I Love China

Here’s another classic early WoAi “blog” entry from January 1979:

“Dad said we are not allowed to buy sweets anymore without asking him because we ate sweets just before lunch. The sweets were Tooty Frooties and Freshen-Ups”

I think it’s hilarious I felt it necessary to specifically mention what the sweets were that resulted in my dad’s candy crackdown.

Does anyone remember Tooty Frooties and Freshen-Ups? Rowntree’s Tooty Frooties were launched in 1963 and were chewy fruity sweets with a polished crunchy sugar coating and contained fruit juice and no artificial colours or flavours.  (Rowntree is now owned by food giant Nestle). I believe Freshen Up was a gum that had liquid in the centre that squirted out in your mouth.

I’ve heard some amusing stories about people’s experiences of the iPad in China. It does appear that many Chinese consumers want one, but they aren’t really sure why. In fact, they don’t seem to even know what it does!

Not long after the iPad was launched, a friend of mine changed her MSN tag to “I want an iPad”. A few days later, the tag proudly read “I just bought an iPad”. And the next day “does anyone know how to use iPad?”

Then yesterday I was talking with a friend of mine and she mentioned one of her friends recently bought an iPad, but after just two weeks, she’s trying to sell it because she doesn’t understand how to use it and doesn’t find it useful.

Much of China is still relatively poor, but in the big cities like Shanghai, it appears there are many people with more money than they know what to do with, so they spend most of their day thinking of new things they could buy and only AFTER buying will they work out if it’s something they actually need.

Perhaps they could follow in the footsteps of billionaires George Lucas, Michael Bloomberg, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates who have just pledged to give away half or more of their entire wealth. I’ve often wondered, as I’m sure you have too, what it must be like to have 47 billion dollars and what on earth drives them get up and go to work every morning. How would an extra billion or two change their lives, and conversely, would their lives be any different if they had a few billion less? Obviously not.

So I have to applaud them then for making such a genrous gesture for charity. Mind you, I bet they all already have iPads!  Which reminds me, I didn’t notice Steve Jobs in the list of billionaires giving money away – shame on you!

From time to time I check the logs to see how people arrive at my site. The results never fail to amuse. It’s interersting also that this particular person was looking for blow jobs at 8.29am …. on a Monday morning! I’m no expert in Google search statistics, but I would imagine most searches of this nature would occur at night and during the weekend.

I got an international phone call last night at 7pm. Caller ID doesn’t usually work for international calls so I didn’t know who it was calling. The conversation went like this:

WoAi : Hello?

Caller : Hello, is this Miss WoAi?

WoAi : Erm, well, yes it is, but actually I’m not a miss.

Caller : Oh, I apologise, is it Mrs WoAi?

WoAi [in as deep a voice as possible] : Actually, how can I put this ….. I’m not female!

Caller : Ah Mr WoAi, this is HSBC calling from HK, we noticed you do not have an HSBC Premier credit card, only a normal HSBC credit card, would you like to upgrade?

WoAi : Well actually I applied for the Premier card 3 months ago and it’s already been sent out to me, but you sent it out to China without mentioning which city (Shanghai). There are over 600 cities in China, so I don’t think it’s going to arrive. In fact, I spoke to one of your colleagues just this afternoon and they’re sending me out another one today.

Caller : Oh, yes, I see, sorry to trouble you, have a good evening.

In this day and age, it’s hard to understand how HSBC can call up a customer and not know their gender. But equally hard to comprehend how they cannot see that a customer has already been issued a product they are trying to promote.

They pride themselves on having “local knowledge”. That may be true, but how about a bit of customer knowledge!

HSBC, FAIL!

Chandler, Phoebe, Monica and Joey enjoying a few lattes at Beijing’s Central Perk

On my way back from Guangzhou I read with interest in the free China Daily that some enterprising Friends fan had opened a copy of the famous coffee shop from the TV show that needs no mention. And speaking of no mention, there was no mention in the article about any potential copyright issues!

It’s a bit hard for me to give a first hand review so perhaps my good friend CP would be kind enough to pop over and let us know how good the coffee is and whether the waitress can hold a candle to Rachel. I actually think it’s pure genius – the best excuse ever to hire completely incompetent waitress. Ever.

