Shanghai Scrap

The personal and professional interests of the foreign media in China have never had much in common with the average Chinese people with whom they cover. Sometimes, this is a good and necessary thing: if the foreign media won’t cover Chinese dissidents, who will? But often, this produces absurd results that distort – for readers and viewers outside of China – what matters to China.

Take, for example, the near obsession that China’s foreign correspondents have with Jia Zhangke, a very good Chinese filmmaker who makes “serious,” socially conscious films that have almost no audience in China, but which win awards abroad. This year, during the Expo, the New Yorker (to choose just one English language publication) devoted thousands of words to Mr. Jia. Fair enough, I suppose, except for the fact that – at the same time Jia Zhangke was appealing to a decidedly small audience of hyper-educated New Yorker writers, readers, and editors, the turnstiles at Expo 2010 – the Shanghai World’s Fair – were rotating at a rate that eclipsed Jia Zhangke’s entire Chinese audience by noon, every day, May to October. If New Yorker readers wanted to know something about why people were rushing through those turnstiles, they’d have to look elsewhere because, aside from a few blog posts, the magazine published nothing on Expo 2010 – the biggest and most expensive event that ever took place in China (and, some argue, anywhere). Of course, the New Yorker, and its terrific China correspondent weren’t along in this choice of coverage – they were joined in the decision by most of the China-based foreign media (and their overseas editors). What a pity.

If you believe the official figures, Expo 2010 was visited by more than 70 million people, many millions of whom waited in long ticket lines, outside of the gates, in the heat of July and August (to be sure, quite a few visitors also received their tickets for free), for the chance to wait in long lines within the Expo grounds. The obvious question is: what was the appeal? The less obvious question is: why didn’t the foreign media probe this question? More precisely, rather than ignore the phenomenon, why didn’t anyone pause to ask what was it about contemporary China that drove so many people to do something that most foreigners – especially foreign reporters who are lock-step disdainful of crowds and mass events enjoyed by Chinese – had no interest in doing? (more…)

Considering that Expo 2010 [Shanghai World's Fair] included exhibitions by some two-hundred countries, it’s remarkable that the six-month event was all but devoid of politics and negative depictions of other countries and cultures in the national pavilions (excepting a pretty heated film in the Palestinian pavilion). I’m not sure who or what place everybody on their best behavior, but whatever (or whoever) it was, that entity clearly had a sense of humor when it came to policing the oft-overlooked, and mostly awesome Urbanian Pavilion. In brief: the massive Urbanian pavilion, which I only visited for the first time recently, follows the lives of six families in six countries. As visitors enter the monstrous space, they are introduced to these six families via life-sized wax figures. Below, the American family, the Reids of Phoenix, Arizona:

Now compare, for a  moment, the Reids – their shopping cart filled with boxed breakfast cereal and potato chips only, with the representative Chinese family – I think they are the Zhangs (I wasn’t taking notes) of Zhengzhou. Rather than pushing a shopping cart filled with junk food, they are depicted holding a clean-cut birthday party for their aged grandfather. I’ve lived here long enough to know that this is no more typical than a Phoenix, Arizona shopping cart outing, but whatever:

Now, as an American, I take only minor umbrage at this comparison (I know my countrymen, after all). And I would take no umbrage but for the fact that the Urbanian pavilion was designed by a Dutch firm, Kossman.dejong, and not a Chinese one. In other words, what we have here is 1) a starry-eyed comparison of two cultures, neither of which are native to the designers, and 2) a Dutch commentary on how to kiss your client’s ass (Shanghai Expo aka Shanghai gov’t, which, surely has more work to commi$$ion from these liberal-minded Dutch designers). With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at this Dutch provocation against US interests. (more…)

Was Expo 2010 worth it? Depends, I suppose, on who you are. If you’re from a small-town in China, and your only experience of Expo was had on a blazing hot August day when you had to stand in lines for hours with several hundred thousand of your closest friends to see a half-baked exhibit on German polyester – probably not. But, truth is, for many of the organizers and participating countries, Expo 2010 wasn’t about the ticket buyers, it was about the government officials and business executives who planned to use it as a six-month meet and greet to take place behind closed doors, in VIP suites. So, in search of this perspective, I sat down for a chat with Juan Pablo Cavelier, the General Manager and Director of Colombia’s Expo 2010 pavilion. In fact, I sat down with him in Colombia’s VIP area – pictured below.

