China is currently bidding against Almaty, Kazakhstan for the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. In general, this is a bad idea – Beijing has little to no snow in the winter, but lots and lots of smog. And those are just the starter reasons (I documented more in this column for Bloomberg last…
All posts in Weird China
China Pavilion Architect Celebrates in his Underpants
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…
Time out from Expo 2010 for some Cuttlefish Cheese Bread
We’re going to briefly interrupt Shanghai Scrap’s non-stop Expo 2010 coverage to announce that – based upon what we just had for breakfast – Starbucks is doomed. For those who don’t follow the venerable coffee company, it’s been faltering for several years now, largely due to over-expansion into questionable markets in the US (though that…
Photo: The Improvised Welding Mask
[Note 11/13: A couple of folks have left comments expressing doubts about whether, in fact, the mask in question was used for welding. It was.] I’ve just returned to Shanghai after 12 days of roaming up and down Guangdong. I’ll have a bit more to say about some of what I saw down there in…
Dept of Having-Seen-It-All-Now: Chinese Safety Reduction Devices
The other afternoon I was riding in the back seat of a late model SUV owned by a successful businessman based in Guangdong. He’s a busy guy, with a high risk tolerance, so it really shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that he doesn’t have much patience for seat belts, much less, the…
One Seriously Cold Shower: My Visit to the Guangzhou Sex Festival
Yesterday morning I opened the drapes in my Guangzhou hotel room and what a surprise: I’m located directly across the street from the convention center hosting the 7th Annual Guangzhou Sex Festival. Believe it or not, this was inadvertent – I’m (still) in town for another event located in an adjacent hotel. Then again, I’m…
The Cat Thief
Last night I was walking south on Fenyang Road when, at the intersection with Fuxing Road, I saw a small crowd of five or six people standing around a tricycle outfitted with cages packed tight with terrified cats and a few small dogs. In front of it, a waif-like man dashed around, mostly crouched over,…
Mad Mission: a Shanghai Street Scene
The other afternoon I was in a very busy part of Shanghai, on my way into the subway entrance which I use several times per week. It’s been getting harder, though. Over the last two weeks the stairway has become a crowded marketplace of sorts, and it’s followed a predictable Shanghai-style progression: somebody gets away…
When the Walls Come Down.
This afternoon I was poking around some demolished residences in Hongkou District (more on that in a few days), when I looked up and noticed a poster hanging from the collapsed wall in the background of the photo, below. I’ve blown it up a bit, and placed it in the lower right corner of the…
Even (alleged) state-sponsored kidnappers should hire PR consultants, sometimes.
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…