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

September 27, 2006

Shanghai F1 Statistics

Filed under: China Statistics — Shanghai @ 1:50 am

The racing cars are coming to town. As it is, the [tag]F1 [/tag]these days is as boring as watching a cup of coffee being made in [tag]Starbucks[/tag]. Okay, I have to correct myself here. The first 5 minutes of the race can be fun as this is the moment with the highest probability cars will launched in the air, crash into each other or just fail to drive one meter. (schedule grandprix of China)

The first of October the tires will rub the tarmac for real. SH has digged up some stats about the F1 and [tag]Shanghai[/tag].

  • F1 2005 Revenue Tickets – 250.000.000 Rmb
  • Shanghai Circuit Area – 5.3 square kilometers
  • Worldwide TV audience F1 2005 – 400 million
  • Capacity of Shanghai circuit – 200.000 spectators
  • Number of Michael Schumacher’s hats sold during the 2005 race – only 1200
  • Cheapest ticket 2006, standing on the grass – 380 Rmb

china shanghai grandprix
If anyone has some nice paddock tickets for me, I might be willing to convert myself to a F1 groupie:)

September 21, 2006

Man Bites Panda Bites Back

Filed under: Whatever — Shanghai @ 3:38 am

In the category, almost Friday, another Panda story.

panda bites back

Here’s the summary

Drunken immigrant worker (note that as always a distinction is made between city slickers and those beyond the urban border) Zhang visits Beijing Zoo, jumps into the panda enclosure, hugs the panda and gets bitten.

Nothing weird about that, invading on the Panda privacy should come with some repercussion.

Immigrant Zhang gets upset and, yes, he kicks the panda and even bites back. A bit weirder but ok, he was drunk.

Zhang is now in the hospital and clarifies his actions by saying: “I had seen pandas on television and they seemed to get along well with people. No one ever said they would bite people”. He must have been watching Chinese TV, oh wait, there are no other channels anyway.

And here comes the kicker. The [tag]Beijing[/tag] Zoo was asked for a reaction and a representative said that luckily Panda Gu Gu is “healthy.”

She also added, “We’re not considering punishing him now, He’s suffered quite a bit of shock.”

If Panda Gu Gu will be punished, I suggest the following defense line.

I have seen people on TV, mostly the news and they never seem to get along well. No one ever said they would stroke Pandas

Source: AP
Picture dates back to an article about panda insemination.

September 20, 2006

Open Windows Closed Windows

Filed under: Chinese Multi Media — Shanghai @ 10:04 pm

Excerpts from an interview with [tag]China[/tag]’s top Internet [tag]cop[/tag], Mr. Li Wufeng.

We don’t [tag]censor[/tag], we don’t know how

“We have neither the technology nor the manpower to censor or filter the Internet”, Li told us. “We have just dozens of people in the Internet affairs bureau. Half of them are here today [in the room],” he added.

But sometimes we close the window.

“We have our own choice of the Internet content” within China, he said. “If someone is shouting bad things about me from outside my window, I have the right to close that window.”

You guess the reality.

Source: Foreign Policy

September 19, 2006

WordPress.com Unblocked in China ?

Filed under: Chinese Multi Media — Shanghai @ 4:25 am

Update:

Well, it seems that the wordpress.com website is still unblocked but the sub domains are again unavailable. What a pity.

Yet another blog service is accessible in [tag]China[/tag]. Not so long ago it were the blogspot blogs that had the honour of passing the great firewall unharmed.

WordPress.com, another host for blogs, is (for now) available. Curiously the .org version of [tag]Wordpress[/tag] was never blocked. Let’s hope it stays like this.

Wordpress

September 16, 2006

Cartoons and Bureaucrats

Filed under: Chinese Multi Media — Shanghai @ 3:49 am

A small little tidbit of bureaucrat reality I found in an article that was actually about a newsconference about the eased restrictions on access to the mainland market for [tag]Hong Kong[/tag]’s film and television industry. (sorry, long sentence)

Zhao Shi, deputy director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (aka [tag]SARFT[/tag]), told the audience as well

“…. [tag]China[/tag]’s recent prime-time ban on foreign cartoons came in response to requests from viewers.

“The ban meets the demands of children and parents who want to watch domestic cartoon programs in prime time,” she said.”

So much about the user preferences according to SARFT

The article continues

In contrast to Zhao’s remarks, a survey conducted earlier shows that about 80 percent of Chinese children said they liked foreign cartoons.

