I Love China

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!

I was interviewing this week and as part of the selection process we usually get the candidates to prepare a short presentation to the directors to assess their potential.

In total there were 4 girls and the variation in their presentation and data analysis skills was quite wide. But one thing they all did without exception was keep their thick puffy overcoats on for the entire interview / presentation process.

It was only a few days ago I mentioned on this blog how a group of Chinese people were in the Blue Frog for an entire evening and kept their coats on the whole time.

Can someone please help me out here? I don’t quite get it.

So it’s new years day in Shanghai. What better way to start the year than to go shopping for a new laptop computer … in your slippers and pyjamas! What I especially love is how the slippers match the pyjamas, so it’s not like they haven’t put a lot of thought in to their clothing before popping out.

You all know that I was planning a quiet night at home on new years eve, but even I did not imagine I would have fallen asleep after dinner and completely missed the midnight countdown. When I woke it was 12:24am. Oh well, what is the big deal about new year anyway. I mean, why is everyone celebrating the fact that we’re all a year older? I don’t really get it. I love Christmas and go all out to celebrate it, but new year? I can take it or leave it. I guess you can call me the new year Scrooge – bah, humbug!

You’ve all heard the saying, there’s only two things that are certain in life : death and taxes. Well, I beg to differ.

If there’s one piece of advice I would give to anyone moving to China , it is to get as many passport-sized photographs of yourself made as possible because no matter how many you get done, it will NEVER be enough. You need 4 to apply for your residence permit, 3 for your work permit, 5 for the health check, 2 for the registration with the local public security bureau, 2 if you want to buy a bottle of water at the convenience store.

So what I did a while ago was to have about 30 passport photos done in one go thinking that will keep me going for at least 2 or 3 weeks. But alas, they always find a way to trip you up and this morning my heart sank when I got an email from HR requesting 4 passport sized photos. Why would that be a problem you ask? Well, the email stipulated that I have to supply “2 photos by 2.5*3.5cm” and “2 photos by 3.5*5.3cm”.

I’m now convinced it’s a cunning way for the government to indirectly support local passport photography businesses without coming under attack from the World Trade Organisation for unfairly supporting domestic businesses!

What’s the betting that if I go make 30 2.5*3.5 cm photos and 30 3.5*5.3cm photos, I’ll be asked next time for 2.5*5.2cm photos?

Up until today, we had been enjoying glorious autumn weather. All weekend was still tee shirt weather here in Shanghai, but all that sadly came to an abrupt end this morning and the first signs of winter have appeared. So it’s time to brush the dust off the electric radiators and the electric blanket.

Still it’s not as bad as Beijing which had its first snowfall of the year yesterday, the earliest snowfall for 22 years. The snow though was induced rather than natural, after the authorities fired 186 silver iodide sticks in to the sky, so I don’t know if it should count in the historical weather records.

I guess Tommy and I will have to snuggle up tight tonight, brrrrrgh!

It’s hairy crab season in Shanghai from October to December and all Shanghainese go crazy for them, whether they buy them from the wet market to cook at home or choose the more expensive option of dining in one of many crab restaurants. I won’t go  in to too much detail on the crab topic because Swiss James has done a fine job of it in his recent blog post on the subject, so I’ll just give a plug to the specialist crab restaurant I always go to each year, right by my office on Jiu Jiang Road close to The Bund.

I generally eat them at home as eating out prices are nothing short of insanity for these delicacies. The only time I eat crabs outside is when I have out of town visitors or occasionally, when the meal is work related. And luckily, we had a senior visitor last week from Taiwan who wanted to eat crab.

Cheng long hang xie wang fu (成隆行蟹王府) is a fairly premium hairy crab restaurant that opens all year round but is most busy during the peak crab season. It’s very popular with Asian tourists, especially from Japan. In fact, after a quick browse on Trip Advisor I discovered 5 reviews for this restaurant and all 5 were in Japanese!

Prices started from 388 RMB per head and went up to 1388 RMB per head which is just silly if you ask me when you can get these in supermarkets for less than 20 RMB. However, all set meals do include a large number of dishes that are made with various parts of the crab (as well as shark fin soup), and everyone gets a whole crab each which they will “de-shell” for you if you like.

The sales technique of the waitresses is not particularly sophisticated. In fact, it was downright disgraceful. After we indicated our choice of the 388 rmb set menu, she basically started to try an upsell us by saying that the meal we chose was really not good and “all the food in that menu were very very ordinary and the crab is very very small”!

I wanted to say “I don’t work in the banking industry where the big bonuses and good times seem to be back again, I work in market research so we’re lucky to be here on company expenses at all”. But I think that would have been lost on her so we just said it’s okay, we’re used to mediocrity.

