No Longer Penniless!

Today's weather:  High = 26  Low = 18

Sunny

 

A nice fat pay package arrived!  Two months delayed, but it's here.  Now it'll quickly go into paying back those who loaned me money over October.  The story gets better.  Housing allowance coming in today, then a deposit and rental reimbursement from my former apartment. 

 

Despite this nice break, Novemember is still going to be a tight month financially.  It is also going to be extremely busy as I have another masters course on the way, plus a teaching evaluation, plus a school inspection, plus an AP Calculus audit through College Board.

 

Novemember is basically going to fly by.  It's not going to be fun as it will be a heavy burden.  But as the Chinese say, this is normal, and that's why they typically don't enjoy life.

 

Meanwhile, the countdown until a real holiday begins.

Incremental Progress out of this Slump

Today's weather:     High = 22  Low = 15

Sunny

 

This evening marks the end of an exhausting and emotionally wrenching weekend.   Thankfully we  have an easy day tomorrow (Monday) as the classes have been cancelled in the afternoon for a Halloween party.  As mentioned in the last post, I have no fondness for this particular day and it may as well be a festival of the devil, with all these witches, goblins, zombies, demons, and so forth. 

 

Nevertheless I'll get dressed up as my own costume of a suit and tie and take part in the afternoon activities. 

 

This time of year, without fail, is when I get depressed.  For reasons I can't explain, bad stuff always happens to me around this time of year.  Even if it doesn't, there are the seasonal changes, the weather getting colder, the nights getting longer, and the fact that we still have almost 80 days of relentless work before the next real holiday:  Chinese New Year.    

 

As an aside I am getting tired of this rat race and have sketched a plan to quit this job after two years, then take a year off to ride a bicycle around Asia.  The idea is that I'll bust my butt off and do a masters at the same time as working, then quit or take a year-long leave of absence once I have the degree.   The alternative would be to take a year off teaching and do the masters exclusively as a student but what's the point of that?    The way this plan I have in mind should work, there will be alternative income sources, and I can finance my travels that way.

 

The school gives us Christmas and Western New Year holidays but these are short little 3-day snippets.  Still, they are a huge relief.  The American Thanksgiving coming up in a month from now is the light at the end of the tunnel, as it were, marking the countdown when holidays are approaching.   Haloween is just terrible as it doesn't mark any real holidays and there is no reason to celebrate this day.

 

Coming into this weekend I felt like crawling under a rock to die.  Not only penniless due to a 2-month salary delay and major expenses needed at the start of a new school year , but facing a relentless workload at school, a stressful round of moving apartments , dealing with a bunch of other crap, and also a looming deadline for a 20-page masters degree project.    And then some thief comes along and tries to steal the motorcycle right from outside the door of my new apartment at THIS time.

 

The optimism here, just like in all Haloween-related depressions I go through, is that when things get at their worst, they can only begin to get better from here.  And today was the start of such incremental progress for the better.    Out of the blue I received two love offerings from the two small groups I attend that are part of the SCF church here in Shanghai.   In one group I am the leader, in the other I just take part in discussions.  However, I simply was handed 500 RMB from people in each group.

This is something I'll go into more detail in my other blog, but I am a strong proponent of tithing to the local church.  This is something that all Christians should be doing, and that is giving at least 10% of the income to the local church.  It has taken me many years and struggles to reach this point in my spiritual journey, but I am now giving 20% and will do so for a long time to come.  Maybe it's a way of making up for the past when I first didn't give anything to the church after I got saved.  Or perhaps simply a habit that has developed.    Ironically, my penniless situation over the last two weeks was related to giving whatever cash I still had left to the local church.  Maybe it was silly, but I was holding out until the last minute when I believed that an offering would come in the nick of time, to which it did!   Not only that, but I am convinced that God thwarted the plan of the thief to steal the bike as a result of the tithing.  Now that's what I call an insurance policy!    If this kind of topic intrigues you or makes you angry, then read my other blog where I will write a lot more.

 

Say what you want about tithes, offerings, and giving to the church, but what is amazing here is that the two love offerings paid for the *exact* cost of the bike repairs which happened today.  All that was left over was 15 RMB which I used to get a Starbucks coffee. 

 

Staying up until well past midnight trying to finish off my masters degree project on a Saturday night, it was with regret that I had to wake up early, on a Sunday no less.   My Canadian biker friend had agreed to help me lift the bike into a taxi truck which was booked for 8am.    This was really appreciated, and the security guard at the compound voluntarily got into the action too with a smile!!  The guard and I are friends now.

 

The truck would take the bike and myself to the local Chinese mega-shop across town, where my Canadian biker friend would ride his own bike to get it serviced at a German specialty shop at 9am that day.  Some guys have all the luck.  His earlier suggestion was very good to deflate the air in the tires and put on more locks as a deterrent in case the thief  were to come back.  

 

Regretably, the Chinese mega-shop   (Jiaoji Lu) was all the way across town.  The 20km journey using surface roads in a truck was an exercise in torture.   The trucks are not allowed to use the elevated 'gao jia' and must take the surface roads which are plagued with zillions of long and unsynchronized traffic lights.  Even on an early Sunday morning, the trip took 90 minutes, and 40 of these minutes were stopped at lights.  Not only could I have ridden the motorcycle there much faster, I could have gotten faster on a BICYCLE

 

Once at the shop, they had a laugh at my situation, all in good fun.  Then there was a ton of work to be done.   Replace ignition, re-seal the front forks, change the fork oil, replace stolen box, change fuel line, change motor oil, do some spot welding, and a whole lot more.  The guys did excellent work, as they always do, as I have seen them so often.  But still, as always, it took a very long time.   I used this as an excuse to meet a girl for a date at People's Square.  Long story, and again, will have to blog this later. 

 

As an aside I'm getting severely behind on the blogs as just so much has happened to me this month.

 

The bike was repaired by the early afternoon and I then stashed it in the safety of our school's underground parking lot.    I'm no longer riding it to my apartment complex and besides, it will be returned to the German guy who bought it off me by this Wed.  And then, it's wait until May for a new bike.

 

Thief Attempted to Steal my Bike

Today's weather:   High = 19  Low = 14

Cloudy

 

The bad news:   This attempted bike theft couldn't have happened at a worse time.  If you've been following this blog for October and maybe a few months prior, you know damn well I am penniless.  I thought I was getting the salary oday, but no, it is delayed until Halloween.    I hate Halloween and it is the worst goddamn time of the year for me and always has.  I just want this day to come and go away. 

 

As for the bike itself, here's the recap of its history:

 

May 2010:   purchased a Yamaha YBR125 brand new bike in the hinterlands of Chongqing province.  Learned how to ride this clutch bike on the spot.  Shortly afterwards, I rode the bike to Wuhan where I was teaching at the time  (a 4-day adventure!) and then rode it around Wuhan during those two months.  Bike cost me about 9500 RMB

 

June 2010:   finished teaching at Wuhan then rode the bike to Shanghai where I started a new job.   This was a 2.5 day adventure

 

Sept 2010 to June 2011:   enjoyed riding the bike all around Shanghai and clocked up 10,000 km on it.   Put a lot of work into the bike, did some repairs, and acquired fake registration 'Hu A' plates for 300 RMB.   By the way, a legal 'Hu A' motorcycle license plate costs 50,000 RMB as a point in comparison.

 

July  2011:   took an official motorycle training course back in Vancouver and acquired a legal motorcycle drivers license in my home country.

 

Sept 2011:   sold the bike to a German friend for 5000 RMB.  Actually he first "rented" it during the summer to try it out, and he liked the bike.  We negotiated an agreement.

 

Oct 2011:   The German friend then went back to his home country for a month while he then lent the bike back to me.

 

Meanwhile, I put some extra work into the bike and he reimbursed for the cost of such work.  

 

Yesterday (Friday Oct 28) I came home from teaching and was extremely tired.  These days I'm a lot busier than normal as I'm working on a masters degree online and teaching at the same time.  The students this year have also been a handful and so work is a lot harder this year also.   Worse yet, this week was a killer due to all the apartment isues, moving, and so forth. Will get a blog post on that at some point!

