Shanghai Scrap

How I missed this, I don’t know, but here’s the deal: if you’re an American living abroad, and you weren’t physically in the United States on April 1, then you will not be counted in the 2010 US census (in fact, you would’ve only been counted in the 1960 and 1970 censuses). Exceptions are made for federal employees and military personnel who can be assigned to states. Why this injustice? It’s hard (just you try and find all the Americans in Shanghai), and expensive (as in, US$1450 per counted American), as this 2004 GAO report outlines. It’s a surprisingly good read, actually, especially the bit about the “overseas marketing firm” hired to spread the word among Americans in France, Kuwait, and Mexico that a census was taking place. The experience with said firm should sound familiar to anyone who’s ever asked someone else to leave fliers for them in expat-oriented establishments:

However, at 21 sites we visited, we found various discrepancies between what the public relations firm indicated had occurred, and what actually took place. For example, while the firm’s tracking system indicated that questionnaires would be available at a restaurant and an English-language bookstore in Guadalajara, none were present.

Likewise, in Paris, we went to several locations where the tracking system indicated that census information would be available. None was. In fact, at some of these sites, not only was there no information about the census, but there was no indication that the organization we were looking for resided at the address we had from the database.

That’s a good one.

Anyway, I’d be more sympathetic to the plight of the Census Bureau if it weren’t for the fact that every American abroad I’ve met in the last ten years is connected to this thing called the Internet which, so far as I can tell, ensures two-way communications between them and government agencies that handle things like, I dunno, taxes and voting. I’m sure it comes with its own problems, but for the love of god and country, it surely gives a more accurate picture (at cheaper than US$1450/head) than whistling down the street, pretending that the only Americans abroad are those on the federal payroll! [update: or a dependent of someone on the federal payroll]

In the meantime, funny to think that – for the next ten years – I am an “uncounted and unenumerated” American. Thought: does that do anything to help me with the two unpaid Minneapolis parking tickets I acquired in February?

[UPDATE: A quick clarification posted in response to Zach's good comment and question, below. I'm not asking to be counted as an 'American abroad,' per se. Instead, like federal employees and military personnel who fill out the forms when abroad, I'm asking to be counted as a resident of my home state. In my case, Minnesota. It makes sense: after all, I'm a Minnesota voter, tax payer, and driver's license holder. Why, then, shouldn't the state have the opportunity to count me as its own in a census that determines, eventually, the boundaries of my legislative district, among other matters? At the same time, I do think there's value in having demographic data on Americans living abroad.]

Just got off the phone with a reporter interested to know how the Expo (ie, World’s Fair) is changing Shanghai. No offense to this particular hack, but I’ve been having that conversation a whole lot recently, and it usually goes something like this: “Lots of new infrastructure, great new subways, but please stop demolishing all of the old neighborhoods that were among the best reasons to visit Shanghai in the first place.” In other words, so far at least (and despite the keening and hollering from long-term expats across Shanghai) it hasn’t really had much of an impact on (my) day-to-day life (my professional life, that’s another matter).

[UPDATE: A reader emails to remind me of last year's posts about the Expo-related face-lift that my apartment building received.  How quickly I forget!]

My friends in Shanghai’s visual arts community have a distinctly different perspective (more on that soon), and those in the city’s burgeoning indie rock scene, well, they have some legitimate complaints. But I’ll leave those to them, and make this about me. So, from the perspective of someone who spends most of his time indoors, hunched over a keyboard, and overlooking (for now) the demolitions, here – typed over breakfast – are the most noticeable changes that Expo has brought to my Shanghai:

