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长江轮船🚢

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The picture is from 春节回家路上，你是否还记得那张旧船票？

再过几年，如果不出意外(knock on the woods)，我会送我的老大去上大学。希望是一所她理想中的学校。今年是我大学毕业30周年。也就是说我是34年前（也就是1989年夏天）开始去上大学的。我家在宁波，我的大学在武汉。那时候国内火车没有现在那么发达。但是那时候有轮船，有客运的海轮和长江轮船。宁波到上海一般是坐海轮或是火车，上海（十六铺码头）到武汉（汉口，忘了几号码头了）有长江轮。大学生坐火车有半票，轮船没有这个优惠。火车要相对快一些，但是有时候（很多时候）会没有座位。轮船较慢但是有床位可以睡觉。可以说各有利弊。其实还有飞机，宁波到武汉有运七(Wiki, Baidu))的飞机，很可能是螺旋桨的飞机。我没有坐过（因为机票更贵），但是我有镇海中学的同学坐过。

第一次去大学

我第一次去武汉上学是坐了两个/趟轮船，宁波到上海，上海再到武汉。我爸爸送我到上海。宁波到上海一般是坐/睡一个晚上。上海到武汉，长江逆流而上，是72个小时，大概是两天三夜。武汉到上海顺流而下大概是48小时。还有长江轮其实有两个分公司，江申号是上海的（上海简称是申），江汉号是武汉的。

轮船一般会有不同等级的仓位，一般坐四等仓较多。我有一次坐了回长江轮的五等仓。那一次好像是我表姐带着我去买票，她可能有点节省惯了，她建议我买五等仓，我就买了。

四等仓和五等仓

五等仓的一个房间人/床比四等仓就更多一些。四等仓我印象中是十二个人，五等舱可能是二十四人。还有就是五等舱是在最底层，机器的声音好像也响一些。我现在美国呆久了，我住的地方也有不少华人。我觉得华人有一点是有待改进的，那就是攀比和歧视。轮船的仓位也是有歧视的：我记得当时五等舱的同仓里面好像有上海知青一家人。男主人说：他们有些人认为我们是穷人（他用了穷鬼这个词），其实我们并不是没钱，我们只是想省钱。我觉得他的话也是有道理的。其实除了五等仓，还有一种叫散仓，就是给一个折叠床和被褥，一般可以放在船头。有一回，大概是1993秋天，我刚毕业不久，出差从青岛回上海坐海轮，没有床位，大家都坐了散仓。

我第一次去武汉坐了四等仓：我记得当时同仓有几个国家排球（青年）队的几个队员，湖北人，他们说的湖北话我基本上不懂。不过武汉/湖北话其实跟普通话较接近，到了学校以后很快就能听懂了。有一个小小的笑话，有个湖北同学，我们两个可能是到寝室最早的，他说：我的“鞋子”（孩子，湖北话鞋子听起来像孩子）（从窗口）掉下去了。

我印象中四等舱和五等舱的价格大概差别是十几/二十块钱（五十几🆚七十几）。我记得火车票因为是半票大概是二十七块钱。那时候十几/二十块钱对我来说还是值一点钱的：我印象中到我大四的下学期，我爸爸妈妈大概会给我一个月一百块钱的生活费（主要是吃饭的钱，加上零花）。我倒推一下，估计我大一的第一学期，可能一个月是五十块钱的生活费。

总的来说，坐船比坐火车还是舒服很多。因为火车，尤其在春运期间，不仅没坐的位置，有时连站的位置也没有。我以前在这两个博客文章里也讲过, search for “train” (blog post 1, blog post 2)。我记得，有一次，我从宁波回武昌，从南昌转车，经株洲，最后到武昌，总共大概站了十几个小时。那时候是绿皮的火车。我记得有一段时间，我站在一个东阳到武汉大学上学的师姐（88级），她给了我一个苹果，削了皮的。

餐厅

轮船上有餐厅，当然也不会很便宜。很多时候，我应该是吃方便面的。那时候好像还流行火腿肠。偶尔有时也会去餐厅买个饭。记得有一次同仓的有个在武汉上学的师姐（比我高一级的女生，她家可能是马鞍山的），她的男朋友也会上船，她见到男朋友自然很开心。

轶事

有一次，好像是冬天，有个人跳下去了，是白天（我估计这个人不是真的想自杀）。结果很快被发现，大船掉头，放下小艇把那个人捞上来，费了一点时间。

我为什么去武汉上学

有一个原因，我家里人，主要是听我妈妈说去北方要吃黑面包（馒头）。我们南方人本来就不喜欢面包，好像有个老乡去了北方（天津还是西安）回来说的。我估计，我妈妈可能希望我上学的地方近一些。结果我第二志愿报了武汉（第一志愿是上海某高校）。因为武汉是吃大米为主的。我有个山东同学，在老家主要是吃馒头（面食）。他们一帮山东老乡在校门口的饭店吃饭，问有没有饭，结果拿上来的是米饭，很是失望。那时候在学校里，听到苏南，上海，绍兴等地的话都是感觉较亲的。