 

To make a long story short, I rode home and took a much needed nap around 2:30pm.  I woke up at 3:30pm to discover a thief had attempted to hotwire the ignition but had failed.  As a result, he then smased the ignition lock, thus vandalizing it, and he also vandalized the U-lock on the wheels that was holding the bike.  As a precaution I ALWAYS lock the bike with a wheel lock and also lock the steering column with the ignition.

 

The good news is that the thief failed in his attempt to steal the bike.  What I need to do now is take the motorcycle in the back of a taxi van to the shop where the guy knows me very well.  Then he will replace the ignition lock next week and I have some more work I want done on the bike anyway.

 

Since, however, I am penniless these days, this task will have to wait until midweek.   The German guy knows about all this and he returned early to Shanghai from his trip back to to his home country.  We agreed that Wednesday I'll have the bike back to him.

 

The main problem now is that since the bike can't move until a few days, it needs to be secure in case the thief makes another stab (literally) at it.   To that end, I asked some biker friends for suggestions and I got two more locks on the bike, and deflated the air in the tires.  As well, the security guards in the apartment complex were alerted and I told them point blank that someone tried to steal my bike in broad daylight and only 50m away from their guard post.  The guards then said, "I will watch more carefully"

 

In order to test whether they would follow up on that statement with actions, I then wheeled my bicycle over about an hour later as I am still moving things from one apartment to the next.  Sure enough the guard took notice and asked what I was up to.  This was good enough for me.

 

I then said, "Since a thief tried to steal my motorcycle from this place in the middle of the day under your watch, and now I can't ride the motorcycle, I am thus riding my bicycle."    He apologized, and I then thanked the guard that he was taking a more vigilant role at that point.

 

Regretably, this is not the first time someone tried to steal a bike in front of my apartment door.  It  happened exactly 3 years ago this time of year when I was living out in Songjiang.  Very far away, but in a nice place.  At that time, I was riding a scooter and the thief was able to steal it right from under my nose.  At that time, yes, I was also tired and taking a nap.

 

Haloween may as well be the holiday of the devil, the way this kind of bad stuff always happens this time of year.  Thankfully this year they didn't get my bike, but it was a major frustration and hassle to deal with something like this at this point in time.    80 more days until the next holiday.

Flooding in Thailand

http://news.yahoo.com/thailand-bangkok-escape-floods-waters-recede-070711609.html

 

Having been there just two months ago, the situation was already quite grim.  Now it has gotten worse and reports say that nearly ONE-THIRD of the entire country of Thailand is now flooded.  This also has affected Cambodia and Vietnam.  Since the monsoon is winding down at this point, there will be relief in sight as they transition into the dry season but it could take at least a month for the flood waters to recede. 

 

This was the worst monsoon season they had in decades.  When I go back there during the January break, things should be dry and back to normal again but we'l see.  At any rate, the effects of the flooding are a lot more severe than the news indicates.  This is also affecting the beaches in the south, as reports from travelers have shown.  All the dirty flood water runoff is spilling into the Gulf of Thailand and killing all the fish and aquatic life.  Result?  Garbage and dead fish strewn all over the beaches, polluted waters, and a nasty blow to the tourist season.

 

On a more positive note I'm going to be heading to Burma for the most part during the winter break and will get a different slice of the experience.  The crazy guy on a bike journal is almost up and running, will point you the link once I've got it.

Moving House: 90% Complete

Today's weather:  High = 22  Low = 20
Cloudy
 
I put in another few hours of moving today and it's mostly all done except the inevitable 'last things'.  As anyone who has moved house will know, these 'last things' you think are very few, but it's amazing just how many of them there are and you always find more.
 
Despite my penniless situation, I still went to a celebration dinner social last night with over 500 people.  It was a major blast and I was stuffed with food.  I bought the ticket well in advance, before I went completely broke as in now.  It was a ton of fun and for a second I could forget my temporary poverty situation.
 
 

Moving House: 60% Complete

A little bit of Saturday morning fun ... actually I'm astonished by how fast the move is progressing.  With over 15 trips done back and forth on the motorcycle, averaging 3 trips an hour, it was a solid round of work.   To make a long story short, I'm moving down the street.  Two blocks to be exact.  Shortest move I've ever done and how much has it cost so far?   About 5 RMB in fuel for the motorcycle tank.  Given my crappy financial situation right now I can't afford to move any other way than this method. 

 

But now that I'm using this method I wouldn't move any other way.   As it turns out there are complex procedures and stupid paperwork rules if you move the official way using vans and taxis.  For example the security guards at the gate insist you apply for a moving permit and take a receipt to the main 'wu ye' administration building at the compound.  This applies to both the compound you are moving out of and moving into.  Without the rules being followed, the taxi or van will be held up at the gate until the paperwork can be processed.   The whole thing is one big fucking headache 

 

Moving via motorcycle circumvents this whole process, but of course it takes a lot more time and it's hard work.  If only there were pictures taken, you could have seen me hauling a futon mattress, a television, and even a full-blown closet on the motorcycle.  Classic stuff, and when in Rome.

 

The new place I'm moving into is top-notch snazzy and I'll be taking pictures to show on her for sure.

 

Subway Delays: Cascade Effect

With all the newspaper articles on subway delays, there are a lot more situations that are not making the news.  One of them is the situation on Line #4 which is the ring line that more or less parallels the inner ring road highway.

 

During Friday afternoon rush hour, the line gets jam packed and if one train is delayed due to mass crowds, then it affect the others down the line in a cascade effect.  The signalling system basically disallows any train to run between two subway stations until the train ahead has cleared the station ahead.

 

So if Train A is stopped at a station A and is packed full, it is delayed due to the crowds and making sure the doors are closed properly, etc. etc.  If Train B is one stop behind and isn't as crowded, it still has to wait at station B until Train A is able to go ahead.

 

All this waiting and stopping causes the crowds to pile up at the stations and the situation gets worse since many people cannot get on the trains, and this cascades further and further down the line.

 

With Line #4 it's especially a problem as it's a ring line with several "pinch points" that cause these delays.  Regretably I have to take this line for a meagre two stops and at one of the most severe pinch points on the line:   the transfer with Line #1

 

Yesterday I waited around for 10 minutes and watched in agony as the countdown timer kept changing, and inreasing the wait time, as the signaling system had to keep adjusting for the delays.  Watching the crowds grow exponentially I gave up and walked out of there cursing.  Then I hoofed it down the street above ground for two stations to the transfer point with Line #1 and then got on Line #1 directly from the street.

 

This was a loss because the turnstiles will charge you for a minimum subway journey if you enter and exit from the same station which I did.   Then of course I had to pay twice by entering from a different station altogether.  In light of my current rotten financial situation where every RMB counts, this was a major frustration and loss.

 

The subway has its major drawbacks.  Back to the motorcycle as long as I can milk out this remaining tank of gas.

 

Penniless in the City

Today's weather:  High = 22 Low = 16

Sunny

 

As anyone would tell you, Shanghai is not a city where you want to be penniless in.  Yet due to a nasty combination of a one-month delay in the school paying out salaries and a whole glob of typical start-up expenses in September and October, then penniless is exactly my situation until next week when we get paid!

 

Basically what it means is that I survive on free cafeteria food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The food in the school's caf is really disgusting, and most teachers now refuse to eat there.  However, I end up taking second helpings for lunch then taking it away to eat for dinner later on.

 

As for transport, the plan is to make sparing use of the remaining gas in the motorcycle tank, and combine this with taking the subway.

 

Fortunately there are no other expenses as this month has been real busy.  It's a simple case of go to work, teach classes, and go back home to hunker down on my masters degree.  Which, that reminds me, the final project is due within a week.

 

Regretably I had to borrow about 9000 RMB total from various friends, who were nice enough to lend the money out back at the beginning of this month.  This amounted to being able to cover the housing rent, deposit, and other untold start-up costs.  Minusing out all the expenses, I was left to survive on a few hundred RMB for my own daily life and will continue this for another week.

 

Once we finally get paid, the entire salary will get dumped onto my credit card, then will pay back the loans from friends.  In about 3 months, my financial situation will return to normal.  

 

While Shanghai is an expensive city for sure, it could be worse --- I could end up back in Vancouver or elsewhere in Canada.  Given a situation like that, at this point I would be living on the street as I simply couldn't afford the high costs back home.

