TripDingo

A lot of foreigners who first arrive in Shanghai are immediately put off by the seeming chaos that are the public roads. Not only are there hordes of people everywhere, there are tons of bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, trucks, busses, what have you.  The sheer multitude isn’t what really gets their goat, though, because it isn’t like the bumper-to-bumper gridlock “nightmare” back home during, perhaps, rush hour commutes. It’s the rampant disregard for what they believe to be obvious traffic rules and laws. To be certain, there is traffic law in China, a plethora of rules that dictate where, when, and how one can drive. Drivers are supposed to yield the right of way when fleshy pedestrians are crossing the streets. Cars are supposed to drive within their lane, not cross into oncoming traffic, and refrain from honking at everything in sight. Those involved in an accident should pull over to the side and not impede traffic. Etc. Etc. Etc.

There are rules.

It’s just that most people don’t really give a damn because…well…no one else does. To a degree, it is a vicious cycle, and to a further degree, we can be certain that improvements will occur as China develops. Old habits, as usual, are simply difficult to change, especially when there are enough people for one to hide their violations in. Can you imagine honking at a police officer to get out of your way? Probably not, right? That’d be paramount to asking for trouble.

In China, I’ve seen it multiple times.

Why? It is hard to say and the reasons are many. In a way, the officers may be too lazy to really do anything about it, especially if they’re actually senselessly holding up traffic (which they often do), and other times, there’s just not much fear of the law.

It is, then, no small wonder that many foreigners have a certain amount of paranoia when it comes to walking around on the streets or riding in taxis. With all this madness, there must be many poor chaps who get injured or bite the dust each day!

But for all the frightening hustle and bustle of the city proper, the outskirts and countrysides are far worse. There are less crosswalks but just as many people, and all of them want to cross the street at random unmarked points and at the most random–if not inopportune–times. Mopeders (uh, what’s the word for someone who rides a moped?) and bicyclists don’t give a rat’s ass if they’re holding up traffic in the middle of the road, blind as they are to flashing high beams, deaf as they are to honking horns. Motorists slalom through the fearless pedestrians and it is pure anarchy and aggravation.

For example, if you have two lanes going one direction, you’d expect that traffic could flow on both lanes, right? Not if one of the lanes is blocked by people, bicycles, or mopeds all waiting for a hole in the now single-file car traffic to rush through to the other side like illegal immigrants at the United States-Mexican border.

To a large extent, the pedestrians in cities have learned to fear the cars and usually yield right-of-way to motorists and taxi drivers who don’t really think twice about taking it anyway. They might get a bit indignant if they’re hit by a bumper or a car creeps just a wee bit too close but none of them have the sheer smug, oblivious, indifference of non-motorist street-wanderers I’ve seen in the outskirts of how their selfish idiocy is generally making everything worse. To them, and to many people in China, all that matters is achieving one’s own objective at the earliest moment possible without any big picture consideration for how many kittens are dying because of their inability or unwillingness to, you know, be a good member of “a harmonious society.”

What I wouldn’t give to be able to just mow down some of these bastards. It would be incredibly satisfying to just hit someone, whether pedestrian or motorist, whenever they did something patently stupid and just laugh at them when they complain. I guess that’d only work if you didn’t really care about your car…and if your car could withstand all the damage…and if there was no law to fear…

 …yeah.

Merry Christmas to one and all! Cheers! Just 7 more days until the New Year! Better start preparing those resolutions!

Now this is interesting. As TechCrunch describes it, ShangBy.com is an internet startup company that ghetto-rigs meshes several different business ideas into one, ostensibly with enough success to get it featured by Racheal Ray on her cooking show (which none of you Chinese readers will likely be familiar with).

First, there’s the bargain or comparison shopping component, tied to the popular notion that purchasing from the “source” where something is “made” in some far-off place in the “Orient”  is probably cheaper.  Second, there’s the traditional home shopping compoent. Couch potatoes, with nothing better to do and too lazy to even window-shop with their own two feet, once sat in front of the television staring at the mind-numbing, spirit-crushing constant stream of products waiting for something to entice them to pick up the phone and credit card. Third, it has the fancy glamour of cutting-edge internet streaming…which basically means you get to watch all of this nonsense over your computer instead of the old boob tube.

