Lujiazui is Full

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This is Friday (TGIF).

It is rainy.

When Friday meets rain, the traffic of Shanghai halts.

We drive to Lujiazui to have dinner. I won’t say Shanghai is a boring city, but I do admit sometimes (like today), there is almost not many choices when you have to select a restaurant. The Lujiazui area and the Biyun area are the only two region I am interested to go.

The bad news was, the parking at the Super Brand Mall was full. All the gates were closed with a guard waving red stick, and driving cars away. No surprise. Because this biggest parking area was closed, all the other parking places were full.

What does it mean? It means the Lujiazui financial area was FULL. There is no parking place. The Fucheng Road was a small road that does not allow street parking. It is full. Unless some decides to violate stop at the major roads (like Century Road), there is nothing left for cars.

Disappointed am I, we moved away and went to the Biyun International District to have our dinner.

Uncle Police Called to Delete Posting

This didn’t happen to me yet, but it happens to my friend. He has a small blog, and wrote some article about finance. It may mentioned the name someone in power. The Uncle Police (the way children typically call policeman) called, and asked him to delete the post. They do have great technology to track who wrote what, via which telephone line, and on which computer. Then they have the power to map the post with a real person, and get his/her telephone number.

This happens all the time. I also have a friend to see policemen show up at door to ask her to cancel the gathering of tomorrow.

Let me write it down. After several years or (sadly) may be decades, people have some idea about what is happening in the year of 2007.

Personal Tax Claim

I got the claim form, the envelope and the return envelope. You know what I am going to do? Yes. I will claim my income tomorrow.

Spring Comes

Spring comes. The trees in my garden grows some new leaves and branches. They look reddish. Some grows 10 cm longer than two weeks ago. Spring comes.

BP Services Shut Down

Today, China Unicom shutdown the BP service (Pager) except in some limited usage in Shanghai. I had a black pager, and Wendy has a light yellow one when we were in university 10 years ago.

Let me find out where my pager is, and take some picture of the two little toys. It seems we will never be able to use it (although we didn’t use it in the last ten years when we got our first mobile).

I Found a Bug – in my Soup

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I found a bug today.

It is not a bug in software, not in hardware system, and not in any context with extended meaning. It is a real bug – in the soup of my lunch.

It is in the Han She tea house at Grand Gateway.

I called the waitress, and she said sorry, but there is nothing she can do. I called the manager, and manager came. Finally, they returned the money for the lunch.

I have a question, what will you do if you find a bug (bigger than two rice) in your soup in a restaurant?

Future Shanghai Metro and Maglev Map

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Here is the latest map Shanghai Metro and Maglev Future Plan (2006-2012). I know many people who live in Shanghai will find it interesting.

Here are my take-aways from the map.

Many More Lines to Build

Currently, we only have Metro Line #1, Line #2, Line #3, Line #4, Line #5, and Maglev.

In the map, we see Line #6, Line #7, Line #8, Line #9, Line #11, Line #12, Line #13, and the extension of Maglev.

When all these are built, Shanghai will completely be another city – the concept of far, or near will be redefined.

Maglev Extends to Hong Qiao Airport

In case you don’t read Chinese, and cannot find the Maglev, look for the line in the lower part with this color:

==============

It will extends from the current Pudong Airport to Long Yang Road, and then go through the World Expo Site, and THEN, go to a triage conjunction. One branch will go directly to the Hong Qiao Aiport, and the other branch will go to Hangzhou.

At the Hong Qian Airport, it will meet with the Shanghai Beijing High Speed Railway, and the Metro Line #2, and (of cause) the Hong Qiao Airport.

There will be Maglev train connecting the two busiest airports in China: Hong Qiao and Pudong. Meanwhile, the Metro Line #2 will extend to both side, and also connects Hong Qiao and Pudong Airport.

Line #11 is Amazing

Line #11 runs from Jiading, across the downtown, and finally reaches the Donghai Bridge! I cannot imagine people build such a long Metro line. That is 120 km in total!

Future is Future, that We Hardly Imagine

When people built the first express way in China to Jiading, people may not be able to imagine that express way is not everywhere in China.