Subway Delays ... Again

From the paper, as usual.  Again, as usual, the motorcycle trumps all over forms of transport.
 
---------------
METRO passengers were left frustrated again yesterday after glitches on lines 3 and 4 left services operating at reduced speeds.

These are the latest in a series of problems on the Shanghai Metro in recent days, creating discontent among users. Public confidence is already low following the two-train collision that left almost 300 passengers injured in September.

Yesterday's incidents were the sixth and seventh on the Metro since last Friday, each causing lengthy delays.

"It seems to me that Metro passengers have been living on a razor's edge," said daily rider Steve Kong.

"Everyone's hyper-sensitive and anxious about traveling on the subway."

Kong added that the Metro operator seemed to be more cautious since last month's crash, as trains now travel much slower whenever there are glitches.
---------
 

My Money Situation Sucks

In light of the recent house changing, on top of many other 'start-up' costs at the beginning of the school year, plus the fact there was a two-month gap in my salary, among many other things, I'm in a rather crappy money situation and will be for the next 3 months.  Still, I don't regret the purchases for a second. 

 

Whenever large purchases, deposits, etc. happen in China, be prepared to carry around huge bricks of cash.  This isn't exactly the most comforting situation, but it's the reality.  Thankfully the German guy I sold my motorcycle to has gone back to his home country for another month and has re-lent the use of the bike for the time being.  That makes it relatively more comforting to be hauling around the brick of cash in the back of the bike, as opposed to clutching my bag on the subway.  Still, when the brick of cash was safely paid out, I felt better.

 

Of course there is the option of using a local bank account to do money transfers.  I use such an account for small transactions, given that I'm 'floating arond' a small percentage of my salary in local currency.  The majority of the cash is deposited at a bank I run in Canada using dollars.  It's expensive and super inconvenient to go directly from that bank account to pay for any business-related expenses or endeavors abroad, especially in china. 

 

The way around this is to use a credit card.  Then it's a relatively straightforward matter of dumping a massive bill payment on the credit card directly from my Canadian bank account.  Then I use the credit card to take out bricks of cash at a time from ATMs here in China or elsewhere.   Due to restrictions, the ATMs won't let me take out more than 2000 RMB daily at my Canadian bank, but it ramps up to 20,000 RMB daily from the credit card.  Maybe I lose out on the exchange rate or on interest charges, but these are peanuts compared to international bank service charges and other made-in-China inconveniences.  Calculations show that I'm coming up very close on the exchange and am not losing much at all.

 

The other option is to use a credit card at the bank and do a one-time cash advance but they will seriously hose you on the service charge (3%) and of course, being China, make up some inconveniences or troubles for why you can't do this.  In the end, it's just easier to hit the ATMs and take out 2500 RMB at a time (maximum per transaction) and just build up a huge brick from there.  Thank goodness the ATMs have locked door features

 

All told, the cash situation should get back to normal within a few months and surprisingly, will still be making a profit on my housing allowance.  Right now I'm over 20,000 RMB in the hole on this which is scary, but the computer spreadsheet tells me things will improve.  Unfortunately things are gonna be tight for awhile and I'll just have to deal with it.  Will also delay the purchase of a new bike even further now until well past May next year.  By then, the new Yamaha YBR250 models should be coming out, and besides, once winter hits there won't be much need for a motorcycle.

 

 

Moving a Few Blocks Down the Street

Today's weather:  High = 22 Low = 13

Sunny

 

After a couple weeks of house-hunting and tons of research, I decided to make a move:   down the street and around the corner.   One of the shortest moves I've ever done, yet also taking advantage of a good deal that couldn't be resisted. 

 

To make a long story short, I got the neighborhood spot on when I moved over here last May, but the house itself I'm in now was a fail.   Where I'm moving to now I should have just gone for in the first place, but there was much to learn -- I didn't get 'get it' at the time.  Anyhow it's no big deal as I'll be able to move out of the current lease without any penalties, get my full deposit back, and move into a new place.  This took a considerable amount of negotiation, speaking Chinese, and a very helpful local contact (Yang Pu) to pull this off.  Never underestimate the power of local contacts.

 

The new place is 4500 RMB a month (negotiated), 2 bedrooms, 116 square meters, it is quiet -- close to the same subway station but a little further away so as not to be bombarded by that racket at my present place.  I put down 1 month deposit, 3 months rent up front, and the landord was present at all the meetings, negotiations, and signings.  For a place like that, locals said it was a deal not to be missed.  My current place is 3800 RMB a month (negotiated), so it's only a tiny bit more cash each month for a WAY better deal at the new place.  In light of this, I negotiated a 2-year lease contract.  The landlord was reluctant to go for this at first, since it meant he couldn't raise the rent after a year.  In the current context of Shanghainese landlords raising the rent rampantly each year, I had to somehow 'lock in at a lower rate'.  The landlord knew this, of course, hence the reluctance.  So in exchange I offered to pay his agent fee.  A nice short-term boost for him which still makes me come out ahead in the long-term.    

 

The details of how this came about are all too complicated to put in this blog right now but will tell the story eventually over here.  It's now time to get cracking on another house move.  This may be excessive, but then again my situation is nothing compared to colleagues.  Maybe I've lived in 15 houses since coming to China, but one particular colleague has lived in 35, so it makes me feel better. 

 

House Hunting Manual for Teachers (Proposed Idea)

Today's weather:  High = 22 Low = 12

Sunny

 

A near-perfect day today, the first WEEKEND we've had after the exhausting 7-day week came to a close.  Finally, things are back to normal.  I will be cherishing these weekends for quite some time now, as the Chinese mentality is such that I now appreciate having real, authentic, and genuine weekends more than ever. 

 

Going back to the house hunting, it struck me as an idea to write a manual for new teachers, and propose this idea to the boss.  Moreoever, I would hope that he or the school can create a new job for me next year to basically act as a middleman for negotiating house leases between the teachers and the landlords / agents.

 

Of course they already have someone to do this right now, the generic 'school secretary' that all schools have who do all and sundry to take care of demands that teachers have with life in China.  Basically they handle all the 'after school' stuff.  Unfortunately, most of these secretaries are overworked and underpaid and have to do all the jobs:   housing, visas, things breaking down, student tuition fees, university applications, translations, etc. etc.

 

When it comes to house hunting, many teachers get frustrated and pissed off because the secretary just wants to do the job as quickly as possible without taking the time to find qualty houses and negotiate really good deals for the teachers.  As such, a rush job leads to shitty houses, and the teachers get saddled with a year lease and a ripoff rent.  This is not necessarily her fault, she is just too busy with other tasks and is handed this job in addition.  Given that I have some bilingual abilities, am planning to learn more Chinese this year, and I know the kinds of requirements that foreign teachers have with house leases, I'd be more than happy to step up to the plate and take over this particular job.  

 

The first thing I would do is streamline the whole process by writing a detailed manual, based on the posts written here.  Then the teachers could read the manual and have a clear idea of how the Shanghai house rental situation works and know what the deal is before they come.  The next thing would be to compile a computer program that inputs a detailed list of requirements that teachers have for houses, along with a detailed list of the multitude of types of houses available for rent that a selected list of TRUSTWORTHY agents that the school is in contact with.  The program would be constantly updated and then come up with matches.

 

It would also be helpful to have a Chinese local assistant who is also on the same page with this plan, and to potentially negotiate a higher housing allowance for the teachers.  This is all dreaming of course, but I at least want to put forth some kind of a proposal and see what happens.  At any rate, what I would then ask is to teach fewer classes in order to spend more time on this kind of business.  This would also include constantly being in touch with landlords and agents to deal with ongoing problems that teachers have, such as things breaking down, misunderstandings, what about breaking a lease, negotiating prices, how to pay bills, etc. etc.

 

The main idea in all this, it that if the school created such a position for me, it would practically eliminate the corruption problem that exists with the current system whereby teachers are being overcharged for the rent, and being charged mysterious "taxes" such as 5% off the housing allowance. 

