| 57 |
Name of the Baby - Part II Have you considered any two-character names? How about 王罗, hehe. Or naming him after a famous person. Seriously, though, I like 王子欣. I just think it sounds nice. |
| 56 |
Pictures of my Newly-Born Baby Congratuations Wang Jianshuo :) |
| 55 |
Shanghai World Expo 2010 Time And I was living in Spain during the Seville Expo in 1992, and it was OK. If you are going to the Shanghai Expo, please sign up at Upcoming.org: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/154578/ Hehe. |
| 54 |
Flowers in Spring, in my Garden Beautiful :) I didn't know you were a gardener! |
| 53 |
Street Markets in Shanghai Hey, I live close to Jinxiu Rd! We have a similar street market on Yinghua Rd, but no youtiao :( |
| 52 |
Mac Cannot Access Internet in China I was having trouble with a China Telecom ADSL account and my wife's PC last week, and a switch to OpenDNS solved the problem. Hooray! |
| 51 |
Peach Flower in Nanhui District Wang Jianshuo, which part of Nanhui did you go to? My wife and I are going tomorrow and we are still deciding... |
| 50 |
Some Interesting Reading Something similar: when my wife and I took our wedding photos, or when we took her family to take a family portrait, all of the photographers are 20-something years old! I know never to expect an older person doing the photography at those studios so I always just cringe and prepare for the worst. |
| 49 |
Where are the Train Tickets? We went to a big hotel to buy our train tickets. The lady at the desk called a number and the person on the phone said that they could get tickets, but that they can't deliver them until two days before we are supposed to leave. Naturally, we are nervous. But what else can we do? We paid a RMB 40 service charge, and we still only have the assurance of an anonymous person on the phone. |
| 48 |
120K Self-Claim Tax in Details I'm not really clear on what my income was last year, so how can I declare the taxes I paid? My company is preparing some kind of report for us but until I receive that report I can't go in to declare those taxes. Also, the hours of operation "between 8:30 to 16:30, from Monday to Saturday" are just precious. I'm guessing we'll be seeing loooooong lines on Saturdays in March. It's amazing the amount of effort and mobilization that is *still* wasted here in China. For example, that housing RFC about small-to-mid-sized housing, scrapped after two days. Hmmm.. Seems like these situations could be avoided with a little common sense and better planning. |
| 47 |
Night Chat at Hanyuan Bookstore They also have some very beautiful books that are not for sale, can only be read in the cafe. Worth checking out. |
| 46 |
Books I Read These Days You take the dustjacket off of your books? |
| 45 |
Shanghai to Hangzhou by Taxi I did this several times when I was doing a job in Hangzhou. If you go to the bus station in Xujiahui after it closes, you'll find offers like these. You'll have to bargain, though! |
| 44 |
Decathlon Store Locations in Shanghai Heh, they're all out in the middle of nowhere. |
| 43 |
Going to Movie (Cinema) in Shanghai Last week we saw Garfield 2. They had several showings in English with subtitles, and several showings dubbed into Chinese. So no prob! |
| 42 |
Dong Fang Ji Bai from KFC There's a Dong Fang Ji Bai at 南方商城 across from the Lianhua Lu metro stop too. |
| 41 |
Going to Movie (Cinema) in Shanghai The Peace Cinema at Raffles City is *very* expensive. Me and my wife like the Paradise Warner Cinema City in the Grand Gateway. The facilities are very nice and up-to-date, and movies are half-price after 10pm and on Tuesdays. Maybe we will try the theater in Metro City next time, though. |
| 40 |
Online Map in Shanghai (and China) English language: http://www.smartshanghai.com/maps/smsh_map.php |
| 39 |
Shanghai Public Transportation Card matsch, the card does offer a discount. When prices were raised on the metro last year, the city reacted to criticism from citizens by implementing a "10% off further tickets after spending RMB 70" discount on metro tickets bought using the card, a discount which resets on the first day of every month. Here is an explanation in Chinese: http://anywayz.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!1pGz6YfPOACJFm_Jd_e3AuRw!2037.entry |
| 38 |
