Shanghai Scrap

Regular readers may recall this blog’s comprehensive survey of 141 Shanghai Christmas trees, posted in December. Ever since and, really, before, Shanghai Scrap has taken a keen interest in these Western holiday accessories: who owns them, why, and what happens to them after Christmas. One answer suggests that certain Christmas traditions are universal: namely, the owners have simply forgotten to take them down, despite the fact that the holiday season, by any reasonable definition, is over. But in recent days I’ve noticed a different answer popping up in and around some of Shanghai’s shopping malls: Christmas trees are being converted into Chinese New Year trees. The transformation is usually rather simple, usually requiring little more than a change in color, and perhaps some fake gold coins sprinkled around the trunk. I’ve seen several examples of these transformed trees  in the last few days, but none quite so grand as the giant gold tree in front of Plaza 66 on Nanjing Road. First, the tree as it was decorated for the Christmas season:

And, below, the same tree, as photographed yesterday, spray-painted red for the Chinese New Year season. Awesome! FYI: the giant red rose was there before Christmas – then gold, of course – but for some reason I failed to photograph it. If anybody has an image of the pair, I’d be grateful for permission to post it above [UPDATE: Flickr user ybouc tweeted this image of the Christmas-era tree and rose. Thanks!].

This is not the only Shanghai instance of this phenomenon. I’ve seen similar holiday metamorphoses take place in the Grand Gateway mall, and outside whatever that mall is next to Jing’an Temple. Now, I concede that this sort of thing may have been happening in previous years, and I just failed to notice it. But whatever. To my eyes, it’s another example of China’s über-pragmatic recycling culture (indeed, recycling of cultures) at work, where re-use is privileged over re-processing any day of the week. In any case, if you don’t share China’s enthusiasm for the lunar new year (even though you really should), you can always take the dull, developed world approach to recycling Christmas trees, offered here.

[UPDATE - February 22, 2010. Three weeks later, Tim Stratford accepts a job in the Beijing law office where Dr. Kasoff's wife is a partner.]

Tomorrow at 12:30 PM, the US-China Business Council [USCBC] and the US Information Technology Office [USITO] in Beijing will host a luncheon briefing featuring Tim Stratford, an assistant US Trade Representative, and Dr. Ira Kasoff, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Asia. According to the notice for the event posted at the American Chamber of Commerce, the two gentlemen “will provide an update on plans for the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) in 2010 and a briefing on their meetings with Chinese officials during their visit.” It should be an interesting briefing: the JCCT is a twenty-seven-year-old dialogue between senior US and Chinese government officials that has played a key role in resolving trade disputes and, in the process, has directly benefited – and penalized – companies involved in that trade (a list of China’s JCCT commitments between 2004 and 2009 can be found here).

The presence of Dr. Kasoff at the event should be particularly informative. As a senior Commerce Dept deputy for Asia, and a member of the Market Access and Trade Compliance Staff at the International Trade Administration in Washington, D.C., Dr. Kasoff is a highly influential figure in US-China trade relations. And he has been so for years: prior to his current role, he served in six US Commercial Service assignments in Asia, including a stint as the Chief Commercial Officer in Shanghai.

Thus, when Friday’s off-record lunch convenes at the Westin Chaoyang in Beijing, Dr. Kasoff’s stature ensures that he will look out at an audience that includes  representatives of leading American and Chinese businesses with a keen interest in how his actions – and, by extension, the work of the ITA and the JCCT – will impact their operation in coming weeks, months, and years. No doubt, many of those faces will be familiar to Dr. Kasoff from his years of work on US-China trade issues and, no doubt, many of them will be familiar to Dr. Kasoff’s wife, Ellen Eliasoph, a co-chair of the troubled US pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai. [She is also a partner in the Beijing office of Covington &Burling, the law firm which Stratford announced he was joining three weeks after his joint appearance with Kasoff.]