Categories
China Fun Life Life Tips Saint Louis

Happy Mid Autumn Festival 中秋快乐

Reading Time: 3 minutes
杏花楼广式月饼 and 稻香村苏式月饼 from 亚米网

And eat some moon cakes. I just realized I wrote something about mid autumn festival way back in year 2007. I believe I was in Shanghai when I wrote this, and it was after we had honeymoon in San’ya, Hainan, China.

Time flies. Now we have 2 kids, and I don’t see any special mid-autumn festival logos on Baidu or Google home pages. But I saw one at Google Vietnam page. I did see this (浓情迎中秋) at Baidu 热搜。

For me this year, I bought some 杏花楼广式月饼 and 稻香村苏式月饼 from 亚米网 (yamibuy.com). We bought moon cakes at Costco in the past: not a big fan of those。我们以前经常在百利买加州的生计月饼（Sheng Kee bakery，我记得去过一次她家的Milpitas 分店. As the name suggests, this is a Hong Kong/Cantonese style, and I visited their bakery at Milpitas CA once many years ago）。今年百利可能卖完了，好像没看到生计月饼。

Local Bakeries in the STL area

I think when I was new to the US and studied at Rolla. The fresh baked mooncakes at the WeiHong Bakery (味香饼家) was a treat. Now it seems there are other choices (not mooncake), such as The Foundry Bakery: and recently I added it to my Authentic Asian Food In The STL Area post. I just heard from an Indian friend that their Naisu Milk Bun 奶酥面包 is fantastic. Before pandemic I go to a Korean bakery near Olive and 141 once a while too. Last but not least, the La Boone Bouche at Olive and Tempo drive is so busy nowadays.

A meme on mooncake

今年中秋月饼卖不动了?月饼订单减少了3-4成 | 文学城

Baidu Zhidao: 上海面包店有哪些牌子 Note many bakeries in Shanghai makes and sells mooncakes (a mostly seasonal item). Below are the list.

克莉丝汀 – I remember once I got 美式咖啡 from there, there are quite a lot Christen’s Bakeries in Shanghai. About 10 years ago, I found when I visit China, it’s hard to get black coffee (not instant coffee). I am a coffee drinker, and I found the places that I can always get good or decent American black coffee (pot coffee, basically we make them via grounded coffee at many American homes), is McDonald’s and Starbucks (not many small cities have McDonald’s and Starbucks). And add the Christen’s Bakery in Shanghai too.

静安面包房

85度C: this is a chain started in Taiwan. I recall visited their store in one of those places (Lan’xi or Quan’zhou). They are in California too.

苹果园

香特莉

季诺

可颂坊 (the link is their mobile website): I recall seen or being there before 1997. Baike 百度百科 link here.

元祖 (Wikipedia): another chain started in Taiwan. I went there once, and it surprised me that their products are quite expensive.

牛奶棚

瑞莱新侨

面包新语

马哥孛罗

迷迭香咖啡面包

红宝石

喜来公社

宜芝多

星巴克(Starbucks) 也有月饼: no need to say more 🙂

Traditional Brands
以前印象中有杏花楼 （上海杏花樓酒家- 維基百科，自由的百科全書 ）和新雅（粤式餐厅 – 新雅粤菜馆新雅粵菜館- 維基百科，自由的百科全書 ）月饼 – 月饼为其核心产品，其中“新雅广式月饼”为“上海市著名商标”[6]

Last but not least, a bit explanation on the Mid Autumn Festival on Wikipedia. Since I left home for college, I rarely had opportunity to be back to my parents home on those holidays, though. Again 2007 was probably one of the years that I was in China for the holiday. For that matter, it’s the only year since 1998 that I spent significant amount of time in Shanghai (and China), and I wrote quite a bit on my observations on my blog. This is just one example.

PS: my 13 year old liked the 杏花楼的玫瑰豆沙月饼。

Categories
China Fun Life

My 1st “near death” experience – kids being kids

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Rice Threshing machine

I put the double quotes around because looking back I don’t think I would die. Probably “scared to death” is more appropriate. But at the time I was really scared. It was probably in my 1st grade or 2nd grade, I cannot remember exactly. Maybe my parents or siblings or the aunt who helped me can verify.

