Shanghai Scrap

This afternoon, for the first time in months, I stopped by the Best Buy in Xujiahui (which happens to be the first Best Buy in China). And, while riding an escalator to the second floor, I saw something unexpected: roughly ten racks of CDs and DVDs. Real ones, not pirated ones. And they seem to have turned up since my last visit in, I think, January.

As fans of American retail surely know, Best Buy has seriously reduced the volume of floorspace devoted to CDs and DVDs in its US stores. At one time, I think, CDs must have taken up more space than any other single item in the average Best Buy. But today, they’re hard to find, downsized by itunes and piracy.

So what on Earth makes Best Buy China think that it’s a good idea to add floor space for DVDs and CDs in a country where pirate DVD and CD shops advertise in state-owned newspapers, when it can’t sell CDs and DVDs in a country where piracy altered their floor plans? Certainly, they aren’t trying to beat the pirates on price. For example, a copy of the most recent James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, is selling for RMB 50 (US$7.31) at Best Buy (wildly cheap by US standards); meanwhile, just up the street, at a pirate DVD kiosk, the same film sells for RMB 7 ( US$1.02). A higher quality copy, complete with DVD extras, was going for RMB 12 (US$1.76). Likewise, a copy of Sheryl Crow’s most recent CD was selling at Best Buy for RMB 72 (US$10.53); at the DVD kiosk, the same CD could be purchased for RMB 5 (US$.73). (more…)

Almost exactly two years ago I attended a steel industry conference in Dalian memorable for two things: the sushi buffet, and a manic sales representative for a radiation detection company. Throughout the three days that I spent there, I watched as this gentleman approached every attendee – sometimes more than once – with a brochure and a lead-in that went something like this: “Did you know that not one Chinese steel mill has radiation detection? Did you?” This turns out to be a wild exaggeration (though not by much), but it came to mind in recent weeks when (via danwei), I learned that a steel mill in Shanxi Province had apparently melted down a Cesium-137 nugget bought in a load of steel scrap (time for a new steel mill, by the way).

A couple of things that I’ve been meaning to write in regard to this subject. (more…)

This morning, a brief moment of culture shock when I read that Fox News’s Roger Friedman was fired for downloading, and reviewing, a copy of the yet-to-be-released summer blockbuster,  Wolverine. If my American readers don’t feel similar shock at this relatively minor news, I suspect that – unlike me – they haven’t spent most of the decade in a country, and an expatriate media environment, where media piracy is socially acceptable. Just how acceptable? Well, for as long as I can remember, most of the English-language expatriate magazines in China have included reviews of the pirate DVDs widely available here. For example, the April 2-15 issue of City Weekend (a publication for which I’ve freelanced in the past) includes a sidebar column named “STREET DVDS – The best discs from the streets of Shanghai” with reviews of Revolutionary Road, Defiance, and Watchmen. City Weekend is no fly-by-night outfit, either: owned by Swiss publishing conglomerate Ringier, it claims qualified circulation of 95,000.

So let this particular incident, and the astonishment which I suspect it engenders in other expatriates (not to mention, China’s vast and enthusiastic pirated film base), serve as an interesting marker for Hollywood as it assesses China’s potential for media priced as if it’s being sold in Manhattan (I’ve written about this topic, elsewhere). And, in solidarity with Roger Friedman (who, from my reading, sounds like a real piece of work), I’ve just gone downstairs to buy a copy of Wolverine, and I’ll offer my review in coming days. Take that, Rupert Murdoch!

And if that wasn’t clear enough: for the record, I find nothing wrong with reviewing pirated DVDs.

[UPDATE 04/08 - Hugh Jackman says that he's "heartbroken" by the piracy of the film. That may be the case. I don't know. But I bet he's not heartbroken by all of the publicity being generated by the piracy story. If not for Roger Friedman, who, other than (the very large community of) Wolverine aficionados, would be talking about the film at this point?]

As noted in previous posts, Shanghai Scrap is the lucky beneficiary of misdirected scrap metal, paper, and plastic inquiries from around the world. As also noted in previous posts, I reserve the right to re-print these sometimes ridiculous, but always interesting, inquiries (with the solicitor’s name, if the email is clearly identifiable as scrap spam). So, with that in mind, an inquiry received last night from an IP address in Sana, Yemen:

Dear Ahmed: I haven’t the slightest. But perhaps one of my readers will (come to think of it, I’d like to know). In the meantime, I want to thank you for this rare insight into Sana’s waste stream. Who would’ve guessed that Yemen is home to three Boeing aircraft in need of scrapping? Wow! If you care to send more details about this issue – say, perhaps, whether the planes in question were for military, private, or commercial use – I’d be happy to update this post. As it happens, a few years ago I actually met the GM of a Sana-area scrap yard (he wore an electric blue suit), but that story will have to wait for a day when I’m not under deadline pressure. Until then …

Not sure how I missed this, but last week UCAN ran a brief interview with Shanghai’s Bishop Jin Luxian that touches on how he views his legacy. It’s of interest for a number of compelling reasons, not least of which is the author: Fr. Ron Saucci, an American Maryknoll priest who befriended Jin in the early 1980s. A few years ago, while preparing my 2007 profile of Jin for the Atlantic, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Saucci in Hong Kong. He’s an incredibly compelling figure in his own right, and one of the most knowledgeable foreigners on the topic of the Chinese Church and its evolution over the last thirty years. He’s known many of its most important figures, and has first-hand knowledge of many of its formative events.

