Shanghai Scrap

All this talk about the rising price of Chinese manufacturing and the threat it poses to the proliferation of cheap consumer goods worldwide, well, it’s kinda got me down. China has long been capable of better, and I’m not just talking about computer chips, either. So, in the spirit of fair and balanced reporting, I present a series of photos that I took in a small inkstone workshop in southern Anhui Province. This is slow, labor-intensive, highly-skilled manufacturing of a high-quality object sold at an extremely high price. Generally, not the kind of work or product sought by today’s export-oriented manufacturers. China Daily recently reported that manufacturers in the increasingly expensive Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas are moving to Anhui in search of cheap labor. I’m sure they’ll find it – but certainly not in this workshop.

Above, the tool bench. After the jump, more photos … (more…)

It was a long day. I wrote several thousand words and carried a twenty-five pound bag of oranges uphill for a mile (long story). But even after all that trouble I still managed to find the time to click over to Jottings from the Granite Studio and read about this Day in (Chinese) History. You should, too (and that goes for my many new friends from Jezebel).

Granite Studio is (very well) written by Jeremiah Jenne, and you’re bound to learn something from it. Heck, if you’re anything like me, you’re bound to learn a whole lot. While you’re at it, have a look at Jeremiah’s very interesting post, “Prejudice Made Plausible: Foreign Criticism and Chinese Sensitivities” over at the China Beat.

[And while you're reading, consider listening to this.]

I think it’s fair to suggest that no other seven foot, six inch man (2.25m) weighing 310 lb. (140.6 kg) has played as much basketball as Yao Ming has played over the last six years. In addition to his paid obligations as a starting center on an NBA team which plays 82 games, a handful of exhibition games and (alas) only a handful of playoff games, as well as daily practices and a grueling training camp – Yao’s leisure time is dominated by his patriotic obligation to practice and play with the Chinese National team, which maintains a similarly grueling schedule of exhibitions and international tournaments. From the standpoint of physical workload, it comes down to this: Yao Ming hasn’t had a summer off in ten years – a situation pretty much unparalleled in professional basketball.

Yao has never indicated which of his obligations – the national team, or the Rockets – is more important to him. But, there are fleeting hints that his body, if not his mind, is starting to rebel against the national team’s demands. Last summer, according to various media reports, he arrived late to national team practices so as to allow his body some extra rest after the grueling 2006-07 NBA season (he also needed time for his wedding, and Special Olympics promotions). China’s national sports authorities were not sympathetic. As the AP reported the story:

The Houston Rockets‘ star was faulted for taking too much time off to recover from his last NBA season. The government’s All-China Sports Federation also said he spent too much time planning his wedding and making appearances for the Special Olympics and 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

“No matter how lofty public welfare activities are, they can’t be allowed to take first place in a player’s life,” the China Sports Daily, a federation-owned newspaper, said in an article appearing Tuesday.

“No matter how sweet personal life is, it can’t be compared to the exultation of capturing glory for one’s nation,” the article said.

[I blogged about this dust-up here.]

There’s more than ample evidence that Yao needed the rest (not to mention the wedding). Indeed, anybody who has followed the Houston Rockets and Yao over the last half-decade knows that – by the end of the season, and by the end of most games – Yao is fatigued. Coaches and rivals have noticed, too: In 2006, Flip Saunders, coach of the Detroit Pistons publicly stated that his strategy for beating Houston was to wear down Yao because “Yao gets tired in the fourth quarter.” (more…)

I’m buried in a long project at the moment, but when I peak out from beneath the words I can’t help but notice that – quite suddenly – more than a few people are worried about the effect that Chinese inflation will have on US consumer prices – and demand, and the future of China-based sourcing. I don’t plan on providing a deeply nuanced opinion at the moment, but based upon a few recent conversations, I feel comfortable hypothesizing three trends over the – oh, I don’t know – coming months (and US recession). (more…)

Yesterday, with little notice outside of Minnesota, The Rake died as a print publication. And that’s a pity.

My association with the nearly six-year-old Minneapolis-based publication dates back to its fourth issue. It was a proud and supportive relationship, and though I haven’t been much of a contributor over the last couple of years, I’ve always valued its pages as an outlet for my writing – including, my writing from China. I can’t emphasize this enough: it is the rare regional magazine that will support – much less, finance expenses – for deeply researched feature-length stories from Asia. The Rake not only did that, but they did it without asking many questions beyond, “When will we see the copy?” (more…)

Last week Shanghai’s state-owned Xinmin Evening News reported that Shanghai was confidentially applying strict beauty standards, including highly detailed mathematical ratios to the selection of forty female college students to represent the city as Olympic “hostesses” in August. The story was picked up by Xinhua, and by mid-week, was inspiring anger and ridicule in letters to the editor. No surprise, in the face of public ridicule, the Shanghai officials involved in drawing up the standards (“ruddy and shiny complexion”, “elastic skin” and “a plump but not fat body”), denied them at a news conference (which was, alas, closed to overseas media).

