Top Commenter of the Month (2007H1)

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When was the last time I published my Top Commenter of the Month? I guess it is Sept, 2006. Old readers of this blog knows, that I publish Top Commenter of the month from time to time in 2005 to 2006 and to recognize to the top contributors of this blog.

Why I have this award? Simply because I owe my readers a big THANK YOU for your comments, your thoughts, your contribution to this blog that make it so unique today. I feel bad that I paused this very important award for sometime – almost one year. Today is the opportunity for me to pick it up.

This time, let me summarize all the top commenters in H1 of 2007, just like what I did in 2006H1.

Jan 2007

stephen 21

Shrek7 21

carsten 16

Давид 15

solopolo 12

Charlie 8

SSC 8

mcgjcn 7

twang 7

Feb 2007

Давид 20

rio 14

stephen 8

Shrek7 8

ericsson 6

Indra 3

DC 3

liujie 3

federico 3

shirley 3

horsoon 3

Herbert 3

swany 3

tom 3

March 2007

carsten 20

ben 13

Давид 11

Shrek7 9

joyce 8

Jianfeng 8

Herbert 7

lionroars 7

oncerest 6

DC 6

stephen 6

April 2007

Shockr 19

Jianfeng 11

Jet So 10

DC 8

ddjiii 8

CJ 6

John 6

Elaine 6

Давид 5

David 5

fujianren 5

Herbert 5

tw 5

Yanqing Chen 5

May 2007

Давид 8

stephen 8

DC 8

ben 7

Shrek7 7

502forever 5

ALi 4

joyce 4

chez 4

Jun 2007

stephen 15

Elaine 14

Давид 10

AussiePB 8

Shrek7 7

Carroll 6

jw023 6

cube316 4

Jennifer 4

Joe 4

ester 4

Michael 4

DC 4

ALi 4

swany 4

ZJ 4

Jul 2007

Shrek7 8

DC 8

xge 6

stephen 6

David 5

Claudia Frias 5

George747 5

ilya 5

Давид 4

AussiePB 4

shirley 4

bob 4

Herbert 4

ddjiii 4

Thank you!

Chat with Helen Wang on Chinese Dream

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10:03

Helen is a great person. She writes blog at http://www.helenwang.rdvp.org/. Actually, she has two blogs. .One is Across the Pacific and the other is A Taste for Good Life. She seems doing similar thing as I am doing – to setup a bridge between China and the rest of the world. In her case, with America.

Helen is preparing her book about China – The Chinese Dream. Helen aims to profile the middle class of China. Our conversation started with the size of the middle class. We agreed that the middle class of China is not big, but it is almost 100% of who foreigners have access to. More importantly, this segment will grow to the majority of China (to 700 million according McKensy estimate). That is the significance of this group of people, and why it is a good idea to write a book about it.

Then we talked about the questions Americans concerns about China. I laughed where Helen talked about the little survey she did in on MySpace about the questions people have about China. They are exactly the same questions I receive every time I meet with first time visitors to China. To name a few of the FAQs:

  • Censorship
  • One Child Policy
  • Pollution
  • Communism
  • Human Rights

I laughed because these are the exact questions (and some in the exact order) the people in the Mayor’s delegation asked me during our dinner, and how the U.S. Congress Delegation asks. It seems the great way to tell foreigners’ knowledge about China is by checking whether they ask “censorship” as the first question. Why? Because if they have talked with someone from China, the chances are, they may already have asked this must-ask question.

Well. I would say there is nothing wrong to ask these questions. No offense. It is exactly the normal question to ask, but this reveals what is in the media in the U.S., because people will ask questions about what they see on TV.

We are the same. When we meet people in Japan, we ask about the text book, or ask about war for people from Iraq. It is just as natural as it is, but the problem is, there are much more than text book in Japanese life, or war in Iraq. In the Japan case, it is even out of the mind of almost everyone. That is the exactly the problem, just as censorship or human right is not the concern for most people in China.

Then, we talked a lot about my take to the following issue: one child policy, censorship, future of China, concerns, dreams, the moral standard in China, pollution, difference between U.S. and China, and my own story… (NOTE: Although I provided some links to the topics, my blog entries were written (maybe) long time ago, and my current thinking may change dramatically in the last few years.) It seems this article is too short for me to write everything we talked about. Maybe you can either wait for one year or two after Helen’s book comes out, or let me write more about these “sensitive” topics in the future.