It is the same for the first elevated highway in Shanghai. Now, it is the standard for Inner Ring, Middle Ring Road, and some branches like Xinzhuang to Minhang 莘闵, or Yixian 逸仙 Highway.

When people built the first Metro Line in Shanghai in 1994, I am very sure that people could hardly imagine the future system like in the map.

When the first 10 metro stations were built, the general concept is, Metro Station, and Metro Lines are super expensive. Now, there are more than 160 Metro Stations under construction concurrently, and more than that in the plan. Metro Line #11 even have 30+ stations.

Finally, when we built the first commercial Maglev Line in the world from Pudong Airport, we thought (at least I ever thought) that it may be the only one in Shanghai. It turned out the Maglev network starts to grow just like Expressway, Elevated way or highway.

Looking back and looking forward, I am just amazed about how quick things changes; how hard people can imagine a future world, and how easy it is to turn dream into reality.

Let’s wait and see all these lines are completed as planned. I hope nothing goes wrong along the way to the future.

Here is the full size version of the map:

g5Dlb9cQ

P.S. Found a BBS about Metro: http://metrofans.sh.cn/. Highly recommend (in Chinese).

Shanghainese Girl Marrying Foreigners

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I was asked (more than once) about my point of view of Shanghainese girls marrying foreigners. This is a controversal topic.

You will see this topic here and there:

Another question for you Jianshuo though it might spark off a lot of hot debates (both positive and negative).

Why are there so many women in China who are dying to marry foreigners (mostly westerners but also Asians from developed countries like Japan, Singapore, Taiwan …you can’t call HK a country but yeah, HK as well? I don’t see as many Chinese man marrying foreign women.

It is a “social trend” or real love? Most of these women are in their early 20s while their “partner” are at least in their 40s (from observations, for course I don’t know their exact age).

Would like to hear your views on this.

Posted by: Elaine on November 9, 2006 02:50 PM

Or

Speaking of marriage, one thing bothers me a great deal is seeing so many young Chinese women (especially the Shanghainese) marrying foreign men old enough to be their fathers, or dating married foreign men knowing they are married. Oh well, this is a touchy subject…

Posted by: tamie on March 20, 2007 12:26 PM

Or

China has been opening up for many years, and the Chinese now knows a little more of the outside world now.

Perhaps you should think of WHY Chinese in some cases prefer foreigners instead of Chinese.

Perhaps because foreigners has far more knowledge of the rest of the world outside China,

due to the free press, and the holiday travels to other countries which most foreigners do quite often.

That makes them more interesting in the Chinese’ eyes.

And marrying a foreigner opens many new doors for you outside China.

Worth to think about, when someone is just fed up by all the control, the rules and the whole system here….

Posted by: carsten on March 20, 2007 09:04 PM

My Point of View

First of all, I don’t think some form of the question itself is not appropriate. For example: “Do you think Shanghainese girl should marry a foreigner or not?” I believe both answers (Yes or No) are not the right answer? Why? It seems like discrimination. I know many people don’t think it has anything to do with discrimination. I didn’t realize it before until I thought carefully about this issue recently.

Martin Lurther King was a wise man. He said in 1963 that

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

It is wise and clear enough. I would use the same words for people debating whether Shanghainese should marry foreigners:

The marriage of two person should be judged by the nature of their love instead of their original, nationality, color of skins, religious, or race

(Some declare to add gender into this sentence. I am not that sure yet, but I am at least not 100% opposite to it)

So, marriage is marriage, love is love. It has nothing to do with whether the husband is a foreigner or not. The same for the wife.

The Question is More Than That

Of cause I know many people ask the question not just because of the difference in nationality, they are asking the other question:

“Are Shanghainese girls marry foreigners just for money?”

“Are foreigners treat girls in China not as seriously, and play with them?”

“Are the Shanghainese girls just show off, or something else?”

I know there are many questions like this need to be answered.

I do agree there are always statistical distribution of certain behaviors. For example, we can say that “the statistical average wealth of expats in Shanghai is higher than the average of local people in Shanghai.”. I don’t see anything wrong with this statement if the real number shows so, but to generalize any statement to be “all foreigners are richer than local people” is not correct, and to generalize all Shanghainese girls marry foreigners just for money” is completely wrong. Percentage? It seems it should be higher but there is no data support.