There’s more in this mashup but, suffice to say, the people behind ShangBy are profiting from the price differences between countries. This is what any logical import/export trade company or wholesaler would do except ShangBy is simply using the internet to directly reach consumers rather than reselling to some other U.S. retailer who would inevitably tack on more margin.

What is funny is how utterly predictable it was that this business idea was born out of an observant foreign tourist cum entreprenuer who noticed how many of their fellow foreigner tourists just love buying shit in China because its relatively cheaper here than back home. It is also mildly amusing that ShangBy is a silly concoction of Shanghai, By Shanghai, Shanghai Buy, etc. 

What isn’t funny is that the vast majority of the goods singled out for sale is the same bullshit knick-knackery that the locals here love foisting upon unsuspecting, ignorant foreigners and tourists. Granted, the prices are often cheaper than the same crap back home but they’re still also often significantly more expensive than what the locals pay. Therein lies some of the most ridiculous profit margins in the history of mankind. 

Silk boxers from Shanghai for US$12.00? Sounds fantastic right? That’s about 87 RMB. If you’re here, you can probably get it for 12 RMB, or US$1.65. Yes, buying from ShangBy means you don’t have to spend money on flying to China, but the value proposition of ShangBy is still largely for suckers. As a foreigner and at the very least, you can now feel better that you got ripped off by “your own kind” instead of “those uncivilized, greedy, sneaky Chinese.” Though, its better and more profitable for everyone involved if you, the consumer, just remained ignorant of this.

ShangBy still has tons of other “foreigner-approved” products they could induct into their business model and sell to you. I’m waiting for the watches, pens, and DVDs. Oh man, foreigners just can’t get enough of the 5 RMB DVDs (except they often pay more than 5 RMB). But I guess that wouldn’t fit into their promise of “quality merchandise” and “authenticity.”

To be fair, ShangBy offers you the chance to “bargain” the prices down during their Live Video Broadcast. Unfortunately, without stepping foot in China, the foreign customer has that much less awareness of what the actual value and prices are for these goods in China. It is typical for a foreigner to get quoted a much higher starting price than those quoted to locals. Foreigners who are aware of bargaining also typically counter-offer with a price that is still far too high. Many foreigners think 50% off is already “asking too much” whereas I instantly tell them to think in terms of 5-10% of the starting price they get.  

To be nice, I’ve also gone ahead and given them a bunch of free links which should help them just a wee bit in the search results.

So I’m riding in the backseat of a taxi on my way towards Xin Tian Di. The driver has the radio turned up loud, probably because I’m not much of a talker when it comes to riding in taxis (unless I happen to be drunk and seriously that bored). The radio talk show has the host speaking with what we can only assume to be some sort of expert or authority on the Shanghai real estate market. Blah blah blah, they’re talking about how the prices have gone up, in which districts, and how the rising prices of new properties are also bringing up the prices of “second-hand” properties. 

All of a sudden, the guest speaker catches my attention by making a reference to the United States:

“Here in America, it’s all black people in the cities but Shanghai is different because its usually the more affluent people people in the cities.”

Well…yes, that’s a reasonably accurate observation about the differenes between the dominance of suburban housing in the United States (white flight and all) and high-density, low-mobility living conditions in China. And if you’re Chinese, you wouldn’t even think twice about what the man just said. However, when you’re as ingrained with being politically correct as I am from the West, you can’t help but chuckle at just how casually this gentleman threw out such a generalization. Again, its reasonably accurate in capturing the difference between the inner-city ghettos of the States compared to the undeveloped poverty of rural China but damn, “it’s all black people?”

I mean, what about all the Mexicans?

A city like Shanghai certainly has no shortage of laundromats night clubs and bars. In fact, it can be said that Shanghai is incredibly boring once you’ve done your fair share of shopping and partying. After all, the novelty and excitement eventually wears off and the repeated late-nights and ensuing hangovers start wearing the body down.

Even so, it is still somewhat amusing to see how the various establishments of the night wax and wane over time. Which ones have been around the longest? The shortest? Which are the most popular? Which one is the cheapest? Which one has the best music? Which one has the best crowd? Etc. etc. etc. This is the wonderous trivia of the decadent, trendy, nocturnal socialite.