The reason is pretty straight-forward: Ms. Eliasoph, in her official State Department-designated capacity, has naturally solicited many if not most of the leading US companies operating in China for donations to the privately-financed US pavilion project (donations that are often measured in the millions of dollars). She has also solicited and raised money from Chinese companies. In both cases, her actions, and relationship to Dr. Kasoff have gone mostly unquestioned.

Those questions need to be asked. (more…)

I’m tied down on deadline today (breaking only for the inaugural meeting of the Shanghai Metals Club – more on that another time), but I would be seriously out of line if I didn’t alert folks to a couple of fascinating posts on the Chinese pearl industry over at Deep Glamour (Part I, here; Part II, here; interview with the author, here). They’re excerpted from Stephen Bloom’s new book, Tears of Mermaids: The Secret Story of Pearls. Below, an image taken in Zhuji, China’s pearl capitol, two years ago, by my friend Randy Goodman (a great non-ferrous scrap metal man).

Of the pearls extracted from these shells, Bloom writes:

The Chinese freshwaters were a breakthrough in the fashion marketplace. Fashion-conscious women around the world started wearing pearls that weren’t just white or cream-colored, and not always round. Stylish younger women gravitated to them. These pearls had four things going for them: they were colorful, they often weren’t symmetrical (the baroque shapes appealed to non-traditional pearl wearers), they had the legitimacy of being real pearls, and they were downright cheap when compared to traditional pearls. As their size got larger, the Chinese freshwaters readily turned into trendy fashion items, turning into accessories fashion-forward women in their twenties and thirties from Paris to São Paulo just had to have. It didn’t hurt that women like Meryl Streep, Jennifer Aniston, and eventually Michelle Obama started wearing them, too.

Back tomorrow with some questions for and about one of the more mysterious figures in the US Pavilion at Expo 2010 fiasco.

I like scrap yards; I’m fascinated by what happens to the things that developed societies don’t want anymore; and I’m even more fascinated by the ingenuity that developing societies do with those throwaways. Scrap yards are not, by their very nature, sentimental places, and I really can’t say that I’ve ever felt emotional about the automobiles, appliances, and other recognizable items that I’ve witnessed being cut, crushed and shredded, worldwide.

But there’s one exception: ships. I don’t know why, but there’s something undeniably poignant about witnessing a large sea-faring vessel reduced to steel, and then to nothing. Below, a photo that I took on Saturday at a Chinese ship-breaking facility. To the left, a just arrived vessel undergoing the first stages of its demolition. And to the lower right, its eventual fate (roughly two months from now) as embodied in a (once) similarly-sized ship. Click to enlarge.

I’m told that vessels which arrive at this particular ship-breaking yard are greeted by a shower of fireworks ignited to scare off any ghosts that they might be carrying. In one notable case, the shower of fireworks was accompanied by bagpipes played by the ship’s captain – in his kilt – as the ship docked. I’m also told that – due to a superstition that nobody was willing to explain – women were only recently allowed to board the ships. If somebody knows why – perhaps a sea-faring reader? – I’d be much appreciative if you commented or emailed via the contact form.

After the jump, we get even more poignant … (more…)

Earlier this week I was skimming my favorite state-owned Chinese newspapers when I came across this rather startling People’s Daily headline regarding I.M. Pei, the last of the great modernist architects:

According to the article, the developer of the museum “has invested 50 million yuan to invite Pei to design the museum” and “[r]eporters also learned that the museum will be Pei’s 75th design.”

Well.

An I.M. Pei commission is big news whenever and wherever it happens, but particularly in China, where the Guangdong-born architect designed a mere two buildings, and the last one – the Suzhou Museum (2006) – was widely rumored to be his last. If he were to take on a third building, it would be major news – major China and architectural news – and surely People’s Daily and other influential state-run newspapers would have the story on the first day. But, curiously, even two days after the People’s Daily story, no other newspaper in China or outside of it was reporting that I.M. Pei had just accepted his 75th commission.

So I contacted Mr. Pei’s office and asked whether or not there was anything to this Nanjing commission. This morning, I received the following emailed response from Nancy Robinson, I.M. Pei’s Executive Assistant:

We received your message about the report in the Chinese press about the Nanjing project. I was not familiar with this, so I asked Mr. Pei about it. He has no involvement in the project described in the press.

