A Genuine Microsoft Store in Shanghai

1st floor of Buynow and lower level of Metro City

Recently at the Buynow (百脑汇) electronics shopping center in Shanghai's Metro City mall, I saw a Microsoft store set in two separate locations. I didn't see any reason to assume it was a "fake", and Microsoft's store finder identifies this shopping center as holding one of the 18 stores it currently lists in China. Much of the store space and a nearby promotion focused on the Xbox. There were tables with Surface tablets and Windows Phones as well. Notably, other than the Xbox games, I didn't see any software for sale.

I will refrain from commenting further*. After sharing so much in the past about the many unauthorized Apple stores in China and the Android store in Zhuhai, I just figured I would take advantage of this opportunity to throw in a few Microsoft store scenes for some balance and a small taste of what Microsoft is now doing in China.



*Disclosure: I previously worked as a user experience researcher for Microsoft China.

New York's Staten Island Yankees Make an Appearance in a Shanghai Ad

At the Metro City shopping mall in Shanghai I saw an advertisement for MLB (Major League Baseball) clothing. This didn't surprise me, especially since I had recently seen a MLB store in another Shanghai mall. The advertisement highlighted the Yankees. This also didn't surprise me. I have lately noticed more people in China wearing clothing with the New York Yankees "NY" logo.

But one part of the advertisement did surprise me. Below the familiar New York Yankees logos were the words "Yankees — Staten Island".

Staten Island is one of New York City's five boroughs, but the New York Yankees have a storied history in another borough, The Bronx. A baseball team might move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, but a move from The Bronx to Staten Island was hard to imagine.

Indeed, the New York Yankees remain in The Bronx. However, Staten Island is home to a minor league baseball team — the Staten Island Yankees. Nicknamed the "Baby Bombers", they are an affiliate of the New York Yankees. They don't use the "NY" logo and instead have their own cap logo.

The Staten Island Yankees cap logo (source)

Given the New York Yankees enjoy far greater recognition and the clothes in the advertisement had the "NY" logo, it seems likely that the Staten Island Yankees reference was simply a case of confused identities and may fit into the category "a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous".

Or not so dangerous . . .

Like other similar apparent mistakes I have seen in China, it may not have much effect locally. In other Chinese cities, such as Hengyang in Hunan province, I have spoken with people wearing clothes with the "NY" logo. Often, they said they didn't even know it represented an American baseball team, let alone a team in The Bronx. So the Staten Island reference in this case may not impact many people's perceptions or purchases. More interesting to me than a measure of American baseball knowledge in China, the mistake could be another hint that a seemingly seemingly obvious explanation, interest in the New York Yankees baseball team, does not best account for increasing numbers of people in China wearing Yankees-themed clothing. This touches on some bigger issues which I will return to in the future.

But who knows, perhaps I got part of this wrong, and the Staten Island Yankees have a significant number of fans in Shanghai. Stranger things have happened. Just ask people in New York. In that case, the Baby Bombers sending Scooter the "Holy Cow" to China as a sports ambassador might be a "better-than-dandy" idea.

A Monday Contrast

Yesterday I went from traditional-style scenes being painted on a wall surrounding a demolished neighborhood . . .

. . . to the Sausage Paradise at Jingan Kerry Centre's temporary winter wonderland.

Despite their differences, both scenes capture some of the continued change in Shanghai.

Dance Dance Revolution from Shanghai to 1812

Dance games similar to Dance Dance Revolution are popular in many video arcades I have seen in China. An arcade in the trendy underground D Mall in Shanghai has several. When I took a look today, most were in use, and some had people sitting in a row of chairs waiting to play.

Dancing games aren't my thing, so I didn't jump in. But recently a new online version of Dance Dance Revolution caught my interest.

As described in Classic FM:

Ever wanted to be in the percussion section of an orchestra for the epic final bars of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture? Who wouldn't? All those firing cannons, thundering drums and crashing cymbals are just fantastic. Not to mention the full orchestra and rapturous audience in front of you.

The viral news site Us vs Th3m has created a game that lets you control the greatest percussive cacophony in music history.

I am not convinced the 1812 Overture is the greatest percussive cacophony in music history, but it makes a great choice for the game. Given my musical training, at first I found it odd I wasn't able to achieve a perfect score. The excerpt is not unusually difficult compared to other classical music, and the game allows a far greater degree of rhythmic freedom than most conductors would deem acceptable. After focusing on the music instead of the screen, I realized the visual cues, which aren't the way I am used to reading music, were sometimes causing me to hit the keys more quickly than the actual rhythms. So I tried playing more "by ear". My performance immediately improved, and I found 1812 glory. Perhaps there are some interesting perceptual/cognitive/motor issues to explore.

Whatever the case, you can play "Dance Dance Revolution: 1812 Overture Edition" here. Bonus points if you can explain how it is possible to score higher than the perfect score of 1812*.



