Loving the Moment on the Shanghai Metro

A Night Train Meal

On a recent overnight train from Hong Kong to Shanghai, this was my dinner:

Bought for 25 RMB (about US $4) from a train crew member pushing around a cart filled with dinner trays like this one—the only option available—the meal was pricey compared to similar options available at some convenience store chains. I can't say it was one of my finer culinary experiences in China, but it did help me pass some time.

During the past few weeks I have been in Shanghai, Zhangzhou, Hong Kong, and back in Shanghai. Due to travel, holidays, visitors, a cold, etc. I haven't posted much lately. I have much I want to catch up on, particularly related to my time in Zhangzhou & Hong Kong, so upcoming posts, like the meal above, will include a mix items.

A Day After Tragedy in Shanghai: Crowds and Flowers at the Bund

The dense crowds during the New Year holiday today at the Bund, a riverfront area in Shanghai especially popular with tourists, didn't surprise me . . .

and neither did the number of people taking photos or enjoying the views.

But the crowd surrounding an area where the statue of Chen Yi, a previous Mayor of Shanghai, stands struck me as quite unusual.

Just several days ago, my friend, who was visiting Shanghai with his wife and their two young children, asked about the statue. As typical, not many others nearby appeared to pay attention to it. Yet today, the statue was a clear center of attention—confounding some visitors who made comments in Chinese such as "What's going on here?" and "Chen Yi?".

For me and many others, no explanation was necessary:

Just before midnight, a huge crowd that had gathered for an outdoor New Year’s Eve celebration in this city’s historic riverfront district began to grow unruly. There was pushing and shoving. And then, in an instant, a stampede began that would trample at least 36 people to death and injure dozens more.

“We were just trying to walk up the steps to see the light show, and then people at the top began pushing their way down,” said a 20-year-old man who gave his name only as Xu, while waiting for a friend at the Shanghai No. 1 People’s Hospital. “Then I heard someone scream, and people began to panic. We got crushed.”

The stampede started after 11:35 p.m. on Wednesday near Chen Yi Square. Most of the victims were young revelers who had come to ring in 2015 on the Bund, Shanghai’s iconic waterside promenade.

I first heard about the stampede very early this morning after privately sharing my own New Year's activities with friends online. I considered that if my visiting friends had stayed just one more day in Shanghai or if I had not been invited to a home-cooked Filipino feast, there was a fair chance I would have been at the Bund just hours earlier. For the first time, part of me was glad my friends and their children had left Shanghai.

Although I certainly wasn't expecting such terrible news, I can't say something like this happening in China seemed surprising. Later, I will provide some context for why. For now, I will think of the people who met a horrible fate last night. And I will also think about how other people took turns openly placing flowers, standing in silence, and praying today in front of a statue in China.

Two More Signs of Christmas in Fujian

Posts from two years ago about Christmas in China's Fujian province include "The Christmas Holiday in Putian, China", "Students Selling Christmas Apples in Quanzhou, China", and "A Quanzhou Church and Police on Christmas Eve".

To follow up on the theme, here are two signs of the Christmas spirit I happened to see this year in Zhangzhou, Fujian.

Heineken Christmas Tree in front of Walmart

Christmas promotion at Belle

Sixteen Zhangzhou Street Scenes

If you identified the location of the photos I shared last week as Zhangzhou (漳州), the southernmost prefecture-level city in Fujian province (map), treat yourself to a bowl of Zhangzhou-style duck noodle soup or whatever other Zhangzhou treat you desire. If you didn't, I still recommend trying the soup.

The coastal city borders the far better known (at least in China) city of Xiamen. By high-speed rail it is about 8 hours south of Shanghai and 3.5 hours northeast of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. When I passed through Zhangzhou over a year ago on a long-distance bus, this portion of the high-speed rail line was sadly not yet open.

Similar to what I did earlier this year with Yangjiang's Jiangcheng District in Guangdong province, I will share a set of street scenes from a central urban area in Zhangzhou's Xiangcheng District (芗城区) north of the Jiulong River. Like the Yangjiang post, the photos were all taken within an approximately 10 km² (4 sq mi) area, and I walked to all of the locations. Although they certainly are not representative of Zhangzhou as a whole, which covers an area of 12,888 km² (4,976 sq mi), they offer a brief "everyday" look at a central area in Zhangzhou and provide a bit of context for upcoming posts. And if they raise a few questions, all the better.