So the question should be transformed into a new one: “Is it proper for a girl to marry someone just for his money?” This is a question with less discrimination intend. Generally, people’s answer is “No”. This kind of marriage does not only exists in a cross-culture family, and also exists (largely) in China.

To be Short…

To be short, I don’t think it is Right or Wrong for a Shanghainese girl to marry a foreigner, because it has nothing to do with nationality, or race. To take it as a factor to judge whether it is right or wrong is inappropriate.

Jiading is Not As Far as I Thought

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Jiading 嘉定 is a district of Shanghai, but far from the downtown Shanghai. I haven’t been there before I attended the wedding ceremony for my friend.

The express way from Shanghai Downtown to Jiading is the first express way in China. It was completed in 1988. I heard about the Shanghai – Jiading Express way in 1994, and in my mind, Jiading must be extremely far away, that people need to connect the two places with an expressway.

Yesterday, we drove there – 13 km from A20 to Jiading, or 15 km in total.

At night, we left Jiading at 11:00 PM, and at 11:40 PM, we are already on my bed in my home.

The Shanghai – Jiading Expressway (named A12) connects with A20, and then directly merge into the newly built Middle-Ring Road, then we went east and turned into the South-North Elevated Road, then Nanpu Bridge via Inner-Ring Road.

The 40 minutes driving experience was amazing! It is just like from San Jose to San Francisco – so many branches, via-duct, elevated road, and without a single red light. It is especially good to drive at night, when there was almost no traffic on the road.

Accessibility of Public Transportation

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Andy asked:

ACCESS and availability of taxis at to two Shanghai metro stations; Jin’An Temple and Zhonshan Park

On Thursday 22nd March 2007 I will be arriving at Pudong Airport about 16.00 and then go Maglev to Long Yang metro station. I will have with me a suitcase on wheels as well as a small back pack. I plan to go from Long Yang metro to either Jin’An Temple or Zhongshan Park station.

These are my questions:

[1] Do either of these metro stations have elevators or escalators?

[2] Which of these two stations will it be easier to pick up a taxi from at at 17.30 on a Thursday evening?

Regards

Andy

Accessibility is a problem for Shanghai. It is not as accessible as it should be. There are some facilities in newer buildings, and public facilities, but many of them do not work, just because there are too few people using it. It is a social environment – accessible facility is not common, so disabled people normally do not go out on their own – they just stay home if there is not anything urgent or important enough. That explains why we seldom see people wit wheelchair in the city, but I don’t believe the percentage of disabled person is significantly lower than other city in other country. So it is a negative feedback loop – with fewer people using the facility, they do not operate well, thus fewer people use them.

So back to your question, there are elevator in Pudong Airport. I am sure about it. It is at the arrival hall, and you can use it to go to the second floor (where the Maglev Station is). There is also elevator in the Maglev Station. You don’t need to worry about it. (The elevator I mentioned means the vertical elevator, not the rolling one)

In Jin’An Temple, there are also vertical elevators. But I am not sure if it is open. I don’t remember there are elevators in the Zhong Shan Park. Anyone is living in that area, would you please help?

To take a taxi, it is same for any metro station. I would suggest Jin’an Temple, since Zhong Shan Park is a bigger station, which is not so good to find a taxi (too many people there).

4 Year Anniversary of Wedding

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Today is the 4th year anniversary for Wendy and I got married.

Four Years!

We register for marriage the same day four years ago, then I happily announced it, and then held the wedding ceremony about 6 months later.

We bought many flowers and candles to decorate the room, and went out to have a simple but happy lunch together (at Lan Cun Road).

I am sorry that I have to go to the 5G Review to deliver a presentation that afternoon, and could not be with Wendy, then we reunion at about 5:00 PM, then attended the wedding ceremony of a good friend from high school. Many other high-school friends in Shanghai also showed up in Jiading.

May be Inaccessible for Several Hours

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Bluehost notified me that

Your servers’ IP address has changed from:

70.103.140.102

to:

69.89.22.102

Since I host DNS and website on different provider, I have to change it manually, and they may not sync with each other perfectly. So you may expect short pause (from several hours to 24 hours). If you cannot access this blog in the next 48 hours, don’t worry. It will be back shortly after network IP address change and my DNS change both take effect.

