chungking mansions

Shanghai elevated expressways at night

Posted by stephen - 31/01/10 at 08:01:02 am

Shanghai has a number of elevated expressways, and at night these are illuminated with bright blue neon lights.

For years people have been complaining about Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway and how much of an eyesore the elevated road is. Rather than spending billions tearing it down and making a tunnel, why not just add some neon?

Anyway, the effect is pretty cool, and driving under these roads at night always reminds me of Mute City from F-Zero.

Transferring China work visa/work permit to another company

Posted by stephen - 22/01/10 at 11:01:14 pm

My previous post about Applying for the China Work Visa (Z-visa) seemed to generate some interest, so I thought I’d post a quick follow-up on transferring your visa/work permit over to another company when you change jobs.

If your company doesn’t handle it for you, you’ll most likely want to go through a visa agency. Apparently the process is a bit complicated, so you’ll probably want the guanxi that an agency has on your side to ensure that it goes smoothly.

You’ll need the following documents:

• Your passport (original and a copy)
• Five 2-inch passport sized color photos
• Work permit application form (stamped with your company’s seal/chop)
• A copy of your new labor contract
• A copy of your CV/resume (English and Chinese copy)
• List of your skills, qualifications, references, and any other relevant documents (English and Chinese copy)
• Copy of your academic qualifications
• Copy of your company’s Business License
• Copy of your company’s Enterprise Code License
• Copy of your company’s Approval Certificate (only for foreign investment companies)
• Temporary Registration form (that you receive from your local police station)
• Letter of Dismissal from your previous company (this is VERY important – your previous company must give you an official letter of release, stamped with their company seal/chop)

The process can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months, so be prepared to be without your passport for a while. The government fee for this is about 600 RMB, and agencies will add a service fee of anywhere from 1000 – 1300 RMB on top of this. It seems like a lot, but it definitely beats paying 8000 RMB or more for an F business visa.

When all is said and done, you’ll have a new work permit good for another year, and a new residence permit in your passport (that takes up another page, so be sure you have at least 1 or 2 available).

Jade on Huaihai Road

Posted by stephen - 17/01/10 at 04:01:04 am

Walking down Shanghai’s Huaihai Road this weekend, I passed by one of the many jewelery shops selling jade bracelets. When I looked at the prices of some of them though, I almost couldn’t believe it.

These bracelets were going for 680,000 RMB (or ~ $100,000 CAD); there was also a jade necklace on display for over 800,000 RMB!

Don’t get me wrong: I realize jade can be worth more than gold, and there is jade jewelery out there worth much more than this. It’s just the way these jade items were displayed so casually in very nondescript shop windows; the same way a 50 RMB bracelet would be displayed. It’s as if an impulse buyer walking by will see it and just say, “Hmm, why not?”

I wonder if you can bargain.

Coal bread 碳面包

Posted by stephen - 16/01/10 at 11:01:34 pm

Ellen’s colleague gave her this loaf of “coal” bread as a little gift. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had or even heard of black bread before.

I figured that it would be white on the inside, but nope:

In the picture it looks a bit green or something, but it actually was completely black. I was almost afraid to eat it, but it turns out it was pretty good. Very fresh, and – like a lot of Asian breads – sweet.

Stores getting decked out for Chinese New Year

Posted by stephen - 11/01/10 at 08:01:18 pm

Dead metro card

Posted by stephen - 09/01/10 at 09:01:58 pm

The other day I boarded the bus as usual and held my wallet up to the sensor, but there was no sound. I took the transit card (交通卡, jiaotongka) out of my wallet, held it up directly, and it still didn’t work. I tried a few more times, and nothing.

Turns out my transit card was completely dead. It’s not damaged and nothing happened to it recently – it just stopped working.

I’ve still got 70 – 80 RMB left on it, so I went to the metro station to find out what was going on. They couldn’t read the card either, but said I could leave it with them to be examined. In 10 days, if they can salvage the information from the card based, they’ll issue me a new card with the balance from the previous one.

But if they can’t? I’m completely out of luck – all they’ll give me is a new card with a 0 RMB balance.