The article references two of those events: the establishment of the Sheshan Seminary in Shanghai, responsible for a significant percentage of the Vatican-approved bishops (including Jin’s auxiliary and hoped-for successor) who’ve emerged over the last decade (covered in my profile), and the establishment of a Catholic publishing house in Qibao (at some point, I intend to write something about the latter). It also offers a glimpse of Jin’s candid view on Chinese Catholicism’s challenges:

We passed an hour chatting, during which I asked him what was the biggest threat to the Church. Without hesitation he responded: “Materialism! We have lost some good priests who succumbed to capitalism surrounding us everywhere. Vocations are harder and harder to find since intelligent young people can get high paying jobs.” (more…)

Over the last six months, countless media outlets have run stories on China’s role as the world’s biggest recycler, and thus its role in the Fall 2008 collapse of the international scrap recycling markets. Of those stories, a very high percentage mentioned the alleged, October 2008 kidnapping of a British scrap trader by a state-owned recycling company in Ningbo, first reported on Shanghai Scrap. It’s a good, if largely symbolic story that – from my perspective – represented the intense mistrust and anger that developed between Chinese scrap buyers and their suppliers (and brokers) in the US and Europe in late 2008. And, like many such stories, the kidnapping story was done and done, and by January – in my opinion – it was pretty much done.

So go figure, yesterday, the day that I re-start regular posting after an extended hiatus, I receive two documents that justify one last scrap kidnapping post. News-wise, there’s nothing new in either of them. They are only of interest insofar as they illuminate the damage control strategy adapted by a major state-owned enterprise and, in the process, illuminate two topics in which I take more than a passing interest: a) the assumptions and practices that entrenched, state-owned Chinese companies carry with them as they globalize, and b) the related problems that arise when they try to manage international media with the same tools that they use/d to control state-owned media in China.

Before getting to documents in question, a brief summary of the kidnapping (a more detailed account can be found by following the links associated with my original post). (more…)

While walking down Yongjia Road a few minutes ago, I happened to pass this poster outside of a photo studio specializing in portraits of children. It’s really something:

Neglecting, for today, a discussion as to whether or why a Shanghainese parent would dress their son as if he’s the star of a pre-school production of Deliverance, let’s focus on the details. For me, the most wonderful is the rusted-out pickup in the background. You can’t see it clearly in the photo, but, in-person, a wooden truck bed has replaced the original metal one. No doubt, this is stock photography (and stolen, at that), but – as we say in the Old Country – that detail, it’s right-on. Alas, other details are not quite so apt: fellas with pickups like that don’t wear Doc Martens or run-around with antique rifles. Then again, they do wear hand-mended wife beaters. All in all, a masterpiece of cultural appropriation.

Last night I returned to Shanghai after my longest sojourn away from China in six years (for reasons professional and personal). I haven’t had a look around town yet, but if fresh eyes see anything worthwhile, I’ll post the news. In the meantime, a couple of random observations gleaned during my extended visit to the US.

• Outside of major international tourist attractions (say, LA’s Getty Museum), the most ethnically diverse places (that I visited) in America are discount volume retailers like Cosco and Sam’s Club – particularly on weekend afternoons. Over the course of my stay, I had reason to be in a number of suburban Sam’s Club and Cosco locations, and I was floored by the range of languages that I heard while I roamed the aisles. Over-represented, by leaps and bounds, were young Indian and Chinese couples, many wearing university sweatshirts. What to make of the fact that educated immigrants shop for volume discounts way out of proportion to their percentage in the US population? See: Financial Crisis – US edition, Low Savings Rate.
• Related: by leaps and bounds, Whole Foods may very well attract the least diverse, ie, whitest, clientele in American retail. Indeed, despite selling a wide range of over-priced “ethnic” foods, Whole Foods has no ethnic customers (trust me: they’re all shopping at Sam’s Club). For another time: organic food as the distinctive ethnic cuisine of an over-educated American bourgeoisie.

• Based upon several long drives in cars without CD players, it is clear that Peter Frampton, Eddie Money, and Heart are the most popular recording artists in America today. For another time: are these legacy artists generating more airplay royalties today, rather than during their respective artistic heydays? I’d like to know. (more…)