Thank you for your patience.

Update May 18, 2007

The change has been completed, and there was no report of inaccessibility.

Happy Birthday to Goudaner (3rd Year)

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This is the birthday of my car – I call it Goudaner.

In the last three years, or 1095 days, Goudaner did really well. It never broke down on the road, never made noises from the engine, never had any big problem that need my attention. The only thing I would think of as its own fault is, the background light of the dashboard broke once. The other fault are either mine (hit something) or other driver’s.

I am happy with the first car, and want to keep it as long as it still works.

Goudaner, 3 year ago

Many people suggested me to change car. It is common practice. Some of my friends who bought car later than I did have changed to another car. Well – It is the fever to try new things, and not satisfied with what they have. Others suggested me to change to a bigger, and (I believe they think the more important thing) expensive car is critical for the success of business – to show off the social status, power or something. I don’t think so. I am super happy abuot the car I have, and enjoy what I have instead of dreaming about what I don’t have.

Without Goudaner, living in Pudong can be very hard, but with it, it becomes a paradise.

P.S. I changed the electronic battery box. I didn’t drive too much in the last three years – only 41000 KM.

New Phone – Dopod D600

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I sold out my Nokia 6670 on Kijiji. The transaction was confirmed within one hour, and I gave the mobile to the guy (a mobile fan) at Haggen-Daas in Xujiahui, and he gave me 800 RMB. (I bought it at 1700 RMB, and I am very happy about the price) He is also happy. I heard he collect all kind of mobiles and now he has more than 100 models.

Then that night (I don’t have a mobile that afternoon), I bought Dopod D600. Maybe this is the fastest decision I made on electronic devices. I have made up my mind to get a Windows Mobile based phone after Nokia.

My first phone was a Motorola in university, then another Motorola in Microsoft, and then Dopod 535, then Alcatel OT315, then Nokia 6670. Finally, I got Dopod D600, my first touch screen phone.

The best place to get it is at third floor of Metro City, Xujiahui. The official price was 3950, and they asked for 3750. Finally I got it at 3700 RMB including a 1G SD card. It is too expensive for a phone – I don’t like to add too much fancy function to a simple phone and add attach too much $$$ to it, but I feel good this time since the old phone helped me to offset 800 RMB.

Here is the picture:

Dopod D600

Feature I Like Best

Automatic sync of Address book and email with my Exchange Server, so I am sure my address book is always up to date.

Feature I don’t Like Most

It takes two hand to dial a number.

Kijiji

Kijiji is becoming more and more useful. I am going to list about 2 0 to 50 items to Kijiji in the next few days. Up to now, all my listings led to transaction quickly (in hours) except one (I want someone to teach me architecture drawing).

Disclaimer: I am the head of Kijiji China site.

Helping Others with Hosting Package

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I hate ipowerweb, so I moved to bluehost, but I still didn’t terminate my previous ipowerweb hosting plan yet. Today, Jackie asked me if I can help to settle a hosting plan for him and his friends – to do a group blog. I said “sure”.

The 6 Years’ of Difference

I am happy to help. Just imagine what I have (so little) and what I dreamed of (so big) when I was in university in 1995 – 1999.

I wanted to have a place to host my page – I got it in 2001, two years after I graduated. (Finally I got one with pure HTML storage, with no cgi. That is the reason I tried hard to solve problems like this and this)

I wanted to have a place with CGI access – I got it in 2003, 4 years after I graduated.

6 years late, a hosting package (maybe two) is not a big deal for me, but I know it can incubate great technical ideas. I do believe it. So I am so happy to help people to host projects on my server, for free!

That is the difference of 6 years. If we have a way to spend one’s money of 6 years in the future, it makes such a big difference.

My Imagination and My Ideas

I opened a note book when I was in university.

