Maunderings for October 20, 2013

The World is Out to Get You!

Well, apparently breathing China's air isn't as bad as we thought... At least compared to many places in the Middle East. The World Health Organization released their latest research on outdoor air pollution recently and Quartz was nice enough to break it down into a nice chart. The worst Chinese offender doesn't even come close to breaking into the top ten worldwide. Not that it can't get bad in China, but at least they aren't blaming it on the U.S., like a certain four letter country seems to be. I guess that what happens when your entire economy is based on pumping oil out of the ground.

And if you're lucky enough to survive the air pollution, it's your vitamins that are going to kill you. The BBC reports on overuse of dietary supplements this week, and I tend to agree that taking a ton of something that you are not sure what it does can't be good in the long term. Especially given all the new research into the microbiom, aka: our elusive gut bacteria.

Also on the Beeb, and reiterating something I blogged previously, you really don't need to drink more water than you feel like you need. Australian researchers recently proved it. If you live in a temperate climate, you probably need six to eight cups of liquid a day, but that can come in the form of food, coffee, beer, or (gasp!) tap water. If you're thirsty, have a drink, but don't force it on yourself.

Today's moral is pretty basic: Don't believe the marketing hype; your body is amazing and can usually take care of itself as long as you listen to it. As long as you don't live in Iran.

Don't let baijiu happen in America!

...Actually, do let it happen.  The resulting debauchery could be really entertaining.

Baijiu (pronounced 'bye-jyoh') is China's national drink and also the most popular liquor in the world, with sales over double that of the next most popular, vodka.

I've not drank very much baijiu during my year in China, which I see as a personal victory.  But I have (1) drank baijiu from a bottle that had a scorpion in it and (2) drank baijiu on the Great Wall of China, north of Beijing.  And I've never drank it to excess, which, since it can be up to 130 proof and not exactly free of contaminants, means I've only had a couple of shots at a time.

Yes, I said shots, because that's how you drink baijiu in China.  You yell "ganbei" and everyone at the table finishes their glass.  And you do it over, and over, and over...  The actual Chinese men's drinking and toasting culture is a little deeper and more complex than that, but since I don't speak much Chinese and don't go to many banquets, that's my interpretation.  Also, you can't really sip something that is 65% alcohol, even if it is tropical flavored.  Just holding it up to your face starts to burn the hair off the inside of your nose.

All that to get to the point, described in this article from Yahoo! Finance, that a few geniuses have decided that sorghum liquor needs to come to the American side of the world.  While I'm all about choice and the freedom to drink what you wish, I don't think that their reasoning passes muster.

"Sake has become ubiquitous with Japanese dining and tequila with Mexican," Dor said. "Chinese cuisine has never had this natural complement. We see a great opportunity to change this."

Anyone who has eaten Chinese food in China knows that cheap, cheap pijiu (beer) is the correct pairing for Chinese food.  Especially anything from northern or western China that has lots of "ma-la" spice to it.  Mmm... Hot Pot...  I'm making myself hungry here and I just finished breakfast!

Anyways, if you happen to see some baijiu on the shelf at your local liquor shop, you probably want to steer clear.  Especially for $30 or more.

Maunderings for June 19, 2013

I've unintentionally taken a little while off of updating (again) while I spend some time at home in Colorado.  It's really nice to be back breathing the thin, dry, clean air and drinking good, fresh beer.  Drinking seems to be a theme today...

Even though China is a huge country and the wealthy seem to be obsessed with high end whiskey, 99.5% of all hard liquor consumed in China is baijiu.  So when the Economist graphed the top ten consumers of real spirits (vodka, rum, Scotch whiskey, gin, tequila), China doesn't even rank.  Unsurprisingly, Russians drink the most of anyone by a large margin.  What did surprise me was that the French drink ten times more Scotch per person than Americans (but non-Scotch whiskey wasn't mentioned, so that could have something to do with it) and that Filipinos drink nearly five times more gin than us.  Since gin and Scotch are my liquors of choice, I'm trying to bring our average more in line with global standards, and I encourage you to do your part.  ;)

This article about the worst charities in the U.S. will make you both want to drink and not feel bad about spending money on booze instead of donating it to these scams than donate less than 1% of their proceeds to their supposed beneficiaries.

This could either make you want to drink more or make you feel a little better about your situation. In China, graduates from Chinese universities are four times more likely to be unemployed than those with only an elementary school education. At least it's not just American college graduates who think that they're entitled to a better job than they are qualified for:

Jason Zhang, the recruiter who has years of experience hiring people, rolls his eyes at this type of candidate. "Chinese college graduates these days think they’re really special," he says with a smile. "The problem is -- they’re the only ones who think that." 

