Shanghai Scrap

It’s been nearly a week on the road, and a week away from the blog, and I promise – I’ll be back with something intelligent to post tomorrow. But, for now, I felt it urgent to remind my readers that – in case you were planning to bring your crossbows to this year’s Olympic rowing competition – BOCOG has explicitly, specifically banned spectators from carrying crossbows into this year’s Olympic venues.

I’m traveling through the weekend, so there’s almost no chance that I’ll post before Monday. But fear not: there’s plenty of China blogging and news to be found elsewhere. Perhaps consider visiting Granite Studio’s Asian History Carnival, Pt. I and Pt. II [a/k/a, link-o-rama]; Jim Fallows’ really provocative Part 3 of his ongoing “We Are Ready!” [for the Olympics] series; China Daily’s really weird “30 Reasons to watch the Games” [my favorite: "Highest Number of Doping Tests" - what's next? the syringe cam?]; and my friend Mara Hvistendahl on Chinese gender gap issues in the New Republic.

See you next week for the Olympic stretch run …

The August 2008 issue of the graphic design journal, Print Magazine, is now online, and it includes a brief photo essay (by me) on the 2008 Olympic logo and mascots. Alas, the online version of the article only includes one of the dozen photos (including an interesting collage) taken by my friend, Shanghai-based photographer Ariana Lindquist. Among other honors, Ari was a first-place winner in this year’s World Press Photo Contest. So, by all means, read the text online, but then don’t deny yourself: go out and buy a copy of the magazine! It’s a design journal, after all, and it looks fabulous. Below, one of Ari’s images:

[Actually, while you're looking at Print, have a look at the really fascinating "Good Type Gone Bad" which chronicles how typeface designers feel when they find their typefaces used in unexpected places. Who knew?]

For those interested, I’ll be a guest on Minnesota Public Radio’s “Midmorning with Keri Miller” program tomorrow, July 9, at 10 AM CST (for folks in China, that’s July 9 at 11 PM), along with Adam Segal, a Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. We’ll be discussing all things Olympic, one month out. The program can be streamed, here.

Xinhua and Shanghai Daily are reporting that the largest block of traditional, shikumen-style housing left in Shanghai is about to be converted into a luxury hotel complex named Jianyeli. As reported by Xinhua:

The project, called Jianyeli, will reuse bricks and original materials in its reconstruction. The buildings, which were built during 1931 to 1938 on Jianguo Road W., form the biggest area of traditional houses remaining in Shanghai.

Below, the photo that accompanies the Xinhua version of the story:

It just so happens that I live a few blocks from Jianyelli, and I’ve watched – with no small amount of consternation – as the entire, massive complex was slowly razed over the last couple of years. Below, a photo of what it actually looked like on June 8, when I last took a peak through the thick steel doors that hide the site from prying eyes.

[UPDATE: I've received a couple of emails which lead me to believe that I wasn't entirely clear in this post. So let me be clear: there is nothing left of Jianyeli. It's been demolished; razed; obliterated. Shanghai Daily might be under the impression that it "form[s] the biggest area of traditional houses remaining in Shanghai,” but all you need to do is walk by and see that there’s nothing remaining (or look at the above photo). Jianyeli isn’t preservation; it’s new construction accessorized with a few old bricks from the 1930s.]

[UPDATE July 8: Thanks to TM for pointing me to a 2005 Eastday article concerning the Jianyeli renovations:

Work will begin this year to renovate an extensive area of shikumen houses in downtown Shanghai to return them to the way they looked 70 years ago, a senior official said yesterday ... "We will conserve the exterior of the lane while making appropriate adjustments to the lane's inside structure," Wang Anshi, head of the renovation and management department of the Shanghai Housing and Land Resource Administrative Bureau, said yesterday.]

According to Shanghai Daily, Saturday was the hottest July 5 that Shanghai has experienced in the 135 years that meteorological records have been kept in the city. 38.8 degrees (that’s 101.8 Fahrenheit, for my American friends). Same temperature on Sunday. Probably, the temperature was even higher (the local meteorological bureau likes to keep things under 40 – more on that topic during the Olympics). Anyway, whatever the temperature, one must ask: How hot was it?

According to one friend (who happens to work in the refrigeration industry!), it was this hot …

It was just at 3:30 this afternoon when I walked into my study at home and the large glass window pane exploded, a pronounced, deep bang and the glass shivered into thousands of crackles, like cicada’s wings, yet in the frame. I now see that this double-paned and the outside is intact, just the inside fractured like frost.

