Yesterday I was looking at a new office for one of my businesses, and I took a picture on the street to show to my colleagues. In that picture someone is crossing the road, but I did not pay much attention to him. I cross the road as well and suddenly bump into Thijs Bosma, a Dutch friend of mine who is doing several projects in Shanghai. Later when I look at the pictures I find out that he is the one who crossed the road on the picture. What are the chances of this happening in a city of 17 million people?

The Oriental List had an interesting post by its moderator Peter Neville-Hadley about scams in Beijing he recently encountered or heard about. His post (which is unlinkable):

Nothing new really, but it seems recently there’s been an upsurge in
the number of hapless visitors to Beijing who’ve been taken off for a
‘tea ceremony’ by strangers met in the Forbidden City or in the
street, and found themselves with a bill for in excess of Y3000.
Perhaps it’s just an upsurge in the numbers reporting it.

In these circumstances, refuse to pay. In some cases heavies will
suddenly appear, in which case keep your nerve and still refuse to
pay. Start shouting for the police (knowing ‘jing cha’ will help, but
‘police’ will do–just do it loudly and attract as much attention as
possible). In most cases the situation will start to improve fairly
rapidly. Paying even a tenth of this sum is far too much.

If you are intimidated into making payment, use a credit card. I’m
assisting someone at the moment who is attempting to have the charge
to his card annulled, and I hope to report later whether he has had
any success. At the very least the credit card company ought
subsequently to be treating other charges of large sums at this
location with scepticism, and eventually will refuse charges to
foreign cards.

Get a name card for the premises if you can–these are usually
sitting next to the till (NB: getting a receipt for whatever you do
pay won’t help–these usually carry only the name of the relevant tax
bureau). Failing that, do your best to get name, address, and a
detailed description. Post widely on the Internet to warn others.

Sad to say, but especially in popular tourist locations, anyone who
approaches you in a friendly manner, and particularly if they speak
English, should be regarded as a scam artist until proven otherwise.
Mentions of going somewhere for a drink (large bill will appear),
taking a taxi ride (immense charges), needing a tour guide (high fee
and massive skimming off restaurants, shopping, etc.), or going to
see an art show (mass-produced art at 100 times the proper price,
with heavy pressure to purchase) should have you going the other way
as rapidly as possible.

I certainly noticed that the number of these scams had risen
dramatically when I was in Beijing at the end of last year, and had
spread from Wangfujing and Liulichang into the malls themselves, and
into Tian’an Men Sq, where I was pestered three times between Tian’an
Men Dong metro station and the National Museum (the new name for the
to-be-combined History and Revolution Museums). The third time a
pretty girl accosted me (a particularly delicate and sweet one, at
that), I told her straight away that I knew she was a cheat. I
mounted the stairs to the ticket office to check some details about
the museum, and when I turned away found the girl had followed me and
was standing next to me.

“What?” I said. “Don’t you understand Mandarin? Go and bother someone
else.”

She stood looking at me for a moment, then with a sweet smile leant
in very close and whispered a reference to the genitalia of cows
whose true meaning cannot be given on a family mailing list.

The contents of the Oriental List are still not available on the internet, you can only receive the information through the internet mailing list.

Pacific Epoch reports that in Beijing there are 97 mobile phones per 100 people. That seems like a pretty big amount to me, anybody knows how this compares to Europe or the US?

They also report that for every landline number in Beijing, there are now 1.5 mobile numbers (9.5 million landlines to 14.7 million mobile numbers). But those figures are actually not comparable, because it is often very difficult or impossible to get extra landlines. Most businesses in China therefore use extension numbers for its staff, leading to an actual number of landlines that must be much higher than this figure.

This week is the week of the corporate annual parties in Shanghai. Most companies organize a dinner for all employees to thank them for the hard work in the Year of the Rooster, and to look forward to the Year of the Dog that will start on Sunday.

Last night Toodou.com had its annual dinner at a hotpot restaurant on Zhaojiabang Lu. It was a fun dinner, with lots of meat, noodles, mushrooms, tofu, vegetables and beer. There was only one big hotpot, so everyone was fighting for the food when it was cooked (at least at first). One guy announced he did not have a decent dinner for a week after this dinner was announced. The Toodou crew filmed most of the dinner, so expect a video of the party on Toodou very soon.