Shanghai Subway: Locals Feeling the Frustration

Yet another post from the newspaper about subway woes.  While world's longest subway system is here in Shanghai, there is not much to ooo and ahh about as breakdowns and failures happen on a near-daily basis now.  Welcome to China, the land of thorns and thistles.   Ordinarily though, the subway system is the 2nd best way to get around the city for medium-to-long distances.  The best way is, of course, the motorcycle and scooter which 13 million people are giving a nod to.

 

Interesting enough, at both times the article mentions subway failures, I was whizzing around the city on the motorcycle.

 

Even so, it is maddening at how many times the subway breaks down or suffers what they call 'equipment failure' which could mean anything.  Let's face a reality here:   the subway system is less than 5 years old for the most part, 10 years old tops.  Why is it breaking down so often?   Two locals reached a breaking point with all the delays.  Heck, if the train took 48 minutes to move one stop, you can't blame them for snapping. 

 

 

------------

TWO Metro passengers who wedged open the doors of a train in a protest over delays have been fined for disrupting services, police said yesterday.

Thousands of commuters were held up on Thursday night when the pair, surnamed Chen and Zhou, staged their protest around 9pm at Zhongxing Road Station of Line 8.

They blocked the train door with their bodies and feet after it took 48 minutes to travel just one stop between People's Square and Zhongxing Road stations.

As the train was unable to move off while the doors were open, it was delayed for a further 12 minutes at the station, impacting on services behind it.

Police said Chen and Zhou had been arguing with Metro staff and seeking an explanation after Line 8 suffered an equipment malfunction at around 8pm.

They were forced to leave the scene after ignoring police requests to end their protest.

Both were fined 200 yuan (US$31) for preventing the normal operation of public transport, according to police.

The equipment malfunction that prompted the protest saw Metro Line 8 services operate at reduced speed for about 90 minutes from 8pm.

Services experienced another glitch yesterday when at 8:18am an equipment breakdown forced Metro Line 1 services to be slowed down between Xinzhuang and Jinjiang Park stations.

Normal operations resumed at 10am. Details of the equipment failure were not revealed.

Some commuters claim the Metro operator uses equipment failure as a convenient excuse for all service problems.

"The repeated broadcasts drive me mad," said Dai Min, a local resident who uses the subway every day. "They always tell us to wait for another 10 to 15 minutes. Sometimes, it can be totally misleading."

Dai is one of many passengers calling on the Metro operator to give more transparent explanations of problems.

Some web users suggested the operator rank the severity of disruptions by a grade or color.

Lan Tian, an official at the operation center of Shanghai Metro, told Shanghai Daily that four kinds of situations are categorized as equipment failure. They include malfunctions on trains, track, signals and stations.

Lan said it was unnecessary to specify the reasons to passengers as the most urgent matter was resume operations when a breakdown happened.

"Sometimes, even the drivers don't know what's wrong," said Lan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Physics Post: Say it Ain't So!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/22/faster-than-light-particles-neutrinos
 
It is a concept that forms a cornerstone of our understanding of the universe and the concept of time – nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

But now it seems that researchers working in one of the world's largest physics laboratories, under a mountain in central Italy, have recorded particles travelling at a speed that is supposedly forbidden by Einstein's theory of special relativity.

 

Scientists at the Gran Sasso facility will unveil evidence on Friday that raises the troubling possibility of a way to send information back in time, blurring the line between past and present and wreaking havoc with the fundamental principle of cause and effect.
 

They will announce the result at a special seminar at Cern – the European particle physics laboratory – timed to coincide with the publication of a research paper (pdf) describing the experiment.

Researchers on the Opera (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment recorded the arrival times of ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos sent from Cern on a 730km journey through the Earth to the Gran Sasso lab.
 
The trip would take a beam of light 2.4 milliseconds to complete, but after running the experiment for three years and timing the arrival of 15,000 neutrinos, the scientists discovered that the particles arrived at Gran Sasso sixty billionths of a second earlier, with an error margin of plus or minus 10 billionths of a second.
The measurement amounts to the neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light by a fraction of 20 parts per million. Since the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, the neutrinos were evidently travelling at 299,798,454 metres per second.
 
The result is so unlikely that even the research team is being cautious with its interpretation. Physicists said they would be sceptical of the finding until other laboratories confirmed the result.
Antonio Ereditato, coordinator of the Opera collaboration, told the Guardian: "We are very much astonished by this result, but a result is never a discovery until other people confirm it.
"When you get such a result you want to make sure you made no mistakes, that there are no nasty things going on you didn't think of. We spent months and months doing checks and we have not been able to find any errors.
 
"If there is a problem, it must be a tough, nasty effect, because trivial things we are clever enough to rule out."
The Opera group said it hoped the physics community would scrutinise the result and help uncover any flaws in the measurement, or verify it with their own experiments.
Subir Sarkar, head of particle theory at Oxford University, said: "If this is proved to be true it would be a massive, massive event. It is something nobody was expecting.

 

Reckless Scooters and Mopeds:

From today's paper, judging from the tone of the article, the Shanghai traffic police appear to be throwing their hands in the air and giving up on the problem.  Crackdown after crackdown after crackdown has failed to reign in these scooters.  When you have 13 million two-wheel riders on the road, it is kinda hard to enforce the rules don't you think?  Even so, posting this kind of article in the newspaper is retarded because it only encourages more of the scooter riders to get out there and starting running a red light, or two, or three hundred on the way to work.

 

---------

THE frequent traffic accidents involving mopeds and scooters, many of them fatal, shed light on reckless drivers in the city, but enforcement is very difficult for authorities.

The riders on mopeds and scooters running red lights, speeding or driving into car lanes, a common scene at busy crossroads, are a headache for traffic police who already are overwhelmed by the dangerous tactics of car and truck drivers on crowded roads.

"The small mopeds can cause big trouble," Wang Denghai, traffic police chief in downtown Zhabei District, said yesterday.

This year, traffic accidents involving bikes, mopeds and scooters have accounted for 269 deaths, more than 40 percent of all traffic fatalities in Shanghai. In most cases, riders should have borne at least as much responsibility as vehicle drivers, say police. Some officers worry that the situations "are getting worse."

In a citywide crackdown yesterday, police spotted many moped and scooter riders driving recklessly and fearlessly at busy intersections, even with officers present. Maneuvering among moving vehicle flows at the crossing of Hutai and Hengfeng roads in Zhabei District, a moped tried to rush through after the light had turned red about 7am. The rider was stopped by an officer and fined 5 yuan (78 US cents).

In most cases, of course, violators won't be stopped, as officers and traffic assistants simply watch them pass. Officers say they are hard to catch and stop one by one because of their sheer numbers.

"They dash toward the roads just like a school of fish," said officer Yang Zhenqing in Zhabei District. "More often than not, they just run the red lights all together."

At the busy intersection of Yuyuan and Wanhangdu road snear Jing'an Temple, traffic assistants sometimes stand on the pedestrian pass, or crosswalk, using their bodies to block the eager bikes and mopeds from crossing the line. "They are fast and seem to come out all of a sudden," said a driver.

A migrant worker, surnamed Yan, a frequent moped rider, said he was hit and injured by another moped before the holiday and police ruled both shared responsibilities.

The city now has more than 13 million mopeds, scooters and bikes. About 280,000 use gas and 3 million use electricity. Migrant workers have become the main owners of mopeds sand scooters. They usually do not have license plates or carry out-of-town ones, police said.

Police said the top allowed speed for scooters and mopeds is 15 kilometers per hour. But officers found during routine checks that 80 percent of them exceed that speed.

The 7-Day Work-week of Meltdowns

Today's weather:  High = 22  Low = 13
Cloudy
 
I could write a book on just this week alone but will settle for a quick post.  The sheer number of meltdowns happening at work/school this week is beginning to worry me.  We already lost one teacher who is packing up his bags and leaving mid-term.  Students in the senior grade are displaying horrible attitudes and we are having to deal with truancy, disruptions, disrespect, lying, and a whole host of issues like this.
 
Part of the problem was exactly as predicted:  the 7-day workweek right after the National holiday was a disaster waiting to happen.   Let's hope that NEVER AGAIN will weekends have to be made up like this, but I have my doubts.  Nonetheless this kills morale for both teachers and students and reners the previous holiday as a writeoff.
 