East Hotel Shanghai I was going to reserve a room there for my parents until they mentioned they wanted a hotel closer to my home. I agree, it's a great deal in an excellent location. Oh, and the Worker's Cultural Palace has a website: http://www.sh-whg.com/ |
| 37 |
South Railway Station Pictures I *love* the waves of grass. And the English signs seem to be translated correctly :) |
| 36 |
One Child Policy - Part II A while back I looked up the requirements for having a second child legally in China today. Here are the rules from: Shanghai (Chinese, English) http://www.popinfo.gov.cn/popinfo/pop_doczcwd.nsf/v_by4id/CAE135AA1EB182BF48256E0D001D5EAF http://www.popinfo.gov.cn/popinfo/pop_doczcwd.nsf/v_by4id/3161352475803E4D48256FC4002EEFFC Guangzhou (Chinese, English; English translation is of an earlier version) http://www.gdpic.gov.cn/zcfg/srk/detail.jsp?recid=1270 http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/poplaws/law_china/ch_record067.htm Beijing (Chinese) http://www.bjfc.gov.cn/Article/Detail.asp?UNID=6485 As you can see, they are all nearly the same and list several exceptional cases in which a second child is OK, including both parents being an only child as Wang Jianshuo noted above. Keep in mind that what you see above is merely a snapshot of the current state of a set of changing rules, which are evolving towards a more relaxed policy regarding population planning. And like xge said, the reality doesn't even follow the law, so take the links above with an extra grain of salt. |
| 35 |
"The Right to Refuse Service to Anyone" Bovemanm, you are clearly unaware of the cultural and legal context of that kind of sign. |
| 34 |
New Rules to Push Down House Price How about reforming the stock market so people have money to invest in places other than real estate? The Chinese government loves to make rules, rules, and more (bad) rules. Serious? More like nervous. |
| 33 |
Booking China Domestic Flight Outside China Even booking tickets through your hotel's travel desk would be cheaper, possibly even cheaper than CTrip. |
| 32 |
My Favorite: Jifeng Book Store My favorite Jinfeng is the Jing'an Temple store, because they have a good selection of books on Shanghai architecture, and because they are next to the New York Pizza shop. |
| 31 |
Xujiahui Metro Installed Auto-Door Eleven days later and the doors are still not completely installed... There was an article in the 新民晚报 (Xinmin Wanbao) a few days ago about how the Shanghai South Long-Distance Bus Station is labelled in three different ways on signs at the Shanghai South Train Station metro stop, and how this was confusing for English speakers. Hopefully a native English speaker will step up to the plate the help the poor authorities sort things out. |
| 30 |
The City and Its Moral Boundary I'm surprised to see you write about the water-meter things, I thought I would see them in the 新民晚报 newspaper first. I also get angry at the business-card hustlers on the metro. If I get my hands on one of them... well let's just say you might see *me* in the 新民晚报 :) |
| 29 |
Pressure at Year End One of my favorite Shanghai websites, Shanhai Bus Net ( http://www.shanghaibus.net/ ), has been inconsistently up and down for the past two weeks because they did not follow their host's registration procedure: > 如果您访问网站见到此提示并 且网站并未过期，则说明您的网站因为未提交备案申请而被管理员暂停。 Very, very annoying |
| 28 |
Shanghai Metro News A couple corrections: * The metro discount kicks in after RMB 70. * You can already use the same ticket right now on Lines 1, 2, and 3. Line 5 will be linked-in by the end of this year. Also the article said that sometimes it will be cheaper to leave the station and buy a new ticket for Line 5 because they did not raise prices like the city did for Lines 1/2/3, instead of directly changing trains. But of course, it's just a matter of RMB 1, so unless you do it every day it won't be worth the trouble :) |
| 27 |
How to Read Shanghai Bus Stop Plate Another good source of information about bus stops is crossing guards. If you're lucky, you'll even run into one who speaks English! Also, a note to accompany Wang Jianshuo's diagram: the start and stop times on the bus stop sign are the times for that particular stop, not for the entire line. I find this very convenient and helpful. |
| 26 |