If I’m out 70 RMB, that sucks but I’m sure I’ll survive… but I’ve seen* people that carry balances of hundreds of RMB on their cards or more. Knowing now that if your card gets lost or messed up some how you could lose it all, I’m never going to carry a balance of over 50 RMB again!

* When someone swipes their card at the turnstile or on the bus, their card balance appears on the screen and is visible to anyone else around. In the case of senior citizens, when their discounted card is swiped on the bus a voice blurts out “老人卡!” (or lao ren ka, literally ‘old person card’). China never was known for its sense of privacy.

Double double to go, eh!

Posted by stephen - 08/01/10 at 10:01:05 am

Browsing the iTunes App Store, I was really surprised to see how many apps there are that are solely dedicated to finding the nearest cup of Tim Horton’s coffee in Canada. Out of curiosity, I downloaded one free app, TimmyMe, and got the above results. I clicked on the first one expecting a long – but walkable! – 7697 km, but it turns out it was actually twice as long as first reported!

Here are the directions to the closest Tim Hortons from Shanghai’s Luwan district. Which for some reason happens to be in Whitehorse… :

Almost 16,000 km and 37 days driving, a lot of which is underwater! Also, I’m not the best with directions… but from China, I would’ve gone east instead of west.

I’m not too confident about that ’shortcut’ west of BC either! Let’s hope and assume this app works better in Canada…

Shanghai metro turnstile running Windows

Posted by stephen - 03/01/10 at 11:01:56 am

This turnstile has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, contact the turnstile vendor.

Purchasing and activating a mobile phone in China (in Shanghai at least)

Posted by stephen - 03/01/10 at 12:01:19 am

One of the perks about living in China is how cheap mobile phone service is here. Prior to using data features, on average I spent less than 50 RMB a month on my mobile phone.

Now I’m not much of a phone person (working in technical support made me hate talking on the phone), but one does need a phone, and in Canada I’d easily spend $50 a month. Most of the time I just used it to play that damn snake game.

Anyway, I thought I’d put together a list of stuff one might want to know about using mobile phone service here. I use China Mobile, so all this information is based on that, and is relevant to Shanghai.

Purchasing a mobile phone

Virtually every mobile phone you buy in China is unlocked. There are countless models to choose from, and nothing is tying you to any service plan. You simply go to a shop that sells phones, then go buy a SIM from a provider, and pop it in your phone. No ridiculous multi-year contracts with huge penalties for wanting out of them. You know, how it should be everywhere.

Phones prices start from around 200 – 300 RMB and up, with used phones and phones of dubious origin costing even less. There are several phone markets across the city, but if you’re looking for a smart phone (especially iPhone) you can check out Metro City in Xujiahui. If you want a more traditional handset, there are several booths at Zhongshan Park that sell phones (although the area seems to be shrinking more every month).

Purchasing a SIM card + phone number

You can go to most magazine stands or convenience stores and purchase a SIM package. For about 70 RMB, it includes the SIM card and about 50 RMB of air time. You can also go to any China Mobile or China Unicom office directly, but for some reason you have to officially sign up, provide copies of your passport, your registration information, etc., and if I recall correctly, it actually costs more.

Convenience stores and magazine stands like this one usually have SIM card packages and refill vouchers.

When you purchase your SIM package, you also get to choose from a list of available mobile phone numbers. As I mentioned before, some numbers are unlucky, and these – along with seemingly random numbers – are usually the cheapest. “Good” numbers that consist of a lot of “8s” (8 is a very lucky number in China) or have an easy to remember sequence of digits, can cost a LOT. I’ve seen some good phone numbers listed for 20,000 RMB. I’m sure the best numbers are even more expensive.

Customer Service

If you call China Mobile, they do have English-speaking customer service representatives, and automated voice menus (although the latter are extremely difficult to understand). Their web site also has an English version, enabling you to add services to your plan, check your balance, and see your monthly statement online. The site looks like it was designed 10 years ago and optimized for Internet Explorer 6, but it does work.

