Shanghai’s new buses: Symbols of the future or past?
This week’s Street View takes us back to the roads of Shanghai once more, with news that the city is rolling out a new fleet of super-long buses to make more room for millions of residents who are tired of feeling like sardines on their commutes to and from work.
The city is billing these new buses as state-of-the-art technology that will put Shanghai on the global transport map, with plans to put 3,000 of them on the road starting next month. But to me they look suspiciously like a throwback to China’s simpler but inefficient past of clunky slow-moving buses staffed by snippity ticket sellers. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. Read Full Post…
Local chicken lovers are clucking with a collective sigh of relief these days, after Shanghai formally ended its 2-month ban on live poultry sales in the city’s dozens of wet markets. I have to commend the city for its rational, even-handed approach to the situation, which forced it to find a middle road in balancing local tastes for live birds with the health threat raised by the outbreak of H7N9 in April. Read Full Post…
I’m a big fan of Disney (NYSE: DIS), not because I worship Mickey Mouse but rather because I think they do a really good job at their core business of providing world-class family entertainment. So I was quite excited when the company announced nearly four years ago that it would build its first mainland Disneyland in Shanghai, and have watched closely for updates ever since. Read Full Post…
Huangpu District has the stately Bund, Jing’an has the upscale West Nanjing Road shopping area and Luwan has the trendy Xintiandi. And then there’s Hongkou, which is trying to find its way onto city tourist maps with new plans for an area of bed & breakfast-style hotels (B&Bs) converted from old shikumen houses. Read Full Post…
This week’s edition of Shanghai Street View literally takes us to the street, as I look at the recent explosion of taxi apps that have cropped up in the city’s cabs and the backlash it’s created. I particularly like this story because it represents the collision of technology with two very Chinese elements, namely the concepts of backdoors and state-set prices that are often artificially low. Read Full Post…
I’ve been watching with interest these last few weeks as local media have feasted on the story of an old neighborhood in Jingan District that’s now being emptied for future development, forcing out longtime residents who have lived there for decades. I’ve been partly intrigued by the story because I’m not sure why this particular neighborhood is drawing so much attention, since this kind of redevelopment has become quite commonplace since the 1990s. Read Full Post…
I have to commend China’s tourism sector for its innovative spirit, even if I don’t always agree with all of its ideas. That spirit has seen public and private entities become especially adept at “tourifying” nearly everything imaginable, from parks to entire historic towns. But Shanghai’s latest campaign to create tourist sites out of some of the city’s most famous factories surprised even me, though it also brought a smile to my face due to its sheer strangeness. Read Full Post…
Not sure what to do with little Fido or Flurry after your beloved dog or cat moves on to the big Dog House or Cat Palace in the sky? Well now there’s an answer, at least there is in Shanghai, where the government has been hard at work on the problem of what to do with the thousands of pets that die in the city each year. And the answer is: cremation. That’s the official verdict from the city after consulting with animal experts over the last few months to draft a new set of guidelines on the issue. (Chinese article) Read Full Post…
This week I want to tackle the somewhat touchy subject of dating and marriage in China, following news that Shanghai is preparing to boost its assistance to anxious singles with the addition of a new event to help them find the perfect mate. That new event will see the city’s 3-year-old Love and Marriage Fair expand to a twice-yearly affair starting this year, doubling its original frequency. The third edition of the original eventwill take place on May 18 and 19 and began accepting registrations late last month, as the arrival of spring reawakens hopes of finding a partner among Shanghai’s thousands of unmarried young people. The new edition will take place in the fall. Read Full Post…
As spring finally arrives in Shanghai, I wanted to take a break from some of the heavier issues I usually explore to look at a cute new marketing campaign from Spring Airlines, the Shanghai-based budget carrier that everybody loves to hate. I should start by saying that I love the season called spring, but I’m personally no fan of Spring Airlines for reasons I’ll give shortly. But that said, I did find myself smiling when I read about the airline’s latest marketing campaign that reflects Shanghai’s increasingly creative spirit and sophistication. Read Full Post…
I must admit that I have a love-hate relationship with TV talent shows, which perhaps explains my mixed reaction to the news that the granddaddy of the genre, “American Idol” is finally coming to China more than a decade after its huge success in the US. On the one hand, I do think these shows that have become a Chinese TV staple seem more like a waste of talent that could be better spent on more productive things like saving the environment or building faster computers. Read Full Post…
