Category: China

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advice and tips China Life Tips

China travel tips, 2026 edition

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(Working in progress as of 04-05-2026, soft launch for now as I expect summer travel to take off towards the end of May. Thought may be helpful for friends who have not visited China for a while)

I am learning from the one and only Apple in terms of their iOS new versioning convention – iOS26. Their new versioning scheme is not entirely ground breaking, btw. If you pay attention to the new cars in the USA (likely in China nowadays too), the new car model or next year model is usually available the year before. For example, right now 2026 Toyota RAV4 is already available. I was a car junkie back in the days – I could tell almost every car’s make and model on the highway when they drove by because I am a slower driver 🙂 But this is mostly useless knowledge too 🙂

Yesterday I came across 2 blog posts almost 20 years ago – More Shanghai travel tips and Travel tips for Shanghai. A lot has changed since then, this is obvious because not only because of the 20 years but also because of the smartphone revolution happened in last 15 years or so.

App, 微信支付 WeChat Pay

Let me give an example, I recall in March 2023, after a break of more than 3 years (2020, 2021 and 2022), I flew back to PVG and saw my parents again in Ningbo. At the KFC store, they already stopped taking orders from the counter, everything is done via app or via 微信小程序。I didn’t know. Just like I didn’t know way before that, at a bank branch in Shanghai, I am supposed to take a number from the computer (printer), which is equivalent to the ticket dispenser here in the US. But I didn’t know and waited in line directly until I realized that I didn’t have a number. Anyway, at KFC, the cashier or 伙计 tried to teach me to download the KFC China app on my iPhone, and because my app store country is set to the USA, it could not find the app 🙁 She has to manually put in order for me, and I was able to pay via WeChat pay though.

Hotels

I wrote quite a bit of kids friendly hotels that I stayed in China: mainly Shanghai and Ningbo Beilun.

Eat

This is mostly for my own benefits 🙂

Shanghai: 台乡缘（2024）

文兴酒家久光百货店（2025）

桂满陇虹桥枢纽浙菜 (2025)

Ningbo:小鱼厂私厨 鄞州 (2025)

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China Fun

Some resources to learn Cantonese

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I talked about “learning Cantonese” a while ago, in my earlier blog post. There is probably another reason that led me to learn Cantonese and I am not going to disclose for now. But I promise it’s a good reason or motivation factor for me. Hint: this is along the lines of the point 2 I laid out in my earlier blog post 🙂

Back to the learning resources.

First, Duolingo, which I have used for about 180 days now. Duolingo itself is free but you can pay for advanced features. It’s a good way to get feet wet.

Recently I bought a course (mini-program, or 小程序）on WeChat, I learned a tiny bit of Pin’yin so far. I am attaching the screen shots below.

识某文微信小程序

Then I came across this one 粵語網路課堂. This is a self paced online learning course created by 香港中文大學自學中心 the Chinese University at Hong Kong (website, Wikipedia). I haven’t started on this one yet: my expectation is the content here will be good, but in terms of delivery or interactions, the mini-program, or 小程序 above may work better for many people (a bit like Duolingo, mini-program will be more engaging).

Last but not least, this one from Qing’ting FM 📻 app, my old friend.

Note you don’t have to pay to become a member if you don’t need to go back and listen to old podcasts.

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China

From Tangshan to Sichuan

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Below was written on 05-24-2008, 12 days after 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

When the Tangshan earthquake (Wikipedia) happened 32 years ago, I was still a pre-school kid. But I remember my mom took us (the kids) to sleep at neighbors home one night, presumably she thought that is safer place. After I grew up, when I read Qian Gang’s book titled Tangshan Earthquake, I had the opportunity to grasp the magnitude of the disaster. One thing puzzled me is China refused all international aids at that time: becaue China was pround of self-sufficiency.

Thirty-two years has passed. China has changed a lot, especially in economy. She has gone from nowhere to No. 4 economy in the world (is closing in No. 3 Germany). For me I have grown up as an adult, witnessing the whole event from the other side of the globe, with my heart and emotions touched…

Some thoughts
1) Progress made in goverment: it’s all about saving lives, from pulling the survivors out of rubble, to taking stranged villagers, miners to safty; from sending troops, firefighters quickly, to accepting domestic volunteers and international help; from dontations of material, money and blood, to dedicate three days of mourning;…all these are unprecedented.

2) Openness of media, esp. the Internet. Many good critism came from the ordinary people, such as the mis-use of donated material and monitor use of the funds; the construction quality of schools. The openness in turn helped people outpouring the love and hopefully we will have more strong sense of community and more target non for profit organizations, to help the survivors of the earthquake, and help other dis-advantaged people in China.

Problems
1) Poverty, imbalance. The earthquake is a natural disaster, but it showed the problem China faced and still face these days: over-population, some of the area are not really human friendly, due to the geological character (mud slide in mountains). Not to talk about industry. Western media has been focusing the development in China these days, e.g., NPR was going to do some stories in Chengdu when this happened. Later Melissa Block and Robert Siegal did a fantastic job reporting both the earthquake and ordinary people stories in Chengdu.

