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

Whenever I start laughing out loud in front of my screen I might as well share it with the rest of the world. I do understand though if my humour is not the same as yours. Greenpeace just released a report about genetically modified rice in China and says “The GE industry is out of control.” (source: Xinhua) I don’t know much about GM so I won’t go into that. I like the reactions from the Chinese side.

Zhu Xinquan, chairman of the Chinese Society of Agro-Biotechnology, said: “I cannot agree with the findings of the report by Greenpeace and I am wondering if the tests conducted by the organization are scientific or not.”

Scientific or not….. followed by this even more profound remark from an official with the Office of Genetically Modified Organism Safety under the ministry of Agriculture.

“We have not seen the concrete testing reports. Moreover, the testing of GM rice seeds should be based on China’s technical standards.”

Then I started laughing.

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.

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.”

Lately it’s become almost a weekly event here in China that bank managers are found out to have been using the bank as their private atm. You don’t have to be a manager though. Doing simple data entries can make you rich…

“A former Bank of China typist has been arrested for allegedly embezzling US$6 million….. He allegedly embezzled the money since 1999 while working as a data input clerk, the police said…”

It makes you wonder that if even a data typist can do this, how little education do you need to not be able to do this.

For more, read the whole article in the Standard.

Just a pointer to an interesting article about doing business in China.

Horse Trading for a Venture in China – NY Times

Conclusion:

You need contacts, time, contacts, money, time, money, and contacts.
I have time, that’s for sure.. money… not really, contacts…well, need time for that.