BBC's Interview While I think that this post is the most clear statement on this position that I have heard, I think WJS's opinion is only one side of the story. WJS and the rest of the Chinese webloggers see their world/internet as defined by the boundaries that the government has set for them. Of course, the economic boundaries are loosening so they are excited to expand into new territories (even territories that other countries don't include in their laws, and that China is uniquely able to take advantage of). And when somebody mentions the walls, they see the walls far from where they were before, and get frustrated that the rest of the world is so focused on the limits when there is so much room to expand that didn't exist before. "Take advantage, seize the day!" they say. As for the BBC and the rest of the world, they see the walls expanding too. But from their point of view the Chinese walls still enclose a much smaller space than their own laws, and they themselves are not participants in the new expansion because they are not living in China and because they are more blind--due to language and culture differences--to a lot of the growth and excitement that is going on there, socially, economically and politically. So from their point of view they can only wonder why the WJS, Isaac and the CN Bloggers are reluctant to talk about the limits being too small. Of course, the speed of expansion and consequences for criticizing the walls are also issues, issues that have two sides as well. To Mark Sandell: your program is called "World Have Your Say", so I find it curious that you are reporting *your own* perspective on censorship in China. If the Chinese aren't concerned about it that much, then why not let them say so? Granted your audience is British/international, but I say try challenging them a little... |
| 24 |
eBay China Job Opening Are you looking for code monkeys? Hehe. |
| 23 |
What Happened 365 Days Ago? http://msittig.blogspot.com/2004/08/every-night-i-have-olympics-party.html One year ago yesterday I was living in a single room at the Cosmic Guesthouse in Hong Kong, waiting for a phone interview with my current employer here in Shanghai; I spent my day touring Hong Kong and my night eating snacks from the convenience store and watching the summer Olympics. |
| 22 |
Hotmail Backlogs I'm collecting English-language Shanghai weblogs in my Bloglines account: http://bloglines.com/public/msittig |
| 21 |
L'Invitation au Voyage Will there be a "meet the photographers" party? I'm looking forward to this. |
| 20 |
Beijing is Cultural Center Joshua Allen, it's not fair to project the dead-white-man-culture stereotype onto my post when I didn't invoke it. When I say culture in the sense of my post, I mean people that are alive today and producing original art, creating a recorded history for their community. Shanghai is very lacking in that category, compared to places like Beijing for art, and Beijing/Wuhan/Chengdu for non-mainstream metal/rock/punk music. And as far as these types of culture, it is much more widespread in America than it is China (for various reasons). I admit that I forgot to consider architecture. Shanghai really is a gem in that category. And I think it's worth making up our minds about whether you want old culture to be preserved or not: are they "irrelevant old European pasttimes" or "culture worth preserving"? Evidenced by people's behavior, some things are worth preserving and others are not. What determines the value of a piece or practice of culture? |
| 19 |
Beijing is Cultural Center I think Chinese admire American money more than Americans do. And like Tough_Lefse said, it's not the money, it's what you do with it. American culture teaches us to invest money wisely and give a portion back to the community, something that the rich in Shanghai are still learning how to do. |
| 18 |
Beijing is Cultural Center Did the previous commenter put the words "Shanghai" and "culture" in close proximity? *gag* Actually, I think most Westerners prefer to live in Beijing. Shanghai is nice for the money, but otherwise... |
| 17 |