It was on the way from the village school to home, and for some reason the strongest boy in my class decided to throw stone at me. I could not recall if I provoked him. But the stone hit my forehead, and blood started bleeding from there. That’s the time I thought I was going to die, because I never encountered something like this in my life. Obviously I started crying, and the other school kids that were walking home probably noticed too. And it just happened an aunt who is a good friend of my mom (she is the accountant for the village and sits in the same office as my mom, if I am correct) happened to be nearby, so she put me on her back. And walked to the doctor’s office, which is next to where my mom’s office is. Note at that time, it was the “barefoot doctors （赤脚医生）”, because China then doesn’t have formal medical schools for at least 10 years (due to culture revolution). I asked the aunt whether I would die, and she said No. I probably asked this question more than once. Btw, he was throwing from a distance of probably 75 to 100 yards (meters) so it was not too bad in terms of the hit. I don’t know if the teacher gave him a warning or not. I would not think too much about it personally. A few years later, I made a similar mistake myself, I played too rough with a boy in the class, and his mom talked to my parents. A few years later, I recall seeing him in the Zhenhai Middle School too.

I think in year 2016, I walked to the renovated village office, and I saw one of the doctors picture still there. He probably worked all these years from 1980 until 2016. He is one of the doctors who gave us vaccines when I grew up in the village, as well as treating us very much like the urgent care does in the USA nowadays. Before elementary school the barefoot doctors would actually walk to every home and gave out vaccines to the little kids. And I would close the door, hide behind my grandma and tried to get away from the shots. That usually didn’t work. I probably said cursing words at the time too. When I started attending elementary schools, I could no longer act out, because I was the class president and had to lead by example. Nowadays I can see some of that from my younger daughter – she doesn’t like getting the shots at doctor’s office, usually the vaccine shots. And I saw little kiddos crying at the Covid shots place (Christian Hospital to be specific), I recall one of the Washing U doctor was trying to comfort the kids. And I talked about my “shot scare” in twitter a while ago. Such as this one:

And this one

Other scare times during my childhood

Another time, I was almost drowning. Note I didn’t know how to swim when I grew up. I think one reason is our parents didn’t want us to swim (or learn to swim) at a big (water) reservoir (it was man-made). And we heard the stories of two guys (young healthy men) who died years ago when they swam there after work. Now I am guessing they were probably exhausted, and somehow their bodies or legs had some issue then. Because it’s a reservoir it’s static water and there should not be any danger from under current etc. Anyway, back to the topic, I recall when I was probably completing 3rd grade, and in the summer sometimes my parents would send me to my maternal grandma’s house, living with my uncle’s (my mom’s brother) family including my grandma. Once my grandma asked me to bathe in the pond, the pond was not big or anything, but it was quite deep, I could stand up at the edge but that’s probably it. So that day for some reason I slipped off the edge, and I probably screamed (again I couldn’t swim), and someone quickly picked me up. I recall running back naked to my grandma’s house, and the reason I was naked was my grandma didn’t bring any new clothes for me, and she took my old clothes and was washing it in the pond. Again washing clothes in the pond is quite normal as at that time the villages didn’t have faucet water. So the drinking water was usually from a well or from collecting rainwater. And for washing stuff etc. a pond, a brook or a river is common then.

Got Lost: another time, when I was with my maternal grandma at Chai’qiao 柴桥老街 street, I got lost because I didn’t follow her close enough, and probably she walked too fast without looking back (I may have gotten distracted by something). I think that day, a neighbor who probably knew my grandma, sent me back to my uncle’s home. In those days (before 1983), I don’t think there were human smugglers like today, so in theory, I was still pretty safe.

Probably a year later also in the summer, I was probably finishing the 4th or 5th grade. I was joining my elder brothers to 割稻 （cutting down the rice staunch before getting the rice kernel), and I barely cut probably a few yards, before my cut into my finger. So there goes my rice-cutting job for that summer. I still have scars from that episode. Talking about getting the rice kernels 打稻 (threshing rice), it’s actually quite dangerous, I heard people got hurt as the machine pulled in their hands or arms.

I recall the aunt’s son (the aunt who carried me when I was hurt), once got his legs either into another machine 水车 (water wheel) for some reason, and he had to amputated both his legs.

水车 (water wheel)

Mental Health

I don’t recall there was much consideration of that when I grew up. One of my cousin died from suicide when she heard her younger brother (not her) would take over the job from her dad, also she may have some other issues (I heard one of her eye may have some problem), she was probably a bit over 20. At my high school or college, I heard from my mom one of the girls in my village died from suicide, after her parents scolded her for dating a carpenter or something. She was one year senior than me. We went to the same village school (the elementary school).

Other Scary Experience in the USA

Six flags the Boss ride

The furnace duct had a fire at my old condo.

Fall from the ladder (I talked about it and urgent care exp here)

And car accidents: the one in which my car flew into the ditch off highway 270 was scary.