Tomorrow I will likely have dinner and drinks with Sierk (sort of like the SVP annual party), Thursday is the annual party for Roland Berger (where I am also invited as a spouse), and Friday China Bay will organize a year-end lunch for its personnel. Saturday it’s off to Beijing for the New Year’s Eve dinner there. And in between there is work, work, work…

This week two articles published in BusinessWeek discuss Toodou.com. The first is an interview by Frederik Balfour with Gary Wang about the company, censorship and the future of Toodou.com. The second is an article by Bruce Einhorn about online self-censorship in China, in which he talks with Gary and with Jack Gu from Podlook. Too bad I won’t get the print version anymore, since BW decided to cancel its Asian edition two weeks ago.

On December 31 I missed out on fireworks in Shanghai, because the government had banned it. But it seems I will be more lucky this coming Saturday, when I will spend Chinese New Year in Beijing. The government has decided to lift the ban on fireworks in Beijing. The maximum is now 30 kilograms (!!!) per person, should be enough for me.

From the Shanghai Daily:

“BANG!”Firecrackers will explode once again in Beijing, frightening away evil spirits on the New Year — and this time the fireworks are legal.

After a 12-year ban because of safety concerns, the Chinese capital yesterday resumed the legal sale of traditional firecrackers before the lunar New Year and Spring Festival beginning January 29.

This year 177 out of China’s major 660 cities lifted the fireworks ban.

Over the weekend, 585 of the 2,116 Beijing stores that obtained licenses to sell firecrackers opened for business. Others will follow.

“To me, no fireworks, no New Year. So it’s a good thing for the government to lift the ban,” said Liu Jianguo, a Beijing resident.

Last September, Beijing lifted a 12-year ban on firecrackers in response to people’s love for a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation.

Despite the prohibition, illegal firecracker sales continued. But the public clamored for legalization of a tradition that has come down through the generations.

The Beijing government has organized the sale of 600,000 boxes of firecrackers valued at more than 100 million yuan (US$12.5 million).

Officials will monitor sales to ensure there is no shortage.

To enforce safety, people are forbidden to buy more than 30 kilograms of fireworks between January 22 and February 12.

Regulations specify that residents may set off firecrackers in areas within the Fifth Ring Road on lunar New Year’s Eve and all day of the first day of the new year.

They also can set off crackers from 7am to zero-hour every day from the second to the 15th day of the new year, a major festival and traditional time of family reunions.

This year, 177 Chinese cities, including Chongqing and Beijing, out of the country’s total of 660, have decided to lift the ban that has been practiced for years.

Beijing banned setting off fireworks in 1994 over fears of increasing accidents that endangered people’s safety.

Hundreds of people suffered eye injuries in setting off firecrackers since1982, said Song Weixian, an ophthalmologist at Tongren Hospital.

“We hope citizens pay great attention to their safety, especially to their eyes, while setting off firecrackers,” said Song.

Friday night Qi and I went to the first public performance ever of the Shanghai Jazz Orchestra, a big band in Shanghai’s 30’s and 40’s style, in the Shanghai Art Theatre. Since 1949 China did not have any big bands, so this was the first time in almost 60 years that a big jazz band played in Shanghai. In the 1940’s Shanghai was China’s New Orleans, and the best performances took place at the Paramount (still an entertainment venue, next to Jing’an Temple). The Shanghai Jazz Orchestra is trying to recreate the old atmosphere, by wearing the exact same white suits as their predecessors.

The performance was excellent. The evening started with a jazz combo that played several tunes, and after a short break the big band made its entree. Although some of the players seemed a bit nervous to play for a big audience, they did very well. Conductor/director Rolf Becker had a great performance, leading the band, announcing the songs, and playing himself as well. He was the only foreigner in the band, all others are Chinese.

The band played lots of famous songs from among others Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller (In The Mood!). Also there was a magnificent swing dance performance by two couples from Shanghai Swings. My wife was so inspired that she plans to sign up for courses! It was a great evening, and the best news is that they plan to do this once a month. So if you like jazz, big bands and swing you now have the opportunity to see top performances again in Shanghai.

Air China has announced that it will start offering wifi on its international flights starting tomorrow. Not for free, but USD 26.95 is not too bad if you can work for a couple of hours while flying to Europe, Australia or the US. KLM is still not offering it, the only thing they currently offer is sending emails and SMS through your personal video screen (for a few dollars per mail). Not being able to offer wifi soon might cost them potential business customers.

Several airlines flying from Shanghai to Europe are offering it now (among others Lufthansa and SAS), although I have to admit that I often hear stories that it does not work flawlessly. Furthermore it is annoying to hear your co-passengers constantly call their friends or family for free through Skype. Airlines need to find a solution for this soon before it gets out of hand.