2) Rank people or company patroism according to the money donated?

3) Intolerance on Internet (Wang Shi comments).

Categories
China Chinese articles Fun

Dialects 方言

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I started to learn Cantonese 粤语 recently from Duolingo. While I forgot many 宁波话 Ningbo dialect since I went to college in Wuhan: I started to speak much more mandarin since then. I was wondering about the similarities between two dialects (Cantonese and Ningbo Dialect) 粤语和宁波话是否有共同之处 (google search). 我现在想到至少有两个字或词是一样的：话（讲话），中意（满意）。I think there are many more: it’s just a matter of time for me to find them.

A related question I had earlier is whether 粤语更接近古汉语吗 (again google search). 粤语是保留了最完整的古汉语 (360doc). Quote

在全球使用粤语人数甚多，广东使用粤语的人口大约有6700万，加上广西粤语使用人数大约为2500万、香港700万、澳门55万、泰国500万、新加坡和马来西亚500万、美国和加拿大200万，全球将近有1.2亿人口使用粤语。

粤语是不是古汉语？这是我见过最全面的解释了！(羊城网)

YT – in English – Why Cantonese is Closer to Ancient Chinese than Mandarin

救救方言，救救城市的灵魂 – 原创 土哥涅夫 秦朔朋友圈 – 来源：澎湃新闻·澎湃号·湃客 – quote below and this seems matched my rough observations too

都说入乡随俗，过去人们移居一座新的城市，往往会通过学习当地方言来融入本地社会。但如今，随着大量外地人口涌入长三角，反而冲淡了本地的语言环境，甚至于出现了“上海内环内说英语，中环内说普通话，外环外才说上海话”的奇怪现象。

记得前几年，网络上曾流传过一张《6-20岁能够熟练使用方言人群比例》的图，其中吴语的使用比例全国垫底，像杭州话、温州话、宁波话，本地青年人能熟练使用的比例均已低于10%，苏州话更是只有2.2%，濒临消亡。这自然激发出吴语区人民的母语危机感。

今年初《繁花》电视剧为什么会大火，引发如此多的关注和讨论？未必是这部剧本身有多好，在我看来，相比当年的《股疯》《孽债》，香港人王家卫拍的是他心目中想象的上海，这个“上海”里人物穿着打扮、品味审美的精致程度，更接近民国，而非90年代的上海。

PS: when I was in college, the Cantonese pop songs or #Cantopop were very popular in colleges and in the China. Here is a playlist on YT – 經典粵語歌曲 – 香港90年代流行經典廣東歌回顧 | 必听经典粤语歌 – Cantonese Golden Songs: 張學友，陳慧嫻，叶丽仪, 张国荣, 谭咏麟, 陈慧娴, 陈百强, 梅艳芳。In fact, one of my roommates would sing this one almost everyday – 一生何求 (the 1st song in the playlist above, here is a standalone YT video – 陳百強 Danny Chan -《一生何求》Official MV (電視劇《義不容情》主題曲). I didn’t think too much about learning Cantonese dialect then. Although in Spring 1993, a few roommates went to Guang’zhou (and Guangdong province) looking for jobs. Note at that time Guangdong province was much more economically developed than my college town Wuhan, as it was close to Hongkong, and it was the very 1st province opened to the outside world in 1980s. Quite a few of my classmates in college went there to work after graduation.

Last but not least, 中国10大最难懂方言：排名第一的，并非粤语、闽南语. Again quote a bit below:

有句俗话说宁听苏州人吵架，不听宁波人说话，充分说明了苏州话的“软糯”。

因为温州话是第一名，这里有一个油管视频：连温州人都听不懂的温州话 (吳儂軟語 Wu Chinese)

Categories
China

My new favorite hotel in Shanghai 近年来我在上海住的旅馆

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(Update 02-17-2025) I came across Alila Shanghai today: it’s a Hyatt family hotel. Noticed the location

500 Weihai road, Jing’an district
Shanghai 200041

is closer to the city downtown.

This article is also available on Medium.

(Original 07-21-2024) 最近四次经过上海，我一般都住虹桥火车站CBD旁边的凯悦嘉轩酒店也就是 Hyatt Place，她家就在火车站/地铁站🚉天桥对面：可以走路走到，前提是最好手上不要拿太多的行李🧳。具体地址是：虹桥商务区申虹路9号, 上海, 中国, 201106. 我一般是用凯悦 World of Hyatt 的点数换的：一般是五千点一个晚上，我觉得还可以。凯悦的点数我是直接从 Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) Ultimate Rewards 那里转过来的，一点换一点。一般认为CSP Ultimate Rewards 一个点值2美分，五千点相当于1百美元。

她家上海店的布置跟美国的很像，但是她家的早餐自助餐比美国的要多很多选择。我开玩笑说早上吃得饱一点，到下午四五再吃晚饭就省了一顿饭的钱（again开个玩笑）。其实我发现到了我现在这个年纪，尤其要注意吃饭吃个七分饱，要避免桌上美食的诱惑，与肚里的馋虫作坚决的斗争。这次我带了家眷一起住酒店。好像她们也考虑了我的想法：一个房间有两份免费自助餐，再加上12岁以下小孩全免。市场价自助餐大概是68 还是 128 元。我这次就把自助餐让给了我的家眷：我去了永和大王，以前我也去过那里吃过中餐或者晚餐。这次我发现点餐完全是微信小程序：我的手机漫游有时不是很给力。(Update: June 2025) They no longer offer free breakfast for the night that is redeemed via points or annual free night award. This is not a deal breaker for me as I don’t eat a lot for breakfast nowadays. I believe there is still option for purchase, think probably around 68 yuan (about $10). I didn’t ask at the front desk, you may inquire as needed.