As I walked down from People’s Square, crossing Huai Hai Zhong Lu, on my way towards Xin Tian Di, I suddenly noticed that Judy Q is now known as Moment’s. That, in of itself, is largely unimportant to me though ever indicative of how one failed business is reborn as another. What amused me were the memories of what occupied that space before Judy’s Q: Club Pegasus.

Now, it’s hard to say whether anyone reading this is going to recall Pegasus because its heyday was most assuredly quite a few years ago. I’d venture to guess in 2004-2005, with 2006 definitely being a downward spiral before it became Judy Q in 2007.

Now, I fully subscribe to the notion that just about any place can play host to a rollicking good time as long as you have the right friends or people around you so I certainly had at least one great night at Pegasus back in early 2006. Oh, sure, the venue wasn’t particularly new, large, clean, grand, or whatnot but there were plenty of people, decent-enough music, a pool table, and a Street Fighter arcade machine!

Though that first experience was quite satisfactory, I will always remember Pegasus for my final experience there.

A group of friends and I paid the hefty cover charge and climbed up the stairs only to be greeted with a far smaller crowd than what we remembered it for. As we got ourselves situated and surveyed the landscape, a little portly white kid, who couldn’t have been more than 12-14 years old, sporting a jersey that protruded over his little belly pimp-limped past me with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. To top it all off, he had this massive bling chain around his neck. He was trying so hard to be or look hardcore, I was absolutely dumbfounded. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or immediately bitch-slap the little fucker upside the head.

The rest of the scene wasn’t much better. It soon became painfully obvious that we were probably at least 5-10 years older than the average age of the patrons that night, bewildering us as it confirmed several rumors we’d heard about Pegasus being known by that time for attracting the underage crowd.

So what do you do when you’re entirely on a different level in a different age group? Well, given that we’d already paid the ticket price for entry that included all-you-can-drink until something like 2am, we were quite hesitant to just throw it all away. So, in that situation, you do the only you can do: you resolve to get drunk in hopes that the pain will somehow go away.

“This is fucking ridiculous. I need a drink. Now.”

So there we were, hovering around the bar trying to drink our money’s worth double-time as little munchkins strutted amongst us. Even the arcade machine (which now featured Pacman, as if it were taunting us by harkening back to an even older age) could not save us from our bewildered misery.

“So, what brings you to Shanghai?”
“I’m studying here.”
“Oh, really? What year are you?”
“Sophmore.”
“Cool, what school do you go to?”
“Shanghai American School.”

And since SAS is a kindergarten to grade 12 school, that would be 14-15 years old fantastic.

And then it began…

A ring of people, no doubt with cracking voices and two mighty strands of pubic hair to rule them all to share amongst them all, formed on the dance floor. Like witnessing a train wreck, we edged away from the sanctuary of the bar to see what was going on.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

It was a dance-off…”You Got Served” style.

Like this, but with less puberty, dance skills, and black people.

Little pimps and pimpettes, battling for street-cred supremacy, took turns in the human arena to bust their best dance moves. The little flat-chested hoochies shook their ass and did their best to look seductively uninterested in their male counterpart who, in turn of course, played cocksure of how large their gonads must be.

To be there and witness such a travesty was quite possibly one of the lowest points of my life. It will stain me forever, quite possibly disqualifying me from any salvation by any god just by mere association.

Moment’s looks nice in the pictures, being that its all redecorated and stuff. But, whatever its format, I doubt it’ll survive for long in the highly competitive and sometimes mysterious nightlife market that is Shanghai.

Okay, no, Chinese people are not smaller. Oh sure, they can be, but I’ve seen some really big ass Chinese people before (usually from the North, where people are usually physically larger…like Germanic barbarians…I think…). But this post is about shots…alcohol shots, those beautiful little glasses full of delicious poison nectar we throw back to get our nights started or each other absolutely plastered.

But the question here is: what is “full?”

So what size is a shot anyway? Or, to be more specific, how much liquid should a shot contain? A quick search says 1 to 1.5 ounces (so says the pinnacle of knowledge that is Yahoo Answers, that is). Does everyone agree? That should bring the liquid level fairly close to the rim of the shot glass, right?

