May 1, 2005
Will the Shanghainese be able to tear themselves away from this week's anime festival at the Pearl Tower to attend the anti-Japan demonstration on the 4th, just across the Huanpu River at the Martyr's Monument?
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Will the Shanghainese be able to tear themselves away from this week's anime festival at the Pearl Tower to attend the anti-Japan demonstration on the 4th, just across the Huanpu River at the Martyr's Monument?
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China to scrap [Taiwan] travel ban, tariffs:
There are currently many restrictions on mainland Chinese going to Taiwan—not just from the Chinese side. Ordinary citizens cannot go as tourists to the island as they need invitations from Taiwan groups, such as professional delegations or academic institutions.
"Tourism administration and all relevant parties on the mainland welcome organizations from Taiwan's tourism industry to start consultations with us on an earlier date in order to make detailed arrangements accordingly," Xinhua quoted Chen Yunlin, Minister of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, as saying.
China said Taiwanese made 3.7 million trips to the mainland in 2004, while only 145,000 mainlanders visited Taiwan.
Most stories about the concessions made after Lee Teng-hui's current visit to Beijing are scant on details about the lifting of the tourism restrictions. I hope we can get some expert comments and/or inside information on this development from members of the Oriental-List.
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Richard links to a New York Times slideshow of some Shanghai residents, with small profiles of each, with the comment:
Leaning towards the hip side of the spectrum, but still interesting.
My comment would be "Leaning towards the type of people a New York Times reporter is likely to meet on an expat-ish tour of Shanghai: editors, artists, and Western restaurant staff", and title would be "Faces of Shanghai" rather than "The Faces of Shanghai". Still, a cool browse, and something I'll definitely mirror.
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Portuguese political periodical Grande Reportagem re-interprets the Chinese flag:
[Vermelho] Menores de 14 anos que trabalham.
[Amarelo] Menores de 14 anos que estudam
[Red] Minors (under 14) who work.
[Yellow] Minors (under 14) who study.
(via Newsdesigner)
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Random China news that I'm interested in:
According to this morning's 时代报 (the metro's free newspaper), the city of Shanghai will do an investigation into raising the price of riding the metro because there is simply not enough capacity to handle the flow of riders, especially during the morning and afternoon peak commute periods. In particular, it cites the Pengpu Xincun station as a stop where it is common for half of the doors on the train to be obstructed and not be able to close in a timely manner.
This is interesting to me because I've often suggested raising the price of a taxi ride because of the unavailability of taxis during peak commute times and on rainy days.
Also according to the 时代报, the 无人售票 system will be phased out on 62 bus lines in Shanghai as recently mandated by the transportation authority. These lines will go back to the traditional pairing of a bus driver with a human ticket seller. This move is based on a proposal made by a special committee investigating the issue that buses meet certain size requirements before they be allowed to install the equipment to become 'no person selling tickets' lines.
My guess is that the reasoning behind this derives from the fact that bus loading is faster with a human ticket seller on board than with a seller-less ticketing system. With a human ticket seller, boarding passengers can get on the bus and sit down before the seller comes around to take their money, so that the bus can take off as soon as everybody files on board. With pay-as-you-enter buses, passengers often spend time standing in the doorway fumbling with their change or looking for their wallets, causing the bus driver to wait longer before departing. This is especially true on smaller buses where there is no room for passengers to stand in the bus aisle while they sort out their fare.
According to an e-mail sent to the Oriental-List as of last year, there's a YHA [youth hostel] perched next to the Simatai section of the Wall.
That's crazy. Simatai has been the "alternative Wall" for a few years now, and it's already a couple hours outside of the city. How far will people have to go for the next piece of uncluttered Great Wall?
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Something very exciting coming out of my current hometown: Radio Shanghai.
This evening we had to move our first radio shanghai meeting from our Dongbei restaurant downstairs to a Xinjiang restaurant, because more people than expected showed up. A pleasant brainstorming session about the way we can cooperate in a local podcasting initiative.