Categories
China Life Tips

China Trip Spring 2023 – observations and thoughts

Reading Time: 6 minutes

At the Detriot airport #DTW Delta Airlines international departing gates, I waited for about 12 hours before boarding the PVG bounding flight. I walked inside the terminal from one end to the other a couple of times. I passed by the London bounded gate, and compared to the PVG bounded flight, I can sense the different atmosphere, on a few different levels. I had to admit I like the London bounded gate atmosphere better, it’s more festive. In contrast, the PVG-bounded flight has more stress, mostly related to the paperwork for the Covid PCR test. We know it’s not rock science per see, but because of recent memory, and I think in one incident Delta airline has to turn around the airplane mid-air (over the pacific), all this added to stress during travel. For practical purposes, the “Mandatory paperwork to enter China” in my earlier blog post should work for everyone.

Aging Parents

My main mission for this trip is to see my parents. When I was new to the US, a professor at Rolla complimented on the “respect elders” culture in China. To be more specific, it’s “Filial Piety“: Filial piety is a Confucian concept derived from Chinese culture, which advocates a set of moral norms, values, and practices of respect and caring for one’s parents. According to the dual-factor model of filial piety, reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety are two dimensions of filial piety. I heard this English word from a Chinese professor (Liu Ming) in 2020, the Chinese word for it is 孝顺. Along those lines, there is this line: 父母在，不远游，游必有方: 父母在世，不出远门，如果要出远门，必须告知自己所去的地方。 “方”指”一定的去处、方向，更重要的是指“方法”。 意思是父母身体健康时外出，要让父母知道你的去处是安全的。 如果父母的身体需要照顾，而自己又需要外出就“必须”安排好照顾好父母的“方法”，以尽孝道，即游“必”有“方”。What does that mean? Basically it says one doesn’t travel far if one has parents (to take care of). And if one has to travel, he/she must tell where he/she is going, make sure the place he/she is traveling to is safe. And last but not least, if the parents (are old/sick and) need care, he/she must make arrangement regarding take care of the parents.

Many years ago, my father was not happy that I decided to come to the US for graduate school. He used his own example of not taking he Gao’kao 高考 (China’s college entrance exam) when he was high school senior, because he wanted to take care of this parents, at home. They were about 40 years apart. And I think in those days the average life span for Chinese people may be 70 years old. But I didn’t listen and I came to the US, did graduate school, started working and have my own family here.

In recent years I tried to see my parents about once every two years, but the routine was interrupted by the pandemic and the control measures. Thus I didn’t see my parents in person for over 3 years, and as the border opened in Jan 8, and no more quarantine measures. I took the bait and booked the air ticket on Jan 29. The pandemic in past 3 years was not kind to my parents, and I can see they are aging. My mom who was outgoing, and likes to interact with her friend in Lao’nian Da Xue 老年大学 (elders’ university), as well as serve in the community, before pandemic. This social content of her daily life was cut, and I can see it had impact on her. My father who is more introvert, doesn’t have a healthy daily routine. I assume he looked at computer and phone for quite some time everyday, or watching TV. And he complains about his son going to America, consistently before my mom. I don’t think mom likes to hear that, plus I don’t know whether I should say it’s a blessing or a curse, but my mom lost some hearings in last few years as well. Her health was not the greatest before pandemic, and it got worse during pandemic. She was hospitalized a few times in last 12 month or so. She was happy to see me back for a week, after the 3+ years gap. And we are planning to get her and my dad some more help in their daily lives.

I visited my in-laws too: they are in the same province. They live in a senior living apartment, and they can pretty much sustain on their own so far, including cooking etc. But they can buy food if they don’t want to cook, and the medical staff is nearby if medical care is needed. So their living condition eased our worry to some extent.

Technology

I have a twitter thread related to this. The technology in China has improved tremendously in last 20 years. One can see it from the high speed rail (gao’tie 高铁 🚄）, the popularity of EVs: there are many brands in addition to the well known ones such as BYD and Tesla. Mobile apps including 12306 (train ticket app), Alipay, WeChat (pay), and Gao’de Map are both popular and helpful for the most part. I am sharing some of the hands on experience below. Please note some of the issues around high speed rail as well (see this tweet).

Facial recognization

Boarding DL 389 (DTW to PVG), they scan the face instead of scan the boarding pass. Again one Chinese gentleman was wondering how they do that. Facial recognization is widely used actually, in the mobile apps too, in addition to the Apple build in FaceID. I saw the bank apps and Shanghai health QR code mini program (随申码小程序）are using the homegrown facial recognization technology. (Update 04-16-2023) Interestingly enough, today when I was trying to log into IRS website and get some tax for myself, and I found out the scanning of driver license and my face is also used. Basically what I did here is very similar to some of the mobile apps used in China. So we have some sort of technology convergence here. Similar for robots below. For example, today I saw the Schnucks robot “tally” charing by itself, which is similar to the food delivery robots in China hotel.

