If you are in or around Shanghai and work in the gaming industry, take consideration into the upcoming event:

“China Game Licensing and Investment Forum 2009”, a B2B event, will be held in Shanghai, China in April 2009. The B2B event is a platform for Chinese online and casual game developers to present their products in front of China’s top publishers and investors to make licensing and investment deals.

Previous participants of the event include all major Chinese online game publishers such as Giant, Tencent, and Shanda. Online and casual game developers from around the world who have products they want to license to China are welcome to participate. For more info about the event, please contact Mr. Zhan Ye at zhanye [at] gamevisiongroup.com.

Wish I could check that out.

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Beautifully made image of Shanghai (and Chongming island) out of poker chips:

The author is Liu Jianhua and more can be found over on artnet.

My personal favorite is the “Reflection in Water” of Shanghai as well:

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Shanghai is starting on its next major skyscraper in the Pudong district dubbed the Shanghai Tower. Set for completion in 2014, it will be obviously larger than the previous two skyscrapers (Jin Mao and Shanghai World Financial Center) that will certainly dominate the Shanghai skyline.

I had thought that all construction was put on hold or stopped after it was found that that area of Pudong was sinking some amount every year (it was a swamp afterall so the ground is not that compact or stable), but it seems that the construction is continuing.

Nonetheless, the fascination with skyscrapers by the Shanghai City government (and myself) is not shared by everyone with the China Daily noting the following issues:

1. Shanghai is sinking, and a new skyscraper isn’t going to help;
2. Traffic in Lujiazui is congested enough and a new building is going to make rush hours all the more “nightmarish”;
3. The “urban heat island effect” is going to make Shanghai feel even more like a sauna in summers;
4. Skyscrapers are vulnerable to attacks and disasters;
5. The economic risk of building the Shanghai Tower will be shared by various state-owned enterprises and the money could be “better spent elsewhere”;
6. Shanghai should instead save its old buildings from demolition;
7. Shanghai’s public transportation sucks. Why not spend more money there?
8. It also has the fastest graying population in China and should build more facilities to cater to the elderly.

Still, at least it looks better than the Oriental Pearl Tower?

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My recent trip to Shanghai I was able to briefly get a glimpse of the Bund once again and see Pudong from a distance. This first time I went was in 2003 for study abroad and thought to show a rough (very rough) difference between 2003 and 2008. My apologies on the quality and huge differences in the pictures (click to see a larger image):

Pudong 2003

Pudong 2008

A lot more buildings all around.

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Daniel Kwan finds a forum about expats complaining how 10k RMB per month just wasn’t enough to live on comfortably and so he decides to go through his expenses finding that he estimates he spends around 5k RMB per month for necessities, dinner with friends after work, weekend strolls, bars & clubs, website ownership, and other stuff.

Sounds reasonable if you try to live somewhat frugally, but here’s the important thing he subtly notes:

Necessities

Rent + utilities: 0
Mobile phone service: 100 RMB/month
Groceries: 70 RMB/week
Dinner: 20 RMB/day average
Beverages: 4 RMB/day average
Haircut: 40 RMB/mo (Upper-body massage included!)
Subtotal: 1123 RMB per month

Zero RMB for rent + utilities?! Lucky man! That’s quite a savings for expats who like to live with the AC or Heater on while surfing the web, having a hot shower, watching TV, and other electrical uses.

Still, I’ll agree with him (even if he does not say it directly) that the complaints of 10k/month is not enough is bogus. Many of the expats want to live like kings in Shanghai and feel that the 10k (roughly $1500) will not cut it when you want to continually go to places like Xintiandi or Hengshan Road for foreign food.

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Although I am still in Shanghai for vacation at this point (will not be back until October 5th), I thought to note some reflections of mine (purely business-end) from the SMX conference:

• My SMX Nanjing presentation (you have to fill the form out to see it unfortunately), though I believe went well, should have been entirely in Chinese as the conference had 90%+ Chinese there. Oh well, live and learn.
• Stephen’s Noton’s last minute presentation from Adverted on internal linking was very well done and should be given high consideration to learn more on.
• Jose’s (林思吾) presentation on web design from awoo was a huge breath of fresh air considering how ugly many Chinese websites look (please keep in mind this is from a non-Chinese perspective).

A last thanks to Inway Ni for getting the conference up and running and for having me speak as well. Hopefully the next conference in Xiamen (March 2009) will be even better too.

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Missing some SimCity fun? Wish you could see what cities would look like with a SimCity feel? Wish no more:

It was this last item that lead me to revisit EDuShi (E-City). A few weeks back Rich (All Roads Lead to China) pointed me to the site’s Shanghai map and I was blown away, and am now even more impressed that they have most major cities in the country covered - including Suzhou!

Anyone that was a fan of Simcity will immediately warm to the style of EDuShi’s maps, as they definitely have that Sim-like quality about them. The zoomable maps offer an impressive amount of detail, with even things like neighborhoods and communities labelled (my old place, Yu Lan Xin Cun, is labelled).

Pretty.