The first page was written on May 5, 1998. It started like this

Today, I found that L-www.cgi.com.cn provide free cgi space. This made me so exciting, and thus generated many great ideas. I turned over and over on bed and so excited that I cannot sleep. So I took my cloths, and went to the toilet. Under the weak light, I am recording these ideas, in case I forget it in the future

After this was 17 full pages of ideas. At the end of these ideas, I wrote:

… I keep writing and writing, and feel the sky is brighter and brighter. Birds are singing happily. After a while, I heard those students who spent their nights watching football are calling each other to go back to sleep. The No. 1 Teaching Building is completely quiet. When the cleaning Ayi came to work, I check my watch: it is 6:04 AM, May 7, 1998.
OK. I relaxed, and moved my shoulder and head. I am so happy today

I wrote continuously for the night.

After May 7, I kept writing about ideas, and now I have 73 pages full of different ideas. Some ideas turned into Google Analytics; some are like Network Disk; some like Web based MSN; some like RSS. On June 7, 1998, the idea is exactly – Podcast.

I didn’t turn any of the idea into reality, but I know the important of innovation, inspiration, and even more important – opportunities. So if any one in university come to me and say: can you give me some free disk space? I won’t hesitate and say “sure”. Because, the idea is 100 times more important than money. Just because I didn’t have the chance to try the ideas out, I wanted to help.

Weird Policies, One by One

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This is another day – a typical day in my life in Shanghai. It is raining hard, and I go to the other office and spent the day there.

Let me show me what happened.

Personal Income Declaration

The HR team sent out notice to everyone to claim their personal income. The local tax department has a list of people (with ID number) who should claim tax, and said everyone must claim it before the end of March, otherwise, the fine will be 2,000 RMB to 10,000 RMB.

It also stated that foreign citizens in China don’t need to claim if they can prove that they lived outside China for continuous one month or 90 days in total in the previous year. That may (or may not) be good news for many people. The good news is, someone don’t need to claim and the bad news is, expats may still need to pay the tax.

One Family, One House?

Besides personal tax claim, recently there are many policies coming out. Some sounds strange for me. For example, there is a proposal in the people’s congress to enforce “one family, one house” policy.

The proposed policy restrict that every family in China can only have one house. People will be punished for the second house. The idea is to lower the house price.

This sounds ridiculous for me. It seems people are trying to get back to the planned economy system.

Real Name for Bicycles?

There is another similar proposed policy. The National Public Security Bureau is said to plan to enforce real name registration for bicycles. That means, they want to set up a system for the 1.6 billion people that every people need to provide their real names (national ID) to buy bicycles. The idea behind this is, too many bicycles are stolen. The Public Security Bureau don’t have any good idea, so they think if every bike has a registered owner, and if they find anyone who ride a bike that is not registered under his/her name, it may be a stolen bicycle.

Well. I have no idea about how they can easily create a policy like this. Do they expect everyone to wear national ID with them, or forbid people to lend their bike to others? I suspect the cost to enforce it is higher than bicycle.

Anyway, the good thing is, the voice of different opinion started to be heard, no matter how weired it seems to me.

Fall Over

It was raining, and the floors and stairs are slippy. I fall over one step and hit the steps heavily. It was dangerous, and my back still hurt. Be careful in this big city, especially in rainy day. There are many shining floors that is as slippy as ice in the rain.

RSS Changed to Full Text

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Maybe it is good news for many readers who rely on RSS to read this blog. I have changed all my RSS feed from excerpt only to full text. That means, no matter what reader you use, from Google Reader, to Bloglines, to Zhuaxia.com, you will read FULL TEXT of this blog in your reader software/sites.

This is not a hard decision for me. Everyone (100%) of the more than 10 reponses voted for full text. It is a typical example that everyone knows the alternative is better (except for me), but didn’t tell me. I am the one who can make the change, but I didn’t realize it – you know, maybe I am the single person who don’t have to use a reader to read my article – I read it in my ‘editor’ window and on my blog only.

OK. I suggest people to take the chance to think about what I can do to make the site more useful and more convinient. If I know that, and if I can do it (easily), I will do it. Thanks again (for the third time) for cube316 to point it out.

P.S. If you haven’t yet, use these two links to subscribe this blog via RSS:

RSS 1.0 Feed
RSS 2.0 Feed

Everyone is Talking about Stock

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14:26

I am waiting for a friend in Starbucks to chat about business. He is about 5 minutes late, and I have some time to pull out my laptop to write something about what I observed in Starbucks.