10:25

P.S. Tomorrow, the National Public Radio will conduct a short interview with me on censorship. I hesitated and finally agreed, because I know the reporter long time ago. She interviewed me twice on the Bill Gates Murdered event and on my photo exhibition. I doubled checked to make sure I have enough time to talk, and the BBC’s interview situation does not happen. I am comfortable to talk about censorship but not comfortable for what BBC did for me – twice. Once broadcast 5 seconds out of my 30 minutes interview and the other time, cut one sentence out of my two page blog. Hope this time is better. Let me try.

Zhouzhuang, Tongli or Zhujiajiao

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Ling asked:

Hi Jianshuo,

It’s me again. Wow, your replies are pretty prompt! Thanks! I did some research on the various nearby attractions, and got myself even more confused now. I just found out that there are also 乌镇 (Wuzhen) and 同里(Tongli)。

Have you been to all four places – 周庄(Zhouzhuang), 朱家角(Zhujiajiao), 乌镇(Wuzhen) and 同里(Tongli)? Between these four places, does Zhou Zhuang still rank #1?

Some of the Web articles I read just now say that Zhou Zhuang is too commercialised. But some also say it is well-maintained as a result. Decisions, decisions…

Here is my personal answer.

Overall, it is very Similiar

Overall speaking, Zhouzhuang, Tongli, and Zhujiajiao are very similiar in nature. They are all water/river villages. They are all built on the network of rivers, and share the same architect style, tradition, and a lot of things in common.

The difference among these villages is not significant. It is unlike the difference between Beijing and Angkor – the major cities in the old world. In the Beijing or Angkor case, they are the creation of the effort of the whole empire and they are so unique world-wide. Something you can find in Beijing (like Great Wall) or the Angkor Wat in Angkor cannot be found in anywhere in the world.

However, Zhouzhuang, Zhujiajiao and Tongli are just villages. They are among the thousands of villages in eastern China. They are unique because they are preserved better than the nearby villages. So basically, if you visit any one of them, you don’t have to visit the other.

The other reason why they are attractions is, it is near Shanghai. Shanghai is a big city without too many places to go, so Zhou Zhuang and all the other villages stand out, although they are not so unique in China.

The Difference

Despite of the similarity, there are still some differences.

Distance

Zhoujiajiao is the closest one in Shanghai. Actually, it is located inside the border of Shanghai Munuciple. It is claimed as the only ancient village in Shanghai. There is a Zhujiajiao Exit of the Expressway A9 (the one connecting Hongqiao Airport to Qingpu).

Zhouzhuang is in the middle – it is adjacent to Shanghai. When cars exit Shanghai border, and Zhouzhuang is right there. Since Jiansu Province charges money (like 30 RMB, I remember) for any car entering Jiangsu, we always have to pay the money just for the several km there.

Tongli is farther. It is 7 km away from Suzhou. Leaving Zhouzhuang and ride west ward and you will reach Tongli.

To conclude, Zhujiajiao, Zhouzhuang, and Tongli are in the same area. If you ride a bide, you can go to all these three villages in a day – I did before.

My Favorite

The difference between the three villages are not big as the difference between their day time and their night time. Take a look at my entry Tongli – Beauty at Night. My personal suggestion is, always spend a night in these villages, and it is even better that you don’t stay in the village after 9:00 AM.

Why? All of the villages are very commercialized and in the day time, when tourists came, it is just a shopping mall with old style architect. Only at night, when all the shops closes, and the villages become what they really are – villages.

Decisions?

It is not a hard decision to make. Randomly choose one. If you need my help, then Zhouzhuang. Then you may ask: How about Tongli? I’d say, OK, then Tongli. Because the difference is really not big.

Hope this helps.

For more information about travel informaiton, check my category Attraction Near Shanghai

D Train in China

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I didn’t have the chance to take D Train yet. Well. Although I wrote a lot about Shanghai, I am still not a full time report so I can try every new thing and report the first hand experience on my blog. So let me quote China Mike’s experience. This is the first detailed note about D Training on my blog.