Xinhua East Road (新华东路)

Xinhua East Road and Xinhua North Road (新华东路新华北路)

Daxi Lane (打锡巷)

Alley off Xinpu Road (新浦路)

Xiamen Road (厦门路)

Jiulong Avenue (九龙大道)

Jiangbin Road (江滨路)

Xinhua West Road and Zhongfa Road (新华西路钟法路)

Yan'an North Road (延安北路)

Datong Road (大同路)

Datong Road (大同路)

Tengfei Road (腾飞路)

Alley in Jinhu Village (金湖村)

Shengli West Road (胜利西路)

Zhongfa Road (钟法路)

Renshi Road (人师路)

Another Scene From Elsewhere in China

I don't expected it to help in guessing the city (answer coming soon), but here is another scene from a park I recently visited in China.

Best Buy Hasn't Completely Turned Off Its Lights in China

Best Buy opened its first store in China at the end of 2006 not long after it had acquired a majority interest in the Chinese electronics chain Jiangsu Five Star. The store was hard for me to miss as I was living just a block or two (depends on how you count them) away in Shanghai's Xujiahui district.

I visited the store during one of its earliest days and had the opportunity to speak to a manager who had come from the U.S. He said their plan was to use the Xujiahui store as a testing ground and not open others in China until they had it right — even if it meant waiting one to two years. He also explained that the absence of movies for sale, a noticeable difference from their U.S. stores, was due to difficulties in obtaining a license to properly sell DVDs. Given the many nearby small stores selling pirated DVDs without much problem, this seemed a bit ironic. The most striking part of the conversation to me, though, was when he expressed surprise over the numerous visitors that day and portrayed it as a sign of success. I knew, especially in China, crowds didn't necessarily lead to what really mattered for a retail business — sales. If the manager had pondered the area with many cash registers but few customers buying anything, he may have been less enthusiastic.

Not long after my first visit, I decided to buy a mobile phone at the store. I personally found the shopping experience far more positive than what I had found elsewhere. At the time, it was the only store I had seen in Shanghai where I could easily try working models of a variety of phones. After making my decision, I was told they didn't have the color I desired in stock and weren't sure when they would. Sadly, I left the store to try to find the phone elsewhere. Happily, I quickly found it at a nearby store at a lower price.

Although there were promising signs and another seven stores later opened, in 2011 all of the stores were closed, and Best Buy decided to focus on its Five Star chain in China. Adam Minter suggested some potential problems which may have led to the closings such as a desire to focus on service yet failing to maintain its quality. He also wrote about another repeated failing of some Western companies in China:

Best Buy’s management told me, over and over, that “our market studies show Chinese consumers like to try out products,” and that Best Buy’s interactive displays would take advantage of that predilection, put the company over the top in Shanghai. Lo and behold, it was kind of true: Shanghai’s shoppers would go to Best Buy to try out products – and then promptly march across the street to one of the other Chinese retailers and buy them for less [BG: basically, my experience minus the step of actually trying to buy the product at Best Buy] (in stores with much deeper production selection, no less).

In this case, Best Buy listened to research about what customers in China wanted — good — but apparently didn't accurately evaluate the entire purchasing experience & environment — not good.

I also wondered if there might be less transparent reasons for the closings. Sometimes due to not fully appreciating China's legal requirements and conditions, companies set up their business structures in a way that is not conducive to success nor easy to fix. The best, though painful, solution can be to start from scratch again. In this case, Best Buy may have been able to take advantage of its Five Star chain to do something similar.

Whatever the cause, Best Buy's stores had met a fate in China that Europe's largest electronics chain, Media Markt, later met as well. It wasn't the end of the story for Best Buy in China though. It still had Five Star.

But last year there were calls from Wall Street for Best Buy to further pull out of China and sell its Five Star stores. Recently, Best Buy announced it would do just that:

Best Buy is selling Jiangsu Five Star Appliance Co. to Chinese real estate company Zhejiang Jiayuan Real Estate Group Co. for an undisclosed amount, a spokeswoman for Best Buy said Thursday. She said that Best Buy is exiting the China market except for its sourcing operations, and that the sourcing of its private-label products—everything from tablets and cords to televisions—is projected to grow.

Oh, all the memories . . .