除了虹桥天地 The HUB 以外，那个旁边还有一个龙湖天地天街 Paradise Walk – 我喜欢那里的西贝莜面村。这两个地方都有相当多的吃饭的地方，中外的都有不少。嘉轩酒店旁边还有一个很不错的浙江台州的餐馆叫台乡缘（在甬虹路上，从嘉轩/金臣中心过马路就到）。我最近经朋友邀请，去吃过，她们哪里的海鲜和台州菜相当不错。大屏幕上的台州风土人情也是非常好。我老家是宁波，在台州北面，我们都靠海。台州菜和宁波菜有相通之处。风土人情也是：比如说摘茶叶，我小时候摘过。随着城市后的发展，以前一些农村的小吃慢慢地就消失了，还有方言，因为慢慢地大家都讲普通话了。

如果你喜欢咖啡，那一带有相当多的咖啡店：我想得起来的有 – 星巴克，瑞幸咖啡，加拿大的 Tim Hortons, 上海本土走高端路线的 Manner 咖啡，美国的 Peet’s coffee, 醒美咖啡 SayMay Coffee, 等等，应该还有很多。在龙湖天街那边有一张地图，上面标着大多数的咖啡店。很多牌子的店，不止一家：比如说星巴克，瑞幸。

备注：虹桥火车站，地铁站，再加上虹桥机场，加在一起，又叫虹桥交通枢纽（地面上还有长途汽车站）。地下，路面都比较复杂。我记得我2017年第一次从火车站到旅馆，花了点时间才找到，走到。我上面写了地址。油管上有不少关于火车站的介绍，也可以看看我的一个短视频介绍。我在虹桥天地那里，有时也会给人指路。这一次也指了一次：帮助一对夫妻从虹桥天地 THE HUB的地下，搭乘 Cordis Hotel（康得思）电梯到旅馆门口，坐上车。

最后我把嘉轩酒店 Hyatt Place 在这里单独放一下。Bonus question: 你知道Hyatt 酒店的历史吗？还有 Hilton，Marriott 另外两个美国酒店巨头（第一和第二）？你知道这三个酒店主要是靠什么赚钱的吗？Hint/提示: 她们很多时候并不拥有旅馆所在的地和楼。

上海虹桥商务区凯悦嘉轩酒店

Hyatt Place Shanghai Hongqiao CBD

老文章写于2016/07/04 ：我在上海住过的其它一些酒店旅馆 。

还有更老的 2006/09/27：More Shanghai travel tips. 就在那次美国劳工节 China Trip 我碰到了我现在的老婆，美国的劳工节是每年九月份的第一个礼拜一。你可能会注意到我现在住的旅馆比二十年前还是好了一点 😂。那次 trip 也有一些神奇的安排，从买机票，到 blind date. 以后合适的时候我会解释。因其敏感性，我可能只会小规模地说。

Categories
China gadgets iOS iPhone app Life Life Tips Technology Travel Web

VPN software I have used personally

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This article can also be read on Medium. But this blog post has all the up to date information, while the medium.com article doesn’t get regular update.

Sometimes called 科学上网 in CHN

Mac:

VPN Prime – Unlimited Proxy 4+

Update early June 2025, the free plan appears stopped working in my most recent CHH trip.

Update June 12, 2025: I purchased the paid plan, and it works (again I found a sever that worked). Considering switching from the below iOS app to this Mac app for my VPN needs.

Update 06-13-25: sometimes the connection will get reset and get lost. In that case, I tried to connect to another server and it usually works.

Update 06-14-2025: I felt more confident using this app. I think this is a viable option if I need to work from CHN (right now my employer doesn’t allow that).

iPhone, iPad

VPN – Super Unlimited Proxy 4+ (Update June 2025, it still works, I have the premium sub now, and I know not all servers work, and I have my fav server now. Email me if you like to know 🙂

Update 06-12-2025: I noticed this app doesn’t always work flawlessly. At least in the two hotels I stayed, it didn’t like the Hotel WiFi. I don’t know how the app works exactly, but during the connection process, it seems dropping the WiFi and used the cellular data, which would cause the connection issue.

Update 06-17-2025: again, this app works flawlessly when I am in the US. Now I tend to think due to its popularity, China blocks this app’s use 🙁

(Original) Note: both apps have free versions, and both have add-ons that are available for purchase. I verified them on my trip and they work for the most part, iPhone app sometimes takes a few tries to get going. The Mac app works out of the box most of the time.

