Walking Dutchman en route in China

Jan Vroomans, earlier on his trip

I have mentioned Walking Dutchman Jan Vroomans, now on his way to Beijing, already a few times. He started walking last year in the Netherlands, moving east, and is now reporting on his weblog from China.
He has some trouble in finding out exactly where he is:

Tsao was my ‘big friend’ in ….i am using a Chinese map now (can not read the city names) and i forget sometimes to ask what the name of the place is. It was a little place where Tsao here husband and their little kid are running an internet cafe.

I think we might be able to give him a hand.

Blair under attack for money-tour

Tony Blair

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair came under heavy fire from both Chinese and British media as the stories about his speakers' fees popped up, like here in The Guardian. For a twenty-minute speech in Dongguan Blair cashed in a US$ 500,000.
Typically those figures are kept confidential, but thanks to the Dongguang Tax office - who earned 40 percent as income tax and might have been in a party mood - this detail appeared in the Chinese media. Other speeches, both in Hong Kong and Beijing, might have brought in similar figures.
The Guardian quotes some very critical Chinese media:

China Youth Daily said the speech was full of pleasantries, cliches and platitudes about the importance of collaboration between government and business, education and the environment, but failed to provide any new insights.
"Is the country to become a market where international celebrities come digging for gold?" the paper asked. "We should exercise less ostentation and vanity. We need more genuinely fresh knowledge - especially when we are spending the taxpayers' pennies."

The fees might not come as a surprise for Mr. Blair's hosts, since they must have paid them before his arrival, but there is certainly a differences in tone between this visit and for example the also very costly visit by former US president Bill Clinton a few years ago.
Apart from a visit to a conference of e-commerce firm Alibaba in Hangzhou, most attention went to Mr. Clinton's support for the Aids orphans in Henan province, identifying his visit more as a humanitarian mission than as a way to earn loads of money. Blair's visit was even lacking the smell of charity and did not really contribute much to this country, was a much heard blame of the Chinese media.
Most of Mr. Clinton's revenues go anyway into his Clinton foundation and from his last trip to China perhaps even more as Mrs. Clinton did not report any income from her husbands trip to Hangzhou as she had to file her financial situation before she registered as a candidate for the upcoming presidential elections in the US.
Also, the atmosphere in China has been changing under this waiving banner of China's president Hu Jintao's "harmonious society". Making money at any costs is no longer done and goes very much against the current policies of the central government, explaining the fierce reaction of the government-controlled media.
Mr. Blair, his hosts and their advisers seemed to have missed this rather important change in China's political climate. The negative fall-out of this visit might well go beyond the now-closed Blair visit to China. Future visitors of his level will be scrutinized even more severely and potential hosts might actually refrain from inviting high-leveled celebrities because of the feared negative feelings it might cause.

The losing face of ads in China - Van de Bergh

Jan van de Bergh

Interactive marketeer and Chinabiz Speaker Jan van de Bergh makes on his blog fun about an article by a leading marketeer, Ashok Sethi in the China Daily, who clearly has lost touch with reality.

Reading this article early this morning, I wondered when China Daily will ask some of the Chinese interactive leaders to write about advertising. The author of this one is a TNS big shot in Asia Pacific. A researcher. The article gives a superficial overview of what he thinks to be the changing face, but he clearly is not aware of the landslide going on: advertising is not "changing face", but "losing face". You can continue to call it a change, but that's a suicidal euphemism. It's also not a phenomenon which is uniquely Chinese, but intensely global.

Reading the China Daily is not such a useful way to get information.

Chinese official sends US dollar for a dive

Cheng Siwei

I was more than surprised when I learned that Cheng Siwei, amongst other functions vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and dean of the business school of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, publicly announced that China should exchange its 1.43 trillion reserves in US dollars for stronger currencies.
According to Market Watch:

Most analysts said that Cheng, who is notorious for his off-the-cuff, market-moving remarks, was probably not expressing official policy. A rapidly plunging dollar isn't in China's best interest, because it erodes the return on the country's massive holdings of dollar-denominated assets.

Of course anybody who is right in his head and living outside of the US, will have sold as much as possible of the US dollars. But when a representative of the largest owner of US dollars is going public in saying that, he creates a problem. Of course, the US dollar started to drop like crazy against the Euro. Curious about the strategy behind all this, if any.

What does it take to be a white-collar worker

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has come up with a kind of grading of the major Chinese cites in terms of what it costs to be a white-collar worker, conveniently redefined as having a decent life and a desirable living style. Global Voices summarizes the report and the unavoidable debate on the internet.
While the report throws apples, pears and grapes nicely in one basket, it does give a kind of ranking between the different cities in China.
Of course Hong Kong and Macao are in a different league altogether. I was missing Taipei here, you would expect that to be present even if it is only for political reasons.
What I found striking was the low position of Guangzhou, that has been at least on par with Shanghai and Beijing for a long time and sometimes (depending on your way of counting) even ahead of them.
I knew Wenzhou was doing well, but did not expect the city to end up already that high.
The internet users strongly disagree with the report and because they include in a "decent life" also driving a car and paying mortgage, often they find the figures too low.