My Favorites in Shanghai http://wiki.wubi.org/ShanghaiFavorites * Favorite place to read: comfy chairs in front of Huaihai Lu Delifrance. * Favorite bus line: 136 * Favorite island: Hengsha Dao * Favorite metro stop: Zhongshan Park * Favorite metro line: Line 3/Pearl line/Light rail * Favorite sweets: City Supermarket bakery * Favorite book: the appendix of Mian Mian's Panda Sex * Favorite book store: art bookstore at Jing'an Temple stop * Favorite smoothies: in the Raffles City basement * Favorite view: the Bund from Pujiang Hotel hostel bathroom window * Favorite concert venue: the Ark at Xintiandi * Second favorite: Gua'er Music Factory * Favorite cheesecake: Arch Cafe * Favorite band: Cold Fairyland * Favorite ice cream: next to the Peace Cinema on People's Square * Favorite breakfast: fantuan outside my apartment * Second favorite: youtiao and soy milk at any Xinianlai * Favorite park: greenbelt along the Yan'an Dong Lu elevated road * Favorite clothes shopping: UNIQLO * Favorite magazine: 生活在上HIGH (Shenghuo Zai !ShangHIGH) * Favorite newspaper: Cankao Xiaoxi * Second favorite: Shidai Bao * Favorite people-watching: Shanghai Train Station * Favorite lunch special: Shintori on Julu Lu Of course, I've only been here for 6 months against WJS's 10 years, but... |
| 16 |
Passion for Life The charity idea reminds me of Caltech's "Don Shepard Essay Contest", a grant by the Student Life office to encourage students to invent > a program of self-enrichment outside of science Students often forget that there is life outside of academics, because Caltech is a very demanding school in the sciences. So the Student Life office holds an essay contest and awards money based on ideas by students for special extra-curricular projects that explore other areas of life. Right now, the Student Life office's web site[1] is under re-construction, but you can find a sentence or two about the Shepard grants in the student guide "The Little T"[2]. [1] http://www.studentlife.caltech.edu/ [2] http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~littlet/Caltech_Services.html |
| 15 |
Rainy Crazy Friday Night in Shanghai Speaking of city names in translation... Did you hear that the city of Seoul, Korea has changed its official Chinese name from 汉城* to 首尔** and has asked the Chinese government to adopt the new usage? As mentioned in a People's Daily article[1], the Chinese version of the official tourist website for Seoul[2] has already been republished using the new name. * han cheng, "Chinese City" ** shou er, phonetically similar to the English pronunciation of "Seoul" [1] http://english.people.com.cn/200501/20/eng20050120_171248.html [2] http://www.visitseoul.net/s_chinese_new/ |
| 14 |
Rainy Crazy Friday Night in Shanghai There are not enough coffee shops and decent restaurants because all of Shanghai's resources are going towards opening new 美容美发 (hair salons), and real estate agencies. Like Hemlock said a few days ago[1] in his weblog, "[Shanghai]’s only authentic feature is the lack of original thinking." [1] http://www.geocities.com/hkhemlock/diary-22jan05.html (use your favorite proxy) |
| 13 |
M7 Started Construnction Near my Home Wang Jianshuo, I took a picture[1] today of the signs at the Shanghai Stadium Line 1 metro stop. The the sign that said "This direction to Xinzhuang Station" is now painted over in white. I wonder why. Does this have to do with the new Line 5? I thought that Line 5 was separate from Line 1. It was also clear from the painted-over sign that the southern end station of Line 1 used to be Jinjiang Park station. Interesting. [1] http://msittig.wubi.org/photos/2004/11/SiemensMC60/1108_075323.jpg |
| 12 |
Youth Hostels in Shanghai RMB 50? The Pujiang was charging me 70 per night when I stayed there in August. That was without a membership. |
| 11 |
MyBusStop Project Reloaded This is a great project, Wang Jianshuo. I see that all of the edits so far are in Chinese... English is OK too, right? I think some stations are missing, though. For example, my house is closest to the 白玉路 station of the 136路 line. But this station is not on the GJ136 Wiki page[1]. If you look on the 上海城市交通 website, it has a longer list of station for 136. Should I add the missing stations myself? [1] http://bbs.wangjianshuo.com/Bus/GJ136 [2] http://www.jt.sh.cn/jtfw/gj/jtfw-gj1-7.htm |
| 10 |