Hi Jian Shuo,

First of all, I love your site! I remember the first time I discovered it when I was trying to find out information about the Maglev train to the Shanghai airport. Your site was very helpful.

I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed the D Train from Tianjin to Beijing last week. It was very comfortable, and the inside of the train was very different than the other trains. Actually, it looked like the inside of the maglev. It was very clean, all the seat were facing the same way, there were tray tables for each seat, and there was a screen that showed how fast we were going. On the outside of the train, it said that the top speed was 200 Km/hr, but we only got to 163 km/hr. But I noticed that they were building new tracks, so I suspect that they may be for the D train in the future. The trip used to take 1hr 25min, but now it’s 1hr 9min, and I was told that once the new tracks are done, it will only be 40 min. that’s terrific!

Posted by: China Mike on August 20, 2007 11:37 PM

Fred’s Birthday – a Measurement

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Fred celebrates his birthday today. He said:

But seriously,I always use these milestones we call birthdays to take measure of my life. And so far so good.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for to be honest. My wife, my kids, my family, the greatest job I could ever have, wonderful colleagues, terrific companies to work with, a vibrant community that I get to be the moderator of.

Happy Birthday Fred, since Fred’s blog is always in my RSS reader (now I am using Google Reader). Birthday is like milestone, and I am going to celebrate my birthday this Oct – I will accomplish the first 30 years in my life…

What you Miss in Shanghai?

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Cartera did an interesting survey on ShanghaiExpat’s forum: What things do you miss in Shanghai?. Here are some of the answers:

Fresh Air, Food Hygiene, Cleaniliness, Politeness, Patience and Walkers Prawn cocktail crisps, British Sunday Roast Dinner and Sky Sports!!

Fresh air, beaches, clean water, common sense, civilized behaviour, decent food, a decent marina.

-Everything that is not fake.

American Grown stuff,

-Food, size and taste is dramatically different, tomatoes, scallions, meats especially

-Human being temperatures.

-Doing business with set prices, negotiating can be a pain sometimes.

-Air Quality

-Driving my own damn car

-White people even though I’m not white. I just need my daily dose of Whitism.

All the above plus……

Moral

Ethic

Trust

Obey the Law

Enforce the Law

A simple “Sorry” when things are done wrong

Openness

Manner

Blue sea

MSG free food

Services

Clean tap water

Proper ventilated office building

Proper air conditioning + properly insulated office building

Higher grade gas + properly maintained vehicles

People flush soiled toilet paper instead of leaving it in the bin in toilet

Singing loudly when I’m driving the car alone.

Public restrooms that are not completely repulsive.

Going to a store where you can get everything in one trip.

The beach.

Driving my own car.

Spotless supermarkets.

Non Smoking Restaurants, Malls, etc

Service in Restaurants : Quality, Cleanilness,etc

Clean Public Restrooms

A walk in the park with fresh air

Mount Rainier

Nice Beaches

Nice mountain & beach

delicious foods (nithgt marketing)

clearn road no one will spit sputum

non- smoking public place

frinedly and politeness ppl

Tasty foods. Good customer service. Polite and friendly people. People who think before doing things.

Not-too-crowded lifts. The words “Sorry” and “Excuse me”. One-stop shops. Entertainment centers.

I am not surprised to see this from the angle of an expat. I admit that many of the stuff listed here is reality in Shanghai. Come to Shanghai, and you need to be prepared for everything in this city, including the lack of the things listed above.

My Two Cents

Lack of Moral, Ethic, Politeness are all true in Shanghai. However, I’d say, to be fair, it is just the current Shanghai or China (well, to be fair, no one said it is past China). In the long history, China enjoys the oldest civilization, but the recent half century is a disaster. It takes time for people to recover the long-stand moral standard, and being polite again – it just takes time.

Your comments about this?

Upgraded to Movable Type 4

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This is my first comment to the new MovableType 4. Let me just write a short sentence, and then test if everything is OK.

Update

It turned out the upgrade is very smooth – without any problem, and everything simply works.

The only problem I encountered with is, I didn’t find out the Rebuild button anywhere in the Admin page.

Also, since the template was still the old one, and most of the new features are not immediately available now. Please wait for sometime, and I will be able to add it along the time.