Aside from work a number of meltdowns happened at my current apartment.  Yes, more.  Moving out looks to be the best choice possible and thankfully, things are moving ahead well with that plan.  More to come.
 
I simply want to get out of this rat race within a few years and follow in the footsteps of the 'mentors' I met in Thailand over the summer who travel around using investment income from real estate assets, stock shares, and rental incomes
 
 
 

Why is Shanghai Housing Such a Big Deal

The last post underscored how to rent a kick-ass house in Shanghai to live in for an extended period of time.  If I didn't make the point in the last post well enough I'll make it here:  the process is frickin hard and one heck of a lot of work.  It is something to be taken very seriously because of how easy it is to get saddled with a terrible house given all the potential junk that exists in the city for rent.  Since the overall rental price in Shanghai is also VERY high, then you want to make sure that your big bucks are also paying for big quality.  Sadly, there is no shortage of high-priced rental crap in Shanghai.  If you translate that into what you could get outside the city (for example in Songjiang),  you could be living in a king's palace. 

 

In Wuhan, 1500 RMB a month gets you an awesome luxury dig in the Wanke compex, but 3000 RMB in downtown Shanghai might get you a one-bedroom cockroach-infested shoebox or else a tiny cramped little room where you share with roomates.  The number of people who do roomates in downtown Shanghai is astonishing, not because they want to, but because they have to.

 

On the other hand, it's also tempting to move out towards the suburbs because the price goes down dramatically.  For example, 3000 RMB in Songjiang will certainly get you a king's palace where the same place downtown will be upwards of 15,000 RMB a month, or else you pay the 3000 RMB downtown and ask if you want cockroaches with that too please

 

However, moving to the suburbs is a big disadvantage also.  Even if you don't mind traveling, other people mind greatly, and you won't have any friends coming over.  I have never lived in a city where people are so loathe to commute as in Shanghai, and I can't really blame them.  Even 3km is considered very far away, and people won't make the trip.   Two words:  traffic jams.  Even so, it still amazes me how lazy people are in this city and they will time their subway walks to the minute, not wanting to go anywhere beyond a 5 minute radius.

 

Then again, when you are facing population pressures such as this city does, getting around is simply unpleasant.  For the sake of survival, you want to constrain everything to short distances and specific neighorhoods, and you certainly count how many minutes to reach the subway.  Everybody does that.  The happy medium I've reach is the midburbs.  Far enough away from downtown to get good deals on rent where most people won't go this far, yet close enough that I don't burn out and can still convince friends to come over.

 

All this being said, I am very upset that the school does not take the housing situation as seriously as they should.  When it comes to helping new teachers find places to live, they take a very lackadaisical approach, and most certainly not how a real Shanghainese local would do this if for themselves or their own family.  The school also rips teachers off, both indirectly by using lazy agents, and also directly by overcharging and most likely collecting commission.  The details are tricky on this, but the school does provide some sort of an allowance.  Even so, it is nowhere near enough to match the Shanghai reality and the school selects houses in XU JIA HUI which is the most expensive in the city -- just because it is nearby.  To give an example, the rents in XU JIA HUI are 8000 to 12,000 RMB a month, but the allowance is 4500 RMB a month.

 

They don't think of asking teachers if they wouldn't mind going a few more stops down the subway line, or crossing into Pudong on Line #7 for example, all of which would cut the prices by at least 50% as I've discovered.  Sadly I've had to do most of this myself and get the information the hard way.

 

The overall gist of it is that housing is such a big deal in Shanghai, and especially for teachers, in order to be happy and comfortable in a place that is like an oasis or a haven, so to speak, in this madhouse of a city.  If a teacher has a crappy house environment, then the job performance probably won't be good either.  Conversely, happy home means happy job.

 

I'm also taking this house hunting rather seriously as I want to stay here for awhile and have also considered marrying and having a family here.  In this sense, it would make things easier to already have a decent house lined up.  Half-joking here.   Well I like a quiet house and one that is conveniently situated for a good price, not just for myself, but as it makes it great to invite people over.  Such as, for example, on Couchsurfing.   A quiet house in some obscure suburban compound wouldn't exactly work for Couchsurfing.

7 Lessons About House Hunting

Today's weather:  High = 23  Low = 15
Rain and miserable
 
Hopefully new teachers and other expats in Shanghai can benefit from this post.
 
Good news on the house hunting front -- lined up a potentially awesome new dig, and proceeded to find a way to get out of my current place without penalty.  More on the details in upcoming post.  The story was just too coincidental to be a coincidence, it was one heck of a small world let me tell you
 
Nonetheless I haven't signed anything yet and am still thinking it over.  I may still end up saying no to this.  I've also said NO to at least a dozen places during the house hunt over the past two weeks -- even a firm NO to places that otherwise would have been good but had the slightest negative thing going.  The logic being that if it wasn't perfect, then forget it.  This was in contrast to the past where I would settle for a less-than-perfect place in order to end the uncertainty of the hunt.  The way the house hunting game works here in Shanghai, it is EXTREMELY TEMPTING to pick places just to end the hunt, but then you regret it down the road, as I have experienced time and time again.
 
So lesson #1 is the most obvious but it bears repeating:   don't say yes to a house that you can identify negative things about on the first glance.   As mentioned above, it better be perfect and meet your requirements or else give it a pass and don't feel ashamed about it.  The reality is there is a TON of shit out there, and you're going to be saying no a lot more than yes.
 
The way it works is that an agent lines up a place for you, calls the landlord, and you all look at the place together.  It's a very brief look, and I've experienced it from both sides.  That is to say I've gone looking while other tenants' leases are almost up, and I've had future tenants come looking while my lease is almost expired.  Given that this quick little 5-10 MINUTE SURVEY determines whether or not you sign a ONE YEAR LEASE, you better make damn sure you can identify as many things as possible in the look and focus on the negatives, negatives, and more negatives.
 
The unfortunate thing is that it's very difficult to 'try before you rent', i.e. stay there for a week and check it out, thus allowing for a longer survey.  It's also very difficult to sign a short-term lease, say 3 months.  Why?  Lack of trust, obviously, and the way the Chinese culture is based on no trust.  Maybe landlords allowed 'trial rents' or short-term leases in the past, but this kind of system could be easily manipulated, twisted, and taken advantage of.  Sadly, we know all too well how the Chinese are professional experts at system manipulation, both in their home country and all around the world.
 
Meanwhile, the failsafe that developed in the housing market was this:  sign a one-year lease, pay 2 months deposit and all the rent for 2-3 months at a time up front.
 
Like it or not, you're given a brief period of time to see the house and make a decision.  Here is what I suggest you check for:
 
1.  Neighorhood survey.  Hopefully you've already done this.  If not you can do so on the way to the compound.  Things to ask:  is the house close to a subway station, what is in the immediate zone, what bus lines go by, shopping malls, coffee shops, markets, etc. etc. etc.
 
2.  Compound (xiao qu) survey.  What is the overall compound like, new, old?  Quiet, loud?  Tall buildings, modern, old style, local, etc.  What is the security like?  Where is the house in relation to the compound?  The best ones are in the interior.  If it faces the road or train tracks, this house could fail before you even go inside to check it out.  One thing that has burned me twice before is if the house is *above* a subway line.  The absolute worst case is when you are between two subway stations, in which case it is a long walk to either station and the goddamn trains still rumble by your house.  A quick check on Google maps will tell you if you'll end up getting burned by this, which I should have done but failed.  Even the 5th floor is not high enough to escape that underground subway racket.  Other pontential noise makers:  being near a school ... DISASTER!!   The morning exercise racket will wake you up for sure.  Being close to a sports stadium is also a fail, along with being near an army barracks.  Try also to avoid compounds that collect noise with wide open spaces and tall buildings, as the fireworks racket will also get you on this.
 