Cell phone international roaming

I know T-mobile used to have it. Mint Mobile has international pass too: 1 day, 3 day and 10 day. The device can go to outside world just like the VPN would. One may have to check her/his current cell phone carrier and see there is such a program or a pass.

Cell phone roaming has its own advantage, for example, we can order food or ride-share cars as those apps are usually available on the smart phone and they usually require internet connection. But in the case of China, ideally one may want to get a local phone number, as it’s needed by the meituan and didi chuxing apps.

Other use cases:

Netflix (shows from other country etc.)

Organizations sometimes block certain social media websites: this can happen in the western countries too.

Other software

Nord VPN: paid. It takes some effort to get it working in CHN. It seems all the default servers are blocked. Had to open a ticket to get alternative server names (ip address etc.), try and error, to got it working in year 2023. Retrieved a list during most recent trip too (summer 2024), haven’t tried it out as I found the two solutions above are good enough.

Default setting for Nord VPN is working when in the USA. That’s true for the free versions for two apps above too.

(Update 01/03/2025) I found this bug a while back, the issue was when my phone is on the Mobile Data network (not Wi-Fi), and when the VPN was on via Wi-Fi before the cut over, it seems Nord VPN has difficulty connect to VPN. Took me a while to understand why I lost internet connection. I am ditching this app (and software) now – not solely because of this. It’s just another annoying thing or bug for me. I noticed it didn’t work out of box on the public K-12 school’s public Wi-Fi – had to use VPN – Super Unlimited Proxy 4+ (the free version: I may consider support them later once my Nord VPN subscription expires).

(Original post July 2024) Open VPN (I set it up on my own $DGCN server), but it stopped working for me in CHN in my 2023 trip. Bought Nord VPN in that trip too. Refer to this Chinese article if you want to learn more about OpenVPN or setup your own OpenVPN server (note it still works outside CHN’s GFW).

PS: you may want to take a look at eSIM app for travel.

我用VPN主要是因为我的personal email 是GMail，还有我有时会听YT/YT Music上面的歌。下面是谷歌中文翻译。

======

这篇文章也可以在 Medium 上阅读。但这篇博文包含所有最新信息，而 medium.com 上的文章则没有定期更新。

中文有时称为“科学上网”，或者叫梯子：可能是从“翻墙”那里衍生出来的。

Mac：

VPN Prime – 无限代理 4+

更新于 2025 年 6 月初，免费套餐似乎在我最近的一次 CHN 之旅中停止了工作。

更新于 2025 年 6 月 12 日：我购买了付费套餐，现在可以使用了（我又找到了一个可以正常工作的服务器）。我考虑从下面的 iOS 应用切换到这个 Mac 应用来满足我的 VPN 需求。

更新于 2025 年 6 月 13 日：有时连接会被重置并丢失。在这种情况下，我尝试连接到其他服务器，通常情况下可以正常工作。

iPhone、iPad

VPN – 超级无限代理 4+（更新至 2025 年 6 月，它仍然有效，我现在有付费订阅，我知道并非所有服务器都能正常工作，而且我现在有我最喜欢的服务器了。如果你想知道，请给我发邮件

更新于 2015 年 6 月 12 日：我注意到这个应用程序并不总是完美无缺。至少在我住过的两家酒店，它不如酒店的 WiFi 好用。我不知道这个应用程序的具体工作原理，但在连接过程中，它似乎会断开 WiFi 并使用蜂窝数据，这会导致连接问题。

（原文）注意：这两个应用程序都有免费版本，并且都有可购买的附加组件。我在旅途中验证了它们，它们大部分时间都可以正常工作，iPhone 应用程序有时需要尝试几次才能启动。Mac 应用程序大多数时候开箱即用。

手机国际漫游

我知道 T-mobile 以前有这个功能。Mint Mobile 也有国际漫游通行证：1 天、3 天和10天。该设备可以像VPN一样连接到外部网络。用户可能需要检查当前的手机运营商，看看是否有这样的程序或通行证。

手机漫游有其自身的优势，例如，我们可以订餐或叫车，因为这些应用程序通常在智能手机上可用，并且通常需要网络连接。但在中国，理想情况下，用户可能需要获取一个本地电话号码，因为美团和滴滴出行等应用程序需要这些号码。

其他用例：

Netflix（其他国家的节目等）

一些组织有时会屏蔽某些社交媒体网站：这种情况在西方国家也可能发生。

其他软件

Nord VPN：付费。在中国使用需要一些时间。似乎所有默认服务器都被屏蔽了。不得不提交工单获取备用服务器名称（IP地址等），反复尝试，最终在2023年成功恢复。在最近的一次旅行中（夏季）也获取了一份列表。 2024），我还没试过，因为我觉得上面两个方案已经够用了。

Nord VPN 在美国默认设置下可以正常工作。上面两个应用的免费版本也一样。

（更新于 2025 年 3 月 1 日）我之前发现了这个 bug，问题出在当我的手机连接移动数据网络（而非 Wi-Fi）时，如果在切换之前 VPN 是通过 Wi-Fi 开启的，Nord VPN 似乎很难连接到 VPN。我花了一段时间才明白为什么我断网了。我现在正在放弃这个应用（和软件），不仅仅是因为这个。这只是另一个让我恼火的问题或 bug。我注意到它在公立 K-12 学校的公共 Wi-Fi 上无法开箱即用——不得不使用 VPN——Super Unlimited Proxy 4+（免费版：等我的 Nord VPN 订阅到期后，我可能会考虑支持他们）。