P.S. Interview

I was just interviewed by the International Herald over phone. The topic is about this blog, and the questions are very similar with That’s Shanghai.

P.S. Sun Island

I am back from a company event in Sun Island in Qingpu today. Did I mentioned Sun Island on this blog? Not yet. It is one of the few very good place to go for company meeting in Shanghai… I will talk more about it in the future.

Learnt More about How Government Works

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Today, attended a training by the government officials, and learnt many interesting ideas. Share with everyone.

The Government has Huge Support for SME (Small and Middle Sized Enterprise)

Maybe you didn�t know it. For SME in Shanghai (with revenue less than 30 million RMB), if they go abroad (like U.S.) for marketing or attending events, their travel cost will be compensated by the Shanghai Foreign Trade organization by 50%. If they attend foreign trade affairs, their ticket fee will also be reimbursed by the government by 50%. This is huge benefit for SME to explore opportunities outside China. There are many policies like this, but not so many enterprises are aware of it.

The Government Reform in 2003

I didn�t really know that, until today. In 2003, the biggest government organization change happened. The 40 Bureaus in the central government was cut to 29 in 2003, and all government officials were cut by 50%.

This was a piece of interesting history – how the government handled the 50% layoff in 2003. They enforced the government officials who are 58 in ago or older for male, or 51 for female to leave their position, to give up the headcount. They are compensated by a lot of policies. For example, they receive salary, bonus, or salary increase as normal officials, and they can stay at home, and getting exactly the same benefit as they work hard and work well. This offer is valid until he/she reaches his/her official retirement age. Some of them are even offered a place to stay in government, and their full time job is to drink tea, and read newspaper. They are not allowed to do anything else than this, but their salary is the same.

Now, after the huge shrink in size of the government, there are 113,000 officials in Shanghai government (among them, 45,000 are policemen of all kinds)

Imagine how hard it was to do the reform � inside system of government.

Interesting history, or reality�

Shanghai Also has Blue Sky – for One Day

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I don’t have official statistics, but I believe the pollution in Shanghai is worse this year than the last year. Why? From my observation, there are almost no blue sky in Shanghai in the last few months. It is partly due to the rainy season, but I just feel I was too excited to see the blue sky of today.

Today is an exception.

The sky was blue and there are white clouds in the sky – very beautiful, and the visibility of the air is much better than average. I can see the Jinmao tower clearly from Xujiahui.

This is good, but days like this is so rare in Shanghai.

Discussion about Blue Sky

Today reminded me of an interesting discussion under an old blog article. Once I posted some pictures of the Bay Area to my blog, and there are readers from mainland commented:

“Look at the blue sky!”

Actually, not one person. Many of them. They are surprised to see the blue sky in the California in the pictures.

More interestingly, people from the States (I guess) commented that they were very surprised to find out the fact that someone will be surprised to see blue sky, which is their everyday life.

What a sad story. I feel very bad when I saw the conversation and deeply concerned about the pollution in China.

Many People Forgot about What Natural should Look Like

The much more frustrating fact is, in China, many people including me, have forgotten what the natural should really like. When we see some pictures (like the default desktop of Windows Vista), we just don’t believe there are such thing in the nature.

Last time when I visited Australia, I was so surprised to see the water in the river. It is acturally clear – to be honest, I never saw such water in middle or eastern China. The only time I saw such clear water was in Daocheng – the distant Tibet area that almost no people live there.

The Story of a River

Let’s talk about river.

Victor lives in village in rural area of Shanghai in Jiading District. He recalls that the river besides his home was suitable for swimming when he was young. When we visited the river last Saturday, it smell so badly that we want to leave it as soon as possible. The river was dark yellow and I doubted any fish could survive there.

I suspect it was due to the Paper Manufacturing Factory nearby.

The Story of my Home Town

The even more astonishing fact is, people don’t care about pollution at all (especially the government).

Last summer, I went back to my hometown, and one of my distant relatives came to our home and introduced the investment environment of the area. He was now a government official of the town, and pitched us to spend about 20,000 RMB to get some land in our hometown and open a factory.

I asked

Is there any additional benefit to open factory here?