Robots

I saw robots for food delivery in hotels (Shanghai Hongqiao, and Ningbo Beilun), and robots for cleaning at Hongqiao hub (underground leve).

Out of gate, I went to the Yong’he Da Wang （永和大王）, the popular Taiwanese place, and tried to use WeChat pay. It failed because I did not update my ID’s issuance date and expiration date. I was able to update later on.

On the other hand though, I do recognize a lot of practice or technology are learned from the west. For example, when the nurse give new medicine and in-fusion, they would ask the patients name, DoB, the only thing I didn’t hear is the last 4 of the social.

12306 App (Apple, Google Play): again this is the train ticket app. So upon arrival at the Hongqiao hub (from PVG), I decided to buy the train ticket, at the ticket counter. Note the human service counter is rare nowadays, a lot of purchase are done via app, website and the kiosk. So I bought the ticket, paid the cash, got the change, and got an idea of the approx. departing time. No paper ticket. The ID is the ticket (self scan the ID at the train station for checkin). Later I realized I don’t even know the train number. So I downloaded the app (I used it before), logged in, and saw my e-ticket there 🙂 Btw, noticed the score (rating) for the app are 3.0 (out of 5.0) at Apple iOS App store, and 3.4 at Google Play store. Not bad for a large app like this.

At Beilun KFC, the cashier suggested I use the app to order. I gave her my phone, tried to download the app, it went to the US App store 🙂 So eventually they manually process for me every morning, and I pay via the WeChat pay.

Human factor

Again I don’t like the cigarette smoking, which is still popular in China: from the platform on Gao’tie (inside Gao’tie train is not allowed; regular train has a designated smoking place), to the street, and other indoor places (which in my opinion, it’s quite nasty).

Yield to pedestrians at cross walk. Is crosswalk another thing China learned from the west? I can see the cars (the drivers) in Shanghai did a much better job yields to pedestrians, say compared to Ningbo Beilun (2nd or 3rd tier city).

Drivers

I like to chat with people, especially open-minded people.

网约车司机的故事：郑州来的女生，去年十月因郑州疫情来上海(trying to make a living, as Zhengzhou was shutdown and she could not drive for a living). I notice that her mobile phone has a privacy guard screen 手机有防偷窥保护屏. She asked if there are Alipay and WeChat pay in the US, and I said they are rare. 她问我美国有没有支付宝，微信支付，我说没有或较少。She also asked the things that corresponding to Alipay and WeChat pay, I said credit card and Apple Pay 相应的应该是信用卡和apple pay。

Back to STL, the Lyft driver is an immigrant from Hondulas || 圣村：31/2岁左右洪都拉斯🇭🇳来的小伙，感觉搞硬件比搞软件牛，因为他说是个人都可以学着学程序，而他现在还不认识一个可以把电脑组装起来的人：我说best buy 的geek squad, 和micro center 应该有人会装。他同时感觉中国比美国牛。我们讲到2001年9月11日，他讲到他大概十岁左右，他妈妈送他到私立学校有美国老师教英文。那天有人告诉美国老师纽约世贸中心被炸的事，老师当场痛哭。我告诉他那天早上我在电视上看到世贸中心有幢楼在冒烟，直升机🚁在傍边转，后来发生的事情对美国产生深远的影响。

Categories
China Life Tips Travel

China Trip Spring 2023 – logistics

Reading Time: 6 minutes

(Update 04-08-2025) After 2 years, the sim card I mentioned below no longer works. After the painful steps of taking pictures and so on, it gave an error message saying that “the number is already being used”. So, I no longer recommend it. We bought another sim card after return the not working one. Will post an update once we get the new one working.

(Update 04-28-2023) Please note the airlines no longer ask/need #COVID #testing from April 29: 4月29日起飞往中国不再需要核酸检测，自测抗原即可。登机前航空公司不再查验检测证明，只需海关健康申报二维码。source: #flychina https://flychina.com/update.asp || This is good news 🙂

(Original) I have a twitter thread here, and quite a few YouTube shorts or videos on this trip (hashtag: #ChinaTrip2023).

But I think it’s probably worth an article or two for me to put down the life cycle of the trip, from planning, buying the tickets, to execution (the trip itself, flights, transfers, and entering/leaving borders etc.), as those tips may be helpful for overseas Chinese or some other international friends to visit China. I think it maybe helpful for me to refresh my memory too, for example, today at #STL I forgot where should I wait for #Lyft or Uber: the Lyft app itself says where, btw. I had to admit that I haven’t flew for a while: I believe my last trip via STL is the PVG trip before pandemic (Nov/Dec 2019). Another example, related matter, I forgot the allowance of luggage is one, and I have to pay either 10,000 miles (Delta Skymiles) or $100 (United Airlines) for the 2nd luggage.

