After years of living with too many things that were anything but entertaining on our city streets, I was pleasantly surprised this week to read about a new initiative to bring some true entertainment to the streets of Shanghai. This new initiative could eventually see dozens or even hundreds of semi-professional performers begin plying our sidewalks, parks and other outdoor pedestrian areas, providing some fun and different entertainment for people moving about the city in their daily routines.
Some further on reflection on the subject made me realize just how often I write about the many nuisances and even dangers that lurk in the many public places like sidewalks, parks and subways used by Shanghai’s millions of pedestrians. This weird hodgepodge of obstacles runs the range from beggars and cars that park on our sidewalks, to noisy singers and dancers who fill our parks. Read Full Post…
Separate news items this week got me thinking about 2 major headaches for many ordinary Shanghai citizens, and my own creative solutions for the problems. One issue involves the all-too-familiar problem of unwanted noises in our bustling city, while the other involves the bothersome security checks at our subway stations.
There are many sources of unwanted noise in our city, but one of the most common is the loud music that often comes from karaoke singers and dancers who hold their activities in large public spaces. The issue of subway security is also a controversial one, as the city walks a fine line between trying to keep our subway system safe while avoiding bottlenecks and too much passenger inconvenience. Read Full Post…
I’m not a big fan of Chinese public service announcements (PSAs) due to their lack of creativity, but one such advertisement caught my attention this week while I was exercising at the gym. I normally don’t watch the TV very closely as I ride on my exercise bike, and was paying little attention to the cute but clichéd pandas that appeared on the screen during my routine.
But then I noticed these particular pandas were doing some strange things while walking around a western-looking landscape. I quickly realized the common theme was their boorish behavior, as they pushed other people out of the way to take photos and carelessly threw their trash onto city streets. Read Full Post…
The October 1 Golden Week may be in the past, but many are still feeling stung by the high ticket prices they had to pay for popular tourist attractions during their holidays. This particular subject comes up during all major holidays due to increasingly high entrance fees at some of China’s most popular tourist spots, generating heated discussion on the appropriateness of such prices.
I haven’t lived in the US for a decade now, but when I was there prices for most tourist attractions were mostly in the $10-$20 range, including most museums and other popular urban sites. Many Chinese attractions now charge similar rates, even though the average Chinese makes far less than the average American. The huge burden on Chinese tourists becomes even more pronounced when visiting scenic areas, where fees in China are often even higher than those for the US. Read Full Post…
Amid the recent flood of seasonal news on hairy crabs and the October 1 holiday, one headline that caught my attention was a rather dry one detailing the extended hours for the Shanghai subway during the upcoming Golden Week. The story was mostly informational, including a timetable that will see our subway take the ground-breaking step of operating the popular Lines 1 and 2 past midnight for several days around the holiday.
But underlying this mostly factual story is a far more subtle tale of Shanghai’s evolving nightlife, which has quietly pushed back bedtimes over the last 20 years in step with China’s rising economic prosperity. That growing wealth has given people more money to spend on recreation, such as dining and cultural events, much of which happens in the evening hours after work. Read Full Post…
New plans to consolidate the dozens of long-distance bus stations throughout Shanghai made me slightly nostalgic, reflecting the diminishing use of buses for inter-city travel over the last 2 decades. Anyone who only reads the news might never be aware of this rapid shift, since the papers are constantly filled with reports on the latest horrific collision or fiery crash involving a long-distance bus that leaves dozens of travelers dead. Read Full Post…
A few weeks ago I praised Shanghai’s laggard media for uncovering one of the biggest stories of the year, so it seems fitting that this week I take another look at our local media’s return to the spotlight for far less positive reasons.
For those who don’t follow the industry so closely, the rare moment of glory for Shanghai’s media I’m referring to came back in late July. That’s when undercover TV reporters from Shanghai Media Group (SMG) exposed that a range of unsavory practices at Husi Food, a US-owned meat supplier to such major global brands as McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD), KFC (NYSE: YUM) and Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX). Read Full Post…
This week I paid personal visits on 2 of our city’s biggest parks, which have been in the news due to different controversies. I’ve come to expect such colorful controversies from China’s parks, which seem to act as a major ground for socializing. By comparison, in the west such parks are quieter places where people often go to relax and escape from fast-paced city life.
In the north end of the city, I visited Lu Xun Park, named for one of China’s greatest novelists of the 20th century. But what should have been a moment for celebration during the park’s recent reopening after a year-long renovation instead turned ugly, as 2 groups of retirees clashed over territorial claims in a popular area for performers. Read Full Post…
A couple of items in the headlines this week are shining a spotlight on threats to some age-old Chinese traditions, and raising the question of whether they’re worth continuing and whether they should be modified. The first involves ancient Chinese literature, following the city’s decision to scrap previous mandatory study of classical poetry for first graders starting this year.
The second tradition involves moon cakes, which are already starting to flood into our local stores and also the news headlines as the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches. This year I’ll skip the usual stories about favorite flavors and the black market for moon cake coupons. Instead I’ll focus on a newer angle that has many companies ending the annual practice of giving moon cakes as gifts to their clients. Read Full Post…
An incident involving a foreigner who fainted on a Shanghai subway, touching off a stampede of passengers trying to get away from him, is sparking heated discussion this week in the ongoing debate about whether many Chinese lack compassion for strangers. The debate got so heated on the Internet that the subway operator took the unusual step of releasing video of the incident so people could see exactly what happened.
I saw the video on the news, and it’s a bit bizarre and almost humorous the way everyone around the unfortunate man panicked and fled the car after he passed out. That got me to thinking whether Americans might have reacted the same way if this happened in the US, and my conclusion was the answer is probably “no”. Read Full Post…
Shanghai is taking a ground-breaking step forward in improving the city’s mental health, with word that education officials are crafting guidelines that will see psychological counseling centers set up in most of the city’s schools starting next year. The step may sound small and even trivial to many foreigners, since such counseling centers have been present in most western schools for decades now.
But the move is really quite revolutionary for conservative China, and Shanghai should get kudos for taking this ground-breaking step. China’s rapid move to a market economy and more open society have put huge stress on everyone, as ways of doing things often change overnight and old social safety nets from the socialist era disappear. Read Full Post…