1. My favorite pirate DVD store is now a sporting goods retailer. To access the DVDs, I’m required to slip between a rack of warm-up jackets and then through a hidden door. The hidden door is opened only when a look-out nods – presumably to assure all involved that the coast is clear.
2. Related: not seeing many new DVD releases in town. Last batch came in just before Oscar time. Tired of watching A Serious Man.
3. A small uptick in the number of Caucasian foreigners in Shanghai. However, they all appear to be employed by Expo pavilions. Otherwise, no more foreigners than usual in these parts.
4. Suddenly, the Shanghainese are waiting for the walk signal at crosswalks. This is incredible.
5. Related: they are giving dirty looks – and berating – foreigners who don’t do the same [this, after years of training me in the fine art of zen jaywalking, ie, "just go, they'll stop."]
6. Noticeably fewer scrap peddlers on the streets, presumably chased off by Shanghai officials concerned that small-scale recyclers will hurt the city’s image with foreigners. You know what else hurts Shanghai’s image? Trash on the streets. [Shanghai authorities, mark my words: this decision will haunt you].
7. Related: noticeably more consumer-generated recyclables on the streets [Shanghai authorities: just you wait]
8. Yesterday I was asked to show my passport before I could enter the subway [given, this could've been related to the Moscow subway bombing - but still]. Upon further reflection, I’m okay with this so long as the various stations start stamping exit-entry info into said passports [but please, no visas].
9. Related: the 14-year-olds the city hired to staff the baggage x-ray machines installed at the city’s subway stations are now awake for their shifts, and supervised by 18-year-olds. Previously, they’d spent most of their time asleep or – if they were ambitious – texting their friends.
10. Due to restrictions on blade sales during the Expo, I have been forced to put off adding to my fencing rapier and fruit knife collections until November.
11. My landlord, when negotiating my new lease, used the Expo as an argument for raising my rent. In response, I told her that if she ever decides to rent in Minneapolis during the annual month-long Holidazzle, the price is double.

And I’ll leave it at that. Comment thread open.

[UPDATED: Based upon a couple of emails, let me be clear: the new subway lines are terrific. Thank you, Shanghai. More, please.]

On October 28 the Shanghai Daily ran what now stands as my favorite headline in the history of journalism:

The headline isn’t the best part, though. That honor is reserved for the story itself, which goes something like this: last year, the five individuals in the above photo began working as prostitutes in Shanghai. One day, one prostitute noticed that another was taking prescription sedatives for a sleeping disorder. A plot soon emerged: “let’s make some chocolate, lace it with those sedatives, and feed it to clients with the intention of robbing them after they collapse.” A winning concept, for sure (!), that succeeded on at least two occasions, and would have succeeded on a third had someone not been caught using a victim’s credit card at a cosmetics shop. (more…)

This afternoon, around 4:00 PM, I left a friend’s thirteenth floor apartment and paused to wait for the elevator. While I did, I gazed out the window and noticed a stunning, multicolored striped building in the near distance. Though incomplete, I think it’s an absolute stunner, and I took out a camera and snapped a couple of photos – including the one below:

Now, if you don’t live in Shanghai (or China, for that matter), you might take a look at this photo and wonder just what in the hell I was thinking. After all, the colors are drab, dulled – quite obviously – by the thick smog that hung over the city this afternoon. And, I must concede, when I pulled up the image on my laptop later in the afternoon, I thought the same thing. But that’s not what I thought as I stood at the window, staring at the building, nor, earlier, as I sat on a balcony on the opposite side of the elevator lobby, enjoying a different view of the city. Indeed, like most people in Shanghai over the last week, I’ve been praising the unseasonably good weather and clear skies that we’ve been enjoying. It’s been a treat – or so I thought.

And that has me thinking. (more…)

By popular demand (you know who you are), promoted from twitpic to the blog:

[Clarification, also by popular demand: the sign hangs in a stairwell]

For the record, this fulfills Shanghai Scrap’s official allotment of exactly ONE Chinglish-related post per Blog Year. An allotment established because, really, nobody at Shanghai Scrap HQ has any business looking askance at the foreign language skills of others.

In other health and safety news: a hearty, hearty recommendation for James Fallows on the (still unclear) health effects of being an expatriate in China. This is a subject near and dear to my heart: a few years ago, during a routine physical on a visit home to the United States, I asked for a blood test to check the lead levels in my bloodstream. The attending physician was skeptical, until I told him that I live in China. Then he did it, and a few days later called back to tell me that – he’ll be damned, but – I had elevated levels of lead in my blood. Maybe it was the air; maybe the paint on my apartment walls; or maybe the water used to clean the food that I eat. Whatever it was, he assured me that I’d probably be fine so long as I wasn’t planning to get pregnant or revert to being 12, again (note to self …). Since then, I’ve heard of other expats – some capable of becoming pregnant – who’ve had the same test, and the same results. And most of us are still here, and so far at least, we’re okay (which is sort of the Fallows point).