（原帖）Open VPN（我在自己的 $DGCN 上设置了它）服务器），但在我2023年的中国之行中，它失效了。那次旅行我也买了Nord VPN。如果你想了解更多关于OpenVPN的信息，或者搭建你自己的OpenVPN服务器（注意，它在中国的GFW之外仍然可以使用），请参阅这篇中文文章。

Categories
advice and tips China Life Tips Travel

A quick review of our summer 2024 China trip

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Since pandemic, I have been back to China twice, last year in the spring break of school year 2022/2023, which was the 1st time I visited China since pandemic, when the PRC (People’s Republic of China) just relaxed in-bound travel in Jan 2023, and I booked ticket on Jan 29, 2023 via Expedia.com – refer to this blog post China Trip Spring 2023 – Logistics if you like to learn more. I also wrote another blog post China Trip Spring 2023 – Observations And Thoughts shortly after the trip.

This most recent trip is the 2nd trip since 2020.

Visting China mainland is a bit more challenging since pandemic, overall. One main factor that people often talk about is the cut back of the direct flights between two countries: I recall it used to be in the range of 150 weekly flights. This Reuters article has more details, and I will quote some content below. Keep in mind that the regulator approving more flights does not mean the airlines will add them. This is especially true in the USA, because all the airlines are private owned, profit driven. 油管上弘哥有关于这方面的分析，我觉得比较客观。

Chinese passenger airlines will be allowed to boost their weekly round-trip U.S. flights to 50 starting on March 31, up from the current 35, the U.S. Transportation Department said on Monday, returning the market to nearly one-third of pre-pandemic levels.

……

More than 150 weekly round-trip passenger flights were allowed by each side before restrictions were imposed in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but until August 2023, Chinese and U.S. carriers could each fly only 12 a week between the two countries.

The number rose on Sept. 1 to 18 weekly round-trips and then to 24 per week starting Oct. 29. The USDOT approved 35 for Chinese carriers in November.

FlyChina.com

If you happen to know Chinese 如果你会中文, the flychina.com website has a complete list and collection of updates (for example, you can click on this “今年已增航班班详细公告” on the up to date US/China direct flights. The website has English version too, but I have not checked or verified how good are the English content there.

Anyway, amid all this aka the new normal (reduced direct US/China direct flights), we booked air ticket quite early and I talked about it in my blog post here too – Bought Air Ticket For Summer Trip To CHN. We were somewhat nervous because this is complete new route to us, and there are some uneasiness of going this route: STL <=> ORD Chicago <=> YVR Vancouver <=> HKG Hong Kong. We took Amtrak for STL to Chicago union station (and took Uber from the union station to the ORD airport or hotel near airport). We also built in some sleepovers in hotels (Chicago one night, Vancouver 2 nights, and Hong Kong 3 nights. We also tried to use the hotel airport shuttle bus when I stayed at hotel near airport.

Note both my wife and I are from mainland, so there is one more leg after reaching Hong Kong. We took the air route. There are land route aka the high speed train (Gao’tie) as well. We book those separately via trip.com.

Places we visited in China

Both my wife and I are originally from Zhejiang province (you may be interested in this blog post Hometown Is Always Special). In addition to seeing families in Zhejiang, we also stopped by Shanghai, where my wife and I met in 2006, to see her side of families and friends. I also still have families and friends in Shanghai too: but I kept my head low to focus on my supporting role. Also the few days we were at Shanghai we had quite high outdoor temperature.

Overall score: pretty good

Now that we are back, and I am happy to report that the trip is a success in terms of the new route and the overall experience. We didn’t have any major hiccups. We do have one minor thing when we leave Hong Kong hotel for the airport. Right out of gate at the taxi, our 14 year old said: I forget my hoodies in the hotel (in the closet). Let me emphasize at that time we already checked out the hotel, and we are in the taxi, and the taxi was about to leave 🙁

Minor hiccup

To say I was annoyed is definitely an understatement. First let me say after this is all over, this scene is not new to me, and I recall at the 宁波北仑世茂希尔顿逸林酒店 (note the local people call it 希尔顿逸林酒店) that I stayed since 2017, and I saw this scene in the elevator video (they haven’t changed the video since 2017 🙂 Let me repeat, in the scene the hotel staff tried to catch the minivan in which the guests are leaving for airport, and make sure the little boy has the “lost” stiff animal. Sweet, ah? The real life is not usually like that.

