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

August 29, 2006

Nip and Tuck on Holiday in China

Filed under: China Culture — Shanghai @ 1:40 am

story hao[tag]Plastic surgery[/tag] is a booming business in [tag]China[/tag]. As insecurity is mounting and jobs are less available students start to use their holidays to sculpt their [tag]face[/tag], higher the nose, get double [tag]eyelids[/tag] and inflate the [tag]boobs[/tag].

The summer holiday is a convenient time as it gives the bruises time to heal.

I’ll just quote a bit. It’s sad but unfortunately a reality these days.

“I want to be more beautiful, to perfect myself,” said Pan, a student at one of China’s most prestigious law schools,… “My face is too big and flat, like all [tag]Asians[/tag]. I would also like to make my nose higher,” said the attractive 23-year-old.

She is attractive but ….

“There is definitely a trend in students having operations,” said Dr Liu Yanqun, EverCare’s director. His hospital gives students 20 percent discounts on plastic surgery procedures.

Sure, let’s encourage students that having your faced spruced up is the best way forward

“Parents encourage their kids to go under the knife with the hope that a prettier face may give them an edge. “

Thanks mum, thanks dad for putting me on this world looking like a duck.

miss plastic surgery china
And for all those spiced up creatures, in case you still fail to find a job you can participate in the [tag]Miss Plastic Surgery Pageant[/tag].

Source: plastic surgery holidays
Picture: China Daily
Another read : The story of Lucy Hao on CNN
Series: Nip & Tuck is one one of my favorite series about 2 plastic surgeons working on bored housewives. Season 4 starts 5 Sept. 2006 in the US. Probably a couple of weeks later it’s available near you, if you live in China that is.

August 21, 2006

Construction Statistics Shanghai

Filed under: China Statistics — Shanghai @ 9:43 pm

We’re dipping our toes in the real estate market in Shanghai and as a first step called an agent who was referred to us by a friend.

After telling him the price range, the first question was: “How many bathrooms do you want?”

Are bathrooms the new status symbol?

bathroom

Data about construction in Shanghai
from the latest 8days magazine

  • Total are of Shanghai that has been reconstructed – 22.650.000 m2
  • Number of architecture firms – 44
  • Number of high-rise commercial buildings built every year – 400
  • Total area of all the public parks in Shanghai by 2010 – 20.000.000 m2 *
  • Total expansion of Shanghai’s downtown area since the 1980s – 480 km2
  • Total land area that has been used to build new residential areas over the last 5 years – 80.000.000 m2

* I doubt this will materialize with the said square meters. Real estate/city development plans always include parks and green areas. They somehow are just forgotten at the end stage of the building.

Source: 8days
Picture: My old bathroom in Kunming. Fill it up, heat it and don’t forget to pull out the plug before taking the shower machine

August 15, 2006

Love or Money

Filed under: China Culture — Shanghai @ 10:25 pm

An interesting choice. An English teacher in [tag]Chongqing[/tag] did a small experiment.

I presented two hypothetical envelopes to three of my girl students between 16 and 18 years old. One of the envelopes was labeled ‘love’, the other ‘money’. I asked the girls to pick one of the envelopes. Without doubt, all three of them chose the ‘money’ envelope, explaining that they couldn’t really trust love but that they could trust money.

I am pretty sure the outcome would have been the same in [tag]Shanghai[/tag].

If you want to know what the guys chose, go here

August 8, 2006

Chinese Cities Compared Using Google Trends China

Filed under: Chinese Multi Media — Shanghai @ 8:39 pm

[tag]Google Trends[/tag] is a relatively new tool. Launched in May 2006 it gives insight in what people all over the world are searching for. Not in absolute numbers but by using graphs to show a trend.

popular chinese city searches

Google Trends

In their own words:

Google Trends analyzes a portion of [tag]Google[/tag] web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results — our search-volume graph — plotted on a linear scale.

[tag]Google Trends China[/tag]

On July 31 Google added [tag]Trends in Chinese[/tag]. It is a fun tool to compare the popularity of keywords (There is a maximum of 5 keywords). In how far search data have been chinatized I don’t know as I haven’t tried comparing such terms.

In the version with worldwide searches there is graph that shows the number of times a topic appeared in Google News stories. This isn’t working yet for non-English headlines.

The most popular city in [tag]China[/tag], search-wise

I compared searches for [tag]Shanghai[/tag], [tag]Beijing[/tag], [tag]Guangzhou[/tag], [tag]Shenzhen[/tag] and [tag]Chengdu[/tag] done from within China in [tag]Chinese[/tag].
Shanghai most popular city
The winner is .. Shanghai. But you probably already knew that if you read the [tag]Chinese[/tag]. And no, this is not scientific research so it may be I should have included other cities.

Sources:

Via Google Blogoscoped

Google Trends in Chinese – Cities compared

Google Trends in Chinese Translated – Cities compares

Chinese Beat The Stress in Bar

Filed under: China News Soft — Shanghai @ 2:29 am

I am frustrated, I am underpaid, my boss forces me to work too much and give him a hongbao to get a promotion.
Chinese Anger Management
My wife keeps on nagging me that I have to make more money. I have to have a car, an apartment, a mistress and buy my kid an entrance to a good [tag]Chinese[/tag] as well an overseas university.

Oh yeah, my family keeps on pressing me to send half of my salary their way. You’re still reading… you want to meet up? Come over tomorrow to the [tag]Rising Sun[/tag] Anger Release Bar in [tag]Nanjing[/tag].

Look for the guy who is beating out the crap of a man that looks like the typical lazy laoban (boss).

Or..

My clients try to grope me all over and I can’t do anything about it or I loose my job.

Customers in the restaurant yell at me all the time, look away when they talk to me and hand me the money and my husband is never home. I don’t even want to start thinking what he is doing out there.

Look for the girl slamming that fat, bold guy with a spoon in his hand.

Fiction, not really. The bar exists since April and is pretty popular.

The bar is the brainchild of Wu Gong.

he got his inspiration from similar bars in [tag]Japan[/tag], but felt a personal need for the type of service after his experiences as a migrant worker in [tag]Guangdong[/tag] Province.

The bar employs 20 “models,” well-built men in their 20s and 30s, who are available to be hit. Customers can specify how they want the models to appear they can even dress as women and then they are free to give them a sound beating.

It’s not a very harmonious way of dealing with one’s feelings, is it?

Source: China Daily, Photo: Istockphoto

August 7, 2006

Funny Shanghai Classifieds

Filed under: Whatever — Shanghai @ 11:24 am

Well funny this Shanghai classifieds , it’s just from what perspective you look at it. In China there are no anti-age and other discrimination laws that prevent employers to be very selective who they hire.

It’s fairly common to see advertisements with age limits, at times combined with “female” only apply.

I hadn’t seen this one before (from the local expat magazine 8days) and I wonder what is meant here by immigrant. Is that a Chinese coming from the countryside or an expat trying his luck in Shanghai.

If anybody wants to apply for this dream job in China, let me know.

jobs in China

Shanghai Circus World

Filed under: Shanghai Life — Shanghai @ 7:24 am

Last Saturday we went to Shanghai Circus World. As it is quite a nice thing to do on an afternoon I have made a special circus page. Enjoy.
Shanghai Circus Tiger

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