It is time for Jared In China to go on a vacation I think I deserve. Thanks to my massive winter break and Asian budget airlines Jared in China will now become Jared in China in Other Places... I did not think that name through when I started this blog... The first leg of my extra adventure is Hanoi, Vietnam. I am now sitting in a coffee bar in Shanghai's Pudong Airport (PVG) waiting for Vietnam Airlines to let me check my bag, so it goes. Vietnam should be cool, I have heard good things about the food (a theme that is very common with my blog).
I started my study abroad study abroad from The Shanghai Maglev train. If you need to go to PVG this is an experance I might skip. It is not that maglev trains aren't rad, because they are, but because it is way to hard to get to the Shanghai Maglev to be a useful method of transportation for most. I spend about an hour trying to get my luggage through the subway system, and experance I also can't recommend, for about 7 minutes on the maglev train itself. I can confirm though, the train goes 301km/h and the ride is smooth. I don't believe there is too much of a cost or time savings between the subway to maglev and the taxis. If the Municipality built a longer line to connect the airports and some of the big hotel areas, I could recommend it, but until then it is a skip. Also, if you hear anyone tell you that China will take over the world because maglev, tell them for me that they are dead wrong.
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Today my China's Economic Impact class took a field trip to the Skoda-Volkswagen factory in Shanghai. Unforntually my pictures are really lame since they didn't let us take photos on the factory floor. Anither key thing to note is that China bans car foreign car companies from wholly owning factories in the country, they must have a Chinese partner; Volkswagen chose Chinese car makers Skoda as their 50/50 partner in China. Other than the picture thing it was a cool field trip. We watched what amounted to a five minute Skoda and Volkswagen commercial before bring driven through the plant on these electric tour cards. As someone who grew up watching How It's Made on Discovery Channel was having a great time. We saw the body shop, press shop, and the assembly shop but we weren't aloud into the paint shop for safety reasons. While the plant did have a food number of robots, a large amount of the tasks were still done by people people. Most of the cars produced in this factory seem bound for the Chinese and Asian markets. The ever present eye of the Communist Party was visible in this center of proletarian indudtural production. I wish we got to spend a bit more time in the factory and I wish we could actually talk to the engineers or the workers. I also wish our tour guide was a bit louder, I had a hard time hearing her. I had a great time though, I don't know if anyone else was as happy being there as me but I really didn't care.
I was chatting with a Chinese friend about some basic photo editing she was doing when I asked her what app she was using. She told me she was useing Meitu(美图)and encouraged me to try it out. So I installed Meitu on my CoolPad and gave it a try. The closest thing I could discribe Meitu to is if Instagram and SnapChat had a baby app. Meitu offered a wide array of artsy filters and playful stickers. It is also pretty clear I am not the target demographic for this app. Basically every sample photo shown, to tell you what each feature actually looks like, was of attractive young Chinese women. Unlike many Chinese apps though it offers full English support. Meitu also offers a wide aray of look improvement filters that can do everything from enlarge your eyes to make you whiter to remove skin issues. I find it painfully obvious whenever anyone uses the personal improvement features and Meitu was no exception to this, you can just tell form a photo that a good deal of touch was done. The most useful feature of Meitu, at least for me, is the collage feature that lets you combine several photos and a fun background together into one single image. My biggest issue with Meitu is that my cheap CoolPad was pushed to the edges of its ability trying to run the thing, it worked but not well. This may be a problem any photo editing app has on rather weak phones and not a problem with Meitu itself. Still, most Chinese built apps seem to expect that a large number of their users will be using less powerful phones. I guess if I was a female domestic ECNU student I might use Meitu, for me I might just use the photo collage features once or twice before the end of my time at ECNU. In their immortal song CREAM, the Wu Tang Clan rapped “cash rules everything around me.” If you have ever attempted to make a large purchase in China you would find that the Chinese are big Wu Tang fans. As I have previously complained about on this blog, China is a cash society. While this is normally not an issue when dealing with small every day transactions, larger transactions, like a semester’s worth of housing fees are an issue. Frontally, my Mom was able to arrange a game of phone tag between her, Paul of American Express, and myself. As I sat under the ever watchful statue of Chairman Mao, Paul was able to get an American Express partner company in Wisconsin to send a money gram to an ICBC branch about a 45 minute walk away from campus. Unlike some American banks, Chinese banks are only open during regular business hours so today was the only day this week my class schedule and the bank’s opening hours lined up. While I would like to say this process was painless, it was not. The address provided was not actually correct, I was taken to the branch’s general area before I had to use my GPS’s search feature to actually find the place. Once there, I bungled my Chinese so bad the staff just spoke to me in English. Actually transferring the money posed its own problems, first Amex could only send a money gram in US dollars so the cash had to