Air Tickets

I bought mine at Expedia.com on Jan 29, 2023. Other good place to buy/check ticket is flychina.com. I flew from my city to DTW, waited for 12+ hours, and from there flew to PVG (direct, no more stop at Korea/Seoul Incheon (ICN) ). On the way back, I took UA 858 that’s PVG to SFO, and later transferred at ORD(a redeye flight from SFO to ORD), before coming home. There was some hiccup in terms of changes and posting the miles to the frequent flyer miles. I believe after I booked the United Airlines Mar 29 flight from PVG to SFO, United likely added number of flight per week, thus making the Mar 29 departure flight no longer available. That’s why I moved to Mar 30 departure date, and have the SFO to ORD redeye flight. The change process in the United Airlines website was relatively smooth. Another small issue was it was long time ago that I bought air ticket on Expedia.com, and unfortunately I still had the old United frequent flyer number on Expedia, as you may know United adopted the Continental frequent flyer number post merger (which I have in my United account). Long story short, as of now, we can claim the miles via this web page. The miles were posted for me immediately after I submit the form 🙂 Update 04-10-2023 NYTimes has an article explains the air ticket shortage situation – China Has Reopened to Tourists. The Hard Part Is Getting There.

Get a China SIM card

(04-04-2023) I am reporting back: this card is decent. It worked on my iPhone 5 (initially I put the new sim card in this old phone), after I turned it off and back on when the airplane just landed. I quickly swap it into my iPhone 12 on the subway (Metro line 2 from PVG to SHA, and I stayed at hotel near SHA, Hongqiao Hub). A student with Tufts U was able to make call to her dad as her sim card was expired. This card is called 蜗牛移动 4G in China (a resller of China Unicom 中国联通）. I am guessing it’s small reseller: the idea here is similar to MintMobile vs T-Mobile in the US (mintMobile is a reseller of T-mobile). There was one glitch when I was trying to get 随申码（英语：Shanghai QR Code) at SJTU Minghang campus. The guard said probably my internet on the phone was too slow. It took me quote a few tries to get it work. There are one glitch: no caller ID (and I don’t know how to fix it). Another tip is don’t worry about the “warning message” in Chinese regarding data usage. It will ask one to 充值，I did not read the descriptions on Amazon. But I just trust the title or subject that says 30 days 3G data. So I just ignore the periodically message asking me to refill. As I don’t see the internet stop working after the “data used up” message.

Amazon associate link for the China Unicom 中国联通 sim 30 day card

Mandatory paperwork to enter China

Mainly we need the PCR test and also the health code (2D or QR code, commonly called 海关指尖码 in Chinese) via WeChat mini-program called “Customs Pocket Declaration“ or in Chinese: 海关旅客指尖服务. In order to fill out the form, one will need the flight number and seat number. This code has a an expiration time, but can be updated. Again make sure you have a smart phone and ideally the phone can get to Internet via cellular data, because WiFi sometimes is not very reliable at airports, and you don’t have to make this your weakest link for your carefully planned trip to see “long time no see” family and friends.  

Check in at my local airport and get boarding pass at DTW

My local airport agent asked for all the paperwork, but she still has trouble check in my luggages all the way to PVG. Her senior colleague (who looks like a Japanese descent) was able to fix. I also tried to get boarding pass for DL389 at the Delta Helpdesk: it was a fun experience for the two agents there as they don’t usually do that job. It’s usually the DTW DL389 (DTW to PVG) gate agent’s job. The latter gate agent talks a lot about the PCR tests and the health code before departure. They actually check all the relevant documents including the PCR test, before put a “checked” sticker on the passport. The boarding identity verification is done by facial recognition, btw, which surprised a senior Chinese citizen a bit. More on facial recognization latter.

Entering China

Show the QR code the 海关指尖码, then proceed to border agent. After that it seems pretty smooth, and I only saw the customs people check a (I assume) service dog.

Leaving China

Boarding pass plane open at 4:30 pm for UA 858 for 9:05 pm departing time. An older gentleman asked my help (borrow my Visa credit card) to pay the $100 extra bag fee (they don’t take cash or Chinese credit card). Note one still need to do a new health code (2D or QR code, aka 海关指尖码) and scan the code when entering the international boarding gate. The United gate agents checked in some carryons free of charge as they worry the overhead bin space is not enough for all the carryons. Similar thing happened to me (my carryon) for my SFO to ORD flight (in my case, once checked in, it goes to final destination without my intervention). So make sure you take out essentials (paperwork, phone, battery park, water bottle etc.) as you will need them for the remaining of the flights/journey.