He continues …

The air-conditioning was on at 25C [77 Fahrenheit], the outside above 38C, so it was either the temperature difference or the frame was affected by the heat.

Late last week I wrote a short post pointing out that Francesco Liello, the China-based correspondent for the Italian paper, La Gazetta dello Sport, had run a leg of the Olympic torch relay in Hubei at the beginning of June. For obvious reasons, the run didn’t garner much coverage in the foreign language-press. And what little it did garner, overlooked Liello’s primary claim to notoriety: he was the journalist responsible for the utterly false Olympic Bible ban story from last year (which became a minor international incident). In my post, I point out this fact, and surmise that Liello’s relay invitation was the result of someone either overlooking the Bible Ban story, or someone forgiving it (if the latter, a very good thing – as I noted in the post).

[Read my account - and debunking - of the story here.]

Anyway, yesterday Liello posted a response to my post in the comment section of this blog (it is comment three, found here). Of course, comments don’t garner the same level of attention as posts. So, in fairness to Liello, I am elevating his comment to a full post. You’ll find it after the jump, followed by my response. The two posts to which it refers are found here, and here, and I recommend reading them first. (more…)

My pal Jen Ambrose in Shenzhen has a brief post on the difficulties that she’s experienced learning Chinese vocabulary appropriate to a stay-at-home mom:

I’ve learned names of every piece [of] office equipment, how to sign contracts, and how to book hotel rooms. I have yet to read in any of my textbooks how to ask for a playground or how to buy diapers.

Which brings us to this week’s exercises on the use of command verbs:

According to today’s edition of my hometown newspaper, it is now illegal to sell Chinese-made American flags in Minnesota – punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/or a US$1000 fine. The spirit of the law is well-expressed in the lede:

That American flag you’re buying in Minnesota for this July 4th will be more than 13 stripes and 50 stars. It will be made in the U.S.A.

Apparently, the legislation came into effect at the end of last year, and it’s getting a bit of added attention this week because this Fourth of July will be the first that Minnesotans will be denied a choice in the country-of-manufacture for their flags (hitting them in the pocketbook, too, at the worst possible time. what’s so patriotic about that?). Now, just to be clear, the legislation doesn’t specifically target China. But keep in mind that the vast majority of flags imported into the US are (according to the nativist Flag Manufacturer’s Association of America) manufactured in China. Thus we have the intent of the law:

Rep. Tom Anzelc, DFL-Balsam Township, said he thought it was ‘ludicrous’ and ‘un-American’ to have U.S. flags made abroad, in countries such as China. Anzelc … said he believes people would gladly pay the extra cost if it puts money in the pockets of their neighbors.

“Real patriotism also includes valuing the work of American workers,” Anzelc said.

Of course, if this was just about preserving American jobs, then the Minnesota legislature could have banned the import of other Chinese products. But they didn’t. Instead, they chose the flag – the most loaded of loaded symbols – and left it to others to decide what excluding Chinese manufacturers means in this case. (more…)

Tied up today and tomorrow with a couple of real writing matters, but I wanted to get to this before it passes me by …

A few weeks ago I ran into a friend of mine who runs a very successful Shanghai residential real estate brokerage that she started five years ago. Like everyone else in Shanghai, I take a certain unhealthy interest in the value of the city’s real estate – and doubly so now that the Shanghai stock market is down more than half from its high of just over a year ago. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that property owners have begun selling to cover losses. But what, I asked, is the reality?

She smiled and told me that – so far as she’s been able to see – there’s no rush to the doors. “To be honest,” she said (as later recorded in my notebooks). “From a business standpoint, I don’t care if the market is up or down. But right now the problem is that nobody is doing anything. Everybody’s waiting to see what everyone else does.” And this uncertainty, she told me, is the most worrisome trend of all – for a home owner. “I’ve just put my place on the market.”

This conversation came to mind a few minutes ago as I read – in South China Morning Post – these chilling figures [subscriber only]:

Figures released by mainland research institute Youwin show 5.27 million square metres of new residential area was sold in the city between January and June, compared with 10.43 million sq metres last year.

Not chilling enough for you? Well, then. Consider that – just last week – the average home price in Shanghai fell 4.3% from the week before (according to the same SCMP article, citing Youwin). (more…)