Anyway, let’s back to the topic. I immediately asked the hotel reception desk, and she suggested I go up to the 22nd floor lounge, and asked for help there. The lady at the lounge listened to my issue patiently, and typed something in her system, mainly notifying the house keeper. And my 14 year old and I waited there, for about 25 minutes, with my daughter much more composed than me. Eventually the house keeper showed up, and delivered the missing hoodie to us, in a nice bag. We tipped him the housekeeper $100 (Hong Kong dollar, worth about $13 USD). We offered tip to the the lady assisted us at the lounge too, but she didn’t accept. After we got back to the taxi, I immediately tipped the taxi driver 100 HKD. The driver was happy and he drove very well in terms of the time it took us from the hotel to the #HKG airport.

Lost and Found

As a postpartum or post mortem review with our 14 year old, I told her that we (my wife, her little sister, and myself) are not going to be her “lost and found department” forever. She needs to step up her game and be responsible for her own belongings and so on. I said that in the light of two “thew away retainer” incidents last semester – read this blog post I Am Exhausted, But I Will Soldier On if you are interested to know more. I guess I may have ranted too much there or here – but my intension is help her be responsible. Personally I don’t think physical things are do or die, but if one does not pay attention to his surrounding, especially as a girl at a wrong place or wrong time, things can get bad pretty quickly. That’s my main worry as a parent. Not an broken iPhone or missing stuff animal or hoodie 🙂

Things I learned or relearned: some odds and ends

When leave Vancouver for Chicago, the “entering US immigration and customs” are done at YVR. After we landed at ORD, we just exit and get our luggages like a domestic flight.

In China it’s still best to have a local mobile phone number with cellular data. We need it for WeChat pay (or Alipay), rideshare apps (Didi Chuxing or Gaode Map), as well as ordering food and drink in many places via WeChat Mini Program 微信小程序. I actually documented some of all those tips and tricks in my Twitter (X) thread. I think FlyChina.com has some quite practical advices on those related topic as well, such as this one and that one.

Get cash in HK, which is needed for taxi and the MTR (subway), I used Schwab debit card, and it has no foreign transaction fee, and offers unlimited ATM fee rebate. I had this card for a few years now, and I am glad I put it to good use for International travel eventually.

Must see places in Hong Kong: Victoria Peak aka 太平山(day, tram starts near Hong Kong Park), and Victoria Harbour (night view, looking from Tsim Sha Tsui). Please refer to my other blog post – Some Random Thoughts During My Recent China Trip – 我2024年夏天中国行的一些观察 if needed.

Starbucks are everywhere. But in China they don’t have cake pops that my 14 year old like. In YVR Tim Hortons is as popular as Starbucks. I used credit card for the purpose at YVR, the Starbucks US app does not work at YVR.

In Vancouver I tip in USD. It seems USD cash is fairly widely accepted there: as I saw a sign in the hotel lobby talkong about taking 25 CAD or 20 USD for the shuttle to the cruise ship. You got the idea.

I knew in Vancouver there are a lot of ethnic Chinese people: some moved from HK to Vancouver around 1997. I also noticed there are quite a few Indian (or south asians) immigrants at hotel and at the airport as well. Canada is q quite diverse country. The YVR has 3 languages for most signs: English, French and Chinese.

Last but not least, the Boeing planes. I noticed the Boeing 737 Max 8 of Air Canada has a very quick acknowledgment of flying over native people’s land and water. Some may say that’s “woke”, I say that’s good. Also both Boeing 737 Max 8 and 787-9 have modern infotainment system, and I played chess a lot during my trip. This is aso the 1st time I rode a 737 Max, I believe. I rode 787-9 once on American Airlines ORD to PVG once before pandemic.

Summary

Overall this is a decent route if we want to save some $ and have some extra time to spare. An added bonus is we took kids to see places we normally don’t go often: Vancouver and Hong Kong. Although I admit it’s still hard to persuade my American girls to try Tim Hortons over Starbucks 🙂

Categories
China Life Life Tips Travel

Some random thoughts during my recent China trip – 我2024年夏天中国行的一些观察

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This article is also available on Medium, and blog.wenxuecity.com

航空公司

发现加航🇨🇦的loyalty member (Aeroplan)在飞机上用微信，手机短信等是免费的。不用花钱或点数买inflight WiFi：感觉又赚了一个亿[捂脸]。航空公司其实很难赚钱：成本在那里，固定成本和浮动成本等。但是另一方面愿意额外付钱的客户不多：比如说inflight WiFi, 比如说duty free product sale等等。股神巴菲特也说过类似的话：我估计他老人家在上回pandemic 那次卖了航空股以后就不会再玩航空公司的股票债券了：他老人家今年有93或94岁了。|| 我个人觉得纯从商业的角度出发，信用卡公司的商业模型business model 比航空公司好太多：她们基本上就是高速公路和谷歌的收买路钱的方法。不过在中国大陆感觉支付宝和微信支付基本上打遍天下无敌手，Visa 和万事达两大巨头基本上可以洗洗睡了。前两者的对商家来说成本比信用卡低太多。Alipay 和WeChat Pay 在香港也很拼，有不少商家也开始接受人民币的微信支付/支付宝。不过香港的payment 有点复杂：感觉基本上是八达通Octopus, 信用卡💳包括digital wallet Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Alipay, WeChat pay等；还有出租车也就是的士🚕和地铁🚇需要的港币现钞。我用CS debit card 直接在银行的ATM机上取了些港币现钞。感觉在大陆用现钞的地方比香港少很多，基本上微信和支付宝都可以搞定。|| 离港上飞机之前有个小插曲，紧张程度有点类似于我上次工作中play as tech lead for production release：中间也出了点不大不小的问题，好在最后在超级队友的支持下，有惊无险。我感觉自己还是在这些大大小小的事情中，不断学习，提高自己[微笑]