3.  House survey.  This is where you go nuts.  Check all appliances to see if they work.  Many will be broken.  Check the plumbing and shower heads.  Check the gas stove in the kitchen.  Look at the condition of the floor and walls, be on the eye out for peeing paint, mould, and warped floors.  Watch out for strange smells.  A 5 year old building can easily show signs of wear and damage.  Check the condition of the rooms.   If a room has recently been renovated but the building is only 5 years old, then this is a HUGE disaster because it means other neighbors will be doing the same, and there will be nonstop construction noise.  You don't want to move into a new building that has just become an old building, and everything needs a total overall and change, only to break down and repeat again and again and again.  If you get a sense from the landlord that he has a laissez-faire view towards things breaking down or he laughs about it, then the place is an automatic fail
 
Lesson #2 then is to define your requirements carefully.  The better you can define them, the better it will go for you.  For example if you have a conscious or unconsious list of requirements, then you can pinpoint more specifically how a potential house meets them, or you can specifically list where it fails.  The above should be plenty of examples of that, and I have barely even scratched the surface!!!!  In a city of 25 million people, even very strictly defined requirements will still give out plenty of choices to sift from
 
Lesson #3 then is to be prepared to house hunt for a long time.  I would say that 2 weeks should be a minimum, and to view at least 20 houses.   Even that is not really enough, but it gives you a sense of the market and you learn a ton of stuff for future reference.
 
Lesson #4 is not to do business with agents who pressure you into signing a lease right away, or who say any of the following lines:  
 
-- "This is such a good deal, other people are going to snatch it up, you better put a deposit down or someone else will rent."  If an agent sees 10 people and they all look at at the same house, then he's going to tell the same thing to all 10 people, and it is impossible for all 10 people at once to put down a deposit to secure a pace, and so this argument not logical.
 
-- "The price is already very low."  Rubbish, he's only saying it because he wants a higher commission (35% of the first months rent is standard).  Negotiate.
 
-- "You're only renting for a year / for one person, don't be so picky."  A local wouldn't stand for this ridiculous argument, neither should you
 
-- "This compound has few places to rent, we don't have others to show."  If that were true, the agents wouldn't be in business, and they shouldn't get your business if they argue this way.
 
-- "The traffic is really convenient"   You decide if a 15-20 minute walk to the subway is close or not.   I don't think it is.
 
Lesson #5 is if you do find a place you like, make it look like you don't.   Try not to mention money or prices until the very end, and add that in as an afterthought, only to the agent, and without mentioning it to the landlord.  This works like a charm every time.  I've often done that and found the initial offer this way is very close to the market price, as confirmed by using the internet and the research from all the former house hunting. 
 
Lesson #6 is to use references and get others to help.  A friend from Jamaica has lived in Shanghai for 15 years.  Incidentally, she is living in the same compound that she recommended to me which I'm now just about to sign, but not quite yet.  If she recommends this compound, then it must be pretty damn good.
 
Lesson #7 is to negotiate longer-term contracts.  I got this idea from my Jamiacan friend but it only makes sense.  By law, they can't change the rent during the contract so you can 'lock in at a lower rate' this way, by signing 2-year contracts.  Highly recommended, and a win/win for you and the landlord.  The agents tend to like this approach as well so I see this as a triple-win.
 
Besides, you wouldn't go through all this trouble anyway if you were only staying for a short time.

Long-Term House Hunting, Local Style

Today's weather:  High = 25  Low = 19
Cloudy
 
There is no great rush to find a new place, nor any desire to cut my current lease -- you lose the 1 or 2-months deposit if you break the lease before the year is up.  The deposit system is mainly an economic punitive system to discourage people from leaving, as opposed to an actual damage deposit.  Locals would totally agree with that last statement as they even told me so.  The system only works too well.  T
 
The place I'm living in now is not necessarily bad or anything, it's actually a rather a good deal which is why I picked it in the first place.  The problem is that there are many better places out there which I'm discovering after the fact.    Unfortunately, the housing situation in Shanghai is a HUGE deal, and it matters more than I would have imagined.
 
Actually I've lived in 15+ apartments in China over the years but precious few of them have been 'above satisfactory' or places I would want to stay in for any long period of time.  Part of this may be due to my own pickiness, but I've noticed a recurring pattern in house hunting that I want to put a stop to. 
 
The first thing is that there is a lot of shitty housing out there, and I mean a LOT, and especially in terms of what foreigners are being shown.  This is what pisses me off the most, in that upon arrival to a new job or location in Shanghai or other parts of China, the expat will be shown a bunch of crap -- mainly by agents or connections directly to the empoyer -- and then asked to pick something quickly, where the rent is invariably more expensive than what the locals would pay.  The whole process takes a matter of days, and most expats will pick a place quickly because they don't have the time or the knowledge to do otherwise.  Even experienced people get bitten by this, as the whole process has a sense of built-in artificial urgency, both from the foreigner looking for the house and the people showing various places. 
 
I don't think anybody wants to move into a shithole, but the fact of the matter is that low quality dominates in China, and the NORM is for housing to be poor quality here and with a whole host of negatives.  It's not just housing, this applies to practically every Chinese product out there.  Sad to say, my Chinese friends would agree with this.  In this culture, they cut corners in production and accept a certain level as 'just ok' without going above and beyond the standards to produce something of quality that surpasses the basic minimum.  Frankly, this attitude is why China will never become a developed country.
 
So going back to housing, if you want to find something good, you're gonna have to look your ass off and compare places before the fact.  Blaming the agents or the system doesn't work, even though the way they work to 'rush you into a lease' is infuriating.  But as they say, buyer beware, or renter beware.  My local friends all tell me that they spend months looking for a new place, and they research the area in detail, making a list of requirements, then going from agent to agent and shopping around.  Negotiation also takes a long time, and they are very picky.  None of my local friends buy into the bullshit that the agents say about places being few and far between, this deal can be snatched up quickly, the price is already cheap, etc. etc.  
 
Unfortunately, foreigners do buy into it, including myself because it seems that the "opinions" offered are authoritative, when in fact they are a bunch of hot air.  Again, hate to say it, but Chinese people have a low reputation and are famous all over the world for lying, stealing, and cheating and making an art out of it.  Local friends would be the first to agree with this, and THEY are always the ones telling me to be careful and offering good stern advice in a motherly tone.  The locals who care by offering such advice are also the locals who distrust and hate their lazy fellow countrymen masses for keeping their country in the shits when it could otherwise have so much potential.
 
Back to housing, what my local friends also do is use a variety of personal contacts, especially people already living in the area of choice, and get references, etc..  Then if there is a house they are keenly interested in they don't show interest  (I always do, big mistake) and what they do is ask to make deals where they can "check it out" before signing anything.  This might simply be staying in the place for a week or so which is highly recommended because you can then spot most of the negatives you wouldn't otherwise see on the initial showing of the room.   For example the place might have noisy neighbors, there could be trains running by, or what they say is "close to a subway station" could be in fact a 15 minute walk to get there.  Fail.
 
The next step that the locals would do is then meet the landlord and socialize/chat/whatever to see if there is a good vibe or they get along with the person.  If so, then the lease negotiation begins and let me tell you, the locals will nitpick over every little detail with both the agent and landlord present.   Generaly speaking, they go for long-term leases, at least 2 years, since they can "lock in at a lower rate" and it makes up for all the time and effort in searching for a place to begin with.
 
So if this is how the locals do it, then why are the foreigners not doing it.  Great question.  It seems that the locals can use such an approach as mentioned above because:
 
a.  They know they'll be in Shanghai for awhile and want someplace good to stay while there
b.  They are staying elsewhere while looking for new places and the process is not urgent
 
It's about time I started learning from he locals.
 
 

National Holiday: Not a Huge Fan

Today's weather:  High = 28  Low = 18

Sunny

 

A friend quote a somewhat humorous statistic on "Chinese holidays", but it was frighteningly accurate into the mentality of how they view holidays.  The statistic was bragging rights from the Chinese government about how many holidays their citizens enjoy:   about 120 days of the year to be exact!

 

Sounds like a prized jewel, but not really, because they count the weekends as given stat holidays.  Sheez Louise.

 

This view of weekends being "given holidays" is actually rather frightening.  In this frightening Chinese view, the weekends are not entitlements to a day off from work, nor do thy have ANY concept of a Sabbath days rest.  None whatsoever.  The flipside of this view is that any day of the 365 days in a year is a potential workday.  The concept of a weekend is indeed a foreign one.  While the Chinese may not necessarily work on Saturday and Sundays, many of them in fact do, and it is hard to distinguish a weekend from a weekday in general terms.  For example the banks are always open 7 days a week, the rush hour happens on the weekends too, and people will often ask me, "Are you working today" if it's a Saturday, the same as they'd ask on a Monday. 