Colombia’s participation in Expo 2010 was far from assured: the country was one of the very last of the 200+ to RSVP for the event. Nonetheless, under a very limited schedule, it managed to build a first-rate pavilion for less than US$10 million. Compared to the tens of  millions spent by some countries, this was a modest sum. But for a country that wasn’t sure it wanted to participate, it was serious money that needed to be justified – at some point. Some excerpts, then, from a wide-ranging conversation (some of which will be published elsewhere) on just how Cavalier will that.

Scrap: Colombia was one of the last countries to confirm for Expo. I suspect that, among the reasons for that late confirmation, were questions about whether or not a pavilion would be worth the money spent on it. So now, as the Expo wraps up, I wonder if you could tell me – was it worth it? And why? (more…)

If one were to make a list of the most memorable essays, reviews, and reports written about Expo 2010 [Shanghai World's Fair], Shanghai Expo: take a stroll down to Axis of Evil square, the cutting review of the event’s opening day by Malcolm Moore, the Daily Telegraph‘s Shanghai correspondent, would have to be placed near the top. It’s a scathing piece, concise, hilarious, and worth reading if only for Moore’s memorable put-down of the event as “a limp prawn sandwich.”

Still, as an unabashed Expo enthusiast, I did my best to convince Moore that he was getting the Expo story all wrong. I suggested pavilions worth visiting; I recommended restaurants worth trying; I organized an Expo  pub crawl and treated him to two bottles of delicious Moldovan wine. No luck: Moore remained undeterred. And, even worse – from the perspective of someone who thoroughly enjoyed reading Moore’s disdain for the event – he lost interest entirely, and moved onto other stories (along with most of China’s foreign correspondent community).

But surely, Malcolm Moore still has an opinion, and so I reached out to him earlier this week in hope that he’d be up for answering a few last Expo-related question. Malcolm, a gentleman if I ever met one, answered graciously, and at length. Interested readers will note two things: 1) he hasn’t changed his mind at all, and 2) he writes very, very well.

Scrap: On the occasion of the Expo’s opening, you wrote that it as had “all the soul and charm of a limp prawn sandwich.” Six months later, do you stand by this assessment? Or has familiarity suggested another food item to which the Expo might be more accurately compared?

Moore: Yep. Six months later and after a further 15 or 20 or so trips to the site, I stand by my initial assessment.

The whole thing was conceived and organised by government officials, both Chinese and foreign, and let’s face it, government officials are not famous for their creativity and verve. (more…)

Starting today, we’re going full-tilt at Shanghai Scrap covering (sort of) the End of Expo 2010. What this means, exactly, I’m not sure. But I do think that – even if the rest of the China-based foreign correspondent corps won’t cover it (more on that shortly) – the end of the largest World’s Fair ever (size, attendance, etc etc) merits some attention. So we’ll start with a brief emailed Q&A that I conducted over the weekend with Zachary Franklin, author of the DeluxZilla blog. By day, Mr. Franklin is an M.A. student inl economics at Fudan – that is, when he’s not busy covering the Expo for the European Union wire service at the Expo. Indeed, during the Expo, Franklin has written – as of last count – 88 wire stories (subsequently picked up news agencies worldwide), and that has to be a record for a foreign correspondent at this event. A compendium of those stories can be found here, here, and here. Below, Mr. Franklin and Prince Albert of Monaco, at the Monaco pavilion (a/k/a Prince Albert in a Pavilion].

Nevertheless, despite all those wire stories, it’s Mr. Franklin’s blog that sets him apart. Posts like Going Through the Expo Garbage, Expo Fouls Up Three Month Party, and Fighting the Coke Man provide/d readers with a totally unique and informed insight into the life of this Expo; I’d say it was invaluable if you had any interest, professional or otherwise. I’d be remiss, too, if I didn’t mention, that Mr. Franklin once took me to task for my coverage of the USA pavilion (coverage like this). Alas, we’ve never met in person (my fault), but I’m assured by several mutual friends that the blogger is a total mensch. So, without further ado, a few Expo-related questions for Zachary Franklin, aka DeluxZilla: (more…)

A brief list of commodities of which China is a net importer: oil, iron ore, soy beans, wheat, corn, aluminum scrap metal, copper scrap metal, steel scrap metal, recyclable paper stock. That is to say, China lacks sufficient domestic supplies of these resources, and must resort to other countries for supply. Among the leading suppliers of food commodities and scrap metals (which comprise a significant percentage of China’s total production of aluminum and copper and, to a lesser but still important extent, steel) is the United States. Indeed, as China’s economy grows, it’s dependence upon the United States and other exporters for commodities, especially for food and metal (and ores) increases. Below, a chart from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Shanghai Trade office.

