I am alive!!!

haha - after almost 2 years I found a way to circumvent the great firewall. Now I only need to see whether I will have the discipline to make postings.

New bicycle!

After last week's post on 2 wheeled freight I got inspired and decided that it was time for a new bicycle. As you know many of the bicycles these days come from China. In my case I went for a "Merida", which is produced in the "renegade" province of Taiwan. I also got a distance and speed meter and I now know that the distance of the walk that I make from time to time is 4.9 kilometer.

The general impression is that the number of people cycling in China is going down because people prefer to go by motor bike or by car. In the case of Shanghai it "real" motorcycles are not allowed and you see that many people as an alternative use electric motorbikes. This can be quite advanced types which look and perform like the real thing or they can be "souped-up" bicycles like we had in Holland about 20 years ago and which were aimed at old people like me :-) who liked to cycle but who did not like the effort. L. tried to convince me for a moment to go for an electric one but I decided that I still like and need the exercise.

China produced last year about 16 million electric bikes. This is twice as many as the number of cars produced. They set up this entire industry in about 10 years. This is one of the reasons why I think that we should take China serious when they talk about setting up an electric car industry.

In the last years many of the cities have sacrificed bicycle paths in the city to make space for the cars. This was also the case in Shanghai. We were quite pleasantly surprised to see that they started to construct a bicycle path outside our apartment. In this case it was at the expense of the pedestrians, but as you can see there is still quite an acceptable sidewalk left.

SurvivingTwo Wheeler Power in Shanghai

Nowadays you can read about how quickly the number of cars in China is growing and how less and less people use bicycles. I thought that this is a good time to share with you one of my hobbies: making photographs of two wheelers used for freight. Here in Shanghai you see many of these, I have tried to look them up in statistics but there you will not find them.

A Sunday afternoon stroll to the park!

This afternoon L. had been invited for a lunch with colleagues and since the weather forecast was good (0% change on rain and about 23 degrees Celsius) I decided to realize an old ambition and to go for a walk to Century Park. We live about 10 kilometer from the Huangpu River on the west side, Century Park is a couple of kilometers on the other side. All in all a walk of about 17 - 18 kilometer I think.

I took off at 11.00 in the morning.

It was encouraging to read after about 45 minutes that I should keep dreaming.

The decoration on the side-walks kept me busy.

Retail in Shanghai does not always follow the model from elsewhere. Why not buy a pair of shoes when you are buying a new pot for the kitchen.

If you walk enough, you will also lose weight, and not a little. When I weighed myself after I came back I had lost a little over a kilo. Maybe I did not walk enough.



I see complicated structures to keep up the traffic lights and to keep the pedestrians of the streets while crossing.



Then after 2 hours I can see Pudong (the other side of the river). I also realize that weather forecasts are as unreliable as in other parts of the world when it begins to rain.




After 2 hours I cross the Huangpu River, time to take shelter from the rain and admire the view.



Yes, it was still raining, but who cares! How many times in my life do I walk to Century Park and the air is far cleaner with the rain than without.




Others take it far less serious this afternoon than me when it comes to exercise I notice.



False alarm, the green spot across the road is NOT Century park. It seems that the guy on motor cycle knows that.

Then, after 3 hours and 40 minutes and several blisters on my feet this time the real thing!
CENTURY PARK!!!!




HURRAY!!!

No smoking please - Tokyo style

(After a lot of traveling I am back in Shanghai, this time for a month. This will enable me to improve the frequency of postings on my blog I hope!)


There has been a lot of controversy recently in the Netherlands on the smoking bans in bars and restaurants. I was quite surprised to see on a recent trip to Tokyo that they had gone a step further than that by imposing a ban on smoking in public. Smoking is now confined to specific smoking areas.

The local government has also put various posters to inform the public on the danger of smoking outdoors. Strangely enough there are still a lot of coffee shops, bars and restaurants which still have very large smoking areas. It makes you wonder about the priorities they have in Tokyo.

Shanghai - World Expo 2010 - how should we behave!

After the Beijing Olympics of last year the next big event in China will be the Shanghai Expo in 2010. (http://en.expo2010china.com) While this might be still far away for most people not living in Shanghai, for those of us living here we hear about the preparations on a regular basis. We also see the (ugly) mascot called Haibao at many places in the city. Traditional Chinese design can be very beautiful but when it comes to mascots the Chinese do not have a very good idea of what is liked internationally.

Professionally I will also involved in a small way. We have just reached agreement with the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau (SEPB) that the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities will work with the SEPB in organizing a workshop on the air quality management plan for the World Expo. I developed the idea for the workshop when I was still the Executive Director for CAI-Asia and since I am living here in Shanghai I will probably be involved in the organization of the workshop.