On my rights, two guys are talking about stock. They are talking about some stock at 1.70 RMB/share, and discussing whether they should sell it or buy more. Then their topic shifted to foreign exchange. The guy looks like a professional stock broker.

On the left, several people are also seriously discussing about stock. They looks exciting.

Within just two years, the topics people talk about changed dramatically from house to stock. Shanghai is a center for business. People think about money, talk about money, and care about money. The majority follows the economical trends closely. That is just the nature of city. Good or bad? Well. Hard to say. I am not the money-driven type, and I need more space. I will move to another seat to avoid all kinds of stock terms running into my ears.

So, what is the next? What people will talk after 2010? Criss, or sad stories?

Full Text RSS Feed for This Blog?

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Cube316 asked whether I want to turn on full text feed for the RSS of my blog. Both excerpt or full text is OK for me. My decision depends on which one my readers’ love better.

So the question is yours, and decision is yours:

Do you like
A) Full Text of each entry in my RSS feed, or
B) Excerpt in the RSS for conciseness.

Please give me suggestions in the next week, and I will change to full text if everyone likes it, or keep the current setting.

In case you didn’t know I provide RSS yet, try this URL:

https://home.wangjianshuo.com/index.xml

You can subscribe to this blog via RSS reader like Google Reader, Bloglines, or client side readers.

Reset Nokia 6670

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I sold out my Nokia 6670 on Kijiji yesterday, and will deliver the phone to the buyer.

Before I give out my phone, I used the following key to reset:

*#7370#

then enter

12345 as password.

Your phone will be reset as if it is just out of a factory. Everything including files, and your phone address is gone.

Grocery Cost in Shanghai, 2007

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What is the grocery cost in Shanghai? This is the FAQ people have before moving to Shanghai. Let me show you some details, and I know some of you may love it.

I went to supermarket today – the Hymall (The one on Jinxiu Road, and Chengshan Road, 锦绣路成山路乐购) to purchase some grocery for the next week – it is sunny. The wind is mild and cool, and the sunshine is hot. Prefect weather to visit Shanghai, or go out for a walk. I get everything I need, then I took picture of each of them, and list the price along with it. Hope you get some idea about the living cost in Shanghai.

Please note: supermarket is fine tuned for convinience, not neccessary for price, or quality. If you want more fresh vegetables, and fruits, many some local market is better, such as the Beicai Market nearby. (Some one asked me how to visit this market via email. I laughed. It is nothing similiar with Xiangyang Market. It is just one of thousands of local markets in Shanghai.)

Cucumber: 12.00 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.500 kg => 6.00 RMB

Tomato: 12.00 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.435 kg => 5.22 RMB

White Gourd: 2.00 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.650 kg => 1.56 RMB

Chicken Wings: 24.50 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.390 kg => 9.56 RMB

Pork: 19.80 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.165 kg => 3.27 RMB

Vegetable: 2.80 RMB

I don’t know the name of this vegetable. They don’t list the unit price or weight. In this picture, it is 2.80 RMB.

Pork: 29.00 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.204 kg => 5.92 RMB

Green Pepper: 3.00 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.210 kg => 1.89 RMB

Pumpkin: 12.00 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.480 kg => 5.76 RMB

Mushroom: 15.80 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.210 kg => 3.32 RMB

Stawberry: 3.98 RMB/box

In this picture: 3.98 RMB

Red Pepper: 10.00 RMB/kg

In this picture: 0.130 kg => 1.30 RMB

Daily Life in Shanghai

To go to a grocery store in sunny Sunday brought me much happiness. And to post it on the blog to help people to have some ideas (maybe not precise concept, just ideas) of how expensive it is to live in Shanghai makes me even happier.

Please note: this is just my personal experience of one single shopping, and in one supermarket at this specific time. The price may change (sometimes dramatically) over time, or from location to location. Quality of the grocery is also a factor to consider.

Happy living!

How to Advertise on this Blog?

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A friend’s friend asked him to ask me (ha ha, weired) how can he put advertisement on my this. He is running an apartment broker service for expats at http://rentome.com/ (disclaimer: I didn’t experienced it, and don’t know the quality. Try it out at your judgement, and share your feedback with others). Pretty fit the audience of this blog, right?