To reach China Mobile, call 10086, or go to their website.

When you sign up for any plan or service, or make changes to any plan or service, it only becomes active the following month. There may be a way around this that I’m unaware of. If there is, let me know and I’ll update this.

Signing up for a plan

A mobile phone plan does NOT equal being tied down to some subscription. It’s just what will be deducted from your pre-paid balance every month. China Mobile has a few plans, but the one I’m with is the “Easy own subscriber” plan, which for 16 RMB a month, gives you free incoming calls.

International long distance

I’ve mentioned this before, but if you make any international calls and you do not use China Mobile’s 12593 service (or Skype), you’re throwing your money away. It’s much cheaper than regular international rates, pre-paid international phone cards, and also much more convenient. You can also use it to save on long-distance calls within China.

To activate it, dial 10086, press 8 for English, and ask the operator for the “12593 plan”. Once activated, it costs 0.4 RMB/minute + a 1 RMB / month service charge.

Data plans

Unfortunately, data plans in China are not so cheap. Without a plan, it’s 10 RMB/1MB. As of this writing, China Mobile offers the following:

When you purchase a handset, they’ll usually enter your provider’s data settings for you. If they didn’t, China Mobile’s data settings are:

AMN name: CMNET
Username: (blank)
Password: (blank)

More settings information here (Chinese only).

If you use Twitter or other social media sites that are blocked in China, you may want to look into signing up for a VPN service.

Topping up your phone

You can purchase 50 or 100 RMB vouchers at most convenience stores or magazine stands, and top up your phone. Vouchers are valid for 90 – 180 days from when you activate them.

It’s worth nothing that when you purchase your SIM card, your number is valid as long as you keep a balance. If your balance is 0 or less, you have 90 days to top it up or your number becomes recycled and you lose it. Keep this in mind if you leave China for an extended period; after 90 days, you should either try to contact China Mobile and somehow transfer them money to top up your account, or ask somebody in China to do it for you.

You can top up your phone by calling 13800138000, press 8 for English, and listen to the almost incomprehensible voice instructions. Or, you can just SMS the following to the number 10086:

• CZ + [pin number of your pre-paid voucher]
  (CZ is short for “Chong Zhu” or “recharge”)

Also, you can check your mobile phone balance by sending an SMS with the following text (also to 10086):

• YE
  (YE short for “Yu Er” or “remaining balance”)

(I’m curious what other SMS China Mobile ’shortcut’ codes there are. If you know of others, please let me know.)

SPAM

Because there are so many mobile phones in China (China Mobile itself is the world’s largest operator, with more than 500 million subscribers), it’s no surprise that there is a lot of mobile phone spam and scams. The three most common forms I’ve encountered are:

• SMS messages all in Chinese that are not from China Mobile, but have big numbers in front of the 元 symbol. These are your typical spam messages. Do not reply.
• You receive a call that rings for only a second or two. These spammers are trying to mine active numbers/potential suckers; do not call them back. Ellen and I have phone numbers that are the same number, except hers ends in 22 and mine in 33, so when she gets one of these spam calls, I get it about 5 minutes later.
• Financial and investment services telemarketers: English speaking, foreigner telemarketers that get your phone number through expat websites and services. This isn’t exactly a scam, and from people I’ve talked to it’s may or may not be a bad deal, but still; it’s telemarketing, it’s unsolicited, and they get your phone number through sneaky methods. My opinion doesn’t change: they can piss off.

* * *

Aside from the pretty expensive data plans, using a mobile phone in China is efficient, cheap, and the service is pretty good. The thought of going back to Canada and being locked into another 2 or 3 year contract with outrageous monthly fees, horrible customer service, and overpriced, outdated phone models is not one that is pleasant.

PS: I see that the Canadian telecoms finally removed the mandatory $6.95 “system access fee” that they been screwing the Canadian public out of for years. Too bad they then immediately increased monthly service plans by $5.

Fire Hose Rant

Posted by stephen - 02/01/10 at 08:01:37 am

“…. and don’t get me started on fire extinguishers!”

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