Shanghai is known for its ability to tackle tough financial issues, and so I initially wasn’t surprised to read a recent report on its apparent success at fighting corruption in hospitals. This problem is one that few foreigners ever experience and many may be completely unaware of, even as the newspapers with reports of corrupt government officials who accept cash-filled red envelopes and other lavish gifts for greasing the wheels of China’s huge bureaucracy. It turns out the issue at hospitals in Shanghai and around China is similar, only it’s scalpels that are being greased and people’s lives that are at stake if their doctors don’t have sufficient “incentive” to do a good job.
Shanghai Street View
Shanghai Street View: Memorializing the Party 沪经动向：纪念中共
Beijing and Xi’an may have the edge over other cities as treasure troves of Chinese history, but Shanghai is the clear leader when it comes to the history of the Communist Party. The CCP was founded here in Shanghai in 1921, which was chronicled in the star-studded but disjointed film “Beginning of the Great Revival”, released last year on the Party’s 90th anniversary. The city’s status as an intellectual hotbed in the early 20th century made it a natural home for the Party in its younger days, even if the going was often difficult as CCP leaders and members played a game of cat-and-mouse to avoid being wiped out by a ruling Nationalist government later intent on their extinction.
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Shanghai Street View: Making Culture Affordable 沪经动向：让文化更能负担得起
I want to officially add my voice to the hundreds of sarcastic and disappointed Shanghai residents who were underwhelmed to learn that only 2 of the city’s obscure tourist sites were included on a national list of attractions that will offer discounted ticket prices during the upcoming October 1 National Day holiday. And even at the 2 Shanghai sites that made it on to the list, the discounts were so small that they were almost laughable.
Shanghai Street View: Setting the Table for Hairy Crabs 沪经动向：摆好桌子迎接大闸蟹
It’s already mid-September, and that means seafood lovers from Hong Kong to as far afield as Japan and Singapore are foaming at the mouth with expectation for the annual arrival of one of Shanghai’s most famous exports — the hairy crab. As a resident of Asia for a decade now, I know that these crabs have developed an almost legendary status throughout the region. Their arrival each season from the famous Yangcheng Lake in nearby Jiangsu province is an annual rite of passage for the end of summer and beginning of fall, and is marked by big banquets of seafood lovers feasting on these green crustaceans with beady eyes and thick mounds of muddy-looking hair on their front claws.
Shanghai Street View: Cleaning Up the Bund 沪经动向：清理外滩
Most Shanghai residents like myself have a love-hate relationship with the hoards of illegal hawkers that clog the city’s streets and sidewalks. On the one hand such street vendors can be a godsend on a hot summer day when they offer cold drinks, or on a brisk fall evening when they serve up bags of roasted chestnuts fresh from the wok. But much more often they’re simply pests, creating clutter, noise and bottlenecks on many of the city’s busiest sidewalks that are already far too narrow.
Shanghai Street View: Angry Birds Sputter 沪经动向：“愤怒的小鸟”安家上海
They may be all the rage on video screens, but the globally popular Angry Birds franchise has sputtered into Shanghai as owner Rovio Entertainment kicks off an ambitious plan for the brand in China. The lackluster debut for China’s first Angry Birds store, while not completely unexpected, underscores the fact that even in an international city like Shanghai, big global entertainment brands face a tough uphill battle for recognition among Chinese who tend to flock to domestically developed brands with a more local flavor.
Shanghai Street View
Shanghai Street View
Shanghai Street View: Snack Capital Rising
Shanghai is no stranger to imported greasy snack foods, with Cantonese roast meats becoming all the rage these past few years on the booming popularity of Hong Kong-style diners known as cha canting. But clearly the city still yearns for more oily eats from outside, this time with the new arrival of Taiwan’s premier maker of deep fried chicken fillets.
Shanghai Street View: Reclaiming the Entertainment Crown
Dear readers: Today marks the launch of Shanghai Street View, a new series of commentaries with a flavor of Shanghai, the city where I live and work. Shanghai Street Views will cover a range of topics, many of them centered around business themes in keeping with the broader tone of Young’s China Business Blog. My aim in writing is to try and capture some of what makes the city special, both the good points as well as the less-than-perfect, as Shanghai tries to reclaim its place as one of Asia’s financial and cultural hubs.
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Even as Shanghai reeled this week under the double-whammy of lashing rains from Typhoon Haikui and an Olympic disappointment from hometown hurdling superstar Liu Xiang, the city was basking in a more subtle glow as it moved yet another step closer to reclaiming its long-lost title as the Asia’s entertainment hub. News that the city would soon be home to a new $3 billion, western-backed theme park may have been lost in city’s top headlines, which instead focused on the Haikui’s pounding winds and rains and Liu’s stumble in a qualifying race that ended his quest for gold at the London Olympics.