 

Given this context, it is extremely common that the Chinese government will use weekends as 'make-up days' for public holidays, such as the recent National Day.  The math ends up being very depressing with how this works out.  I've already shared it with colleagues but will repeat the dim news over here too.

 

We got Oct 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 off for National Day.  Yes that was 7 staight days in a row but don't go popping the champagne just yet.

 

Oct 1 and 2 were already a weekend, so in effect it was 5 days off

 

We just finished working the Oct 8 and 9 weekend as make-up time, so in effect we only got 3 days off

 

We have to work 7 days straight now, so the two "overtime" days on Thurs and Fri next week (if we make it that far) will chip into more, so we only got 1-2 days off, depending on how you look at it.

 

Sorry, the whole thing is a fail, and the national holiday becomes useless.  Besides the fact that it's crowded and not really a holiday if you're traveling around during that mess anyways, there are no other holidays until New Years break which translates into a LONG stretch of work.  97 days until the next break but who's counting.

 

The obvious question to ask is WHY they do it like this, but after 10 years of being in China, nobody really asks why.  My guess is that the Chinese public simply does not view weekends as entitlements or sabbath rest days the way that western cultures do.  In their view, every day is a day to work with no rest, and it's a horrible way to live.  Meanwhile, the idea that weekends are "given" as holidays means they can be taken away.  This clever little bit of addition and subtraction can be manipulated and propogated as a "golden week" where the public is led to believe they have this awesome long break, and they go traveling in droves and spend tons of cash.

 

According to the recent newspapers, they traveled in record numbers this past holiday and spent nearly 300 million RMB.   Now the party is over, if you can even call it that, and we're making up the time on weekends. 

 

As I told the students in class today, I don't want to be teaching on Sunday just as much as they don't want to be in class, but we all have to suffer together.

Economics in Action: Apartments

Along with motorycyles, the apartment rents in Shanghai can be thought of as a long-term depreciating asset because they are expensive to begin with, and continally creeping up.  A useful website shows that the increase in rents is not uniform and it varies greatly depending on a whole host of factors, but yes, the average rents are going up indeed.

 

http://www.haozu.com

 

By the way, this is a good rental website in general and is very useful if you can read Chinese

 

One could wrongly conclude that the Shanghai rental situation is a win/lose situation.  That is, a win for the filthy rich landlords and a loss for the tenants.   While the landlords are certainly rich, they are actually making their money off the house selling price increases.  The rent is a very small fraction of the house price, which means the landlords are not being compensated much in this way.  

 

Taking into consideration this fact, and the law of opportunity costs (see last post), you could say that the rental situation is lose/lose.  

 

For example:  the landlords are not selling the house for the duration of the 1-year rental lease as they are forbidden to so.  If they sell, they could make a ton of money, but they are instead collecting rent.  As a very rough calculation, a year's worth of rent in the neighorhood I live might bring in 50,000 RMB, but the landlord could sell the house at 1.5 million RMB right now.   Assuming that the house appreciates at 10% during the year, then he basically lost 100,000 RMB worth money for the year.   I got this by roughly taking 10% of the house price and minusing off the meagre 50,000 RMB in rent that he chose to collect instead.

 

Of course, the landlord could sell later on, make heaps of money, and then re-rent it out, but the fact remains is that he lost a considerable money *for this year* that he wasn't selling it when he could have been selling.  Since it is a well-establised fact that people make economic decisions at the magin, then the landlord lost in the margin  (this year).

 

It's not much better for the tenant as 50,000 RMB is a lot of cash from a renter's point of view.  The problem the tenant faces in Shanghai and elsewhere is being locked into these one-year rental leases.  For that matter, shopping around for apartments becomes critical, yet landlords and agents discourage this greatly, and want to rush the the tenant into signing the lease asap. 

 

The reason why the landlords want to rush a lease is that they think they are losing money if the house remains empty without collecting rent.  However, that is somewhat of a bullshit argument because we established above that they are actually losing a LOT MORE money by choosing not to sell the house.

 

My guess is that the landlords conisider the house investment to be extremely long-term, given how expensive it is to enter this market in the first place and the complex nature of how money gets pooled together from relatives and their work unit to buy the house, etc.   It's not like they can just sell at the drop of a hat, even if the market makes it profitable to do so.  They may very well see the meagre rental income as what happens to them at the margin, and so the "can't leave the place empty" argument becomes more real to them.

 

Having crunched the numbers in detail on my own rent payments and compensation from my school, it looks like I will actually break dead-even by February and then will turn a consideable profit by the end of May when my current lease ends.  With that profit, I am going to splurge on a much nicer apartment in the same general neighorhood which kicks butt, and sign a new lease in May next year.  The only catch is I need to stay the course of my current lease.

 

This isn't terribly easy as a number of things have gone wrong at my current place incuding:   busted plumbing, busted electricity, and lazy repair people who don't come as promised when I call them and have pre-arranged the times.  As typical in China you have to be pushy and rude to get things done and I haven't.  In addtion, there are rampant construction and renovation projects going on upstaris, in a new building that can't be more than 5 years old.  There is the ongoing problem of trains running outside, which has ben solved with earlplugs and a computer-generated white noise program ... see posts a long way back for details on that.   Finding a quiet place to live this city is like finding a needle in a haystack but I'm holding out that it CAN be done!

 

Meanwhile it's not the end of the world and these problems can be dealt with ... but it's sure tempting in situations lke this to cut the lease and run to another place.  Economically though that'd be a loss (you don't get your 2 months deposit back if you cut the lease)

 

They are really strict about these leases and they don't have flexible leases where you can check out a place for 3 months to see if you like it, etc. etc.    Unfortunately not, you have to sign for a year for most cases, pay 2 months deposit, then pay 2 or 3 months rent up front.  It's not just Shanghai ... I had to negotiate my friends out of jams in Wuhan last year as they didn't know how the system works.  

 

On the other hand, it's not really fair to complain about the lease situation because the landlords count on a reliable source of rental income if they forego selling the house ... and that's what the majority choose.   Meanwhile, it is not difficult to enter into a lease, in fact the registration process is actually easier for foreigers than staying in a Chinese hotel for example!!  Given a guaranteed place to sleep, and for privacy, and for minimal police hassles, all of which are EXTREMELY VALUABLE in China, then the tradeoff of dealing with strict lease timelines and other annoyanes can be accepted.

 

Meanwhile, not wanting to repeat past mistakes over and over again I'm now going to the other extreme and will start looking at potential new places to live 6 months in advance and scout out dozens and dozens of options to assess a whole host of variables.  An agent once told me there is no such thing as a pefect apartment, before he screwed me over with a shitty lease.  My friends tell me the contrary, that there is a perfect apartment. 

Economics in Action: Motorcycles

Today's weather:  High = 27  Low = 15

Sunny

 

With the holiday over it's back to work.  Aw shucks.  Aside from that, it's been a somewhat enlightening time crunching numbers on a spreadsheet for two ongoing financial things about Shanghai expat life that concern me outside of work:   apartments and motorcycles

 

What I want to illustrate with this post is the difference between how an accountant or an economist would write up a financial spreadsheet and interpret the results.  I side heavily with the economists in the way I do things, and so my bias will be obvious here.   However, I also want to show that when writing up spreadsheets or reading ones that others do, you need to be careful in what the spreadsheet is NOT saying, as well as what it is saying.  In other words, if an accountant presents a financial spreadsheet to you in a way that looks fixed and absolute, then he is probably cooking the books.   The economist would be the first one to tell you that a spreadsheet can't be truly objective or absolute due to opportunity cost. 

 

Nonetheless, a spreadsheet is powerful since you can project in the past as well as the future and then use that information to make decisions in the present.  Decisions such as:  is it worth buying a new motorcycle now or later?  Is it worth it to switch to a new apartment now or run the course of the current lease until next May?  After crunching the numbers out, the answer couldn't be clearer:  wait until spring for both.