Update: By now the reports seems to be a fake, nothing unusual in China. Danwei points at a story in the China Digital News on the issue that for one reason or another doesn't make it to my side of the GFW.

China's ongoing sexual revolution

James Farrer

The Guardian has a nice update on China's ongoing sexual revolution, that continues to appeal to the outside world. Border are shifting, but they do already since the 1980s.

'My sex life is very interesting. Some may find it educational as well as entertaining,' said the 29-year-old journalist [and former sex blogger Muzi Mei] over a bowl of steaming soup in a Beijing restaurant. 'I sleep with lots of men because I don't want to be imprisoned in one relationship,' she declared to the giggles of eavesdropping waitresses. 'I am a free spirit.'

Su Fei of Sexy Beijing gave the link and some comments on the row the article has cause in China, but for one reason or the other I cannot get her links working.
Chinabiz Speaker James Farrer is an expert on the matter and wrote a boot about it:

China Mobile major partner of Google's Android

The participation of China Mobile in Google's yesterday's announced new platform Android for mobile devices,was certainly a bit of a surprise, since no other Chinese partners like handset manufacturers were involved.
China Mobile might be in terms of valuation the largest telecom provider in the world, its global adventures have up to now been very limited and mostly a disaster. Being part of this potentially groundbreaking initiative is certainly a change for the better.
The open platform, being provided for thousands of different mobile phones, should be on the market in the second half of 2008, but developers can already start making applications by next week. The Android-based mobile phone should be able to give internet access on a phone that is much cheaper than the current handsets.
Nokia was also not in the alliance, but Motorola, Samsung and LG were. It is going to be an interesting shake-out.

Beijing residents "not amused" by air quality

Beijing air by James Fallow

The Beijing Olympics are less than a year ahead and that is cause some increased migration to the country's capital. A whole bunch of people actually left Shanghai to attend this historic event as a resident. But while there is nothing wrong with Beijing as a city, the complaints about the air quality are pretty dominant in their stories.
Author and journalist James Fallow is one of this recent arrivals, promising today he would leave the subject of the air pollution for the time being. But he and others have serious misgivings about Beijing's ability to clean up its act on time before the Olympics in 2008.
They are not alone. Also long term resident Gilbert van Kerkhove, advising the municipal government on the Olympics, in his blog notes that for everybody involved it is now "fasten seatbelts".

Also Wal-Mart sacks staff

Wal-Mart China is going to dismiss up to one hundred staff members, the official Chinese media have announced.
While those media make a link with the upcoming Labor Contract Law, that would firing people much harder, according to Wal-Mart this is part of an international reconstruction.
Last year Wal-Mart got much international attention as the Chinese trade union federation ACFTU started to organize its staff, initially against the will of the management.
In the article about the upcoming dismissals the ACFTU is even not mentioned.

Government introduces paid holidays in draft rules

China's employees might very soon get between five and fifteen extra paid holidays on top of the current compulsory holidays, says a draft proposal of the State Council, China's highest administrative organ. The proposal is out for comments until November 16, writes Xinhua news agency.
Employees would be eligible for fifteen holidays if they have been working for longer than ten years. The first year of employment would go without the extra holidays.

Employees who have worked from one to ten years would have five days paid vacation; those who have worked for ten to 20 years would have ten days; and those with more than 20 years 15 days. Legal holidays and weekends will not be included as paid vacation.

Now China has officially three three-day compulsory holidays, Spring festival, the May holiday and the October holiday, although leave during Spring festival could be longer. Teachers are excluded from the new proposal, since they have a three-month break each year anyway.

Update: The Shanghai Daily has, only a few days later, been reading a totally different draft.

The three-day May Day holiday will be cut to one day, while the Tomb-sweeping Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival will become national holidays, according to the draft, which was released by the central government's office in charge of national holidays. That would raise the number of paid holiday days to 11 days from the current 10 days.

Killing one of the golden weeks in exchange for three one-day national holidays and no individual holidays: that might spark off a fierce national debate.