中国好还是美国好

我被问到的一个常见的问题是：中国好还是美国好？我觉得各有千秋吧。比如说火车：美国的火车客运还停留在中国的绿皮车年代，中国的高铁确实挺牛。Amtrak 没有固定位置: no assigned seat 💺 on Amtrak – reminded me of southwest air the $luv stock ticker. 但同时，有一次当我看到拉莫多人在站台上抽烟🚬，甚至有人把烟头往轨道上仍的时候，我很无语。这次我在一些高铁火车站看到有标语提醒大家不要往轨道上扔烟头。还有比如酒驾开车违章等：感觉国内比美国抓得严一些。酒驾确实应该抓。违章，比如说摄像头直接寄罚单，扣分等，这样的事多年前我碰到过两回：olive / 270 上装了自动摄像头，有一年我不小心闯了两次，一个方向一次，一次罚款一百刀，不涨分（相当于国内扣分）。One year later: 我发现有一张20刀的支票，原来是因为这个自动照相并罚款的机器被人告了，我所在的城市承认错误，拆除了这些东东，并赔款。香港大概是中西文化交汇的一个地方了。我个人感觉不错：前面也遇到了。上海也还可以。美国也不是铁板一块：在从芝加哥机场到芝加哥火车站的顺风车上跟司机聊了聊，他是在约旦出生，英国留学，在那里碰到他的老婆美国人，后来就来到美国。他讲到上个礼拜他开Uber的轶事。跟我介绍了一下约旦。

香港一日游 (下面的图我还没有贴）

7/12 游香港岛的最高点太平山Victoria Peak (我们是坐tram 上去的，起点在香港公园/中环附近）。我们没有额外加钱上到图五/六的那个顶。我们感叹在香港这个寸土寸金的地方，还有个清净的山和山路供老百姓走走，真不错。山顶有咖啡店，饭店，和购买旅游纪念品的商场，邮局等等。|| 圣路易斯附近没有什么大山，如果想就近走走，我个人觉得 laumeier sculpture park, powder valley 和Creve coeur lake 旁边的bootleg trails 都还不错。图七，八是此次行程我们在港岛住的旅馆。两个旅馆都不错，北角north point 的凯悦中萃虽然离维多利亚港湾有两公里，但是她的位置还是非常方便，傍边有非常多吃饭的地方，有港铁和city bus. 最后一张screenshot 是此次旅程我用到的一些app。从机场到北角来回打了大名鼎鼎的香港🇭🇰红色的士(都是丰田的，大部分人较老，少部分较新），需要港币现金。我用我的CS debit card 在机场和中环的银行取款机上取了点：这个卡不额外收手续费，没有foreign transaction fee.

Categories
China Life

Hometown is always special

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This is the last night before leaving mainland CHN for this trip, I am listening to 浙江之声 (浙江之声 via 蜻蜓FM) this time (last year march 2023 it was Love Radio 103.7 FM in Shanghai). I could not fall into sleep 💤. I am going to listening to it more via 蜻蜓FM once I get back to my current home by the Mississippi River.

In last few years as my time spent in the US gradually approaching and exceeding my time lived in China, I almost treat STL as my home. But now I realized childhood home (hometown) has a special place in my heart. Probably for many other people too – especially for those left their hometown after college. For me it’s a bit more – I left the country I grew up.

不少江浙人有较浓的家乡情节。我记得我去武汉上大学的时候，第一次离家这么远，有浙江同乡会办中秋晚会，主持人说到”吴山清越水秀的故乡”，我差点掉了眼泪。在学校的路上走，偶尔能碰到江浙沪的老师，从她/他们的口音和方言里可以听出来，会觉得很亲切。因为大多数时候听到的是普通话和武汉话。

Somewhat related

心安即是归处 (google search): 心安即是归处，意思是让人不必强求，不必攀比，一切顺其自然，做真实的自己。 我们不必为人生的不完美而感到遗憾。 法学教授罗翔在给学生讲解正义与良善时，曾用圆圈做过一个生动的比喻：客观上理想的圆是存在的，可人类无论借助任何精密的仪器，都无法画出自然界中完美的圆。 我们对完美虽不能至，却心向往之。

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

One usually remember mom’s (or dad’s, or other guardian’s) favorite cooking. I remember my mom’s cooking as well as my uncle (my mom’s brother)’s cooking too.

醋溜带鱼羹 is one dish they made and I enjoyed.