Quite often, and understandably, my friends in the China-focused media and academic class tend to lose themselves in the same story and theme. For years, for example, the China-focused media has been tightly focused on the Chinese export story, while giving short shrift to the still considerable volume of exports – especially the commodities that power the Chinese export machine – that the United States and other developed countries send to China. To be sure, the trade deficit between China and the United States grows, but US to China trade also grows, and it’s worth remembering – if the stories about American job losses often don’t – that China is the third largest US export market. And it’s also worth remembering that commodities – agricultural and recyclable – are the two leading US exports to China, by volume. (more…)

Recently I was asked by a reporter, recently assigned to China, what China blogs I read. In fact, I look at several, and the full list can be found on the blogroll to the lower right. Then he asked me if I have a favorite. That’s a tough question: different blogs fulfill different functions. For example, I read danwei and shanghaiist like maps, using them to help me chart what’s happening in China, and on other China blogs. But if the function that we’re talking about is pleasure, then I think no blog brings me more enjoyment than Sue Anne Tay’s Shanghai Street Stories.

Full disclosure: Sue Anne is a friend, and a colleague with whom I’ve worked. But even if I didn’t know her, I’d pay tribute to her photos, and the text that she writes to accompany them. As regular readers of Shanghai Scrap know, I’m a big fan of reported blogs, and Sue Anne’s is one of the best: rather than riff on what other writers or bloggers have already done, she provides her readers with gorgeous photos and original commentaries on what’s happening on, well, Shanghai’s streets. In this way, she’s done some of the very best and most interesting blogged work on urban preservation in Shanghai, and doing so without being didactic about it. She is, in the best sense of the term, a promoter of the “show don’t tell” ethos. And what she shows! Below, an image of the artist and blogger at work, taken by Xi Zi.

I’ve long wanted to do an interview with Sue Anne for this site – partly because I’m a straight-up fan, and partly because I think she deserves a much wider audience. And so, without further commentary from me, Sue Anne Tay on her photos, her blog, doing creative work while holding down a day job, and where she’s going next. For more info, go to Shanghai Street Stories. (more…)

Regular readers have probably noticed a paucity of posting over the last couple of weeks. I’ve been on the road pretty steady, tied up with a couple of projects and issues. In any case, things will ramp up again mid-week, with three interviews that I’m quite excited to have gotten for this space. Back shortly —

Shanghai Scrap has been a bit dormant recently, what with all of the recent traveling, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten Expo 2010 [Shanghai World's Fair]. The same cannot be said for the rest of the world’s media which, despite the fact that the Expo is, indisputably, the largest international gathering of the year, if not the decade, if not all time, gets almost no press (much less, respect from the press).

So, as Expo winds down, let’s not forget to observe that attendance is beginning to reach apocalyptic proportions. Below, a memo sent out earlier today to all of the pavilions in the popular Zone C of the grounds (including heavily trafficked Europe), giving them a low key head’s up that tomorrow they should be prepared to be visited by the population of Boston (or Frankfurt or Winnipeg or Abu Dhabi etc):

Subject: 转发: Visitor Prediction

Dear participants,

According to the analysis of recent visitor flow and tomorrow’s specified factors, the visitor’s attendance for Oct. 16 will be in the scale of 630—670 thousand, the median figure is 650,000 people.

The reserved group visitor number is 98243 for Oct.16 and 85539 for Oct. 17.

Hope the information will be helpful to your operation.

Best regards,

On behalf of Zone C Dept.,

Hope this is helpful!?!?

