Arizona + humidity = Shanghai in July/August

I can’t imagine weather in Shanghai being any worse. Previously, I wrote about Thailand being like an outdoor sauna. Over the past 3 weeks, it’s been even worse in Shanghai. The weather forecast has not dropped below 90 degrees even once. And the humidity is like stepping into a steam room. The dewpoint often surpasses 75 degrees. For those who aren’t up to speed on their meteorological terms, that means if the temperature of the air were somehow cooled down to below 75 degrees, there is so much moisture in the air that it would fall out as rain. This has caused the inside of my refrigerator to look more like a typical freezer. I’ve posted the weather forecast for some days in July to show you what it’s been like. The Real Feel index used by Accuweather (the equivalent of wind chill for both high and low temperatures) was forecast around 120 degrees.

The worst thing about the weather lately has been that the temperature does not decrease much at night. I’ve also posted a picture of my Google weather forecast. How come even when it’s 90 degrees in Washington, it still drops down to 70 at night? In Shanghai, when it’s 90 during the day, it’s still 82 at night. This may not sound like a big deal, since at night you’re typically sound asleep in your air conditioned apartment. However, it means that nothing gets a chance to cool down. The water from the tap is warm and the inside of my apartment elevator is gross.

The locals respond to all this by wearing towels around their necks and pulling their shirts up to their chests to let sweat evaporate. Westerners like me settle for sweating like melting blocks of ice and taking 3 showers a day. I can’t wait until September arrives and the temperatures start to drop again.

Fake Swag

As an addendum to my previous post, I’ve posted a picture I took with my cameraphone on the subway recently. It’s a picture of what I can only assume is a fake piece of corporate collateral. At the top, the phrase “BMW Fomula” is embroidered into the top of a backpack. At the bottom, there is another plastic logo for Nokia sewn in. I suppose it could be real, but I doubt that 1) there is any partnership between Nokia and BMW and 2) that any joint project, should it exist would be called “Fomula.”

I didn’t know there was such demand for marketing swag like this that is usually given away for free at trade shows and stuff. Maybe I should have brought all my free t-shirts and pens from business school recruiting days to sell on the street.

Crack in the Great Firewall

The Mongols got past the Great Wall of China by going around it rather than through it. Somehow, I just managed to do the same in Chengdu.

I'm traveling on business at the Sheraton (Starwood of course) and lo and behold, when I log on I get Google.com.hk. So, I try accessing my blog, and sure enough I get through. For some reason, and somehow, the hotel has an internet access connection via Hong Kong. I'm not a networking expert, but my guess is that it is running on a private connection over the hotel's internal network with its other hotels, or that it's a satellite connection. Either one would explain the incredibly slow speeds and long delays in the connection, but the surprising access to the outside world.

Counterfeit Harry Potter (And Fake Pork)

Last week, while running through the Beijing airport, I picked up a copy of the latest Harry Potter book. While I have read the other 6 books, part of the reason that I was willing to part with the $49 (!!!) that it cost (almost 50% more than the US retail and 2.7x Amazon’s price) was that I was so surprised to see it available in China, especially so soon after the US release date. However, the widespread distribution has not reached other parts of China, and the high price has - surprise! - led to counterfeiting. Not content to merely making exact copies a la fake DVDs, some Chinese have even repurposed the characters to be used in brand new stories.

This comes just a few weeks after a story about a Beijing vendor selling fake meat buns stuffed with cardboard was reported to be fake itself. However, some theorize that the government itself is faking the fakeness of the story to both limit the power of the press and allay concerns about food safety in China. All I know is, you can’t trust anything in China.

Just to be clear, my copy of Harry Potter is indeed the genuine version. I think.

Top 10 things to Bring to China

Some of my friends are coming to visit at the end of September and wanted to know if they need to do anything to prepare other than doing the normal visa/tour package thing. So in the next few posts, I’ll add a few tourist tips, even though I suspect that many people reading this blog have been to China already. (Yes, shockingly, I have a very small audience.)

10. Deodorant – Already mentioned in this blog before, but more important than ever now that temperatures in Shanghai surpass 30 degrees C (85 degrees F for the non-metric speakers) everyday with high humidity to boot.