Remarkably, the Xinmin Evening News not only refused to back down from the story, but later in the week printed a front-page defense of it, including a description of how they obtained the classified standards memo. [O]fficials at an official news conference who don’t speak the truth have had great impact on the reputation of the media and the government’s credibility, noted the editorial (excerpted in the subscriber-only South China Morning Post). (more…)

Managing the Dragon has an interesting and provocative post on off-shoring of production by a Chinese state-owned textile manufacturer. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that this is a growing phenomenon, but it’s interesting to read an account from somebody directly involved with it:

The manager I spoke with had no reservations about the off-shoring. As he saw it, by shipping apparel jobs overseas, he was helping, not harming the Chinese worker. As he put it, “Off-shoring is good for China. Think about it, textiles used to be the number one export industry for China, but today electronics have surpassed textiles. That’s good for Chinese workers because they can make more money manufacturing electronics.”

A couple of emails from readers wondering when I’ll next blog about scrap. Soon, I promise. In the meantime, how about a photo of a scrap motor processing venture up Jiangsu-way? I’m not going to name the company here, but I will say that they are likely China’s largest importer of ferrous scrap, and – in search of a means to diversify – they have just entered the non-ferrous scrap markets with a vengeance. Not only are they scaling up to become one of China’s major low-grade copper importers, but they are actually sending head-hunters down to Zhejiang to pick-off that province’s rich store of experienced motor processors by offering salaries in excess of RMB 2500/month (US$350). That’s more than many (most?) Chinese school teachers make out of university. When I first started following this industry five years ago, a Chinese motor processor was lucky to earn RMB 800/month.

How long can this last? Is copper demand in China strong enough to justify those kinds of salaries? More pressing: At US$2+/pound, can’t somebody in the US justify keeping those motors in the US for processing? As it happens, I’ve heard from several sources that a group of Albanian refugees (congrats on Kosovo) are setting up a motor processing operation in the Midwest. I don’t know the scale, but I suppose, if they’re successful, someone else in the US might take a crack at that US$2 copper.

So Huawei and its hired guns at Bain Capital won’t be able to acquire that controlling stake in 3Com, a leading US telecom equipment manufacturer, after all. Count me as surprised: I really figured that China was due for a “make-up call” after what (many characterized as) protectionist sentiments scuttled CNOOC’s proposed acquisition of UNOCAL, the 8th largest US oil company, in 2005. Huawei, we were told by Bain and its partisans, is a different kind of company – a private one (started by a former PLA officer).

From the outset, US regulators were more than a little suspicious of Huawei’s secretive ownership structure and ongoing commerce with the PLA. But that wasn’t necessarily an insurmountable obstacle to the deal, and most companies in this position would not only realize this fact, but they would do the sensible thing and hire a team of US lobbyists and media consultants to guide them through the rather predictable PR gauntlet that the deal would have to run. I must admit, I have no idea whether or not Huawei did that, but if they did, the consultants weren’t around to handle the Financial Times reporters who ran this on the front page of the US edition of their paper on February 12:

Now, far be it from me to give media and marketing advice to one of China’s largest and most important companies, but it seems to me that – if you’re looking to allay the fears of US lawmakers – telling them that they’re full of crap – and I mean, really telling them just that – isn’t the way to do it.

On that topic – since when does the FT run expletives? Much less, on the front page?

And, while I’m still on the topic, I think the US made the right choice in opposing this deal, for reasons that I wrote about here.

In the life of a journalist, there aren’t too many opportunities to write about an unambiguous good (and believe me, I’m always looking). Which is why I was so pleased when Mother Jones (and my friend and editor, Jennifer Vogel) expressed an interest in the groundbreaking HIV/AIDS home care and prevention program administered by Sister Fabian Han Fengxia, a Catholic nun, and medical doctor, in Shenyang.

The subsequent profile went online late last week, and can be found here.

HIV/AIDS prevention and the Catholic Church don’t always go together – especially in China – but Fabian handles such challenges with aplomb, courage, and straight-up determination. It’s also worth pointing out that Fabian’s work is representative of a quiet but growing Chinese Catholic social services movement that has the potential to become the largest non-profit social services delivery system in China – run, primarily, by women. Above, a photo of a Shenyang sister staffing an HIV/AIDS prevention information booth in front of Shenyang’s cathedral on World AIDS Day, 2007.