Live in China long enough, and you become accustomed to big numbers and lots of people. But this – an oh-by-the-way reminder that a mid-sized US city will be stopping by tomorrow – is on another level entirely, and I for one love it (worth noting, some pavilions were designed and built for these many visitors, and some were not – more on that subject, here). These sorts of numbers should hold, more or less, for the next 2.5 weeks, until Expo ends on the 31st. Shanghai Scrap, meanwhile, will be going Expo-a-ga-ga for the last week or so. Stay tuned.

It’s hard to believe, but Expo 2010 [Shanghai World's Fair] has a mere three weeks of life left in it. No surprise, the wrap-ups, the obituaries, and the tributes are beginning to appear (I’m starting work on mine). I’d like to point readers to an early entry, by my new friend Scott Knowles, an Assistant Professor of History at Drexel University. I met Scott via email, early in the Expo, and then in-person, this summer, when he spent a week at the Expo with a group of students taking his course on World’s Fairs. I think the students were supposed to learn something from me; in fact, I learned much more from Scott and his students. And I continue, to learn: Scott’s Phantom of the Fair is a superb summation of an event that – I believe – will only grow in stature in retrospect. That is to say, I really believe that, in years to come, people who didn’t go, will feel the need to lie about having gone.

But anyway. I like Scott’s essay, especially, the second half:

As I moved through the African Pavilion just before closing time, it occurred to me at last that I was merely a phantom at this fair. It’s a strange moment for an American abroad — and when it happens you wince and surrender your non-existent birthright: the realization that this is not all here to entertain me. In fact, though, all world’s fairs up to this one have in one way or another been there to entertain westerners, even Osaka. With Chinese nationals making up the overwhelming majority of the visitors to Expo 2010, though, I was really witnessing the creation of Chinese elites packaged and presented to the Chinese masses, a tour of the world as the elites want China to see itself, and as participating countries want to be seen by the Chinese.

You can find the complete essay here, at the Smart Set, published by Drexel.

Moving from looking back, to looking forward, California – or, more specifically, Governor Schwarzenegger – has decided to look into hosting Expo 2020 in the Bay Area. This is a terrible idea for any number of reasons, all of which are covered in my pal Jeff Wasserstrom’s California Dreamin’ at China’s World’s Fair over at the China Beat.

In case you’ve never had the experience, here’s what it’s like to walk into a Chinese McDonald’s and have the cashier assume – on the basis of your looks – that you’re not Chinese: You are greeted in English, and then handed a bi-lingual English-Chinese menu (typically kept beside the register). More likely than not, though, you won’t need to point at the pictures or the English/Chinese menu items, because, typically, the cashier has enough English to understand when you’re ordering a McChicken, a small fries, and a large Coke. In fact, in my experience at least, many Chinese McDonald’s cashiers are eager to brush aside my attempts at Chinese so as to prove that they can speak English.

This is a rather remarkable phenomenon when you think about it. After all, how many other places in the non-English speaking world, much less the non-English speaking developing world, have the luxury of being able to stash English-language speakers behind the counter at McDonald’s? Not many. Indeed, in my travels, I’ve found that English or other foreign language training is reserved for the “educated” -ie, those not destined for McDonald’s. But China, which requires English language study by all of its students (of varying quality, of course), has English-language McDonald’s cashiers aplenty – supplementing its considerable and impressive ranks of English-language service workers elsewhere in the economy.

It’s something that I’ve noticed over the last few weeks, as I traveled to several developing, and developed nations (and their respective McDonald’s restaurants – a story for another time), not one of which struck me as being as English-language friendly as China. For example, consider this Brazilian McDonald’s, visited this past weekend at a hypermart in São Paulo.

Signage aside, there was no bilingual menu, no eager English-speaking cashier. Instead, I found myself pointing at the pictures on the overhead menu, and miming the act of carrying a bag so that the cashier would know that I wanted my Salada to go. And, by and large, that’s the experience I had, two weeks ago, at a McDonald’s in the Ukraine (trust me: order the McBlintzes), where – in addition to my own troubles – I watched an American basketball player (mind you, a professional in the Ukraine) convey his order through an accompanying team assistant because the cashiers simply couldn’t get his meaning.

