Via Joon's del.icio.us links, an interesting point of consideration:
Stiff competition in Shanghai's convenience store market in the past three years has apparently hampered the entry of global giants such as 7-Eleven.
The world's largest convenience chain decided to tap the northern market of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province first, and won't test the Shanghai market before next year.
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Finally, a full-length weblog entry on Shanghai metro's omnipresent bra ads. Thank you Jason.
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Because I have a computer at work now, I resubscribed to a bunch of Shanghai weblogs. Here's a classic China moment from an entry called Snow and Shanghai interiors:
I'd always avoided the clinic here thinking it was probably sub standdard- the paint aroudn the door of the place peels off, the sign is weathered and tattered, and an old bicycle is rotting outside, never seemign to move. I only ever see old people shuffling in. But laziness got the better of me, and rather than make the hike to the hospital, I decided to brave the clinic.
Some sleety snow collected in my jacket as I avoided a car edging its way toward the gate. I followed an old guy in worker blue jacket through big heavy plastic strips that keep the hang down over the floor. I took sideways glance at the old rotting bicycle as I entered. Inside- floor paved with large new stoen tiles, so clean we could see our reflections in it, new office cubicle thigs that the doctor iperrated in, small sparklign pharmacy out the back, new holland blinds and shiny aluminuium interior window, fresh white paint and four staff and starched white uniforms and those funny old fashioned nurses hats.
This contrast between the interior and exterior is a thing thats often quiet striking in China, and in particular for me, in Shanghai. I think it perhaps has a lot to do with the ownership of property and the rather complex reltionships and patchwork of laws that govern ownership of buildings, which is is all rather new and often contradictory.
I like how he attributes the contrast to historical economic reasons, and calls them "complex".
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Fifty years from now, the old China-hands are going to be sitting around trading stories, springkling them with those little details that make their claim to genuine "back in the day" experience credible; and among those details will be Kenny G and Mr Bean.
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I'm surprised no Shanghai weblogger (that I know of) has done a post on "Tujia Minority Chinese-style Pizza." There was an editorial in the Shanghai Morning Post the other day comparing to the current snack craze, an article which noted that the crowds that used to throng around the shops that sold the snack are thinning.
So we get the next best thing: a Flickr photo
UPDATE: It's so uncanny, it's almost scary. I wrote and posted the above on midnight of the 22nd, and the next day both Shanghaiist and Bingfeng Teahouse have posted entries on Tujia pizza as well.
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Hello Pizza will soon be taking deliveries over the internet.
I shouldn'a missed Jin.
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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