 

We've talked a lot about motorcycles in the last few posts, let's continue to do so here.  In general they are a depreciating asset.  For example I paid around 10,000 RMB for both the former Yahama 125cc scooter and motorcyle, both bikes were new at the time, and I sold for approximately 4500 RMB each.  Both bikes lasted roughly a year and got about 10,000 km on each of them.  After calculating fuel costs (about 0.2 RMB per km) and various work put into the bikes (oil changes, clutch work, chain repair jobs, fake plates, etc.)  it turns out that each bike was an overall total "loss" of 8000 RMB for the 12 months I was running each bike.    That translates into about 667 RMB per month of a loss over the course of 2 years. 

 

At this point, an accountant would look at the spreadsheet, say it ends here, and I came out a loss, boo hoo, sucks to be you. 

 

However, an economist would consider opportunity cost and ask the question, "How much would the transport cost each month without the bike?"   To answer that, the monthly transport spreadsheet I have for a bike-less September shows roughly 500 RMB as I used the subway a lot and took cabs occasionally.  So the bikes almost broke even, with a slight loss.

 

But keep in mind the 500 RMB figure is since I live close to a subway station and Line #1 is a convenient option and taxis aren't essential in Shanghai.  Last year in Wuhan, it was a different story where they didn't have a subway and the traffic jams on the ground were also atrocious.  Factoring in a cost for wasted time, then the real cost without a bike would have been closer to 800 RMB, if not 1000.  So in this sense, the bikes were an overall profit.

 

All this being said, you can see how tricky it is to say what the criteria is for "coming out ahead" or "being at a loss"  The economist knows this, which is why he doesn't rely too heavily on spreadsheets in the absolute sense, yet as a guideline, they can be useful for economic decisions.

 

 

Time Share Motorcycle

Today's Weather: High=24 Low=15
Haze

With the national holiday coming to an end, we now need to work 7 days in a row as make-up time. Don't even get me started on this.

Now the long stretch begins where the next holiday won't be until Christmas. Meanwhile the Yamaha YBR125 motorcycle looks to be back in my posession for another month as Christoph (German guy I sold it to) is heading back to his home country for that time.

It turns out we've agreed to a time share arrangement of splitting the bike, not unlike the "Beijing bicycle" movie arrangement! We've both put a fair amount of work into the bike so it`s a fair deal. Also this shows some trust is involved as we each have separate keys to the motorcycle and are assuming that neither party is going to take off it!

Meanwhile my money situation continues to remain rather grim and tight .. as such I'm delaying the purchase of the YBR250 which would be the natural upgrade. Will get that done in March most likely when my finances improve

Thailand ... Again!

Winter break tickets ... booked!  Well, not exactly, only half of it.

 

Air Asia had a smokin' deal online whereby if you booked your Spring Festival tickets during National Day (3.5 months in advance), you could get obscene discounts.  And sure enough I did, with a flight from Macau to Bangkok only costing $50, even with the taxes!  

 

However, there is a major catch to this plan, in that I still have to travel through China to Macau first.  THAT is where it is impossible to book ahead this far in advance as the Chinese never do things that far ahead.  Domestic fights to the usual places like Guangzhou and Shenzhen are not available right now and won't be until December.

 

Direct international flights from Shanghai to Bangkok and other destinations are very expensive, even now, if you book far in advance.  Unfortunately it is getting very difficult to book international flights out of Shanghai to pretty much anywhere now for a good deal.  The reason is simple, the rich Chinese going abroad in droves can pay more, so the airlines charge more.   

 

On the other hand, domestic flights remain a very good bargain which is why the best way to transition frm China to SE Asia is in two hops.   One domestic, the other a cheap Air Asia internatinal flight. This will be the modus operandi for the winter break where (yawn) I'm going to Thailand.  Yes, again

 

Actually I'm going to revisit Burma and do it properly this time.  If you recall from my bike adventures last August, I bungled up the Burma section with a few mistakes that gave me a lecture and a free lunch with the military.   More on that story here:

 

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1r4vFZo&page_id=256076&v=65

 

This time I'm going to apply in advance for a Burmese visa and fly in from Bangkok to Yangon, also with Air Asia.  Thanks to colleagues at our school who already did Burma last year I'll replicate their adventures for two weeks, learn from all their tips, and hit the highlights of Yangon, Mandalay, and Bagan.

 

But there are two little twists addd in.  One is I'm doing it on a bicycle, that is non-negotiable.  Actually it makes little difference in terms of speed and time, as the conventional transport situation is so slow there anyway.  The second little twist is to fly domestically from Mandalay to Tachilek.   While in Tachilek last August on my little two-day Burma stint, I researched domestic flights and found good connections on the above route.  Recall that Tachilek is exactly where I crossed into last August from Thailand with a border pass.

 

The gameplan then is to essentally pick up where the last trip got aborted and bike the 200km stretch north into the border with China's Yunnan province.  Of course, such a plan is not guaranteed, but at least I can ensure I will have the proper papers if approached by the military or passing through checkpoints.  Wouldn't it be a hoot if they recognized me again and gave another lunch. In theory this is doable as the Lonely Planet says it is, provided I have both Burmese and Chinese visas arranged in advance, which I will.  

 

However it depends on many variables and who knows.  In the event the plan works, I'll book a domestic flight once in China a week in advance from Kunming to Shanghai, then explore Yunnan on the bike.  If the plan goes belly up I'll cross into Thailand and explore the Isan region in the NE for a change, and then head back to Shangai directly from Bangkok. 

 

Plan B would be a lot more expensive as the Air Asia options are not possible on the return stretch due to the late arrival times in places like Guanzhou, etc. 

 

Progress on Masters Degree

Today's weather:  High = 21  Low = 17

Drizzle

 

This past summer I got accepted into an online project-based masters program called MMT which is Masters of Mathematics for Teachers.  It is offered by the University of Waterloo back in Canada and has just started last year.  The program, I must say, is *top notch* so far and my experience has been the same as several math teacher colleagus from other offshore schools in China who are also doing this  (Dalian and Wuhan)

 

I came across this program while perusing the Waterloo website for solutions to the annual math contests that we run at our school.  At the time I figured, what the heck, this program looks realy cool, let's check it out.  This was also encouraged last year while meeting Waterloo reps who made the trip all the way to Shangers to do math workshops for the students at our school.  To make a long story short I applied and got the references in.  I originally wanted to do the program starting last January term but it was too rushed, and so opting for a September start was a much wiser choice.

 

For others interested in the program, point your browsers here:

 

http://www.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/mmt.html

 

A list of the courses can be found here

 

http://www.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/mmt/mmt-courses.html

 

Here is what I like most about the program, from the outset:

 

"The MMT is designed to provide current and aspiring teachers of mathematics with the opportunity to expand their knowledge base. In addition to providing a deeper understanding of mathematical foundations relating to core secondary school curricula, students will also be exposed to significant areas of applications of modern mathematics. The primary focus of the program is on mathematics and its applications rather than on pedagogy, but it will also challenge its students to look for new and innovative ways in which they can bring their newfound knowledge into the classroom."

 

Maple Leaf at Dalian and Wuhan was offering a masters in pedagogy which I turned down, opting to wait things out until a better alternative came forward ... such as the MMT! 

 

At the time, teachers in Dalian and Wuhan campuses were lunging for the masters for the sake of a masters, but I wasn't about to jump on this bandwagon for the simple fact that I already took courses in pedagogy and ESL teaching strategies.   Big woopie ding, it says "masters degree" but that title is meaningless unless the courses are of relevance.  For me, this math masters is right up my alley as it focuses on the content knowledge, and in a sense, brings me back to university to complete the math gap that I missed out on.

 

Right now I'm workng on the computer software course.  It's a lot of work, as I'm essentially doing computer programming, but the online courses are very well organized. It takes about 1-2 hours of extra work per day but you'd be amazed at how easy it is to carve out that time.  It's really a simple matter of coming home from school and doing masters work instead of vegging out on the couch and watching 5 kuai DVDs.

 

Since this is a project-based masters there is no need to write a thesis, unlike my Dalian and Wuhan counter-parts who did the pedagogy masters.  Suckers.  The timeframe is 2-3 years to complete this masters, which is very likely.  If all goes well I'll be done in 2 years then ready to take some time off and ride a bicycle around the world.