Foreign Spazzes Out at Parking Attendant

Today's weather:  High = 23  Low = 16
Sunny
 
While heading to the subway this morning on my way to work, I saw a guy yelling and screaming obscenities at a nearby bike/motorbike parking attendant.  Basically it's a huge street-level parking area for people wanting to ditch the bikes and take the subway.  Unfortunately, I am sure that theft runs rampant there, and the security is not very good.
 
At first I thought the guy yelling and screaming was a Chinese guy, as it is a common sight in Shanghai.  But upon closer look, he was actually a foreigner and was screaming in *English* !!    Let's just say the words 'You piece of ____ '  and 'You are a _____ ' were repeated over and over in English.  The parking attendant yelled back in Chinese, and a few middle finger gestures were exchanged, but nothing more.
 
Who knows what caused the foreigner to spazz out.  My guess is that his motorbike was left overnight (a stupid decision) and it was stolen overnight.  Then the guard said he knew nothing, or couldn't help do anything.  Then the foreigner screamed and cursed.  It's only my guess, and we'll never know.
 
At any rate, regardless of what happened, do not EVER leave a bike parked overnight next to the street in Shanghai or in otherwise low-security parking arrangements.  Make sure it is put underground and out of sight, with 24/7 security.  In low-security parking garages, the guards leave in the evening and there is no overnight security.
 

Yikes! Potential For Apartment Lock-ins

Today's weather:  High = 32  Low  25

Sunny

 

If anyone has lived in China for any length of time, you have no doubt had experiences with door locks in apartments failing to work as they should.  Maybe they just break down due to typical low quality, the key gets stuck im the lock, the whole lock falls out, or worse, you somehow get locked in.  The last part has happened several times, but not recently.  It means a frantic call to the locksmith, basically.

 

Well today I discovered that my current apartment has the easy potential for me to get locked in if somehow I absent-mindedly left the keys outside in the lock after opening the door, and then closed the door from the inside.  The way it works, you need the key to open the door from the inside, even if it's not actually locked with a deadbolt.

 

If such a scenario happened, it would be a disaster ... it almost did tonight, thinking that I misplaced my keys but they were quickly found.  This was an unintended experiment and shocking discovery that even an unlocked door won't open from the inside wihout any keys.

 

Given my propensity for losing and misplacing things, this is just a disaster waiting to happen.  For that reason, I'm calling the lockmisth and replacing the locks to get something more normal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commute Comparisons

Today's weather:  High = 31  Low = 25

Partly Cloudy

 

Referring to the last two summary posts on 'crazyguy' about my past commuting experienes on the outskirts of Shanghai.

 

The whole saga of working in the boonies and using complex commuting methods that I did 3 years ago is enough material to write a book on.  As much as I want to stop blogging about this topic, I can't, as it is fascinating.  There is always something more that comes up.

 

Trooping about on semi-abandoned Chinese farm roads, or planning elaborate and complex scooter routes around police checkpoints was not something I did on the first day.  In fact, I was oblivious to the whole concept of provincial and city borders and their importance in China, and didn't really learn about it until around 2008.

 

This post will focus on the why, that is why on earth I would do those kind of crazy commutes to begin with.

 

When faced with the fact that the school I worked at was 60km from the city center and I wanted to spend time downtown Shanghai on the weekends, I figured it would be a similar problem as when I worked in Dalian from 2006-08.  At that school (Maple Leaf), it was also 60km from Dalian center, and I also spent a lot of time downtown on weekends.  It took about 90 minutes to do this commute, mainly with the 'qing gui' -- light rail train.  A long trip, yes, but if you timed it right this is how it would work:

 

1.  Walk to the qing gui station, wait -- 20 minutes total.   Take a taxi to the station from Maple Leaf if you are in a rush.  8 RMB.

2.  Catch the train downtown -- 50 minutes.    Cost 8 RMB

3.  Walk to the destination -- 20 minutes

 

Coming back was much the same way.   In the event the train wasn't running, then share taxis would get you to a midway location called Kai Fa Qu for a cheap price of 15 RMB.  Once in Kai Fa Qu, you could cough up the cash for another cab, around 50 RMB, or else time it with the school's twice-weekly shopping bus returning in the evenings, say, on Friday night.

 

So yeah, Maple Leaf is isolated, much the same way Sino Canada is.  But the key difference is that Maple Leaf is still within Dalian "province" which means the transport links are at least functional.  Let's compare and contrast, based on the past transport context.

 

Maple Leaf:    midway town is Kai Fa Qu.  Many teachers lived there and commuted.

Sino Canada:  midway town is Qingpu or Songjiang.  No other teachers besides this idiot (yours truly) lived there and commuted.

 

ML:  cabs cost 100+ RMB from Dalian as a last resort

SC:  cabs cost 300+ RMB from SH as a last resort

 

ML:  light rail train, regular links from midway to Dalian.  Semi-regular links from midway to school

SC:  many bus and train links from midway to Shanghai.   Sketchy links from midway to school, i.e. the 'chicken bus'

 

ML:  no provincial borders crossed

SC:  provincial borders crossed

 

ML:  twice a week shopping bus provided

SC:  once a month shopping bus provided

 

ML:  school development fits into the overall 'beach resort' and massive regional construction

SC:  school development is more or less isolated, not tied to other regional themes or construction.

 

Both schools:   teachers had option to live on campus, rented out, i.e. no allowance

Both schools:   cabs were used frequently in the evenings

Both schools:   active 'black taxi' market near the school gate

Both schools:   teachers often used private contacts to arrange rides and negotiate prices / times / etc.