Now, before anyone misunderstand my meaning: I’m not advocating for English-language imperialism, or for Americans (like me) to remain linguistically oblivious when they travel abroad. Rather, I merely want to point out that – for the most part – it’s much easier for an English speaker to travel in China, than it is to travel in Japan (for starters: far more English in Chinese subway stations than Japanese ones), the Ukraine (try to find an English-language immigration officer at Lviv’s “int’l” airport), Brazil (see above), or any number of countries that are culturally, geographically, and politically closer to the Anglo-American axis. (more…)

[See Update 2, below for a brief explanation of why I've changed the title of this post from 'One reason the US won't collaborate with China on space exploration,' to its current version.]

I’m a big fan of China’s space program (any space program, really) and nobody cheers louder when it pulls off successful missions. So, needless to say, I was thrilled to learn that China had launched its second lunar probe, Chang’e II, over the weekend. But my excitement was quickly tempered by photos of Chinese farmland littered with solid rocket booster debris that rained down in the aftermath of the launch (image from 163.com via shanghaiist).

Now, I’m no rocket scientist, but I am a space buff – and like any space buff worth his salt, I know that – barring an accident – solid rocket boosters don’t just accidentally fall onto populated areas. Mission designers can predict with certainty where these things fall – thus, NASA’s ability to retrieve the space shuttle’s solid rocket boosters. In any case, this morning I received an email from an acquaintance who has worked with NASA in the past. With his permission, I quote (anonymously):

[O]ne of two problems here. Either the rocket boosters didn’t burn up in the atmosphere as designed (failure of design) or the mission planners didn’t give a s*** if they landed in a populated area. If the first then you’ve got a program that isn’t capable of something that the US program figured out decades ago. If the second then you’ve got a program that’s willing to sacrifice civilian lives to send up a probe. Either way you’ve got a program that the US can’t work with forgetting even that nat’l security is an issue.

As an addendum, I think it’s worth pointing out that, in the past, the Chinese have launched US satellites from the same facility as Chang’e II, and that one of those launches – in 1996 – resulted in the destruction of large swaths of Xichang. That incident and others that place civilians at risk are among the reasons that the Chinese are building a new launch facility on Hainan Island. Presumably, once operational, that facility’s debris will fall into the ocean.

[UPDATE: In the comments, below, Sean - a frequent commentator - notes:

They do evacuate parts of three provinces that are in the range of the falling rocket boosters and satellite debris. Parts of Guizhou, Sichuan and Jiangxi are where the debris is expected to fall, and in Guizhou alone, around 200 thousand people are evacuated.]

[UPDATE 2: I've received a couple of emails from people suggesting that these sorts of incidents aren't, in fact, the basis for any sort of US gov't space policy. That's true, and I concede that the original title - "One reason why the US won't collaborate with China on space exploration' - was a bit over-the-top. Thus, I've changed it. The person who emailed me the above comment on the Chang'e 2 booster was writing as a knowledgeable individual who had worked with NASA in the past, and his comment reflected the consensus of some of his colleagues - not the US gov't. My apologies if the original title implied otherwise.]

[UPDATE 3: In a very detailed, very interesting comment (4, below), Tom suggests that the images in question show a payload fairing, and not a rocket booster. I've just emailed the person who sent me the email that set off this post, in the first place, to see if there's a response.]

He Jingtang, architect of the China pavilion at Expo 2010 (Shanghai World’s Fair), on how he celebrated the crowds that turned out to view his building on October 1:

“I especially chose underwear with the China Pavilion logo today to express my happiness.”

As quoted (quote of the Expo, if you ask me) in Shanghai Daily, 2 October 2010.

[UPDATED TWO HOURS LATER: I posted this item quickly, a few minutes before I had to board a flight. Now, after a couple of hours to contemplate Mr. He's statement, something occurs to me: where can one buy underpants branded with the China pavilion logo? I've been at the Expo literally dozens of times, visited a very large percentage of the gift shops (including the one devoted to selling Expo flip-flops), and I've yet to see any sign of China pavilion underpants. Quite frankly, instinct tells me that whoever is in charge of licensing China pavilion goods would view branded underpants as lagging in the national dignity that the China pavilion is supposed to convey. So:

1. Mr. He is not being truthful about his underpants, or;
2. Mr He has access to a supply of China pavilion underpants (knock-offs???) otherwise unavailable to the public, or;
3. There’s an Expo store selling China pavilion underpants and I want to know where it is.

Anyone who can help with the last point will be credited in this space, and gifted something of value.