Busy days for subway watchers in Shanghai

the master plan

These a busy times for the subway watchers in Shanghai. New lines are being added shortly and especially at the hubs now much construction is going on.
Yesterday I passed a few times People's Square and that seems very busy as the traditionally chaotic transit between lines 1 and 2 is going to be replaced and line 8 is going to be added. That transit has always been very troublesome and years ago a municipal official in charge of construction explained how that came.
Line 1 was mainly financed by German tax money and the municipal officials were very exited about getting its first subway funded, so exited that they even not thought that they would be able to get a second line. So, when line 2 was financed - again partly with German money - the transit at People's Square proved to be troublesome and basically they had to build a second station.
That forced the massive passenger streams to walk long distances between the two stations.
Those days will be over soon, as the reconstruction of a major new station takes place, while daily traffic goes on as - well almost - normal.
Last night I saw that a major new exit was appearing at the southeast corner of People's Square, so when thing work out well my daily travel time might be reduced too.

Huawei allegedly sacked 7,000 people

The upcoming new Contract Labor Law is allegedly causing more upheavel as Shenzhen-based leading IT-company Huawei sacked 7,000 of its senior employees, only to rehire them again, write China Tech News. By letting them sign a 'new' labor contract Huawei hopes to erase their labor history and save money on welfare, pension and dismissal funds.
Huawei is said to have spend one billion Renminbi (€ 100 million) on the operation.
The Shenzhen labor department has started an investigation, writes the China Tech News.
Earlier this year also China's central TV, CCTV, fired between 3,000 and 5,000 staff member to avoid trouble with the upcoming labor contract law.

Why the Shanghai boom will last for a while

Brilliance shopping mall in Hongqiao

Shanghai is making the best out of the Year of the Pig. Nay-sayers, who mainly look at the basic figures at the Shanghai stock exchange, keep on wondering when the miracle will be over. A few strolls into booming Shanghai might explain why the economic underpinning of its growth is more solid than those figures often seem to suggest.
Yesterday I went to visit a friend in a Hongqiao hospital where she just delivered a s son. That in itself is in Shanghai a vow of confidence. Partly triggered off by the year of the pig, maternity wards all over the city are packed and when you see the high number of very pregnant women in the subway you know this is going to last for the coming months. That will stimulate consumer spending in itself.
While walking from one of the new line 2 subway stations in Hongqiao to the hospital I passed the Brilliance shopping mall at Xianxia Road, a place where I had not been in ages. The mall was rather new, huge and packed with people.
Also yesterday at my own Tianyaoqiao Road, connecting the Longhua temple, via Shanghai Stadium with Xujiahui Square, a new shopping mall was opened: the Novel Place. The street has over the past few years already been dotted with shopping malls, but this is a major new one, famous restaurants, the Blue Frog and upscale City Shopping supermarket.
At both places huge new residential buildings have been erected, in the high-end of the middle class, bringing customers directly to the shopping malls. In terms of square meters some experts says that Shanghai's retail is having an enormous bubble, but I saw in both those places brisk business.
In the coming months Shanghai will see the number of subway lines more than double, from five to eleven, literally opening up even more parts of the city for economic development. Like all the nay-sayers I do not believe this can go on in such a speed forever. But for the time being we are very OK.

Starbucks commercial hits imagination

Last week I caught myself watching a commercial several times at the Shanghai subway. It first caught my eye because it was really very professionally done, different from the often clumsy Chinese products, where the price seemed to have been the main issue of the client.
Not this one. It took a while before I discovered it was a Starbucks commercial, very nicely woven into a bigger story of a country girl making career in Shanghai, becoming a blogger and a latte drinker, exploring her love life.
It touches very subtle on the fast-changing urban society and the aspirations of young Chinese.
James Areddy of the Wall Street Journal had already written about the commercial "A Sunny Day", I discovered.

"It's quite unique and demonstrates a departure from conventional marketing," says Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman. The coffee company hasn't traditionally advertised, Mr. Schultz says, adding that a soap opera can be effective since it creates "real entertainment for our customers and along the way there is a complementary message." PepsiCo, which will bottle and distribute the Starbucks-branded drinks, referred questions to Starbucks.

I could not find the commercial online yet, but I did find some other interesting movies made by Starbucks at Tudou. They are not as well done as the one I saw at the Shanghai subway, but illustrates a nice tendency of improved quality of the ads and - last but not least - a way to find their way online.
I'm curious to see how the Chinese internet reacts on this commercial use of this tool.

China's regional differences

Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo recites some of the regional differences in China on his personal weblog:

The Shanghainese are philistines, and this they’ll gladly own:
Commercial instincts permeate them to the very bone.
Their pride in Shanghai’s petit bourgeois ethos is immense
But what they lack in culture, they make up in common sense.

Regional differences that are eroding, I should add. In one way I always preferred Beijing over Shanghai. In Beijing you could at least understand a part of the conversations in the elevators, on the markets. In Shanghai Shanghainese was the standard. That is now changes quickly, I note on the street. Also in Shanghai, just like in Shenzhen, Putonghua is fast becoming the new standard.