be converted to Yuan and ICBC would only let me transfer the money if I had an ICBC account. I spent about an hour in the bank waiting in line, opening an account, accepting the money gram, converting the money to Remminbi, before finally being allowed to clean out my new account so I can get the cash I need to pay for my room. I also feel the need to mention that this process was not digitized at all, I think I murdered at least three tress with all the paper it took to complete my transaction. The walk back to campus was an interesting experience. I was able to hide the 210 grumpy Mao Zaidongs in my jacket to keep them safe until I got back to campus. Even though just carrying around large amounts of cash money to pay bills is a thing in China, it was no less nerve-racking. Now though, I have a place to stay next semester, took a nice if long walk, and got to take some great rapper photos with my stacks of cash. I only wish there was a system in place that does not force people to carry around enough cash money to put Snoop Dogg and T-Pain’s night out to shame.
Note: I am unable to actually post my selfies at this time, no idea why. Today I made another attempt to pay for my room. It is not that I don't have the money, it is just that ECNU doesn't seem to accept any form of payment other than cash. Using a credit card in China is extremely difficult, almost no one takes them. Debit cards aren't much better, only a few places and the ATMs accept visa cards. It is completely normal just to have several thousand US dollars worth of physical Renminbi lying around so you can get to paying for what ever largish purchase you need to make. I heard this steams from the Chinese people's aversion to using credit for anything, as it is seen as spending money you don't have, and the lack of access to credit in China. What is interesting though is that China's mobile banking system is really advanced. The most common convenient payment method are the mobile payment systems like Alipay or WeChat Pay. China's mobile payment systems are actually more advanced the America's and are far more commonly used. Most places, including the ENCU cafeteria and many of the street venders, accept ether Alipay or WeChat Pay. For smaller payments it is actually more common to use a mobile payment system than cash, credit, or debit. Skipping steps on the development ladder is actually very common. The average Chinese had very little capital until Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms in the 1980s, so only really needed little bits of cash to get by. By the time many Chinese had enough money do demand a more convenient payment system, mobile payment was already invented so they must embraced that. We see similar patterns in Africa where, once the population started demanding phones, cellphones were already invented so it just made more sense to build an advanced cell system than a old school land line system.
Even though Facebook, and consequently Facebook Messenger, is blocked in China many Chinese still want some type of online messenger system to use, enter WeChat. The vast majority of Chinese and foreigners I have met in China have a WeChat account and use it regularly, more regularly than texting or calling. Even Chabad's Rabbi in Shanghai has a WeChat that he uses to share info about the Chabad House's activates and events. While WeChat has a Facebook wall esk "Moments" page and "subscription" accounts the app is really designed for person to person or group communication. In terms of features I would put WeChat's feature set far ahead of Facebook Messenger's. While Messenger offers a rarely used payment feature as kind of a side thing, WeChat pay seems almost more useful then a credit card in China. Also, WeChat offers voice calling and GPS maps which are both useful features that Facebook doesn't offer. Finally, WeChat has a sticker collection feature, that Facebook doesn't, which is simply far too fun. You will whole heartedly agree with the old adage "a picture is worth 1,000 words" when you express approval for something with a clapping Xi Jinping or showing confusion with a ground hog shouting "啊." My biggest issue with WeChat is that they most probably likely turn over chat logs and metadata over to the Chinese government whenever the government wants it. While for me this is not a problem as I avoid doing anything too sketchy or illegal, it is a problem though for activists who find that the police know the plans they made on WeChat a little too well. If I needed any level of security for my conversation I would not use WeChat. In China, I enjoy WeChat and I wish Facebook would steal some ideas from them. Outside of China, I will only use WeChat to communicate with my Chinese friends in part because of its limited use in the US and in part form its total lack of security. A little while ago I complained about the internet speeds in this fun fact post. I have discovered that ECNU's dorm internet is actually worse then I thought, but for other reasons. At ECNU, each dorm room has their own router, hooked up to their own cable box (a very slow one just FYI), having its own WiFi network. Though what ever IT guy set up these networks should actually be fired. I found these in room networks to be totally unsecure, and I hardly know what I am doing. I don't even want to know what someone more knowledgeable then I am could do. I guess my best advice on what to do for students is simply do anything that requires security on a VPN, connected to the base ENCU WiFi (because that one actually has some security even though it is hard to connect to in the dorms), or using Tor (which oddly enough I found worked better in my dorm than my VPN). My advice for the East China Normal would be to treat their network more like how Juniata treats theirs. The network should push any user without a secured device into a cordoned off remediation network and should require a username and password to connect to the network in the first place.
