As the latest heat wave shows no signs of easing its grip on Shanghai, our local officials are trying to provide some relief by releasing a report that shows how the city’s traffic has improved under a clean-up campaign that began in March. I was a bit skeptical on reading about the report, since it cited perceptions of improvement among city residents rather than focusing on actual numbers.
But then I thought about it some more, and realized that perceptions in this case may be equally or even more important than actual facts and figures. That’s because people’s perceptions of change are far more likely to affect their actual behavior than simply reading figures about growth in the number of tickets handed out for offences like jaywalking and running red lights. Read Full Post…
This week’s Street View takes us to Shanghai’s cyber realm, where I feel compelled to write about a recent trend that has seen an explosion in chat groups on the hugely popular WeChat mobile messaging platform. I write occasionally about cyberspace in this column, usually focusing on apps that make life easier for Shanghai residents for things like hailing taxis and locating nearby public toilets.
But the chat group phenomenon is slightly different, as it doesn’t have any real-world applications and is solely designed to facilitate better communication among groups of friends, acquaintances, colleagues, family members, or simply people with a common interest. Such groups really are quite useful in some cases, for example by helping people to plan an outing or for students to pass on messages about their latest class assignments. Read Full Post…
This week’s Street View centers on Xuhui District, where 2 major developments spotlight how rapid changes are creating headaches for some residents and undermining businesses that were formerly thriving. The first development sent shockwaves through the expat party-going crowd, as Xuhui’s top official announced plans to shut down most of the bars and restaurants on the trendy Yongkang Lu in the former French Concession area. Read Full Post…
This week we travel from the streets of Shanghai to some of our city’s many parks, which are getting a little friendlier by extending their opening hours during the summer. The move isn’t particularly new and comes every year, but still reminds me each time how different Chinese parks are from the big, open spaces that most westerners enjoy in North America and Europe with mostly unlimited access.
This outdoor story did see one additional new wrinkle here in China last week, when the massive Zhongshan Park in Changning District become the latest in the city to stay open 24 hours. That broke with the earlier practice for nearly all parks in China of closing during the night, supposedly for safety reasons. Read Full Post…
Our subway system beneath the streets of Shanghai became just a tad quieter this week, with the official retirement of passes that have allowed elderly riders to use the metro for free for years. Regular users of our metro will know I’m referring to disappearance of the voice that barks out the words jinglaoka every time a user of one of these free passes enters or exits through the turnstiles of the subway.
That loud voice, presumably aimed at preventing abuse of the cards, officially went quiet this past Sunday, marking the end of an era for elderly people who could enjoy unlimited free rides during non-peak times. The new policy also eliminated free rides for retirees on our city’s bus system. Read Full Post…
The dog days of summer may be descending on Shanghai, but one place that won’t be too steamy this year is the city’s annual game fest, formally known as ChinaJoy, that takes place in July. The organizer of the country’s biggest gaming trade show has thrown cold water on people who attended in the past to ogle scantily clad models, saying it will enforce a strict dress code at this year’s edition.
This particular move follows a similar ground-breaking prohibition on excessive skin at the Shanghai auto show last year, a move that was greeted with cheers from true car enthusiasts but boos from some who said it dampened the show’s festive atmosphere. I tend to side with the former group, and applaud this broader movement that’s trying to clean up our business culture here in Shanghai and make it more professional and globally respectable. Read Full Post…
Shanghai’s past and future are center stage in this week’s Street View, the former represented by an exhibit on one of our city’s most famous historic families and the latter by this week’s opening of our new Disneyland theme park in Pudong.
I attended “The Soong Sisters: Special Memories” exhibition shortly after it opened last month, hoping to learn more about 3 of Shanghai’s most famous figures in the early 20th century. Separately, I visited the new Shanghai Disneyland (NYSE: DIS) a few days before its official opening this past Thursday, in a different quest to understand what is likely to become one of China’s top tourist attractions of the 21st century. Read Full Post…
Something seemed strangely familiar when I read a story this week about a new $1 billion joint venture here in Shanghai between local TV giant SMG and a US company called Jaunt. I could swear that perhaps I’d read the story before, or at least something similar. But then I realized my sense of deja vu was prompted by the term “virtual reality”, or VR, which was the focus of this new tie-up and has become a sudden buzzword in our local media.
VR isn’t the only high-tech word buzzing around our media here in Shanghai these days. In addition, we’re suddenly getting swamped with stories about high-tech incubators, as well as robots and artificial intelligence (AI). The new robot craze seems particularly pronounced, and a search for the word on Shanghai Daily’s website returned a staggering 889 results, including 15 in May alone. Read Full Post…
It’s rare for traffic accidents to make major headlines here in Shanghai, especially when there are no major casualties, graphic images or allegations of big criminal behavior. But that’s exactly what has happened over the last few days, as a roll-over accident involving a large truck loaded with heavy cement pilings consumed the city’s attention for much of the past week.
No one was killed in the accident or even seriously injured, and the truck driver wasn’t under the influence of alcohol or wanted for any other crime. Images of the wreck weren’t very exciting either, leaving TV and newspaper editors with the unexciting choice between pictures of broken guard rails and cranes removing the cement pilings from the truck and road. Read Full Post…
A couple of culinary headlines this week are spotlighting the important role that food plays in defining a city’s character, not only in terms of local tastes but also its openness to out-of-town flavors. Shanghai’s culinary evolution over the last 2 decades has been nothing short of spectacular in that regard, as the city transformed from a regional backwater dominated by local fare like xiaolongbao to one where top-notch flavors from throughout China and abroad are widely available. Read Full Post…
Baidu, Beijing hospital at center of medical scandal
A scandal involving leading search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) has been making national headlines for much of the last 2 weeks, but a smaller similar story this week in Shanghai showed just how bad the problem of false and misleading advertising claims has become in China. Both cases had their roots in the ultra-competitive medical industry, where hospitals, drug and device makers are constantly boasting of miracle cures and spectacular results for anyone who will listen.
In many ways this particular landscape is reminiscent of the US in the early 20th century, when similar “snake oil salesmen” peddled all kinds of dubious drugs and elixirs that claimed they could cure everything from common colds to digestive ailments. Now it seems that China is going through similar growing pains due to its relatively late arrival into a competitive environment where people have many choices for medical products and services. Read Full Post…