Radio Shanghai is the brainchild of China-based Dutch journalist Fons Tuinstra. Its founding members are being drawn mainly from the Shanghai Webloggers Meetup Group and the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club, but members of the general public are enouraged to show support and/or get involved.
I didn't make it to the exploratory meeting but I'm interested in working with the technical group, if only to learn a little about how real radio is made.
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Two interesting Xinhuanet English articles came to me today through my Google Alert on "Putuo", the name of the Shanghai district in which I live.
Shanghai real estate prices cooled off in April
tells me that:
Last week, seven key ministries and government authorities including the People's Bank of China and Ministry of Construction announced what seemed to be the most stringent measures to stabilize property prices.
According to the measures, property owners who sell within two years of purchase will have to pay tax on the full sale price, effective from June 1. The central government did not specify the level of the tax but it is generally believed to be about 5 per cent.
The rule is more stringent than the Shanghai government's policy issued in March. The municipal government imposed a capital gain tax on properties sold within 12 months. The 5.5 per cent tax comprises a 5 per cent tax on the difference between the purchase and the sale price, and a 0.5 per cent construction tax.
The big five percent tax was a headline in the Shidai Bao a couple days ago. As a quote later in the article opines, this does seem like it could be a turning point in the Shanghai real estate market. It's exciting to see government regulation having a real, positive effect on the overjubilant property speculation happening here. But then again, I may just be interested in this because I'm reading Lardy right now, so I have macroeconomics on the brain. Regardless, the quantity of information and analysis in this article is pretty impressive. I recommend it.
A little more frivolous is Parking a headache for school campuses
, which mentions the East China Normal University, a university that is right down the street from my house:
East China Normal University in downtown Putuo District tells student drivers to park their cars in a supermarket parking lot beside the school gate.
Drivers have to pay the supermarket 10 to 15 yuan to park for the day, students said.
I know what parking lot they're talking about, and I can confirm that it's tiny. Still, I'm surprised that they have students driving to school there. I guess it makes sense when you live in a city with some of the top universities in China, and also some of the highest average incomes. What gets me, though, is this quote:
Officials at Tongji and Jiao Tong universities, however, said that students should be entitled to the same benefits as teachers, especially as cars become more popular.
Huh? Teachers at my high school had a separate lot (that, granted, often filled up, though I always managed to find a spot), and professors at Caltech had personal spaces with their names printed on the parking space headstones. What do they mean by "same benefits"? Are attitudes of student-teacher equality from the GPCR still around?
As an aside to these two articles, it's both nice and annoying to live in a city that plays host to so many international reporters. One the one hand, so many articles about "China" are really about Shanghai, so if you read them that way then they are a great source of local news. On the other hand, it's easy to realize how misperceptions about China are caused by myopic reporters who don't leave the City to get a better sense of the larger, national picture.
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Migrant-workers in Gansu get smarter online? The WTO column:
What struck me was that in the village of Kenny Lin people did not use the system to get information on the agricultural markets, weather, prices, as your might expect at the country side but as a tool to get work in Guangdong.
LOL. To paraphrase a certain movie, the [migrant worker instinct] is strong with these ones
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Via "Roadside haircuts banned", I find a new barber:
"I have worked here for 14 years," said Yu Zaiqing, a 75-year-old barber who trims and shaves his clients under the Jiangning Bridge on Jiangning Road, Putuo District.
"All of my clients are men and most of them are seniors," Yu said. "I charge them 3 yuan (36 US cents) for a haircut and 1 yuan more for a shave, which is much cheaper than in a hair salon."
and learn the difference between unsanitary and insanitary.
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LJ'er Max asks his students to make up names for pro sports teams in different Chinese cities. This is what we get:
The Shanghai Players
Awwww yeah.
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Micah Sittig's Chinese improves and worsens with the phases of the moon. He enjoys non-fiction books, bicycling, foreign languages and ethnic restaurants. He is an inveterate globetrotter, but can always be found at micah@earthling.net