Re-entering the US

One only need to show green card (for permanent resident), and their camera look at the face, as well as some finger printing scan. The agent who serviced me was not nice though. Note for those hold B and F visa, they will need to show the vaccination records when getting the boarding pass. This is not required for US citizens and GC holders.

Tips for travel in China

Mobile phone with data plan, here is one possibility to get a local number (Amazon Associate Link).

Apps nice to have: WeChat (and WeChat Pay 微信支付) or Alipay 支付宝。#高德地图 (GaoDe Map) for navigation and get #网约车which is similar to Uber/Lyft in the states. I know WeChat and Alipay can get the 网约车too, similar for #滴滴出行。All those apps will need a mobile phone (likely with a Chinese cell phone number) as well as identity verification (not sure how it works for a US passport holder).

Useful links and resources

回国机票价格表和检测规定: https://www.flychina.com/update.asp (in Chinese).

Also look at 美国-中国 直飞航班专区 section: right now there are direct flights between 6 US cities and mainland China (note the flights are not daily, the most frequent one seems to be the SFO to PVG flights, 5 times a week). The 6 US cities are: LAX (Los Angles), JFK (New York), SEA (Seattle-Tacoma), DTW (Detroit), DFW (Dallas Forworth), and SFO (San Francisco).

If you live in or near those 6 cities, consider yourself lucky. Because the connection time for people from other cities can be long, and number of connections are usually more than compared to 2019: e.g., I usually transfer at ORD Chicago O’here before pandemic because both AA and UA offered daily flights to PVG. In fact, now I recall I took the United Airlines flight last minute in Mar 2007 to see my then girlfriend (now my wife, I have an old blog post dedicated to this). Did you notice anything interesting regarding the blog post’s published date 🙂

What’s next and upcoming

I think I will write up some of my observations and thoughts for my trip as well, e.g., the emergence of EV which is much more than just Tesla here. Or to be more precise, I understand it’s Tesla plus a few more here, such as Polestar, Ford Mach E, Lucid, Rivian and Ford F-150 lightning, but in China, it’s BYD (Build Your Dream) in the leading position, with Tesla following, and followed by Nio/Xiao Peng/Li Xiang (all 3 companies stocks listed in the US, they are $NIO, $XPEV and $LI), as well as many players such as 零跑汽车(Leap Motor, it’s traded in HKSE as HKEX: 09863): their C11 is very impressive, btw, I would trade my Sienna with it in a second. Too bad I live in a country there is really two choices: model 3 and model Y (I hate model X’s funky doors). What I really want is something like Leap Motor’s C11 (small SUV with 600 km which is about 400 miles range 🙂 || Incidentally I came across this article abut China EV industry – China auto show highlights intense electric car competition.

Categories
China

Zero Covid

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Zero covid analogy

A hotel in Sanya #Sanya (below tweet appears since deleted)

https://twitter.com/arafsadventures/status/1559023546793242624

But there are more similar Covid Test scenes.

A building in #Shanghai Yangqu district sudden locked down:

Categories
China Chinese articles Politics

Weekend thoughts week of 08-01-2022

Reading Time: 2 minutes

iPhone

Health

深度好文：台湾为何与我们渐行渐远？原文作者：廖信忠 (baidu) || I just noticed the article from Twitter. Also noticed A City of Sadness (悲情城市) from the comments. Personally my earlier view on re-union between mainland and Taiwan was shattered after seeing the Russia / Ukraine war since Feb 24, 2022. And it also reminded me of the recent Zero Covid policy implementation and protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

It’s no secret the US and the world are increasingly use drone as weapon, as shown in the recent attack on the former No 2 to Bin Laden, which is quite different from the killing of Bin Laden himself (about 11 years ago).

https://twitter.com/andrey_botea/status/1554551628346273792

I think at least two reasons for that: 1. The technology advancement of drone and its associated weapons, such as the one used against al-zawahiri. 2. In the west, it’s harder and harder for the electorates to see soldiers died in foreign wars or military operations. Those are also reasons the US does not want to directly involve in the Russia-Ukraine war (which btw, the largest military conflict in Europe since the end of WWII), in addition to avoid the direct conflict of nuclear powers. I guess this will come to play in other relevant military conflicts too.