His answer was:

You can setup factory that pollute the environment! In east area (he means the coastal area), they (he means the local government) control it too tight and you may not be able to open such factory. We (he means the local government in my home town) welcome all such factories!

This was the benefit they gave to factory owners.

Horrible.

Hope? Not Really

I hope there are more blue sky like today in Shanghai, and I am sure there will be less blue sky in my home town if nothing is done about it.

MovableType 4 Finally Out

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I know for most of my readers who only care about information on Shanghai will find this news boring or irrelevant to the topic of this blog. Maybe it is, but for me, it is completely not.

There are several reasons.

1. Thank you, MovableType.

I’d like to thank MovableType for providing such a good tool for me to use in the last 5 years. I am, maybe, one of the most loyal usres of MovableType, from the day one (or the second in terms of MovableType’s history) to today.

MovableType was a great software, and I love the company a lot. I also enjoy my personal friendship with people in MovableType, like Ginger, or Chris, and the two founders, Mena and Ben (for meeting for a short period of time, but gave me very unique impression).

2. Think of my first entry in this blog in Sept of 2002.

It is: MovableType Successfully Installed on Windows XP. If I wasn’t attracted by the Shanghai Pudong Airport topic, MAYBE, this blog may turn out to be a MovableType blog.

3. Movable 4 has great features I was looking for.

Let me quote some I am interested most among the many features MovableType 4 offers.

Features I like

10. A powerful and simple re-sizable WYSIWYG Editor, with automatic saving of drafts of entries and templates — never lose a half-written post again

The auto save works great for me, although I wonder whether I will get used to the WYSIWYG Editor, since I have been using the plain text for five years – it worked perfectly well for me.

16. Better plain-text entry with built-in support for Markdown and Textile, and conversion of MS Word “smart” quotes to HTML entities

The smart quote feature is sometimes useful when I write in Word first.

17. Even more SEO-friendly with customizable URLs per entry, per-template, or per-page

Good feature, however, I don’t think there is any chance for me to customize my old URLs.

20. OpenID support built in

This is great. I will support OpenID! My OpenID is wangjianshuo.com. Yes. Just Wangjianshuo.com, so register your openId and you will be able to directly sign-in in the new version of Wangjianshuo.com

21. Built-in user registration

This is the best feature. When Wangjianshuo’s blog has registration feature, do you want to be the first to register?

22. Powerful profile pages for every user in your system

Yes! This is it! I love this feature so much so my contributors (commenters) has a place to show off their great contribution to the site – this blog is nothing without the in-depths comments.

24. A ratings framework that lets users rate any item in the system — entries, comments, and in the future even authors or entire blogs

To ask my readers to rate the best blog entries of the month is a very cool idea. So give me feedback by rating and you can also the great comment you see.

27. Automatically provision a new blog for each user who registers with the system

Wow! Can it be possible? Hmmm.. Let me think the question: what if you want to open a blog under the domain of Wangjianshuo.com? Do you want to do that?

28. Built-in support for integrated spam fighting and optionally displaying a CAPTCHA for comments

I hope the anti-spam is better (although it is good enough) and I won’t turn on the CAPTCHA feature, since I think my additional work to delete spam comments is well compensated by easier comments without entering the hard to read characters.

29. Integrated email notifications — let your readers know when a thread they’re interested in has updated

This is also great. I have this plugin installed, but it does not seem to work.

Well. That’s it. It has great features, and I am looking forward to upgrade this blog to MovableType 4.0 this weekend. I hope I have enough time to do that.

Congratulations, the MovableType team!

MovableType 4 is Almost Out

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MovableType is almost out – it is RC4 (Release Candidate 4) now. I am sure that when the final version comes out, I will upgrade my MovableType to that version.

The key feature I think is helpful is the user management and registration. It allows my readers to register with the system and create some pages for him/herself. With the new system, you can be a user and even a contributor to this system. Want to you think?

Pudong Airport Terminal 2 Completed

The Pudong Airport will open a new terminal this year. The construction is already completed, and just waiting for the connecting roads and viaduct to be completed. The next time people visit Pudong Airport, they should check out which terminal they should go to…

Writing for a Magzine? Oh! No! Thanks!

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This title was adopted from a short poem. I believe this is the shortest English poem I read so far

Bronx?

Oh!