So much about the preferences of the viewers

The main reason, and that was already clear from the beginning, is to protect the domestic [tag]cartoon[/tag] industry.

Source: [tag]Shanghai[/tag] Daily – not linked as the original article will disappear after a couple of days behind a paywall

September 12, 2006

Do you need money in Shanghai Read This

Filed under: Shanghai Life,Shanghai Prices — Shanghai @ 2:21 am

I am sure I will never make it as a copy editor:) but these were the words that came to mind reading a classified in the SH magazine.

A [tag]pawn shop[/tag] or individual offering its services to poor foreigners. A niche I never thought of before.
pawn shop in classified

The only time I wandered into a pawn shop was in Bangkok. For some reason most of the pawn shops in Asia are run by [tag]Chinese[/tag] and they carry without exception a Chinese name and a localized version.

A little bit hesitant I noticed all sorts of rings, other jewelery, electronics etc. Even wedding rings had found their way, maybe left behind by divorcées or in exchange for supermarket money. Who knows. I didn’t stay long as it had a sad feel to it.

Fortunately I have had no need yet to exchange any valuables for some hard cash but in case you’re in that situation I delved in the online information world of pawnshops.

The offer of our “[tag]pawnshop[/tag]” classified seems rather excessive. 50% of the resale value should be the minimum you should be able to get. The term of 30 days is average. 90 days is the most often cited, at least in the United States where there is even a National Pawnshop organization.

Incidentally, in the first “new” classified section of SH, the very knowledgeable Mr. Know-It-All answers a question about pawn shops.
pawn shop shanghai
There is a pawn shop chain called “Oriental Pawn”. I gave them a call using the example of the question for Mr. Know-It-All and this is what they told me.

You’ll need to bring

  • the receipt (fapiao)
  • warranty (if available)
  • your id card (passport)
  • The item you want to pawn

They will

  • Set the current value of the item, probably less than you expect.
  • Give you 100% of said current value
  • Tell you, you’ll have a month to come back and pay 4.62% interest

The 1 month is especially for appliances as they decrease in value fast. Some items can be pawned for a longer period. The interest will add up though.

Oriental Pawn, Address: 381 Xietu Lu, Mengzi Lu, [tag]Shanghai[/tag], Tel: 63055888

As an alternative you can of course always advertise your stuff on eBay or other online auction websites or just place an ad in the expat magazines. It may end up next to the one of our classified pawn shop.

Read more about pawn shops here, in case you’re interested.

September 7, 2006

What do Chinese Search for in Google

Filed under: China Statistics,Chinese Multi Media — Shanghai @ 2:28 am

Since March 2006 Google has again added China to their monthly zeitgeist.
Google Zeitgeist China July 2006

[tag]Zeitgeist[/tag] is described by Google as:

a cumulative snapshot of interesting queries people are asking – some over time, some within country domains, and some on [tag]Google.com[/tag] – that perhaps reveal a bit of the human condition.

The queries show trends and are not necessarily the top searches but they give an indication of what is popular and what is not. They are, as John Battelle named them, the “Database of intentions”

Zeitgeist disappeared and came back

Around August 2005 the China Zeitgeist disappeared strangely enough. After launching their sanitized search version [tag]Google.cn[/tag], [tag]Google[/tag] felt it probably approproate to include them again.

This last part is speculation on my side as it may as well be that they use Google.com search queries in [tag]Chinese[/tag]. Chances are though, that they use the Google.cn queries.

What are the trends in [tag]China[/tag]?

On first sight the constant searches are Games, Software and the [tag]Super Girl[/tag] (the Chinese version of [tag]American Idol[/tag]) winner [tag]Li Yu Chun[/tag] (categorized under Music).

See this chart where I have divided the searches in different categories spread over the period March – July 2006

China Search Trends by Category

What else is popular

  • The months April, May and June show that the new moral guidelines by President [tag]Hu Jintao[/tag], the 8 honors, 8 disgraces, were popular online.

    In July these guidelines have been overtaken again by even more games.

  • In June and July the World Cup [tag]Football[/tag] is popular.
  • China Mobile and China Merchant Bank for some reason are pretty constant.
  • Seasonal searches take place in June with the “college entrance examination” taking place and “Psychology test”

Popular searches in China by keyword
Click for a bigger chart here

All this is in no way scientific or whatever. It’s just a little excercise done by me out of curiosity. It does however give an indication that the focus of the Chinese using search is on fun things.

Any questions, comments are very welcome. If you some see errors please point them out.

In the full chart I have translated the Chinese keywords to English and there is a big chance it’s not always perfect.

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