For the record, I think it’s worth recalling that most of the Chinese who have been, and are, our friends and neighbors are still here, too – breathing and eating many of the same things as we are. But, unlike us, most of them don’t have the option to leave. So, as much fun as it is to wonder whether or not China is killing the foreigners, pondering the long-term effects of China on the Chinese, is probably a better use of everybody’s time (also a point that Fallows makes).

And on that note, I declare it Friday.

[UPDATE 10/19 - Paul French of the excellent China Rhyming blog just posted some heartbreaking history and images of the White Horse Inn, on the former Ward Road, which was taken down during the recent Hongkou demolitions. ]

[UPDATE 10/22 - Leading the pack on Hongkou-related news, Paul French just posted a very fine item on East Seward Road, which mentions my post. It's worth noting, as well, that he's going to be the first author published by Penguin's new China imprint.]

Spend time in the lanes and alleys of Shanghai’s rapidly disappearing, European-built tenements, and you’ll inevitably find tourists and well-heeled expats taking photos. It’s a legitimate exercise, I think: not only the buildings, but the ways of life that developed in those buildings, are rapidly disappearing, and somebody ought to record them before they’re gone. And yet, despite their picturesque nature, it’s worth recalling that the lanes were and are often miserable places to call home. Poorly insulated, poorly heated, and lacking in privacy – they are everything that affluent tourists who fetishize their atmospherics would refuse to call their own. I wouldn’t want to live in them, either. But does that justify their destruction? Put differently, could some other use have been found for them?

Shanghai is far from the only world city to be dotted with old tenements built for its working classes; and, I suspect, it won’t be the last to see its few remaining tenements rehabbed into expensive lofts – some day. Unfortunately, the time for that discussion is mostly past; most of these well-built structures have already disappeared, and their lots are being rapidly prepped for the anonymous highrises already over-running  China’s other rehabbed cities. Other than real estate developers and dimwitted city officials who think that they’ve just transformed their distinctive districts into something “world class,” I’m really not sure who – exactly – is supposed to be pleased by this.

Which brings me to the sad fate of East Seward Road.

The 1937 Battle of Shanghai damaged large sections of the city’s most famous streets, including the Bund and Nanking Road. But no area suffered more, both from bombs and from infantry, than Hongkou District. By the end of hostilities, entire blocks of the poor, working class district were rubble. Below, an image of East Seward Road (now, Dong Changzhi Road), in the heart of Hongkou, taken in early 1939, nearly two years after the fighting had ended (uncredited photo in the collection of YIVO). Click for an enlargement.

In 1937 Shanghai was already home to a significant population of European Jewish refugees (I wrote about this migration a few years ago, here), while many more were arriving by the week (eventually, there would be roughly 15,000 Jewish refugees in Shanghai, in addition to another 5000 who had arrived earlier, for other reasons). Some came with money, and many more came with an entrepreneurial spirit that – in the space of two-and-a-half years, transformed Hongkou’s ruins into a neighborhood that came to be known as Little Vienna. (more…)

Of the many journalistic beats that Shanghai Scrap really wishes it could cover more fully, none is more tantalizing than the sometimes – nay, often – ridiculous state of expat-oriented advertising in China. It’s a marvelous arena, both in its own right, but also for the insights that it offers into how poorly Chinese companies understand Western tastes, Western companies understand Chinese tastes, and – best of all – how China can make otherwise perfectly reasonable people lose their minds and do/write things that they’d never dare do/write back home. Don’t believe me? Then have a look, here.

So this morning I was flipping through the most recent issue of City Weekend, a popular (most popular?) expat magazine, when I came across this advertisement for an upcoming festival to celebrate the food and wines of the South of France:

So what are the elements that make this a classic? First, I think we’d be remiss is we didn’t take note of the fact that the headline font expands noticeably over the course of its three lines, from the French name of the province in question, to the all-important “for pretty ladies.” And we’d be even more remiss if we overlooked the hottie in the apron holding the heart-shaped pizza beside the headline. (more…)

Due to a September 2008 blog post complaining that ESPN (in Asia, at least) broadcast a dog show instead of a Vikings-Packers Monday Night game, Shanghai Scrap appears to have become a top google result for the not insignificant number of NFL fans performing searches for things like “Monday Night Football Shanghai” and “Where Vikings Packers in Shanghai” in advance of this week’s highly anticipated showdown.