Yesterday, 11/11 was Singles Day in China. Basically the idea is that since you don't have a significant other to buy you gifts, you can go online and buy yourself gifts. All the major Chinese online shops have deep sales to compete for the valuble Singles Day Market. It is kind of like Cyber Monday but without the "buying gifts for Christmas" pretext and China sized. Singles Day is always on November 11th because the Chinese think the four ones in 11/11 look like single people. It is actually kind of uneventful, since it is hyped up so much but all the action takes place online. While I did not buy anything I can still be thankful for something this Singles Day, that I am not one of the poor Chinese postal workers who will have to ship all the packages all douring the next week.
In my China's Macroeconomic Impact class the professor briefly brought up that, because of China's low birthrate and ageing population, it might, as strange as it seems, experience a labor shortage within 10 years. The labor market in China is already shrinking enough that the average income is increasing so much that other countries, like Vietnam and Bangladesh, are taking jobs away from China. From my experience in the past few days, I think part of the problem with the labor market in China is that too many people have jobs that actually shouldn't exist. I am not talking about no-show jobs, but jobs that can be done better with machines. East China Normal University has no print server, unlike my small liberal arts college in central PA, if you need to print anything you have to go to a print shop, give the printer guy working there 0.1-1.0RMB, and have them print it for you. Not only is this inconvenient and means that the print shops can only be open when someone is willing to stand there and do the printing. The fanciest print shop on campus actually has three employees and charges 1RMB a page. According to TrendingEconomics.com the average wage in China in 2015 is 62,029RMB/year, just for the labor of the three employees that is 186,087RMB/year or 509.8RMB/day just for staff, if the print shop is open 12 hours a day then each hour the shop is open it costs 42.5RMB/hour, at 1RMB a page the shop must print at least 43pages/hour to pay for only the staff. About an hour ago I watched a whole group of construction workers and ENCU rent-a-cops moving a car out of a construction area by manually putting it on dollies, that looked like medal versions of the scooters from elementary school, and rolling it away; none of the 15ish people moving the car seemed to think to calling a tow truck might be a bit easier then moving a parked car by hand. This problem extends beyond the University, the subways have staff who's only job is to blow a whistle when the subway is about to leave which is strange because the train itself makes a rather loud noise before it leaves the station. If I had to give a recommendation to prevent the impending Chinese labor shortage, I would say that China needs more machines so that the workers can be freed up to do more productive things.
Two weeks ago in China's Macroeconomic Impact, the professor went off on a tangent about how some of the wealthiest Chinese buy property. Since in Chinese numerology, the mystical study of numbers, eight represents luck and money, many wealthy businessmen like buy real estate in eights. So for example, a Chinese businessmen might want to buy his new apartment in New York City for $88,888,888.88. Our professor brought up that Chinese real estate buyers would often just sit down, name a price in eights, and refuse change it because any change to the price would cause them to lose the string of eights. The eight game is not just for wealthy businessmen, often small businesses will try to get in on the act too, particularly with their wifi password. Ellen's Bar's wifi is username Ellens and password 88888888, Lamian's wifi is username lamian and password 08080808 (I think the zeros also represent money). So if you are in China and need wifi, pick a random one and try 88888888 for the password, since there is a greater than zero chance that that is actually the password
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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