However, our personal lives are also affected by the Expo. Yesterday we received a letter from the community Party committee which gave an extensive overview of do's and do-not's:

1. Eliminate uncivilized behavior:

• Drying clothes outside should follow the rules
• Pets should not disturb the neighbors
  
• Be careful where you throw rubbish
• Protect public facilities
• Parking should follow regulations
• Manage your hands: no graffiti, do not throw rubbish
• Manage your mouth: no obscenities, no spitting, no smoking in public
• Manage your feet: observe red lights for crossing, no jay-walking

2. Self Discipline, Follow the Moral Rules

• At home, be a good family member
  
• At work: be a good colleague and observe good work ethics
• In society: be a good citizen

3. Show good spirit:

• Be polite
• Be responsible
• Show big spirit in small ways: charity, donations

You can see that we have our work cut out! I thought that I better post this so that people planning to visit us in Shanghai for the Expo can prepare themselves as well.

Valentines Day - Qi Qiao Jie

After having survived the Chinese New Year and related festivals Valentines Day is now upon us. English media in China are busily advertising Valentine dinners usually with a price tag with a lot of 888's in it to bring the diners more luck. The price of red roses has temporarily increased threefold (but still cheaper than in the West).

It is interesting to know that apart from the commercially oriented Valentines day China also has its own day of love - Qi Qiao Jie - which falls on the seventh day of the seventh (lunar) month. This year this will be on August 26 th.

There are two legends surrounding the origins of Chinese Valentine's Day. Both involve the position of the stars on the seventh day of the seventh month in the Chinese lunar calendar .

http://chinesefood.about.com/od/foodfestivals/a/chinavalentine.htm explains two possible origins which are both nicely not commercial:

"According to the first version , the seven daughters of the Goddess of Heaven caught the eye of a Cowherd during one of their visits to earth. The daughters were bathing in a river and the Cowherd, Niu Lang, decided to have a bit of fun by running off with their clothing. It fell upon the prettiest daughter (who happened to be the seventh born), to ask him to return their clothes.

Of course, since Niu Lang had seen the daughter, Zhi Nu, naked, they had to be married. The couple lived happily for several years. Eventually however, the Goddess of Heaven became fed up with her daughter's absence, and ordered her to return to heaven. However, the mother took pity on the couple and allowed them to be reunited once a year. Legend has it that on the seventh night of the seventh moon, magpies form a bridge with their wings for Zhi Nu to cross to meet her husband.

In the second story, Niu Lang and Zhi Nu were fairies living on opposite sides of the Milky Way. Feeling sorry for the two lonely sprites, the Jade Emperor of Heaven actively tried to bring them together. Unfortunately, he succeeded too well - Niu Lang and Zhi Nu became so enraptured with each other that they neglected their work. Annoyed, the Jade Emperor decreed that from that point on, the couple could only meet once a year - on the seventh night of the seventh moon".

I guess that L. and I will end up celebrating both, in the same way that we also do several New Year's eves each year.

Progress Shanghai style

This is what I found today in my email:

Ten solar-powered, "speaking" garbage bins appeared at People's Square recently, a local newspaper reported yesterday.

The bins use solar energy to provide power for the electronic voice, which is activated by a button, that tells pedestrians where the closest two toilets are. The solar energy also provides power for a map on the top of the trash bins which lights up at night, Oriental Morning Post reported.

The map shows surrounding roads and public facilities, the report said.

The report did not say how much the garbage bins cost.

A total of 480 such trash cans will also be placed on Nanjing Road, at the Bund and other main streets, according to the Huangpu District Sanitation Bureau.

The bins are also easy to see at night. They are the first solar-powered garbage bins in the country.

Perhaps you understand now why I find it sometimes difficult to explain China to people who do not live here. While in Holland they are struggling to introduce a smart card for public transport, the garbage bins in Shanghai are clever enough to tell you where the closest two toilets are. I will try to get a photo, or even better a video!

Advertising!

I was taking a walk with L. this afternoon to see whether the new park across the creek had opened, which was not the case unfortunately. Walking back across the bridge I saw a lot of telephone numbers stenciled on the bridge railing. It turned out to be advertising for: delivery of your baby, birth control in case you want no more babies or scanning to determine the sex of the baby. All very useful but not what you would expect on a Sunday afternoon walk.

Customer Service

Traveling in the USA two weeks ago, I decided to take the train from Davis CA to San Francisco CA. Public transport generally does not have a very good reputation in the USA. It was with some trepidation therefore that I went with the train option. My fears were totally unfounded however. Buying the ticket online was easy. You get a booking code which you use to collect your ticket at the train station. Back home in the Netherlands small stations typically no longer have any human beings to assist you and machines are what is left. It was a very nice surprise to see not only a human being at the train station in Davis CA but also a chair for you to sit down while you complete your transaction. So civilized and so pleasant!