 

So the way I went about the commuting was to use everything I knew from the Dalian situation and apply it locally.  That simply didn't work.  During the first few cab rides, I quickly learned that most drivers hadn't a clue about how to reach the school or refused to go there.  Those that did would pass two highway toll booths and end up paying twice.  This was a real shock, because how could you pay for a toll, then immediately pay for another one just a mere 1km away?  Even the cab drivers thought this was insane.

 

The double-punch of toll fees was due to the fact that you would pay at the provincial border for the Shanghai section, and then pay the minimum charge for the Jiangsu section as you exited a mere 1km past the border.  Drivers compained about this nonsense to no avail, they still had to pay.  Driver pays first, then passenger pays back at the end.

 

The total price was about 60 RMB and of course, the drivers would demand return tolls.  Many would up the ante because they were angry at the toll situation, and by law, the passenger has to pay tolls.  It was not a good situation.  Actually I can recall a few horror stories when teachers would get into cabs, the driver would discover how complex and costly it was to reach the school, and then charge extortion on arrival.  It got to the point where one teacher (female) had to call in security as the driver threatened assault.

 

After quickly realizing that the cab or bus situation wasn't going to work, I then started breaking the commute up into chunks, using multi-modes of transport, living in multiple apartments, and well the rest is history.

 

Snapshot History of my Sino Canada Days

This weekend was a trip down memory lane from when I worked at Sino Canada from 2008-09.  All my past blogs were deleted on that, but I went for a bike ride to get a snapshot of the memories and have posted it here.  Let's just say never again.

 

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1r4vFZo&page_id=259586&v=4N

 

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1r4vFZo&page_id=259745&v=2N

 

Biking Shanghai: Easy Does It

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1r4vFZo&page_id=259586&v=3J

 

This recent post I made on the biking website summarizes the 2008-09 teaching year rather well, complete with pictures of where I used to live and work.  It was a very difficult year, and I blogged extensively about it, but then made a decision to delete the entire blog.   The summary post, 3 years after the fact, is a much better representation.

 

Shockingly, I learned a couple days ago that the Hebrew writing for the words 'grumble' and 'complain' also make up the root word for 'Satan'.  That is to say, if I grumble and complain all the time, I'm essentially telling Satan 'whats up bro'.  Not exactly a pleasant thought, so I think it's high time to put a stop to the complainig.

 

However, yesterday's bike ride made me sick.  This isn't complaining but a statement of fact.  The air in Shanghai is much more polluted and noxious than in Thailand.  Heavy breathing and fitness means my lungs get filled with the bad air and it has a nauseating effect.   I managed to recover alright, but in future will seriously have to ease up on the biking or scrap the rides in the local countryside.

Bicycle Trip Around SH Countryside

With a short weekend, why not get on the bicycle and ride around the countryside for the day. 
 
Through a website I'm eager to check out yet another road that bypasses various border checkpoints between Shanghai and Jiangsu province.   I explored the heck out of this area 3 years ago while working at a school over there, i.e. Sino Canada.  Figuring out how to get in and out of Shanghai province was key information as I went there every weekend on a scooter -- the only reliable means of transport as it's in a remote area across provincial borders.  But since scooters were illegal then, and they still are, figuring out how to dodge the checkpoints around border areas was a matter of necessity.
 
It seemed rather obsessive-compulsive to do this every single day at times.  But it was necessary as I slipped up one afternoon.  Out of laziness and not wanting to do the whole effort of plotting routes around checkpoints via farm roads, I took my chances and tried to blow through the border directly on the #318 Hu Qing Ping highway.  That didn't work, I got stopped, and then detained for at least an hour while I of course played the role of being apologetic and giving face to the cops.  Eventually they let me go.
 
On a side topic, Sino Canada used to be the massive site of Frobelland Amusement Park, a project that failed in the 1990s.  There is a ton of mystery behind this project and given the remoteness of the area, I doubt we will ever know what happened at Frobelland, what sorts of demons lurked inside the compound, and what caused it to fail.

http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/showthread.php?3061-Heads-up-on-the-Huqingping-(Shanghai)&p=33400#post33400

What we do know is that the owner of Sino Canada acquired the land at an excellent (read:  cheap) price and built a Canadian offshore school on it, as well as a massive hotel resort called Zplashes, with a project in mind called Vancouver Resort.  This started in the early 2000s.  So far his 'Vancouver Resort' project of duplicatig a Robson Street behind the hotel has failed to live up to his Lotus-Land visions of how the Chinese see Vancouver in general.  But it is fair to say that the hotel and school are doing successfully and are not failing like the former amusement park did.
 
That being said, the issue of provincial borders and inter-provincial communication in Shanghai hinders any decent transport links and that's probably why the land is so cheap over there.
 
 

Back to the Bicycle

The irony is that I worked my butt off for a motorcycle license back in Vancouver this summer, got the license, and am now riding a bicycle in Shanghai.

The riding is actually bringing back a lot of memories when I first came to Shanghai some 10 years ago and it was an exciting way to zip around the city. Then and now! The benefits are good exercise, it`s fun, saves money, no worries about cops anymore (compared to riding an unregistered motorcycle) and amazingly it is still faster than a car for short to medium distance trips.

The biggest change in Shanghai now from 10 years ago is the sheer number of cars on the road. Despite efforts by the government to limit car plates through the market (on average they now cost $50000)and to increase road capacity, the traffic jams have only gotten worse, and worse, and worse.

In many ways the bicycle is just as good now to get around as it was 10 years ago. After leaving a dinner party last night I got home on my bike before some of my colleauges had even managed to find a taxi. An impossible ordeal on a Friday afternoon or evening to find a Shanghai taxi. Don't even attempt.