Here is my answer:

I don’t accept individual advertisement on this blog.

That means, I don’t want to accept any paid content on this site, except Google AdSense. On the Google AdSense part, I hesitated for some time, and finally I wrote this: Why I Added Google Adsense to My Blog on Oct 23, 2003, when I added it to my blog. I wrote:

Actually, I hate to bring the advertisement into this site, since I am passionate to provide more information about Shanghai and life here just because I love to do it.

This does not change after 4 years (OMG, 4 Years! since my first Google AdSense ad)

I received many queries about putting commercial advertisement on my site with pretty high quote (OK, at least higher than Google AdSense). I still don’t want to do that, at least in the next one or two years.

The reason is, if I accept payment for anything I wrote, I don’t feel I can be objective, and tell the truth. I know when I am accepting any benefit, “truth” may be different than I original thought, even without my own awareness. So the bottom line is, I don’t accept anything. If you ever sent me email, thanks for your inquire and your interest, but I don’t have plan for that.

I am still comfortable for putting Google AdSense, since it does definitely zero impact on what I write, or should I write positive or negative about something. I like that kind of feeling. I love to write to help people. If I feel I am writing for money, I may lose the passion to write, and may not enjoy what I write, and finally gave up.

I do give advertisement space free of charge, for example, last time to Dan Washburn, who is my good friends. I also mention some services, like rentome.com because they are my friends (or friends’ friends). It is all for free. and I will let you know that. I value friendship and want to help my friends also. But I want to make it clear whether I mention it because I personally experienced it and recommend it, or it is just for a friend.

P.S. If you do want to do advertisement…

If you do want to post an advertisement on this site, you can still do it on Google AdWords network. You don’t need to talk to me, or even let me know – I don’t want to know that either. You will find a link named: “Advertise on this site” at the bottom of every Google AdSense ad block. Click on it, and click “Sign Up Now” to sign up Google AdWords program. Then you can choose to target your ads to wangjianshuo.com domain. You can choose to have text ad or Image ad, and they choose your payment. Then your ads MAY appear on the site, depending on how Google thinks about it.

Do it by yourself. I appreciate your support, but don’t need to notify me about it. :-)

Hope this helps to answer the FAQ: How can I advertise on this blog?

P.S. 2. Never, never ask me to write a review about your site, your service or anything. If I find it interesting, I will. If I find I want to personally do a favor of my friend, I will. If I find it valuable for visitors to Shanghai, I will. If you ask me to do it, or pay me to do it, I won’t.

Jack, Run, Linda, and Wendy

We had dinner together at a restaurant near SJTU (Shanghai Jiaotong Unversity) tonight, and then visited the Kijiji office. They were talking about some money related stuff – in this huge “everyone in stock market” environment. Haha.

Spam Mail – Not eMail, it is Mail!

As usual, I opened my mail box at the entrance of my home. There are many mails in it. Besides several bill, and some not-so-important mail, and DM, the rest are all spam satellite TV mails.

Look at these! They are the fruit we have in my mail box in several days. They offer satellite installation service. On one hand, it is not legal according to the current censorship mechanism: the Party does not allow anyone to install satellite TV to watch “enemy’s propaganda” outside China. On the other hand, it is against the international copyright laws, since they use pirated cards to “steal” program from satellite. They claim to be able to view ANY TV program, including CNN, HBO, Cinemax, BBC, NHK, DW, ABC, Fox News, MTV, and all kinds of adult program. They also commit SPAM!

I don’t like them.

10 RMB for Genuine DVD

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I wrote about cheap genuine DVD and Movie before. Today, I got even cheaper genuine DVD.

Look at this DVD first:

I bought it at the DVD store near my home – the small shop in my residential area. They charge for 10 RMB, and explained why it is more expensive than most their DVDs (which are 5 RMB). They said it is genuine DVD. I didn’t believe it, but I opened the package and it SEEMS it is not pirated.

I get back home and searched for the film and DVD. To my surprise, it really seems to genuine.

The DVD for the film was released to market 7 days after the film was released. On Joyo (An Amazon company), it sells at 8.90 RMB. There was also news release about DVD distributors lower down their cost and effectively compete with pirated DVD.

WoW. The world changes faster than I thought.