* I have scored 1844, and see others have as well, but not sure how. I suspect it involves the series of triplets in the cymbal crashes.

A Street Cleaner and a Temple in China

To quickly touch on two recent themes and cities from the past week, here is a street cleaner in Shanghai taking a break:

And here is another scene at Guanghua Temple in Putian, Fujian province:

For more about street cleaners, there is an account by a Shanghai street cleaner which covers everything from his daily work to his interest in crickets:

I’ve been working for the government as a road sweeper for seven years and I work Monday to Friday, from seven in the morning till around four in the afternoon with a two hour lunch break. I earn 1,580rmb [about US $250 at the time] a month. It’s not too tiring. . . .

I’ve played with crickets since I was a child. I can tell from the sounds they make whether they are green crickets, yellow crickets or purple crickets, how big or small they are, how strong they are. You need to look after them well to make them strong. The back of a strong cricket’s head is oily and shiny, and looks like a ripe water melon. Famous emperors used to play this game.

You need to change what you feed your crickets depending on their age. In the early days, you feed them rice with some medicinal herbs. When they are middle-aged, I make prawn porridge for them, with ant dust. The ant dust is from ants in Guangxi, the big ones. When they are almost ready to fight, I will give them pearl dust or ginseng dust.

For more about Guanghua Temple, Wikipedia has one of the more comprehensive articles which includes details of the temple's recent history:

At the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 the temple had a resident population of 60 monks, a figure which by 1965 had declined to 57. Used as a factory for a period during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the monks were dispelled and all statues of deities smashed.

With opening up and reform during the late 1970s and the advent of religious freedom, Master Yuanchan (圆禅法师) from the Yechengguang Garden Temple (椰城广化寺) in Indonesia together with other overseas Chinese began to support the Guanghua Temple. In 1979, a six-year restoration program began under the supervison of then 70-year-old Venerable Master Yuanzhou (圆拙老法师).

Guanghua Monks

I don't have much time for a post today, so I'll share a scene from a place in Putian, Fujian province, where time seemed to pass differently — Guanghua Temple.

Putian Street Food: Gimbap

In a recent conversation, a person I met from Fujian province commented on the many high-quality fake shoes available in the city of Putian, not very far from her hometown. I don't have much to say about Putian's shoe industry, but it provides me an excuse to share more about the coastal city almost directly west from Taipei across the Taiwan strait. I never got around to several posts I had in mind when I was there two years ago.

So here is a scene including one of Putian's many street food vendors:

Fujian has great local cuisine, but the street food vendor was selling what the sign described as Korean sushi*, otherwise known as gimbap (or kimbap). My impression is that gimbap vendors are most popular with younger people. I have seen similar gimbap vendors in many other Chinese cities as well. Like New Orleans roasted chicken vendors, the gimbap vendors show how China's street food can extend beyond traditional Chinese offerings.



*The sign's "韩国寿司" literally translates as "Korean sushi". My understanding is that "紫菜包饭" would be a more direct Chinese translation for "gimbap".

Yellow Leaves, Leafblowers, and a Street Cleaning Truck

One day after I mentioned the fake indoor fall foliage at a mall in Shanghai, of course there were many leaves on the ground in Shanghai due to strong winds. The outdoor real leaves weren't as colorful though.

I would say most tree leaves in Shanghai are still greenish, but brown leaves on some trees are easy to find. And gingko tree leaves in particular have taken on a yellow hue.

Yanzhong Green Space (Square Park)

More leaves have fallen during the past week or so, which in turn leads to a desire in some to remove the leaves or encourage them to rest elsewhere. This past weekend I saw someone struck by this urge (or perhaps paid by someone else struck by this urge) using a piece of technology which made me think of James Fallows. His feelings regarding leafblowers are in part captured with a label he used to categorize a few posts about them: "Leafblower Menace".

So I sent him a photo of a leafblower in action on Changping Road in Shanghai. I also sent him photos of people I saw later that afternoon on the same road using more traditional and quieter leaf clearing methods. You can see the photos and few thoughts about them in his new post "China Catches Up".

The people in the photos were primarily concerned about cleaning the sidewalk when I saw them. But, yet again on Changping Road, yesterday I saw technology specifically designed for cleaning the street.

Fortunately for me, no water sprayed out.

The slogan on the side of the street cleaning truck suggests to me that at least some people believe the truck represents progress for Shanghai's Jing'an district. And I have seen far many more street cleaning trucks than leafblowers in China.

Perhaps it is a positive sign I haven't seen any leafblowers with similar slogans.