9. Splenda – Drink coffee? But not with sugar? China is strictly BYOS. You may get lucky enough to find a few packets of Equal at Starbucks, but you will not find any little yellow packets of chemical sweetness.

8. Immodium AD, Pepto-Bismo, Milk of Magnesia – If you have a weak stomach, or if you just can’t help but eat the grilled pork skewers being sold off the back of a bike on the street, you will get sick. A friend of mine just got sick at the most famous soup dumpling place in the main tourist area. You may never need this, but believe me, the cost of not having it is far worse than the cost of the medicine itself.

7. Pocket packs of tissues – Most restaurants in China will charge you for napkins. Bring tissues which are of equal quality to the “napkins” that the restaurants sell. Also, in the oppressive weather, you’ll need something to wipe your face and your hands when you touch something really dirty.

6. Chinese guide book – You can use City Weekend and Smart Shanghai to find the latest restaurants and bars, but for tourist locations, shopping areas, and a quick language reference, nothing beats Lonely Planet or Let’s Go. Don’t come empty handed, but don’t bring an old copy borrowed from a friend. China is changing too quickly for a two year old guide to be relevant.

5. ATM card – Don’t bring cash, use the ATM. Even thought most places don’t accept credit cards, you can use your bank card and withdraw RMB without waiting in line at the bank.

4. Digital camera storage – You will take lots of pictures here. While you can buy these memory cards in any electronics store, the United States is still the best place in the world to buy cheap electronics. Bring at least a 2 or 4 GB card for your camera to ensure you’re not deleting pictures to free up space.

3. An appetite – Chinese food here is not what it’s like in the United States, but it is often good, and almost always cheap. You’ll have to have room in your stomach to find out how Sichuan cuisine differs from Shanghainese, Yunnan, and Cantonese.

2. Business cards – Everyone carries them and you’ll definitely meet a lot of people here. Your hotel may even ask for one. It also helps to have something to write on when you need someone who speaks English to write an address in Chinese for your taxi driver.

1. An unlocked GSM phone – I’ll write more about the wonders of mobile telephony outside the confines of the United States. But simply put, if you bring the right phone, you can call back home for less than 4 cents a minute.

Could be worse, you could live in Myanmar

On the back of the previous post about the clampdown on my right to blog, it strikes me as funny when China is projected as an paragon of freedom. For example, the Economist recently addressed the plight of Burmese Muslims in Myanmar and described how life in China is comparatively better.

As the article notes, the totalitarian state in Myanmar is so oppressive that refugees are escaping to China – the bastion of religious freedom by no one’s account. In China’s Yunnan province, they are free to practice their religion and pursue their dreams of wealth like everyone else in China.

The Great Firewall Strikes Again

Like the border between the United States and Mexico, the Great Firewall of China has occasional gaps. After a brief reprieve in May, the Chinese government shut down access to Blogger again. I have heard from friends that they have been able to access Blogger intermittently, but I haven't yet gained access. Therefore, I am writing this post via people back in the U.S., who are kind enough to log on and post my emails. I should also note that at the same time that Blogger was blocked again, the Chinese government also blocked access to images hosted on Flickr. Unlike with Blogger, access to the website was not banned, just the images themselves, under the pretense that Flickr images are not editorially controlled and may contain explicit or otherwise inappropriate images. Some web commentators think it’s because images of the Tiananmen Square massacre were posted and widely publicized.

The combined impact is that my posts will see a dramatic reduction in images. I hope to find a workaround in the near future. Some people have suggested using proxy servers based in the United States. While this works for casual browsers, it does not work for sites such as Blogger that require logging in. Using a proxy server then requires that you send all your login/password information through an untrusted computer that is specifically setup to help avoid compliance with legal regulations – not my idea of best practice, especially when my Blogger account is linked to my Google account, which is of course linked to Gmail, Google Checkout, etc.

In any case, I apologize for the repeated interruption and hope you will continue to come back to the blog for updates.

P.S. I have been able to find a workaround for the Flickr problem. A developer in Iran (another bastion of repression and state media control) has created a plug-in designed for my browser to automatically pull images from a proxy server. Thomas Friedman would be happy to know that the world is flattening for free speech.