As a public service to the sizable number of NFL fans in China who wish to watch Hall of Fame Vikings QB Brett Favre defeat the Green Bay Packers, and who don’t have an illegal Filipino satellite dish at home to help them do it, I present the surprising results of my public-spirited investigation into the options.

Now, it may well be the case that expat-oriented bars and restaurants will open early for the most anticipated regular season Monday Night/Tuesday Morning Football game in history (8:30 AM, Tuesday, China time). If that’s your preferred option, call around. But if, like me, you’d prefer to avoid spending your morning with inebriated members of Packer – ahem – Nation, who think nothing of downing a pack of Chinese “hot dogs” and a bucket of Reeb before the breakfast kickoff, then I’ve got an option for you: Sina.com.

No idea why, but the NFL has agreed to allow Sina stream the Vikings-Packers game (nay, every Monday Night game) live and for free (take that, NFL Game Pass). To watch it, launch Internet Explorer (Firefox won’t work), click over to Sina’s NFL viewing window, and then click the window itself. You’ll be asked for permission to install Sina’s TV software; accept, wait for the installation to complete, and then – fast as you can – bone up on your Chinese football vocab (play-by-play is in Chinese). That’s it; you’re good to go.

Roughly half-way down the list of things that expats in china are most often asked by folks back home is some variation of “what’s the health care system like?” I’ve visited enough Chinese hospitals and clinics to provide the answer that everyone kind of expects (“cheap” [for an expat], chaotic, highly efficient, not to ‘western’ standards) but I’ve never really been able to put my finger on what – precisely – it is that makes Chinese hospitals such culturally foreign experiences for expats (two of my favorite China bloggers might have had more success, here and here). And, conversely, what makes American hospitals so foreign to Chinese.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I’ve always thought about this in terms of health care systems. But what I’ve realized over the last few weeks (due to events I’ll describe) I really should have been thinking about health care cultures.

Let me explain. (more…)

[Part I in this series, including photos of SARS-era airport health screenings, can be found here.]

News reports to the effect that Mexico is largely being shut down for the long May Day Holiday have, once again, put me in mind of SARS and 2003. May 1, 2003, marked my first Chinese May Day, and my friends and neighbors encouraged me to join the festivities by taking a stroll down Nanjing Road where, they assured me, Shanghai’s families would throw-off months of SARS-related seclusion and go shopping – just like they’re supposed to do on May Day. Not that my friends and neigbors encouraging me to go to Nanjing Road were going to join me – no, they were still holing up in their apartments, boiling vinegar (the smell that – forever more – I’ll associate with the word SARS).

So I took an empty subway to People’s Square, crossed the street and – after walking for a few blocks – took the photo below (almost at noon, according to the time stamp). People who know Shanghai, and China, will immediately recognize two things in that image. First, it is astonishingly barren of people. And second, the sky is unusually blue.

For those readers unfamiliar with Shanghai, then, a couple of points. On weekends and holidays – especially holidays – Nanjing East Road might very well be the most crowded shopping street in China, if not Asia. Think of Times Square on New Year’s Eve, combined with the human currents of Bourbon Street (minus alcohol – admittedly, difficult to subtract) during Mardi Gras, and you’ve sort of got it. That’s normal. Then, the blue sky: we’ve had a nice spell of weather here lately, and the sky has been relatively blue. But during SARS, it wasn’t unlike the blue skies of my Minnesota youth – largely because of the near cessation of economic activity in China.

One other SARS-era May Day memory: the SARS ‘speakeasies.’ The authories had rightfully cracked down on public gatherings, and those included the expatriate bars. But Shanghai being Shanghai, and China being China, the bars pulled their curtains, ‘pretended’ to be closed, and then let customers in through the proverbial back doors and kitchen entrances. By May Day, the restrictions had lightened up. And yet, quite clearly, I remember going for a late-night May Day/night meal and drink and having to enter through an alley. Good times.

[Leonard Cohen's take on "The Future" felt right back then, and even more so now. First four lines/:30, especially.]