European Union Wants More "Effective and Complete" Censorship for the "Right to be Forgotten"

Several months ago in a deep look at the European Union's online "right to be forgotten", Jeffrey Toobin described what put it into place:

In 1998, a Spanish newspaper called La Vanguardia published two small notices stating that certain property owned by a lawyer named Mario Costeja González was going to be auctioned to pay off his debts. Costeja cleared up the financial difficulties, but the newspaper records continued to surface whenever anyone Googled his name. In 2010, Costeja went to Spanish authorities to demand that the newspaper remove the items from its Web site and that Google remove the links from searches for his name. The Spanish Data Protection Agency, which is the local representative of a Continent-wide network of computer-privacy regulators, denied the claim against La Vanguardia but granted the claim against Google. This spring, the European Court of Justice, which operates as a kind of Supreme Court for the twenty-eight members of the European Union, affirmed the Spanish agency’s decisions. La Vanguardia could leave the Costeja items up on its Web site, but Google was prohibited from linking to them on any searches relating to Costeja’s name. The Court went on to say, in a broadly worded directive, that all individuals in the countries within its jurisdiction had the right to prohibit Google from linking to items that were “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed.”

As a recent press release clarifies, the ruling doesn't require the complete removal of applicable links:

The judgment expressly states that the right only affects the results obtained from searches made on the basis of a person’s name and does not require deletion of the link from the indexes of the search engine altogether. That is, the original information will still be accessible using other search terms, or by direct access to the source.

Google has since complied by censoring search results on a case by case basis only on its relevant European websites, such as Google.de for Germany. The "localization" of the censorship is similar to how Google once censored, and Bing continues to censor, search results for China — censorship specific to China's regulations only occurred/occurs on their China-based services. There would be an incredible outcry in places such as the U.S. and Europe had China insisted on their censorship rules applying elsewhere.

However, this is essentially what the E.U. now expects in regards to its "right to be forgotten". Mike Masnik sums up a key aspect of the new guidelines:

Specifically, it argues that if a person's privacy rights are violated by having results show up in search engines in Europe, then those same rights are violated if they show up in any non-EU search results as well (all emphasis in the original):

The [data protection working group] considers that in order to give full effect to the data subject’s rights as defined in the Court’s ruling, de-listing decisions must be implemented in such a way that they guarantee the effective and complete protection of data subjects’ rights and that EU law cannot be circumvented. In that sense, limiting de-listing to EU domains on the grounds that users tend to access search engines via their national domains cannot be considered a sufficient means to satisfactorily guarantee the rights of data subjects according to the ruling. In practice, this means that in any case de-listing should also be effective on all relevant .com domains.

Under EU law, everyone has a right to data protection.

The key line here is not actually bolded in the original. It's the "this means that in any case de-listing should also be effective on all relevant .com domains." Basically, if it can be reached from Europe, it has to be blocked. Or, in even shorter form, "EU regulations apply around the globe online."

Even if Google could address the E.U.'s concern by limiting E.U. users to local versions of Google or by censoring across all domains only for requests coming from the EU, either of these methods would likely be easily circumventable through use of a VPN, similar to how VPNs are used in China to access blocked websites. So, even though .com domains are specifically mentioned, it's hard to see how Masnik's summary for the guidelines, "E.U. regulations apply around the globe online", isn't accurate in the end since the search service providers are expected to guarantee "effective and complete protection".

In general, the related issues I've been pondering fall into two categories: 1) the merits and practicality of the "right to be forgotten" and 2) the E.U.'s apparent attempt to unilaterally apply it globally. I will have more to say about both later and will end this post with a question related to China which feels somewhat surreal to even have to ask.

Is it simply a matter of time until the E.U. demands a Chinese online search service accessible in Europe, such as Baidu, selectively "forget" something?

In other words, could the E.U. cause even more censorship in China?

Two Green Shanghai Scenes

Several days ago in Shanghai's central Yanzhong Green Space (Square Park):



Over a month ago on a wetter day in Fuxing Park:

Similarities of a Polluted Beijing and a Slowed Google

Yesterday, I saw Bill Bishop's photo of Beijing:

Can you find the 330m tall skyscraper 2 blocks away? The view from my beijing apartment now pic.twitter.com/lqRfdzBGCS
— Bill Bishop (@niubi) November 29, 2014

Unsurprisingly, at the same time Beijing's air was reported as "hazardous".

Also at the same time, although my internet connection speed was good for regular access to China-based websites, it was extremely slow through the VPN I use to access blocked websites such as Twitter and Google. Here is what Google looked like for at least a minute when I tried to search for images of Beijing:

In this case, the grey placeholders for yet-to-load images seemed especially fitting. They didn't look very different from Bishop's photo or others of Beijing in heavy smog. Pollution blocking light makes one type of image common. Censorship blocking information helps make the other common for me. The visual similarity may be a coincidence, but once again there was a bit of harmony involving China's air.

Eyes Open Wide for Taobao's Sale

At several Shanghai metro stations yesterday, I saw the following ads for an "incredible" sale at select stores on Taobao.com:

I thought the people's expressions in the ads were incredible as well. Taobao's sale will presumably do well if its customers are similarly excited.