Bigger Font is a Failure Sorry to monopolize this post with my comments, but I have a correction and some additions to make. First, in the first comment I made above, I assumed that what I had seen was the Line 1 extension. Wrong! What I described was the extension to the light rail Line 3 (Pearl Line). It's not scheduled to be finished quite yet. Otherwise, this morning I went down to the souther terminal station of Line 1, Xinzhuang Station. I was able to take some (low quality, cellphone) pictures of signage and facilities related to Line 5: http://msittig.wubi.org/photos/2004/10/SiemensMC60/1025_075902.jpg http://msittig.wubi.org/photos/2004/10/SiemensMC60/1025_080030.jpg http://msittig.wubi.org/photos/2004/10/SiemensMC60/1025_080119.jpg Xinzhuang Station itself is a sight to behold, I didn't expect such an impressive structure "out in the boonies". I guess south-western Shanghai (Minhang Development Area) is actually doing quite well. |
| 9 |
My Map Has Errors - I Know I agree with Joachim that the map is very useful, I often use it to create points and send links to friends. I think it would be most useful if every point had an associated wiki page, along with, as you described above, giving users the ability the delete or change the coordinates of the points. That way, people could describe what exists at a certain point, similar to Wang Jianshuo's recent posts on Shanghai's Line 1 metro stations. Points with less/no description could be subject to pruning. But of course, that involves lots of coding. Maybe somebody with more time and the necessary resources can volunteer :) |
| 8 |
Bigger Font is a Failure All of the light rail (轻轨) stations I stopped at today had updated signs, too. I took some pictures of the sign at my home station[1], Jinshajiang Road Station (金沙江路站): the Line 1 extension[2] and the new Line 5[3]. Any idea why Line 5 is considered an entirely new line, and not just a southern extension to Line 1? [1] http://home.wangjianshuo.com/scripts/map/index.php?rx=1243&ry=2402&text=Micah+at+%E7%99%BD%E7%8E%89%E6%96%B0%E6%9D%91 [2] http://msittig.wubi.org/photos/2004/10/SiemensMC60/1017_121115.jpg [3] http://msittig.wubi.org/photos/2004/10/SiemensMC60/1017_121151.jpg |
| 7 |
Guangzhou Baiyun Airport is Beautiful Does anybody else think that contemporary airport architects are creating beautiful structures, and at the same time completely lacking in originality? It's a mystery to me. |
| 6 |
Bigger Font is a Failure Over the National Day vacation, I made a trip to Hengsha Island by taking the metro Line 1 to its current northern end-point (江湾镇), then busing north to Wusong Pier. The bus (116路) followed the path of the Line 1 extension so I was able to observe the construction, though only partially; the extension is pretty long! The elevated railway I saw was completed and test trains were sitting on the track, but the stations still have a ways to go before they can serve passengers. |
| 5 |
Shanghai Metro Line #1 - Part I Carsten, Wang Jianshuo did a couple posts on the future of the Shanghai metro, with great graphics. Check these out: http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20031104_shanghai_metro_map_and_timetable.htm http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20040119_future_plan_of_shanghai_metro.htm (overwhelming, really!) |
| 4 |
If I were a Visitor to Shanghai When I visit Shanghai, I go to visit the oldest KFC: http://msittig.wubi.org/photos/2004/09/ArrivalInShanghai/DSCF1818.JPG (on the southern bank of Suzhou He) |
| 3 |
Blogcn & BlogDriver Shut Down There is some speculation: http://makeashorterlink.com/?X6DB216B7 |
| 2 |
Service Shock in Shanghai I understand why the bank would have that rule. But I have worked at a large chain bookstore before, so I also understand what it's like to work under rules that seem to run against common sense. Sometimes I wanted to do something to help the customer that made sense to me, but was against the company rules. In the end, I could do nothing but apologize. When a customer runs up against a rule like that, the best the she/he can do is ask to talk to the person who makes the rules and can override them: the manager. There's no shame in asking to speak to a manager; it's their job to fix little (and big) problems like not being able to fill out a form. |
| 1 |
Fixing and Changing on Wangjianshuo.com I think it looks great, and it's also very organized. The best thing is that is summarizes all of the best features of your site into one page, so that they are all accessible from one place. Very useful! |