Yeah, I think so too.

So, as you can imagine, I was fairly amused upon walking into a group of young Chinese adults celebrating a birthday and toasting each other with whiskey shots…except the shot glasses were only about 1/3 to 1/2 filled. Oh sure, straight whiskey is reasonably strong (more so than the Lemon Drop or whatever one would emasculate the guys with)…but it just isn’t a shot if it isn’t filled up. It was like splashing some cologne on your tongue.

Of course, on behalf of all those who have had real shots, I had to comment.

…and everyone ignored me.

…and I just shut my yap and sat myself down. 

Now, to be fair, they did seem to slam those little droplets of whiskey (however tragic they appeared in their vastly empty vessels) back at a decent clip, especially when dice games are involved and penalties are awarded about once a minute.

That said, I’d like to take the time to make a public service announcement here: Chinese people are not light-weights when it comes to drinking. Yes, society likes to think that getting flush in the face equates to being a teetotaler but that’s really not true. Furthermore, I’m not certain Chinese (or Asians in general) get red in the face more than any other race anyway so let’s just throw all of that nonsense out. Fact is, if you haven’t had some hardcore Chinese liquor (baijiu) that often comes in toxicity levels ranging from 30-60 proof on average, you don’t know shit about how much fucking hair is on the Chinese chest when it comes to drinking.

Moreover, if you think buying a plastic jug of vodka on the bottom shelf at your local supermarket is risking blindness taking a walk on the wild side, then you haven’t tried bottom shelf Chinese baijiu. I once bought a small bottle of baijiu that cost something like 12.9 RMB (US$1.75) and that shit is straight rat poison. I’m not fucking kidding. Yes, alcohol burns through paper cups or even waxed paper cups (especially cheap Chinese waxed paper cups) but this stuff burned through as we poured.

Never have I so utterly feared losing at drinking games as I did that night. It was not fun.

In what may equate to hobos with paper-bagged whiskey bottles, I see plenty of lower class Chinese people buying swigging on these little bottles of disaster as if it were nothing. Oh sure, it’s usually the rugged manly men as I’ve never seen the gals take these on but still, Western guys need to stop thinking the Asians are all a bunch of pussies when it comes to inebriating oneself because they can definitely hold their own. Hell, they have champions.

Wagas is a very nice cafe chain in Shanghai. The fact that its a chain would support that it is, well, nice. A friend and I were lounging in Wagas this afternoon after finishing our lunch dinner lunner discussing the finer intricacies of life such as the sheer inanity of what strikes us as hilarious and how one could justify the purchase an expensive (but nifty) gadget if one could only sacrifice a few nights out drinking in Shanghai (which is just as expensive).

We begin talking about why Wagas makes us happy and what makes it successful. My friend, ever impressed with and a consistent patron of Wagas, then suggests that opening a Wagas back home (in the UK) would probably do really well. I disagreed. You see, Wagas is really nice…but it’s only “really nice” relative to the more ubiqutous local options that are, as you can surmise, usually “not as nice.” 

That wouldn’t be the case were you to transplant Wagas back to the “more developed” West. Wagas fills a certain niche market in Shanghai: Expats. Wagas provides something they need and came at a time where there wasn’t any competition for that market. Hell, Wagas is particularly a haven for foreigners disinclined to adapt or integrate into China as it is. Wagas provides its niche market (and more international-minded and affluent Chinese who want to be more like that niche market) something familiar as they survive in a city and country that is still very different from what they likely took for granted.

The success it enjoys is a product of it is particular circumstances and I highly doubt it would be as successful or as well-known were the brand and formula to be applied “back home in the West.” There, Wagas would be run-of-the-mill. It would blend into the norm and dismissed as nice but “just another cafe.” Wagas’ success wholly depends on being different and unique within China that it so freshly sticks out to the foreigner who is tired or fearful of the endless dirty, dingy, crowded, noisy, uncomfortable Chinese eateries complete with service from someone who often appears to be completely uninterested in being there to serve you.