The two mentioned articles:

English: Senior Chinese banker on the mortgage boycotts

Chinese: 王永利：按揭贷款必须回归本原. Quote: 一是住房按揭贷款并不是完全以作为抵押物的房产作为偿还贷款本息的全部保证，贷款银行在处置按揭房产净收入不能完全偿还借款人所欠贷款本息时，仍可以对其进行延申追索，并会因借款人不能偿还所欠贷款本息而被诉诸法庭、列入失信人黑名单等，使“按揭贷款”偷变成一般的抵押贷款。|| This is mind boggling, so in other words, the banks will have recourse against the borrower’s income in addition to the house (apartment) in the mortgage. I think this is different from the west, in which the bank can only hold on the property (not the borrower’s other income), which is different from the government who has the claim in case someone does not pay tax.

I saw another tweet on the China property market.

And last but not least, just for fun: a customized Apple HomePod mini stand. Saw it from somewhere online.

PS, I noticed the US senate just passed the inflation reduction act: and it claims including some climate change funds (in billions). I think baby step is helpful. But the road to combat the climate and environment (aka save the earth) will be long.

Categories
Business China iPhone app

Alipay wechat Pay

Reading Time: 2 minutesIMG_8760

I was travelling in China for 9, 10 days recently, and I can see those two payments method everywhere. From the small food stall to KFC, one of those two methods are widely accepted, and in many cases cash transactions are very rare. I noticed this trend about 1.5 years ago during my China trip too, at that time I saw some promotions around those new payment methods. This time I saw many promotions too, such as discount to points (reward) system.

Just use my own shopping experience as an example. I purposefully did not get a local mobile phone number this time, which in other words, this disqualified me from using those new payment methods. I did not want the hassle of getting a new mobile phone number, with or without data plan, and then have to give up the number later. Because my trip is really a 9 day trip. I noticed in most “free” or public wifi hotspots, the setup is such that they send a validation code to the mobile phone. For me I can live without because my phone has international data roaming, in other words, I still get to wechat on the go. But I cannot get to those free public wifi hotspots, at a bookstore when I tried to sign up to be their member via wechat, I realized my lack of local phone number is preventing me from doing that, or getting the discount. Same thing in KFC. I did noticed some China Unionpay (flash pay, or its own contactless payment methods, like masterpass or visa checkout, if you will) promotion along with Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, but it’s very obvious they are not in the same magnitude as Alipay or wechat pay. There is news saying that China central bank is regulating Alipay and wechat pay, such as limit the amount of transaction. It will be interesting to observe though, we know Unionpay is very much state owned, while the other 2 are in theory private owned. But all in all, this is a very difficult market for Mastercard and Visa to crack.

Fully disclosure: as of this writing, yours truly works for Mastercard. And this article is just my personal opinion, not my employer’s.

PS, in order to get a local mobile phone number, one usually needs a local identification card. I am not sure how foreigners can get one, via their passport. I assume there is a legal/legit way to get that.

Last but not least, my friend in Ningbo, used Alipay app to rent a car (I assume it’s similar to Uber), to pick me up at Ningbo railway station. He said he even sold his car recently, due to the convenience of car-rent app, public transportation, and the desire to walk/cycle (again bike sharing here, needs a phone and app) more instead of trying to finding a parking spot for his car (and the cost of maintain a car). When we got off the car, the payment is automatic just like Uber.

Categories
China IPO

Ag Bank of China IPO: bull case, bear case

Reading Time: < 1 minuteBusiness week: Summary Box: China’s AgBank IPO nabs $19.2 billion.

Wiki; Official web site of Ag Bank China’s (ABC, 中国农业银行股份有限公司).


(source: ForeignHR)

Bear case
Ag bank of China primarily serves the less-developed regions and people in China: the rural areas, the villages, the farmers and peasants, the agriculture related business. Since the founding of People’s Republic (and Ag bank shortly after), farm produce price has been kept artificially low by the central government (in a way subsidize other industries), and since 1978 the reform of economy, the situation has improved, but the economy gap between rural and urban has increased in last 30 years.

Bull case

Continue reading “Ag Bank of China IPO: bull case, bear case”
Categories
China

That special day

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI felt I have to say a few words about that day. After all, some friends back home have already express that in various means.

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of that day, a lot good things have happened to my home country in last 20 years. The giant US corporations are making money in China, left and right. Chinese company has bailed out the General Motor in a small way yesterday. So everything looks like “ok dokey” again. But we should not forget the history. From psychological point of view, getting over denial is one of the most difficult and important thing. So let me roll back the clock.

Twenty years ago, I was a graduating senior in high school, at the time I was thinking this Culture Revolution thing is deja vu all over again. Things are quite chaotic at that time, esp. in the capital. Then things happened on that evening (morning). As we all went back to classroom, preparing for the Gao Kao (College Entrance Exam, the black July, July 7 to 9), I have one thought: life is the most precious thing in the world, taking innocent life is not right, for whatever excuse one may claim.

Twenty years later, I am sitting here, I think I still have the same thought.