No!

Thanks!

Very interesting, isn’t it?

I accepted friend’s friend’s invitation to write an article for a magazine. The topic is about my hometown Luoyang. I accepted the request and today is the due date. I have to think hard to write the article, and deliver it as I promised.

I did for several time to write for newspaper, and for magazines. Every time, it started with an easy “OK”, and ended with a hard time. Currently, I am still the so-called columnist for many websites and some newspaper, but the agreement was: copy any articles on my Chinese blog and use it as you wish, but please don’t let me know or ask for any specific topic, since I know I cannot deliver.

OK. This is the last time, and I hope in the future, I don’t accept something additional like this – something with a deadline, but the delivery of it really depends on my mood – like writing articles.

Enough for today’s blog. I will take the time to write the article and send it tonight.

Highly Recommend Book – China Road

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I am reading some books recently (to name a few, the China Road, Collapse)…

I like Rob Gifford’s book China Road very much. It is very interesting to read, and offers a great angle to analyze the real problems and hopes of China.

Let me tell you why I love this book.

The Idea

The idea behind the book is to take a journey along the China State Road No. 312 from Shanghai to north-west border of China. This idea itself is attractive.

What is road 312, or G312 (G means Guo or State)? It is a road starting from Shanghai, cross the mainland of China, and travels along many provinces like Anhui, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang… It is something like the mother road Route 66 in the United States.

It is a long road. It is 4825 km long, and the diversity in both natural and social scene is huge enough for anyone who are willing to understand more about China.

The idea is appealing to me as well. Maybe one day I should also take the trip of G312 to know China – I never claim I know China. I only know part of it, and I, myself, was often shocked by some facts I found out about China. In this sense, Rob knows China much better than I do.

The Trip

During the trip, Rob didn’t just completed the trip – he explored deep inside. He visited places normal people live and normal travelers don’t go. He talks with people who are saying something very familiar to me. He visited “dangerous” and “sensitive” places like Shangcai (I didn’t make typo here. It is letter “c”, not “h”) in Henan Province, the AIDS village under the pressure of the local police… The trip was amazing, and I pleasantly followed his article to travel with him.

The Thinking

It is definitely not just a travelogue. It is a book full of his thought, not just observation. Let me just mention few of them.

In Shanghai, Rob noticed the difference of two party members. One still believe Communism is the future, while the other (I am like her) don’t believe it. I laughed since it is common discussion I heard in my daily life.

Like in Xi’an, he thought about the question why China don’t have its own Runnymede or Magna Carta. He thought it was rooted to the unification of the country in 221 B.C. when Qin (Chin) unified the whole country, by force. (I didn’t repeat the whole story, but I think you can find out more).

After his trip, he event thought about the China’s history in a while, and claiming that the country is going through circles:

China’s history has only ever been about uniting and then collapsing, reuniting and then being invaded, overthrow, collapse, reuniting and collapsing again. Why should the future be any different?
-Rob, Page 276, A road is made, China Road

He then list some reasons why the future of China can be different…

My Thoughts

I appreciate Rob’s thoughts, and his effort to report what China is today, and try to predict (although it is one of the hardest thing to do in the world) its future. The thought and deep sympathy are very rare in the books I read most of the time.

What about the China’s future? This is a serious question. There are given answers that most people in this country can recite and even written in the constitute. However, I don’t believe in. People should think about this question seriously (despite it is highly encouraged by the government that not to think about it at all).

Pictures of Xujiahui Area in 2007 – Difficulties

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Wondering about what the world I, as a normal person in Shanghai, see everyday? I am trying to capture the short period of time I experienced, and show you my world with a series of pictures. Thanks to my good habit of bringing a camera with me all the time.

Hmm…. Stop here.

I was planning to upload a lot of photos, but I do encounter some technical difficulties. So the bad news is, I cannot upload it today. However, to explain the difficulty itself can be an interesting topic.

The First Problem: Flickr was Censored

This is maybe the second or longer month after Flickr.com was banned by the Great Firewall. Flickr is a powerful tool to allow people to see pictures of the world, and pictures of my own country, which is so scary for some people, so they banned the site. So, I can visit Flickr.com but cannot see any of the photos on the site, and I cannot upload any pictures to Flickr – for months.