There is one thing that oddly enough isn't only a memory now. It has to do with Best Buy's Xujiahui store which appears in the photo at the top of this post. The photo wasn't taken when the store had its soft opening in 2006. It wasn't even taken before the store's closing in 2011. Instead, I took the photo less than one month ago — over 3 years after the store closed. Yes, not only is this large retail space in a prime shopping area still boarded up, it still has a large Best Buy sign. And any night I have passed by since the store's closing the sign has been lit up during "opening hours". Just to be clear, this is not normal behavior for a closed store in China.

The answer . . . I only have guesses. For example, perhaps Best Buy could not get out of the lease for the space. Best Buy may have figured it might as well keep the sign going. Or maybe unseen sections of the store are being used as office space by Best Buy. If true, I would question whether they couldn't do something better with the front entrance (there was another entrance from a parking lot below) than surrounding it with a wall of blue boards.

If you have an answer, I would love to hear it. There may be yet another interesting and valuable lesson to be gained from Best Buy's experience. At least for now, their light still shines in China.

Elsewhere on a Small Mountain in China

I walked up a mountain in a park . . .

took the stairs to the top of a small tower at its peak . . .

and looked at the surrounding urban areas.

As the photos may have already suggested to some readers, I am not in Shanghai. Instead, I am in one of the many prefecture-level cities unheard of by most people outside China despite having a population in the millions.

I have a little more about Shanghai I would like to share before bringing additional attention to my current location. So this is an opportunity to see if any readers can identify the city based on the above photos. In addition to the clues within them, I will provide two more: I came here by high-speed rail and enjoyed a savory local-style oyster omelet for lunch.

Mr. Panda's Inkfish Pizza in Shanghai

If people were told there is a restaurant in Dallas named Mr. Panda and asked what type of food it served, how would they respond? I would guess many Americans would guess "Chinese food", and they'd be correct.

If those same people were told there is a restaurant in Shanghai named Mr. Panda and asked what type of food it served, how would they respond? I am less sure of the response, but I would guess not many would say "pizza". However, "pizza" would indeed be a correct answer for Mr. Panda's seven locations in Shanghai.



Mr. Panda's pizzas are large, 18 inches in diameter, and can be bought whole or by the slice. Like a number of other pizza restaurants in China, some of its pizzas include toppings tailored to local tastes. Unlike a number of other pizza restaurants in China, if offers the "Inkfish Pizza" (the more dramatic Chinese name: 酷炫墨鱼汁披萨).




Yes, it has a black crust with yummy cephalopod ink. Unlike the squid ink breakfast hot dog I saw promoted at a Macanese restaurant in Hong Kong, I decided I had to give it a try. I bought a slice at 18 RMB (slightly less that U.S. $3) and found myself a place in the small seating area at Mr. Panda's location in the SML Center shopping mall.




I looked up for motivation and noticed that none of the people portrayed above me were eating the inkfish pizza.




And then I considered my slice of pizza.



The visual was not exactly inspiring and expectations for the pizza's taste were sinking. Based on some reactions from passersby, I could tell I was not the only one who found the pizza to be a bit unusual.

I might have stared longer, but I didn't want the pizza to get cold. So I took a big bite.

It definitely was not what I expected. I really liked it—as in I came back for another slice when I had a craving a week later. The crust had a very light flavor similar to the squid ink breads sold in some bread shops in China. It blended surprisingly well with the toppings, which included peppers, shrimp, and presumably either dried squid or cuttlefish. I suspect if people were blindfolded while tasting the pizza, many wouldn't notice anything unusual about the crust.

Mr. Panda is not the only restaurant in the world serving a squid ink pizza. But Mr. Panda does serve as an interesting example of how both pizza restaurants and their customers in China are changing. More on that topic later.

China's National Anthem Ban

China has expressed its concern about when and where the national anthem is played:

China has banned the national anthem from being performed at weddings, funerals, commercial and other non-political events, state media reports.

Under new rules, the anthem is to be reserved for major political and diplomatic occasions, as well as places such as sporting arenas and schools.

Performing the anthem in the wrong setting will lead to people being "criticised and corrected". I am not sure how the rules apply if a wedding is held at a sports arena.

I see a bit of irony in China banning only its own national anthem and am reminded of an event in China several years ago which involved another patriotic song:

China's state TV accompanied coverage of the historic launch of the country's first space laboratory with a patriotic US song, America the Beautiful. . . .

Viewers of CCTV were treated to a minute-long animation set to the American song.

I suspect some criticism and correction occurred at CCTV's offices afterwards. Regardless, China has not announced any bans on America the Beautiful—something wedding and funeral planners might want to keep in mind. As CCTV knows, it's a great piece.

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.