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.

Shanghai stock market roller coaster

Back in February, I posted that I didn't know where the Shanghai stock market was going to go. It had risen 130% over the previous year and was acting highly volatile. I noted that P/E ratios were totally out of whack and that the inability to short stocks and the lack of investment opportunities for domestic investors was pushing prices higher. I did not ever think there was so much more room for it to run. Since that day, the Shanghai composite index has risen another 60% from ~2700 to 4300. The market is down again today by 6% after an 8% drop yesterday. Yet this just puts the index back at the point is was at just 2 weeks ago. This bubble is bound to burst, or at least deflate. The question is only how much bigger can it get and can you get out before it does pop?

Back to Shanghai

I'm finally back in Shanghai now that my project in Taipei has ended. Back to the crowds on the subway and the rude taxi drivers. I wish I could have taken a better picture of the number of people who squeeze into the subway station during the morning commute. I could not take a picture of the worst part - the fact that people do not let you off the trains because they are too busy pushing to get on. A coworker of mine missed her stop by two stations because she couldn't get out in time.

According to Wikipedia, Shanghai ranks only 13th in the world for number of annual passenger rides, but because of the relatively few interchanges (6 stations that allow you to transfer to a different line), each interchange station is incredibly crowded. If you are trying to get on, off, or even exit the system at one of these stations, you'll be pushing against thousands of people.

Not all food is better

I haven't eaten much ice cream over here in Asia because it's not nearly as good as the stuff we have in the States. Ben and Jerry's is non-existant (except for in the Hong Kong International Airport food court - please read my earlier airport faceoff post). Haagen Dazs is all over the place, but costs an arm and a leg - $10 for a pint. But it's so worth it. Let me compare the ingredients of chocolate ice cream from Haagen Dazs to vanilla ice cream from some russian brand I got when flying Eva Air to Korea.


Just in case you can't read the text, let me list the main ingredients for Haagen Dazs: Cream, Skim milk, Sugar, Pasteurized egg yolk, Alkalized Cocoa. Simple and delicious, some dairy mixed with sugar, egg and chocolate.

The ice cream a la Ruski: Water, Milk powder, Sugar, Maltose, Coconut oil, Anhydrous milk fat, Egg yolk, Vanilla seed, stabilizer, emulsifier, vanilla flavor, Carotene. Coconut oil? Anhydrous milk fat? Huh?

I suppose at least it was made in Taiwan. Better than food made in China.

Thai food

The food in Thailand was delicious, and I did try to stay away from eating pad thai or anything I could get in the US. Unfortunately, I was so busy figuring out what everything was that I forgot to take many pictures. This is all I got. It's a roasted chicken (I know, not that interesting, but very tasty.)

Asian city tour - Stop 3: Bangkok

I’m staffed right now on a project with an associate from Thailand. Since it’s such a long flight to go back to Shanghai, I took him up on an offer from him two weeks ago to show me Bangkok one weekend instead of flying home. Here are my impressions:

Bangkok is a lot more developed than I expected. I’m not sure why, but I expected concrete buildings a la Beijing, without the sprawl. In fact, it’s a really nice city with top notch hotels, good shopping, and terrific food. It had a certain friendly Southeast Asian feel to it that I get from Singapore, just not as clean or orderly.


Thailand is wicked hot. It’s not just broiling hot, but disgustingly humid as well. It’s a good thing everything is heavily air conditioned. I don’t know how anybody lived in the area before the discovery of refrigeration and freon gas. I sweat a lot to begin with, but I probably lost a quart an hour walking the streets of Bangkok. It doesn’t help matters that most temples and the national palace don’t admit people wearing shorts. The picture next to the Buddha above was taken just an hour after the picture at the beginning of this post. I wish I could say someone splashed my shirt with water, but they didn't. It's sweat. I know - gross.


It’s not sketchy in an in your face strip club way. It’s definitely there; a night market that we went to was surrounded on two sides by strip clubs and bars. But I think it’s more discreet than the Mexican guys who push strip club ads in your face in Las Vegas.

All in all, it was a fun trip. I much of spent Sunday in my firm’s Bangkok office (which is gorgeous compared to our second rate digs in Shanghai), but saw a lot nonetheless, thanks to my friend. He took me to a number of temples, the palace, a few street markets, and shopping centers. If it weren’t so ridiculously hot, I could see myself living there for at least a few months.