[Fabian received an MA from Fordham University in New York in 2005, and I wrote about the Maryknoll program that arranged for her education - and that of nearly 100 additional Chinese nuns, seminarians, priests, and laity since 1991 in June 2007 for Slate. That article can be found here.]

Below, excerpts from two descriptions. One is taken from a Xinhua story describing the “detailed standards” required of the 40 Shanghainese college students who will be selected to serve as “Olympic hostesses” in Beijing. The other is excerpted from the American Kennel Club’s detailed standards for the hairless Chinese Crested dog variety. Can you match the description to the photo?

A. “Eye length is three-tenths of the face” … “elastic skin” … “ruddy but not shiny complexion” … “a plump but not fat body” … and strict ratios “between the width of the nose and the length of the face” and “width of the mouth and width between the pupils.”

B. “fine boned, elegant and graceful” … “skin is soft and smooth” … “almond-shaped [eyes]” … “skull is arched gently” … “Ribs are well-developed” … “Neck is lean … and carried high.”

The correct answer – and commentary – follows the jump.

[UPDATE: See comment 9, below, for a superb update from black and white cat over the angry argument that's ensued between Shanghai's Putuo District and the Xinmin Evening News over these standards. The Xinmin Evening news has issued a rebuttal - available here - to accusations that it fabricated the story.]

(more…)

Three very loud cheers in support of China’s new free admission policy at most national and provincial-level museums. This is long, long overdue, and though I understand the factors that must have inhibited the decision – security concerns, first among them – I reserve my highest praise for those enlightened officials who over-rode caution so as to open China’s history and culture to the large numbers of Chinese for whom an admission ticket was an unaffordable luxury. It is worth mentioning, too, that aside from a few notable exceptions (in Washington, D.C. and Minneapolis, for example), museums in the West still charge access fees – (MOMA extorts a US$20 fee, for goodness sake). At a minimum, there’s much worse things for the Ministry of Finance to fund than museum admission subsidies – which it has announced it will do. And, in a more perfect world, such subsidies are among the very highest priorities. Good for China.

Inevitably, the cultural elitists, hot house flowers, and Basic Killjoys, have chimed in to decry this enlightened museum policy, correctly pointing out that once unaffordable (to most Chinese) museums are now over-run with the masses. For example, Shanghai Daily’s predictably snooty coverage (“Mayhem reigns at free-for-all museums“) pointed out that:

A decision to offer free entry to city museums has caused authorities new headaches due to poor behavior from the large crowds.

Experts yesterday said the free entry offer began during the Spring Festival, but the policy has led to a barrage of complaints over people talking loudly or running in the halls.

… [a]rt lovers claimed it was too crowded for them to appreciate art works.

“The art hall was just like a wet market during the Spring Festival,” said Li Wei, a student who visited the museum on Sunday.

“Many children were running and playing in the halls and people were shouting loudly.

“I could not enjoy the masterpieces of art.”

[crushed Ming chair after the jump] (more…)

I’m traveling again, and the blog will be light until next week, but, before I go … I’d be really remiss if I didn’t put up a quick post to mention that my good friend, Ariana Lindquist, one of the very best photographers working in Asia today (Shanghai based), won first prize, Arts and Entertainment division, of the World Press Photo Contest. It’s a big, big, big deal, and well-deserved. Way to go, Ari! Below, the winning image of a girl in an anime costume, backstage in Shanghai.

Somewhat fictional Chinese job description: high-prestige, high-paying job with guaranteed housing, transportation and benefits for life. College education, connections, and test-taking ability required. One in sixty applicants offered employment, and demand – based upon five-year trends – likely to double.

Microsoft R&D engineer? Coal mine baron? KTV manager?

Just before Chinese New Year Xinhua reported that 640,000 people sat for China’s 2008 civil service examination (andexam which requires a college education). Of these, only one in sixty become government employees. That’s not only tough, it’s getting tougher. According to Xinhua, in 2007 the ratio of success to failure was one in forty-seven (other sources claim one-in-forty-two). And it doesn’t pay to wait: next year, fully 800,000 applicants are expected to take the test, which should drive the ratio to roughly eighty-to-one.

One possible explanation of this trend – and the one that many Chinese government officials would likely prefer to maintain – is that China’s public sector is shrinking with the growth of its private sector. But that would be the wrong explanation: again, according to Xinhua, the 2006 version of the exam attracted 370,000 test-takers – almost half the total who took the 2008 edition (one in forty-three made it). And though I can’t locate the number of test-takers for the 2005 version, Xinhua tells us that the success ratio was a relatively easy thirty-seven to one.

That is to say, applicants to China’s civil service have nearly doubled over the last four years. And that doubling doesn’t include the growth in applicants to China’s provincial, municipal, county, and township civil services.

So – why the steady growth in applicants to China’s civil service? (more…)