Scenic China

China's National Day is October 1st, so everyone gets some time off. (Exactly how much time depends on your situation; some people have an entire week off while others have Wed-Sun off. Though if you get the full week off you're probably working this weekend to make up for it. Just how it works here.) Pretty much everyone travels during this time, either to go home or just somewhere new. I'm told it's super hectic pretty much anywhere you end up.

Anyways, was checking out places to go, and read up on Nanjing since it's close-ish to Shanghai. Taken directly from my guidebook:

"The other sight by Gulou is the Dazhong Ting (Great Bell Pavilion), immediately northeast of the junction behind the China Telecom building, sitting on a well-kept garden and also home to a pleasant teahouse. Enter just south of the McDonald's."

How romantic. That passage just got Nanjing booted out of my plans. Think I'm going to head to Guilin/Yangshou (Li River) or Sichuan (Pandas). Inner Mongolia's a dark horse in the race too.

Update: If anyone cares, I decided to go to Sichuan.  Leaving Friday night, back on Thursday. 

Chinese Matchmaking

With 1.3 billion people in China, it really shouldn't be hard to find a date, right? Well apparently not. The matchmaking industry here is already bigger than the States', and there are over 20,000 dating companies registered in China, not including "family-run" dating services...

The social dynamics in Chinese households are a little different than in the Western world (i.e. Chinese people tend to be way more socially awkward), so not surprisingly, online matchmaking is hugely popular. One of the girls I play disc with has one of the top 10 most viewed dating profiles in town, and seems pretty damn proud of it.

Anyways, the larger point is: Chinese people are turning to the internet to find their soulmates, and a) they're not shy about it, and b) that doesn't necessarily make them desperate. Just check this post out. (Double eyelids, apparently, are no less popular online than they are in plastic surgery rooms.)

Update: The Shanghai Daily has a story out today detailing some of the shenanigans that these matchmaking companies get up to. Honesty is not their best policy, apparently.

The Thing About the Chinese...

...is that they're fine with ripping off others' ideas (have we covered this yet?).  What normally happens is that they'll just rip off someone else's idea, pump more money into marketing (since they're saving on R&D costs anyways) and try to trump the original.  So needless to say, mergers and acquisitions aren't nearly as popular here as they are in the West.  It's a business model that has really grown legs with the advent of the internet. 

That oh so familiar homepage above is for xiaonei.com, a Facebook ripoff competitor.  Apparently the Chinese version of hotornot.com (remember that?) is hugely popular too, though I can't seem to find the link right now. 

The Thing About the Chinese...

 

...is that they make lots of fake stuff.  Including cars.  This is a Toyota Echo Xiali 2000.  A company called BYD also makes a Civic (yes, of course they ripped off the Civic) lookalike.

In all seriousness though, China's come a long way in auto manufacturing.  It's worked closely with Toyota on hybrids in recent years, and now First Auto Works (FAW) has a factory in Mexico and is selling a pretty popular small car there.  Watch out, GM.

Ballin' in China

Whether you follow basketball fan or not, it was hard not to hear about the American "Redeem Team" winning gold at the Olympics. Put together to reclaim the States' lost dominance over the basketball world, it featured some of the world's most famous players and didn't lose a game the entire tournament. In fact, they played so well that some idiots intrepid reporters have argued that they're better than the original Dream Team from 1992. Yeah, the one that featured Jordan, Bird, Magic, Barkley, Stockton...do I have to keep going?

Anyways, the way I see it, performance aside, the big difference between the two lies in that the Dream Team clearly went to promote the game (and it worked, just look at how far basketball's come since), while the Redeem Team came more to promote the NBA and themselves. Yeah, it's nice and good to say you came to reclaim basketball glory, avenge past losses, etc.. but just look at what's come out in the half-month since the end of the tournament:

• Jason Kidd, the team's starting point guard, just ditched Nike to sign with Chinese sneaker PEAK (also Shane Battier's sponsor).
• Baron Davis, the newest NBA star to hit LA, similarly ditched RBK for Li-Ning. By my count, 8 NBA players now wear Chinese sneakers.
• The NBA's announced plans to play another round of exhibition games in China.
• The NBA's signed a sponsorship deal with Tsingtao, China's biggest beer manufacturer.
  

And in related news, the LA Lakers also signed Chinese guard Sun Yue (I'm not sure what shoes he wears.) China's the next great frontier for the NBA, and the league knows it.

Oh, and by the way, know how everyone hates Kobe in North America? He could probably care less. One of the best things about coming to China is that you've got a fresh marketing start. Kobe's got his own TV show here, Kobe's Disciples, and the top selling NBA jersey (ahead of both Yao and Yi).

The Thing About the Chinese...

"A group of animal lovers became embroiled in a bizarre confrontation as its members rescued more than 800 cats destined for the dinner table over the weekend.

Six volunteers from the Shanghai Animal Protection Association confronted cat dealers in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, and spent a day and a night trying to rescue about 1,500 cats."

-Shanghai Daily, Sept 3

...is that they have a saying: 'we'll eat anything with four legs except the table'.

If you've been to China before, this shouldn't surprise you.  I mean, I see people selling puppies at every Metro station.  But somehow, there aren't that many dogs around...

Child's Play: Malafi Photo Initiative

Been a little slow with the posts lately, but am working on a couple different things that'll hopefully get put up soon.  Might have a couple two-parters on the way; not yet sure how I'm going to tackle what I got in mind.

In the meantime though, I've been getting involved with/helping to promote something called the Malafi Photo Initiative, and I've just posted about it at Shanghaiist.com, where I'm working now.  Basically, a couple friends of friends went into rural Sichuan (where the earthquake was) and armed a bunch of kids with reloadable cameras (the old-school kind).  Together with the kids, they put together an exhibition on village life in the area, and are now putting on an exhibition called "Through Yi Eyes".  All the money from any prints sold there will go back to orphans in Sichuan, where it will help pay for schooling an other basic necessities.

It's really a great cause, so check it out online at malafi.org.  And in case you're wondering, it costs only 500RMB (about $78) to support a child for a year.  Makes you question whether you really need that new pair of shoes, doesn't it?