Google Picasaweb?

Google’s PicasaWeb is still too new to be banned, so I can still use it, but the speed is significantly slower than flickr. At home, I still cannot upload my picture after waiting, retry for 30 minutes. What happens?

Well. Let me try to complete this article the other day, using a proxy. I will be back to complete it…

Beijing Olympics 2008 Schedule

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Since Beijing Olympics is coming, let me post the schedule for the Olympics in Beijing. Hope you like it. Credit goes to Wikipedia.

 ●  Opening ceremony  ●  Event competitions  ●  Event finals  ●  Closing ceremony
August 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23rd 24 T
Ceremonies ● ●
Archery 1 1 1 1 4
Athletics 2 4 6 6 5 3 6 7 7 1 47
Badminton 1 2 2 5
Baseball 1 1
Basketball 1 1 2
Boxing 5 6 11
Canoeing 2 2 6 6 16
Cycling 1 1 2 1 3 1 2 3 2 1 1 18
Diving 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8
Equestrian 2 1 1 1 1 6
Fencing 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 10
Field hockey 1 1 2
Football (soccer) 1 1 2
Gymnastics 1 1 1 1 4 4 4 1 1 18
Handball 1 1 2
Judo 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 14
Modern pentathlon 1 1 2
Rowing 7 7 14
Sailing 2 1 2 2 2 2 11
Shooting 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 1 15
Softball 1 1
Swimming 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 1 1 34
Synchronized swimming 1 1 2
Table tennis 1 1 1 1 4
Taekwondo 2 2 2 2 8
Tennis 2 2 4
Triathlon 1 1 2
Volleyball 1 1 1 1 4
Water polo 1 1 2
Weightlifting 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 15
Wrestling 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 3 18
August 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23rd 24 302

Source: Wikipedia.org

One Year to Beijing Olympics

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Today is 366 days to August 8, 2008, the date of Beijing Olympics. (The reason it is 366 days instead of 365 is, 2008 has extra day of February 29, 2008).

The celebration party at Tiananmen Square in Beijing was casted in real time last night.

This is good thing. If you plan to participant in the Olympics, it is the right time to start preparing.

Shanghai Car Plates IS Investment

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I have a car with name of Goudaner.

However, I don’t have a car plate from Shanghai, simply because it is too expensive. Instead, I drove 200 km away to Hangzhou (the capital of Zhejiang Province, south of Shanghai) to register my car there.

Now I am a Shanghai driver, bought a car in Shanghai, driving in Shanghai… with a Hangzhou car plate. Sounds wired, isn’t it?

I thought I made a right decision three years ago. Now? I don’t think so.

The History of the Decision

In August 2003, you need to give government 38,500 RMB to get a car plate. In March 2004 (seven months later), it costs 43,000 RMB. In May 2004, the price dropped for the first time to 34,226 RMB, then to 21001 RMB the next month. I didn’t track the price of car plate since then.

Comparing to the high price of a Shanghai plate, to register in other city is attractive. It is almost free.

There are some limitations for these cars (there are 130 thousand cars running in Shanghai with outside plates), and more and more fees are added to these cars. Beside that, I need to drive my car personally to Hangzhou for annual checking which is not always pleasant journey.

Car Plate as Investment

With the explosion of number of cars in Shanghai, the recent bid result for car plates keep going up and is always above 40,000 RMB. I thought it has nothing to do with me any more, until I chatted with Jia about his experience to attempt sell a car.

When it comes to a point that you need to sell your car, the different is huge.

For cars with Shanghai plate, the plate is still a lot of money – according to the current bidding price for the plate. For most people, they can make some money because of the price difference.

For cars with other plates, the plate itself worth nothing, even lower the price you paid to get it. Meanwhile, since the car transaction involves transportation administration of another city, there are additional 3000 RMB for this.

So, the conclusion is clear:

1. To register outside Shanghai is cheaper, until you sell it.

2. To register in Shanghai is more expensive, until you sell it.

My Conclusion

This teaches me a basic economic rule: when we buy something, always distinguish whether it is debt, or asset. By the definition of Poor Dad, Rich Dad, debts are something to take money out of your pocket, and assets help to put money into your pocket.

