Shanghai China Snippets Observations about living in Shanghai and China in general

April 14, 2005

The Origin of Chinese Gambling

Filed under: China Culture — Shanghai @ 2:29 pm

Chinese love to gamble. The Chinese government is less happy with this so they are clamping down on gambling in the mainland. On the other hand they endorse gambling in Macao. It’s a strange world. Read more in this article from the LA Times . The most intriguing and telling quote about gambling but at the same time about the psyche of the average Chinese is the one made by Hu Xingdou, economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

“Chinese are the biggest gamblers in the world,” said Hu, the economics professor. “Thousands of years under an imperial system that tries to keep people down leads to a mentality of trying to become super-rich overnight, preferably without the hard work.”

April 12, 2005

No flu, slow internet and PDF

Filed under: Whatever — Shanghai @ 5:01 pm

Right, having spent the last days in bed because of the flu I am happy to be back again in the land of the sane. My own sanity, I should add. The good thing of being beaten by a virus is that it gives you a chance to realize your Internet addiction. How bad do I have to feel to not log on? Pretty bad. I have missed a lot of news, which is another plus. Less to worry about. Back online, I notice that in High Tech, Advanced and Scientific country China they are still unable to deliver high-speed ADSL. It actually seems the speed and reliability is decreasing by the day. At times it is so slow that I contemplate reading the China Daily again. An effective and natural way of stopping the free flow of information. Another thing that got me started today is the use of .pdf by websites. And then the special form… you click and surprise… the browser starts to open acrobat reader because it’s a .pdf file. Then my browser crashes etc, etc. How darn user unfriendly can you be not to tell people that clicking this link be presented with a .pdf file. The site of the bar Number 5 is an example. I just wanted to see their menu.. Wow.. It got me crashed, it took 5 minutes of my life so no, I won’t check out their drinks. At least not online.

April 4, 2005

One in 20 Employees of Bank of Communications got Punished

Filed under: China Business — Shanghai @ 11:20 pm

I guess Monday is China business day. As the Bank of Communications is on a mission to get investor’s money (they want to IPO) they are in the process of doing a “Window dressing” operation. Today there is the news that they “punished one in 20 of its employees last year for corruption and making bad loans”.(source: Bloomberg). They don’t exactly say what kind of punishments and I am sure they won’t put their hand in the fire to prove the other 19 are totally clean.

Chinese Stockmarkets Fooled

Filed under: China Business — Shanghai @ 5:48 pm

The Stockmarkets in China, respectively in Shenzhen and Shanghai, have never been a safe bet for a reliable retirement plan as they prefer to dive. Last Friday the market was on the up as it was rumoured that the Government was to postpone sales of state shares for up to 30 years. Even in a communist country that is incorporating capitalism, 30 years seems kind of a strong commitment. Well, what day was Friday again, oh right, April Fools Day. So now it’s back to normal, back to going down.

see for more the articles in Forbes and the China Daily.

To quote the last “To the surprise of many, China’s shares bounced back on April Fool’s Day, April 1, after hitting a six-year-low just the day before.”

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