.

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The entrance of the villa:

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This Bamboo Villa has 8 rooms of all kinds, and we 20 people stayed in the villa for the three days. Wonderful experience.

Logistic Stuff

This is a perfect place for a team of 8 to 20 people to do team building.

There are two villa sharing the same lobby. There are 4 rooms in each section, with public area to watch TV or activities.

It is 5 hours away from Shanghai. There are high way connects Shanghai and Hangzhou, and Hangzhou and Ninghhai.

I am in Ninghai in Ningbo

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I am in a company offsite meeting in Ninghai, Ningbo City. It is about 5 hour’s bus ride from Shanghai.

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The Nanyuan Hot-Spring Resort is very nice – it reminds me of another similar resort: Chaminade in Santa Cruz. The feeling of nice hotel, good service, beautiful scene and all these hidden in the deep of mountains…

I will get back on Saturday.

Related Entry: Third Day in Nanyuan Hot Spring

Photo Needed for Olympic Ceremonies

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According to the official web site of Beijing Olympics 2008, Photo ID and personal information needed for Olympic ceremonies ticket buyers.

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Credit: Beijing 2008

 

Below is the information ticket owners have to fill:

It seems gender, birth date, mobile, telephone, email, mail address all all other personal information IS very important for the committee to host a successful Olympic.

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If the ticket buyer fail to go to the designated places to submit their forms in person or via a trustee, they may not be able to attend the ticket. Mail is not accepted. It takes too much time to get a ticket for Olympic.

My 2 cents

It is hard for me to tell my reaction to this requirement.

On the negative side, it is a simple solution to complicated problems again. They may also require you do all kinds of silly things, as long as this can make their job easier. It is just as many easy solutions to complicated system, the inconvenience of ticket buyers is not considered at all.

On the positive side, they are at least doing something to fight against speculative ticket reselling, or many other problems. Although this may not be the best solution, it is at least a solution. Any way, unlike Hukou System, it is not mandatory. Then it is OK, that people still have the freedom to give up the ticket if they really don’t want to go…

On privacy, even if I trust the authority to have the good intention to protect the personal data, I do doubt their ability. Well. It is not just for Olympic Ticket Office. To enforce protection to the sensitive data is a big challenge many commercial companies facing. Typically, governments are often even slower than commercial companies.

BTW, Beijing Olympic is going to open on August 8, this year.