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

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.

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

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