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A fun article about one of my favorite cities, Shanghai, in the New Yorker titled “Buy Shanghai!” talks about the lifestyle and changes (both good and bad) that the city has gone through in the eyes of the author. I stack up my experiences from 2003 and 2005 against this article along with a few quips of my own.

The assorted finials on the tops of skyscrapers will make you think of a bottle opener, a Jell-O mold, a crown roast, a bamboo steamer, a chuppah, a Mobius strip, a snake that’s swallowed some golf balls, the Eiffel Tower, Lady Liberty’s headpiece, and the spiny back of a stegosaurus. Don’t breathe! The air is smelly with garbage juice. The sun, if visible at all, seems dimmer than the full moon on a hazy night. Need more light? You can see everything better after dusk, when the lunatic neon is switched on.

I would have added a skyscraper face that looks at you from four directions, but beyond that the description is sound.

“You can do business with them,” Helen Noh, a Korean who lives in Shanghai, said, referring to the Chinese. “But you should realize that, in the end, they are always going to win.”

Actually, I would say that this is more specific towards the Shanghainese–no matter how low you can bargain on prices there, if you are not speaking in 上海话 (Shanghai dialect) and are not a 上海本地人 (native Shanghainese), then you’re being ripped off. That’s why I had my friends help bargain for me instead–saved both time and money, and at least I don’t lose as badly, because no matter how good your Chinese or Shanghainese, you are still going to lose. It’s a game, so play it well.

There are markets for everything in Shanghai, including crickets. These come in varieties meant for competitive fighting [...] and for keeping as pets[.]

Now, mind you, I never actually saw a market place for crickets, but rather saw single guys with two loads (one on each side of a stick that he put across his back) that likely had 100+ containers filled with one cricket each in them. You can imagine the noise they made just walking down the sidewalk.

“Beijing’s short and wide. Shanghai’s tall and compact.” “Shanghai is more refined. More attention to detail.” “Shanghai’s female, Beijing’s male.” “Shanghai is New York. Beijing is Washington, D.C.” “Shanghai is New York. Beijing is L.A.” “Shanghai is Tel Aviv. Beijing is Jerusalem.” “Beijing is China. Shanghai is Shanghai.”

One cannot get a closer comparison to Beijing and Shanghai than comparing them to Washington D.C. and New York respectively. Whenever I went to a Beijing store, almost every other salesperson would ask why the US invaded Iraq (2003), whereas those in Shanghai would ask if I was French. Nonetheless, to understand Shanghai, remember the last quote — “Beijing is China. Shanghai is Shanghai.” — to understand the respective views of the Chinese people in the respective cities.

[T]he best deal? The underground eyeglass market near the railway station. In this bazaar, jam-packed with booths, you can get a pair of stylish, albeit no-name frames, complete with lenses ground to your prescription–all for a negotiated price of about $22.

Tempting, but good luck trying to find ones that will fit a European face–I actually lost a pair of my glasses in 2003 and could not for the life of me find any that would fit my “American” face–even in a store called “American Eyes.”

In China, it’s not always easy to know what’s going on, even today. CNN periodically blacks out for twenty seconds or so, and good luck navigating your way around the Great Firewall as you trying to get information online about anything having to do with what are referred to as the three “T”s.

True, although back in 2003 as a foreign exchange student I could often get around this through, and this will be the only time I recommend them, AOL. With their own wall-garden, you can access any of your favorite sites blocked, but good luck finding AOL at any 网吧 (Internet cafe).

As I told my friends on why I went to Shanghai instead of Beijing as a foreign exchange student–I wanted to do more than just study the Chinese language, but also learn about China’s history, culture, and economy. In the end, I believe I came back richer for the experience and luckier in terms of a fabulous wife.

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One the things about coming back from a long stay in another area is seeing things that remind you of that area. After having stayed for a grand total of a year in China, a couple of things still remind me of my time in China:

• On my way to work I sometimes see an old Chinese man sitting on a cement bench smoking and just watching the day go by - I can recall many times seeing tens of old Chinese men doing the same thing in Shanghai. Seemed to be quite peaceful just sitting there watching and having a nice slow day.
• Any time the sun is shining and an umbrella comes out on a city street to protect themselves not from rain, but from the sun - Any sunny day on East China Normal University’s campus would be filled with ’sun’ umbrellas protecting their skin to stay as white as possible; a complete reversal of American culture of tanning.

What other things would remind you of China or other places (either good or bad)?

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The Olympics haven’t even started, but here I am talking about the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Why? Got sent a link to the English version of the site for the Shanghai World Expo.

I had to go to Wikipedia to get a better understanding of what a World Expo is and then to the Shanghai World Expo site to understand what it will be about:

Expo 2010 Shanghai China will be a great event to explore the full potential of urban life in the 21st century and a significant period in urban evolution.

Know a couple of friends who’d be interested in that–number of times I tell him he should go to Shanghai just for the architecture.

Expo 2010 Shanghai China will centre on innovation and interaction.

Call me when it centers around inventions.

Expo 2010 Shanghai China will also be a grand international gathering.

This I don’t doubt.

Why bring this up? I recall back in 2003 in one of Pudong’s parks a huge sign proclaiming the World Expo coming to Shanghai in 2010 or so…

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