The meal of course, was excellent, it’s just a pity you have to go through the whole rigmorole of sales banter at the beginning which might spoil it for some people. I should add that 388 rmb per person is what some people in China earn in a month!

Additional information:
Cheng long hang xie wang fu
Address: No.216 Jiujiang Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai, China
Phone: 021-6321 2010

I don’t have any statistics but I am certain that as a percentage of the population, China has one of the highest number of people working as security guards.

The guards at my office stand by the lifts and every time they spot someone who is a messenger or courier, they body block them and tell them to use the service elevator at the back of the building. This annoys the crap out of many couriers, some of whom try to argue for a while before giving up.

Every time someone enters the lift lobby the guard gives them a quick glance and usually in a split second they decide whether you look like a courier or someone who works in the building and react accordingly by either smiling politely or turning on the hostility and bullying the courier to the back of the building.  Occasionally when I dress casually, I do wonder if I’ll be mistaken for a messenger but I guess they’re pretty skilled at distinguishing by now and I’ve never had any problems.

This morning as I entered the building from the back door, I saw a courier guy arguing with about 6 security guards from my office building. I have no idea what the dispute was about but it got quite heated and after a few seconds it turned violent. The courier was a bit foolish as he was clearly outnumbered and he basically became a punching bag for 6 guards who all took turns to punch the guy. One guard couldn’t reach with a punch (he had short arms) so he looked for a gap and kicked the messenger instead. That’s something you don’t see too often at work in England (although it’s a common sight down the pub on a Saturday night)!

The Internet connection at my office is not the best. If people send large attachments, say 5-10MB, it can take all morning to download, because the connection is often broken half way through and needs to start again. This is frustrating at the best of times. Many people here in China seem oblivious to the issue of large file attachments and I frequently get 10MB plus attachments of Powerpoint files.

But what’s worse is getting 10MB Powerpoint files that aren’t work related and are sent from people who I barely know. In this case, it’s someone who once worked for my company, who I had very few dealings with, but seems to have added me to her list of lucky “friends” who get regular cutesy PPT files sent direct to their work inbox (which has now exceeded its limit!).

The worst case happened a few years ago when I kept getting junk from some guy at a competing agency. When I wrote to him saying I’ve never met him, he replied “but you are in my address book so I must know you”. It turns out a mutual client once wrote an email to both of us and that’s how I was added to his address book.

I guess I can add this to the list of things I do not understand about China. Why the FUCK do people circulate these things. If I want cute photos of frogs and butterflies, I can Google them! Maybe it’s because Facebook is still blocked in China and this is how they fill their work days now.

I’ve written to the person concerned quite bluntly asking her to stop sending me crap. Let’s see how she responds.

Due to open this summer, the Happy Valley Sheshan theme park has hit a few snags during its soft opening according to the Shanghai Daily.

Here’s a few of the highlights:

Some people were stuck by the park’s star free-fall ride midair for minutes. Technicians later found out the short-circuit was caused by a metal pen cap dropped from a visitor’s pocket.

Countless small accidents, hours of waiting, bad food and poor facilities sparked outrage among thousands of visitors, many of whom had waited for hours in the rain before the gate opened.

However, what the park offered were a third of its rides and a strong smell of paint as much of the park is yet to be finished.

A sign board fell on three visitors’s head, but the park’s first aid centre has not been completed yet.

The park’s doctor ran from one spot to another to treat the injured.

Some visitors lost their temper and argued with park staff.

Visitor Chen Yating complained she had spent hours waiting for the free-fall ride, only to find it had stopped operating for safety reason.

A group of three men had to wait four hours for the two-minute roller-coaster ride.

Visitor Xia Yan said she spent two hours waiting to buy KFC .

It reminds me of the opening of terminal five in London’s Heathrow airport last year!

The official opening has now been pushed back to 16th August.

I came out of a meeting the other day and needed to get a taxi to my next meeting across town. It was about 37 degrees, which means it takes about 2 minutes to get drenched in sweat. There was a guy standing by the road with a dog and I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for a taxi or just loitering. I was in front of him but he had been standing there before me, so when an empty taxi came, despite the sweltering heat, instead of doing what everyone else does in Shanghai and just grab the taxi, I tried to pay it forward and waved the taxi on, so the guy with the dog could take it. The taxi moved slowly forwards but as soon as he saw that the guy had a dog, he drove off. I guess the taxi driver didn’t want a dog messing up his car.

So because of my attempt at being kind, not only did I not get the taxi but the guy with the dog also had to continue waiting while dripping with sweat.

A few minutes later another empty taxi came by. I guess I could have done the same thing, but I thought I’m not gonna stand here all day long till some dog friendly taxi driver comes by. So I got the empty cab and left the guy with the dog waiting.

Anyway, the lesson from today is, don’t bother trying to be nice. That never pays off!