Now that swine flu hysteria is close to full bloom, I dug into the old photo archive and pulled up this classic set of instructional posters from SARS-era Shanghai. For a couple of months during Winter/Spring 2003, these were pasted everywhere – every spare wall (anybody out there remember if these showed up in other Chinese cities? or were there different posters?). The Shanghai posters became hot collectors items after the pandemic fears subsided. And, to this day, I regret not grabbing a set for myself.

[In case the photo isn't clear, the English captions read (left to right) ... Wash your hands often; Ventilate your rooms often; Don't spit; Don't sneeze at others.]

Two additional SARS-related recollections after the jump … (more…)

Moments ago, I received a phone call from the organizers of a major industry conference and exhibition scheduled for Beijing in late May. For the sake of the people involved, I’m not going to name the conference or the industry, except to note that it is a very, very big industry employing many, many Chinese people in factories receiving a whole lot of Chinese economic stimulus funds. As for the conference: it’s being sponsored by a major Chinese trade group, several major Chinese state-owned enterprises, a notable division of Xinhua, several major foreign trade publications, and one foreign newswire. The people who own and operate companies in this industry (or, heck, analyze them) are not, generally, rabble-rousers. Indeed, they tend to be very conservative, verging on boring, with a strong preference for what some people like to call “stability.” Anyway, until a few minutes ago, I was a confirmed attendee at this conference. Then I had this conversation:

Conference Rep: “Are you aware that this year is the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party?” [actually, the founding of the PRC, but that's the anniversary he commemorated on the phone.]

Me: “Yes.”

Conf. Rep: “Because of this, I’m sorry but we must postpone our conference until November.”

Me: “Really?”

Conf. Rep: “Many of our international participants will not be able to get visas due to the anniversary. Because of this we must postpone.”

Me: “Not get visas?”

Conf. Rep: “Yes, because of the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party the visa policy changes. So we will postpone until November. Perhaps you can attend then?” [again, stating the wrong anniversary, but you get the point] (more…)

Among longer-term expatriates in China I think there’s a bit of a tendency to downplay – or downright denigrate – the observations made by first-time visitors and newcomers. I’m not immune to this tendency. Indeed, I think the worst offenders might be members of my own cohort: turf-sensitive journalists and writers. Quite frankly, I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been in the company of China-based writers as they sniff proudly at the idea of “fly-in” journalists with no experience in China, writing about China (full disclosure: I’ve sniffed, too). It’s a natural tendency, I think, but also an unfortunate one insofar as it deprives jaded eyes of fresh ones.

A humbling example:

I spent the better part of the morning and early afternoon with an American ob-gyn on her first visit to China. She’s in her mid thirties, very well educated and very well traveled, particularly in India (she speaks Hindi). She also has a strong interest in the care of low-income women. In any case, prior to meeting up with me, she spent two days wandering the city (well, my neighborhood, mostly), taking in whatever she could see. And what she saw, she told me, was a city lacking in pregnant women and children.

I immediately took issue with this observation – “I see pregnant women and children all of the time,” I replied with a wizened expatriate’s confidence. But she wouldn’t hear any of it: instead, she just shook her head back at me, and shrugged: “It’s my job to notice these things. And there are fewer pregnant women and children around than there should be. I notice this stuff.”

I didn’t give this much thought until, just a few minutes ago, I came across Dune Lawrence’s Letter to China in today’s NYT. It concerns China’s “coming wave of elderly” and points out that:

The world’s third-largest economy is aging so rapidly that by 2050, there may be only two working-age people for every senior citizen, compared with 13 to one now.

As for Shanghai, a google search brings up several recent and older articles noting that the city is in the midst of a prolonged period of negative population growth.

Now, these trends are not entirely new to me or – I’m guessing – many of my readers. But I know about them because I’ve spent many years reading and listening to lots and lots of material related to China. Meanwhile, my friend, the American ob-gyn, has not; in fact, I think it’s safe to say that she’s not even particularly interested in China. And that’s why it’s all the more humbling to realize that – in the space of 48 hours in my neighborhood – she picked up on something that I failed to see in 6.5 years.

[UPDATE] I received a number of interesting responses to this post, both in comment form and emails. One very knowledgable respondent agrees that there are fewer children and women on the streets of Shanghai, though this correspodent ascribes the phenomenon to cultural factors that encourage the coddling of pregnant women and children – and not population factors (an email mentions the advent of cell-phone proof overalls for pregnant women!). Similar comments below.]

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?]