When we make decision about a deal, we should look at the both side of the equation. Take the Shanghai Car Plate or house example, you pay money on the left hand, and get some asset on the other hand, so you are still balanced in your Balance Sheet. To get a plate out of Shanghai, although on the left hand, I didn’t pay too munch money, on the right hand, I got nothing (not an asset). This is not a good idea.

P.S. It is not so fair to say I made a wrong decision since at that time, everyone was expecting the cancellation of the plate bidding in Shanghai. If that is the case, the asset disappears in a day.

Exchange (Lot of) Coins to Paper Money

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This is Mike’s question, my first answer, and his follow-up question:

Hi Wang Jian Shuo,

Do you know where in Shanghai I could change coin money to paper money?

I have a lot of coin monies, like 1 yuan coin, about thousands. I went to ICBC bank but they don’t accept it, they don’t have machine to count coin money either? Do you know where I can find machine to count coin money too?

In the US, at Commerce bank, they have machine to count coins (quarter) and change to paper money for free. I think there should be place like that in Shanghai too.

Thank you and best regards,

Mike

Posted by: Mike on August 4, 2007 07:54 PM

They don’t change the coins to paper for you? Really? They should provide that service. There are banks charging people for counting coins, but free for individuals. I have no experience about it, but I believe there must be some bank that can help you. Maybe I will talk about it later when I personal encounter the problem or check the bank, and be back with you to see if I can help you.

Posted by: Jian Shuo Wang on August 4, 2007 11:40 PM

Hi Wang Jian Shuo,

Thank you for your quick reply.

The bank can change the coins to paper money for me, but they only accept a small amount.

I have many coins, could be about 5,000 coins, I can’t sit to count that much coin, and people at the bank can’t help me either, I have to find a place with the coin counter machine? Do you know where I can find one? Any bank branch with a coin counter machine?

I only keep paper money in the wallet, it should be lighter and easier to carry that way. So everyday going home, I took the coin out of the wallet and put them in a box, now that box become a bit big, I want to change them to paper to save space. I guess everybody has a box of coins at home too.

Thank you and best regards,

Mike

Posted by: Mike on August 5, 2007 02:34 PM

To answer Mike’s question, I called China Merchant Bank (my favorite bank and the only bank I relatively like) at 4008895555. The CSR (Customer Service Representative) didn’t know it either, and asked me to call one of its branch office. So I called their Xujiahui branch at 021-64273892. Here is what I learn from gentleman on the other side of the telephone line.

It is Possible

The bank can exchange the coins for you, no matter how big amount it is.

It is a Paid Service

However, you have to pay 1 RMB per 50 coins. They said the fee is based on the number of coins, not the total amount of the money. For example, if you have 50 one RMB coins, the fee is 2% of the total amount, while if you 50 0.1 RMB coins, they will also charge you 1 RMB, which is 20% of the total amount.

Time and Location

This is a standard service offered by almost all banks, since it is a service standard (and fee standard) set by the China People’s Bank (the central bank). You can go to any bank to ask for this service.

There is something to notice though.

1. It is not Personal Banking Service. You have to go to the Cashier window in the business service section.

2. Because it needs some time, you need to wait for about one day for them to get back to you.

In Xujiahui Branch of China Merchant Bank (on the Tian Yao Qiao Road and the Zhaojiabang Road), the service is available from Monday to Friday before 16:30.

So, Mike, good luck and be sure to get back to us to let us know whether you successfully exchange the 5000 coins.

Shanghai is Hot, Hot and Hot!

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I completely have no idea when the hot summer of Shanghai will be over. Recently, everyday when I step out of my room, the hot (extremely hot air) reminds me of what was shown in the film An Inconvenient Truth. Shanghai broke track record of extreme hot weather in the last century, many times!

Poor visitors! If you are in Shanghai, I promise you Shanghai isn’t always so terrible to live, and there are some days better than today. Do come again at other time. These days, Shanghai is just like a hot spot, and the air is burning my nose.

So, to remind people that there are cool days (acturally cold days) in Shanghai, let me post a photo I took back in Dec 29, 2004 of the heavy snow in Shanghai. We just got back from our long trip in New York at that time, and Shanghai was not THAT cold, and we were very happy about it.

Feeling cool now?