Wagas is not revolutionary. It merely found a need and filled it with a pre-existing solution before others did it. No doubt, continuing management and development play a big role in its continued growth and success, but there is nothing inherently magical or special about the Wagas fomula that would guarantee its success wherever one decided to plant one. 

Many people looking for business ideas in foreign lands to bring back home often fail to see the bigger picture. We cannot judge an opportunity on the merits of the idea or business itself or how seemingly successful it is where we found it. We must evaluate the context, the environment, and the circumstances in which it is found to be viable or successful in to determine the requisites for a chance of success. I love Wagas and I love their profit margins even more…but I know it wouldn’t be a smash hit in the developed West. Why again? Because there are tons of Wagas, just by different names.

Wagas was a great idea for Shanghai at a great time. There are plenty of expats here and increasing internationalization that results in wonderful cultural cross-pollination. It is small wonder that Wagas earned its place as a beloved mainstay for expats and foreigners here for the long-haul, just like other trendy “Western” chains such as Element Fresh or Zentral (which, interestingly, is opening a restaurant in Luxembourg). 

But to replicate its success, we shouldn’t be thinking of importing it back to the West. Why? It wouldn’t be a unique concept, the costs are that much higher, your target customers have infinitely more alternatives, and your prices wouldn’t have the cachet of being exorbitantly more expensive (and thus more aspirational) than the cart and cook that could blaze up some fried rice or noodles that would also fill you up but for a price that is 10x cheaper.

When in China in search of great business ideas to bring back to the West, avoid trying to bring back a Western idea, regardless of how impressed you are. How impressed you are is often proportionally related to how long you’ve been in China and how often you’ve been disappointed by the native offerings, so much so that a place like Wagas makes you glow with unbridled joy. A good business idea begins with identifying a problem of unmet needs, not being dazzled by a shiny potential solution.

Foreigners tend to fall into two categories when it comes to their preconceived notions of China. On one end, they think China is still some horrid backwards country mired in oppressive totalitarian communism. On the other end, you have those who see a picture of Shanghai’s Pudong skyline and marvel at how fantastically modern China has suddenly–and magically–become.

The former comes to China and pretty much sees everything as a confirmation of their prejudices. They usually cannot help but feel profoundly superior to the locals and natives of China. The men, at most, might help themselves to the many pretty young things as their wallets overflow from an advantageous exchange rate. The women, however threatened they feel by a nation full of women several sizes smaller and oh-so-exotic, console themselves with their false prudish civility.

The latter comes to China and is almost instantly disappointed by how right the former was. “Dear God,” they say to themselves, as they witness migrant workers beneath the gleaming steel and glass skyscrapers hock a fat chunk of phlegm onto the sidewalk. They watch the mob rush to get on the subway before letting anyone in the subway get out first and are appalled by the lack of logic or common decency. They line up at McDonald’s only to be utterly disgusted when a local cuts right in front of them and places an order with no regard whatsoever to those waiting.

If you’re lucky, these foreigners will have the decency to be politically correct and try to offer some positives to their experience. If you’re not, then you just have to put up with their douchebaggery until you can offload them.

Yet, do the foreigners really have the wrong perceptions of China?

To some degree, we can blame some for sheer utter ignorance. The former group, those who persist in thinking China is some third-world country totally devoid of any freedoms, opportunities, or smiles certainly qualifies as simply being uninformed to the point of idiocy. The latter, we can blame them for being so barren of any historical context that they’re foolish children for buying into propogandic postcard imagery. 

But, the interesting thing about China is that it lives up to both conceptions. It is both incredibly modern…and incredibly not. It is a place where technology has outstripped society. You have five star hotels and high-speed magnetic levitation trains but you also have rampant littering and the lack of service culture. China can look good from afar, as a whole, but don’t look too close. Admire the economic growth, the advancements in technology, or the shiny new buildings…but don’t look too close. If you do, you’ll see the disparate growth, the pirated technology, and the poor quality of contractors who cut corners and construction workers who only understand “good enough” and not “just right.”

China is not a country of abject poverty and repressed citizenry. Nor is China a land where the exotic, mystical past meet a cutting-edge modernity. 

China is a place of change and contrasts. Both good and bad. For better and for worse.