A quick but sincere and wildly enthusiastic plug for Sue Anne Tay’s wonderful new blog, “Shanghai Street Stories.” The concept is simple: a photo blog about the common folks and sites found around Shanghai. But the execution, both the photos and the accompanying narratives, are far from ordinary. Really, really good, and I hope you’ll give it a try.

Today begins the 100 day countdown to the largest World Expo – or World’s Fair – in history. Lots of reasons to note this moment, but if you’re a US citizen, I suggest three, all related: first, the folks behind the US pavilion haven’t managed to complete fund-raising for the structure; second, the US State Department has yet to respond to a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request for information that includes a breakdown of the pavilion’s budget and disbursements; and third, and most demoralizing, the architecture and design community is beginning to take notice of the US pavilion design, and they don’t like it very much. That design, below:

Let’s work backward through my list, starting with the already scathing reviews of the US pavilion. (more…)

A few weeks ago I posted some images (“A Cavalcade of under-construction Expo 2010 Pavilions“) from a few of my December visits to the intensely busy Expo 2010 grounds. Readers – or viewers, in this case – seemed quite interested in them, so I’m going to follow-up on that post with another set of images of under-construction Expo pavilions – taken Monday – and some accompanying commentary. Whenever possible, I’ll link to artist renderings of what the completed structures will look like. Those interested in learning more about the pavilions and Expo site might take an interest in the nifty new English-language Expo site that recently went live with an interactive map and tour of the grounds (try to ignore the irritating narrator, though). Anyway, let’s start this month’s cavalcade with something spectacular: Happy Street (that’s the name), the fantastic Dutch pavilion.

In the last month many of the pavilions have really come to life, the grounds seems busier than ever and – this image aside – landscaping is underway. Which makes sense – we are now 102 days from the start of the largest Expo (or, World’s Fair, for my American readers) in history, and despite all that’s been accomplished down there, it must be said that a daunting amount of work still needs to be done – especially with the extended Chinese New Year break less than four weeks away. Anyway, many more photos after the jump … (more…)

Apropos of really nothing, a photo of workers burnishing the exterior of the Polish Expo 2010 pavilion late this afternoon. After a very early morning spent viewing the triumph of truth and justice over evil, I spent most of the afternoon down at the exceptionally busy Expo 2010 site. And, within the next day or so, I’ll be posting a second edition of the ever-popular “A Cavalcade of (under-construction) Expo 2010 Pavilions.”

[UPDATED - I've added a response to reader comments to the end of the this post. Scroll down to find it.]

Eighteen months ago I received an email from an acquaintance who happens to work with a large NGO in China. It included an attachment, and since I was familiar with the person who sent it to me, I elected to open it. Within seconds of doing so, my security software notified me that it was malware and quarantined it. At that point, I took a closer look at the email message and noticed several details that should’ve indicated to me that this wasn’t a message from my friend, but rather was a very sophisticated phishing attempt. In any case, I contacted this acquaintance immediately and told him what had happened. He responded with thanks and told me that he’d received similar messages from dozens of other people in his address book, and that he – and his NGO – were going on the assumption that they’d been hacked.

For obvious reasons, I’m not going to identify this person or his organization. And, in fairness, I really can’t say for certain whether or not the origins of the attack on my friend’s address book (and me) originated in China, or had anything to do with China at all (an investigation of some kind was undertaken, but I have no knowledge of the conclusions). But this I do know: the person in question, and his NGO had operated for years in China prior to being hacked, been subject to all kinds of pressures prior to being hacked, and yet nothing about the email hack made them question a commitment to working in China for many years more.