Details:
Central Perk
Chaowai SOHO
6 Chaoyangmenwai Dajie
Building A, Suite 0616

I coudn’t let this one go without a mention – congratulations to China on beating the French World Cup team at the weekend. I think I need to get myself down to Bar Rouge this weekend wearing my China football shirt and chanting “allez les bleus!”

Yes that’s right, just a couple of weeks ago, I turned 28 and today, Dingle turns 38. Hard to believe he’s only ten years older than me, but I guess that’s the beauty of being Asian!

As I’m now travelling in Malaysia and Dingle doesn’t have any other friends, we celebrated earlier last weekend at Dr Wine (more of this in the upcoming podcast episode 16!

Please note these are the only photographs in existence that show Dingle wearing a shirt with a collar.

Have a great day uncle Dingle!

I thought this had to be worth a mention, especially since I just got back late last night from a trip to Guangdong province. A mall in Guangzhou held a competition to see if anyone could undo 8 bras in under a minute. If I had the chance, it would be one of those rare occasions I would not be ultra competitive but instead I’d probably feign ignorance and try reaching round to undo from the front. But that’s just me!

If one picture isn’t enough for you there’s another in The Telegraph which is priceless. I think the guy just came in his pants!

I love how the 8 girls are all wearing masks to protect their identities!

A recent article in the South China Morning Post covered the recent rising trend for Chinese men to go to Vietnam to find wives. It’s common knowledge that China’s one child policy, combined with the Chinese traditional view that a son is better than a daughter, has created a gender imbalance, but that’s not the only reason some Chinese men are looking further afield to find a suitable life partner. As a 42 year old (coincidentally my age) dance school owner from Nanjing named Dai put it, “Vietnamese women were young, virtuous, pretty, hard-working, obedient and gentle ….. unlike their money-worshipping, greedy mainland counterparts.”

It’s funny because it’s true, at least to some extent. I’ve heard of engagements being called off because the groom did not own his own apartment and I wrote a while ago about some of my Shanghainese colleagues asking me at lunch how I expected to find a girlfriend after I confessed I was only renting and did not own my own property.

Mr Dai goes on to say “My ex-wife wanted LV bags and a new car from me while my Vietnamese wife takes care of the laundry, cooking and cleaning, and even peels the shells off shrimp for me. For the first time, I feel beloved and spoiled.”

Dai wrote about his success story on his own blog and has since received thousands of enquiries from Chinese men hoping to follow in his footsteps and amusingly, he’s also received a few threats from angry Chinese women!

I wonder though if it’s a real cultural difference, or if it’s simply due to the fact that Vietnam is lagging behind China in terms of development, so perhaps in 10 years time, it will be the Vietnamese girls who are demanding 1000 dollar LV bags and Gucci slip-ons from their unfortunate boyfriends.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to Vietnam to catch!

As we once ordered McDonalds live on our podcast, I can’t deny I occasionally surrender to the urge to eat junk food, mainly as it’s convenient when I don’t have time to go out myself to buy some lunch.

So today I ordered a big mac meal and 5 chicken nuggets and as is usually the case, the delivery guy arrived in about 10 minutes with my meal. Every past order has been dealt with so effectively I don’t bother checking what’s inside and this time it came back to bite me – there were no french fries.

I ran out to the lift lobby but the delivery guy was long gone. So I called the hotline (4008-517-517) and told them what had happened. They apologised and said they would arrange for the fries to be sent.

A few minutes later I got a call from the actual branch. They said they realised they had forgotten the fries and that someone was on their way to deliver them to me. Excellent. Then she asked if I would mind cancelling the call to the hotline, which puzzled me somewhat.

“Er, what do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, can you call back the hotline and tell them we didn’t forget the fries?”

“But you DID forget the fries” I replied.

There was a nervous laugh on the other end of the phone and then she simply said okay and that the fries would be with me shortly.

The delivery guy arrived and was again very apologetic, explaining the fries were in a different compartment and that’s why they were missed. He also asked if I could call the hotline to cancel the missing fries order.

I suppose they get punished if a customer complains, perhaps even have to pay a fine. But I’m sorry, I’m not going to call back and say it was MY mistake and that the fries were in the bag all along. I’m surprised they even asked. Okay, I’m not THAT surprised!