PS: (08-04-2024)

Something came to my mind this morning when I was at a group exercise class at the J. Why mothers are always special. I think most people will say mom reminds them of the hometown. On the opposite, when people start to curse at each other, there is a very common one, son of the bit*h: in Chinese *子养的，why? Because I think by talking down the other person’s mom, deep in mind, the aggressor probably get a sense of the other person is not worthy. I think those are also likely the rationale behind:

谁不说俺家乡好 (Wikipedia, YouTube)

子不嫌母丑，狗不嫌家贫 (ximalaya)

Categories
China Travel

Bought air ticket for summer trip to CHN

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The air ticket from mid-west USA to China is getting more expensive after the cut of American Airlines (AA) and United Airlines (UA) ORD to PVG or PEK flights since pandemic in 2020. There are some alternatives nowadays. Besides the cross Atlantic routes below, there are direct flights from Delta Detroit (DTW) to Shanghai (PVG), and from AA Dallas (DFW) to Shanghai (PVG). In fact I took the Delta DTW to PVG (note it’s not daily) last March: I wrote 2 blog posts for that trip – China Trip Spring 2023 – Logistics, and China Trip Spring 2023 – Observations And Thoughts.

Note air tickets and their pricing are always dynamic, and if you are interested in the direct flights from Chicago (ORD) to mainland China (ORD or PEK), please check with the United Airlines’s website, as well as 3rd party websites such as flychina.com (look for “中美直飞航班“) or simpleflying, or aggregator website such as expedia.com. For American Airlines I don’t see they will add back the direct flight from ORD to China in the near future, because they already have the direct flights (daily) from Dallas to Shanghai now.

Cross Atlantic routes

There are some new routes pops up in recent years: mainly fly via Chicago (ORD) and London (LHR), or Frankfurt. If we want to reduce the number of stops, Frankfurt is a viable option (I looked at the dates in June/July, it’s about $2,765 for STL/PVG round trip). Note this is 3 times a week flight (LH449):

Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) to Frankfurt, Germany. The airline uses Airbus A330-300 aircraft for their three-time a week service (with arrivals and departures every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday).

Some new ideas

ORD to HKG : Air Canada

This one stops at Vancouver and lands at HKG. It works out for us: I mean the route. We also got the connecting Amtrak tickets from STL to ORD, and also from HKG to the mainland via trip.com.

Also there are hotel costs: my wife thinks those hotel points are free. They are not. I found out the most expensive hotels are in Vancouver (we want to stay near YVR).

Again websites we used for air tickets are: Expedia.com (Air Canada), trip.com (HKG to mainland)

Hotels: Marriott Bonvoy, Expedia.com (for Vancouver, x2), Hong Kong (Chase Ultimate Rewards), Mainland (HHonors, Hilton.com), Hong Kong again (Hyatt)

Amtrak to Chicago.

Some odds and ends

Credit card declines

My CSP card approved the Air Canada ticket purchase at Expedia.com. But it won’t let me purchase a smaller amount one way air ticket from HKG to NBG. Tried couple times. It triggered fraud alert. Later I got it cleared. It seems I could not use the CSP card for Vancouver hotel booking at Expedia as well. Tried Amex Gold to buy the mentioned air ticket: same results. No alerts but not going through either. Eventually I went to trip.com and used another credit card (Amazon Chase) to get it working. The reason I used Amazon Chase is it doesn’t have foreign transaction fee, and it seems to me trip.com is based in Singapore. I think I tried the CSP there at the 1st step too.

For the Vancouver hotel booking at expedia.com, I used another no foreign transaction fee credit card (Hyatt Chase). I know Expedia is based in the US, but the hotel is in Canada.

Last but not least, I used the CSP as a backup card for the hotel in NGB. I also checked with my friend in NGB to make sure that they have taxi there when we arrive there late at night.

Adding kids to the hotel room

This will cost more in some cases: e.g., the expedia.com booking at Vancouver, I noticed some hotels raised price as soon as I added my kids. In the extreme case: DoubleTree Beilun, it offers me the Presidential Suite as soon as I input in my 2 kids. I get by this issue by only inputting 2 adults (my wife and I). Obviously during check-in we will show kids’ ID etc.

This also reminds me one more thing: as my kids get older, they will likely need a separate room from me 🙂

Last but not least, as I get older, I want to stay at nicer place too. So probably no more Jinjiang Inn or Home Inn.

Some after thoughts

I calculated the total cost, it’s about $1,700 per person, which is cheaper than alternative ways such as via London. The downside is the length of the travel including those stopovers. To alleviate the travel fatigue, I tried to book nicer hotels as much as possible.

PS: Reuters – Which countries can Chinese passport holders visit without a visa?

Last but not least: I realized although I chose the “option of choosing seats” at expedia.com, in reality though, I need to pay up at Air Canada website in order to choose the seat for the ORD to YVR flights (from and to). They do allow me to choose my seats (and my wife and kiddos’ seats) for the YVR to HKG flights (again from and to). Below explained why. This also vaguely made me to recall shortly after the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, airlines usually asked passengers to pay a small amount of money for luggage, probably ranges from $10 to $50 for those short haul regional slights. In bitter cold winter days, people tried to avoid this fee, by drop offing the luggages at the gate, then wait in the cold temperature for the luggage at the bridge upon arrival. I was thinking: is this the America that I came in summer 1997 🙁

(NerdWallet) Air Canada Seat Selection: What You Need to Know