Yesterday, after Google announced that it was reviewing “the feasibility of our business operations in China” in light of hacker attacks on gmail, I kept thinking of this person, and his NGO, and his absolute determination to make it work in China regardless of the hurdles. I also found myself fixated upon this passage from Google’s announcement:

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

In the first paragraph, Google doesn’t identify the location of the human rights activists in question. However, in the second it clearly states that some of those who were attacked via phishing scams are China-based gmail users. And so it raises a question for me: are any of those activists taking the same course of action as google? That is to say, has the gmail breach forced human rights activists in China to review the “feasibility of their operations?” (more…)

I’m seriously under the weather these last few days and so blogging has come to a bit of a standstill. However, I can’t help but notice that Chinese computer hackers are suddenly back in the news. Yesterday they hacked Iranian sites in retaliation for an Iranian hack on the baidu search engine; and then, today, google announces that Chinese-originated hacks  are a significant part of the reason that “we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”

In April 2009 my friend Mara Hvistendahl wrote a fascinating article on China’s “patriotic hackers” for Popular Science that I’d recommend as a very good tutorial – and possible corrective – on who hacks, and why, in China. Concurrent with the publication of that story, I conducted an email interview with Mara exploring some of the issues she touches upon in the article, and bringing out some details that she didn’t. I think it’s one of the better posts I’ve written in the last year, and you can find it here.

Back in a few days.

Over the weekend we learn that two Chinese films were pulled from the Palm Springs International Film Festival after Festival organizers refused to pull a sympathetic documentary about the Dalai Lama from the program (local Palm Springs coverage, here; New York Times coverage, here). This is an odd occurrence for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that the Palm Springs International Film Festival is a bit of an after-thought in the film festival world, an event originally organized by then-Mayor Sonny Bono to resuscitate the city’s flagging fortunes as a high-end tourist destination.

And that brings to mind the question that many are asking: why on Earth would representatives of the Chinese government bother to travel to Palm Springs to make a fuss over a Tibetan film to be screened in a relatively minor festival in a sleepy town best known for gay resorts, senior citizen developments, early bird specials, and ancient Rat Pack history [update 1/13: and golf]? Is it part of a broader effort to censor content abroad? Or, as I suspect, a somewhat localized incident? (more…)

[UPDATE 1/8: The Red Plus Yellow blog has just posted a wonderfully useful item on how to winterize your Chinese apartment without replacing the windows. If you're cold, you should read it. Great stuff.]

This morning I woke up shivering in my bed, too cold to go back to sleep, and logged onto my laptop to check the temperature: -1°C (30°F). By Shanghai standards, that’s cold. Back home in Minnesota, where temperatures were -17°C (0°F) when I went to bed last night, that’s positively balmy. But the funny thing is: I’m never cold when I’m indoors in Minnesota, but Shanghai, man, I associate it with wearing wool socks and stocking caps to bed. So what’s the deal?

First, and most obviously, most buildings in Minnesota have central heating, and central heating is far more effective at warming a space than the wall heaters and space heaters used in Shanghai. Second, while Minnesota’s buildings are insulated, and thus capable of retaining heat, Shanghai’s buildings are mostly uninsulated concrete boxes which – I swear – conduct cold like copper conducts electrons. But the third reason – and this is where the Miracle Cure comes into play – Shanghai’s buildings aren’t weather-proofed. That is to say, unlike in many if not most buildings in Minnesota, windows and doors in Shanghai have leaks that allow cold air to flow into heated (or unheated spaces). Take, for example, these windows in the sun room of my apartment (fyi: I’ve weather-proofed the door to the sun-room). They are similar to windows all over Shanghai: single-paned and – if you put your hand next to them – you can feel a cold breeze:

Before I weather-proofed (a few pieces of rubber sealant will do the trick) the door to the sun room (and, by extension, those windows), I had to run my heater two degrees warmer just to achieve the same rather cool effect in my bedroom. (more…)

A friend just emailed to remind me that I once promised my readers that I would never again post three consecutive Expo-related items to this blog. Here at Shanghai Scrap, we keep our word! And though the next Expo-related post isn’t yet ready to be pushed out the door, I thought I’d better offer my reassurance to any and all who thought that I might be on the verge of the dreaded Expo hat-trick. Also, I’m a little tied-up with other projects at the moment.