Zhang says Wang and many others in China’s class of 2013 will go all summer thinking they’ve got lots of options, and will probably end up unemployed.

Aaand, I forgot to hit "post" a few days ago, so here's bonus drinking related update, just for good measure. According to Telegraph in the UK, via Gothamist, the world's gin supply is in dire straights because of a fungus that is attacking juniper berries, the pungent herb that gives gin its gin-ness.  I regard this as a real emergency, but I am also surprised that there's no synthetic alternative available for desperate times like these.  But, necessity is the mother of invention, so maybe Britain will start to be innovative again and there will be.  In the meantime, enjoy your gin while you can, people!

Maunderings for May 21, 2013

This is a little behind the times, but apparently Jon Stewart is has recently become big in China. ...And not just because he's tall. (Couldn't resist, sorry.) The New Yorker wrote up an interesting little piece, and you should probably watch the video clip they link to in the second (and 6th) line. Also, Jon Stewart is called Jiong Situ, a.k.a. 囧司徒 in Chinese. I like the Jiong character - 囧.

Even though you've probably been working out like a MoFo for a while now, it only takes about a week to loose your new-found cardiovascular adaptations.  Luckily, a couple of intense max-interval workouts a week will at least help the maintenance.  

In more recent, but basically worthless news, foreign fashion models who want to work in the U.S. are in the same skilled worker category as actual skilled workers.  Since the overall cap is so low, that's causing some grief for the less beautiful I.T. workers, even though only 250 of the 65,000 H-1B visas went to models.  There was legislation introduced in 2008 to reclassify the models out of the H-1B pool, sponsored by Anthony Weiner (insert lewd joke here), but it never made it to the floor.  

Kaffestugan - Definitely a Cheng-Do!

Since I've been in Chengdu, China, I've been trying to collect a few dos and don'ts that I want to remember and/or share.  I call them Cheng-Dos and Cheng-Don'ts.

Kaffestugan is definitely a Cheng-Do.  

Located on the First Ring Road, a bit east of North Kehua Road, Kaffestugan is a Swedish cafe transplanted into Chengdu.  Owned by a Swedish / Korean couple, they serve excellent pour-over coffee (excellent by American coffee standards, not just Chinese); along with snacks, brunch and lunch items, and a good selection of liquor.  The prices are very reasonable, and even though the cafe is located on the second floor of a strip mall, the interior is inviting enough to spend the afternoon barely noticing that you're in China.

I was unable to find their location on Google Maps, but fortunately they are right next to a dental clinic (called Huashan Oral Cavity in English) that is listed.  Click here for a map.


Address: 2F KaiYueXinCheng, No. 9 First Ring Road, South, First Section (opposite Hong Wa Si)
Chengdu 610021, Sichuan, China

邮编: 610021
中国四川省成都市一环路南一段9号凯悦新城2楼

Telephone: +86 (028) 8544 3365
Email: kaffestuganinchengdu [at] gmail.com
Web: www.kaffestugan.com

Shanghai Optical Market - Get Some Cheap Glasses!

I've been wearing prescription eyeglasses for about half of my life now, and while I've always taken good care of them and only broken one pair (when I was 16), I am always super paranoid about losing or damaging them because they are so dang expensive to replace!

A few months ago I gave Warby Parker's online glasses shop a try with great success.  Instead of spending $200 to $400 dollars out of my pocket to get a nice set of frames with good lenses, I spent $95 and even got to try on five pairs at home through the mail.  The glasses are high quality, the experience great, and I would recommend it to anyone needing new or additional pairs of glasses.

Great glasses for under $100 is nothing to shake a stick at, but if you want sunglasses, have a really strong prescription, or want some higher-end frames, you're going to pay a little more, possibly eating into the "deal" aspect of online optical shopping.

But if you happen to be in Asia, you can do much better than $100 by visiting an optical market, like the 3 Yeh optical market (三叶眼镜城) in Shanghai!

"Markets" seem to be a big thing in many Asian cities.  They're basically low-rise warehouses filled with small shops all selling basically the same thing and yelling at you to buy it from them.  There are all kinds - flowers, birds, fish, clothes, electronics, eyeglasses, etc.  And since most of the stuff that we pay way too much for in the U.S. is made in China, you can get some screamin' deals if you can handle the stress.  The fact that intellectual property laws aren't really observed here probably helps, too.

Getting to the 3 Yeh market is easy by metro.  Head for the Shanghai Railway Station metro stop, go out Exit 4 [update: only if you came in on Line 1 - see below], and you're right there.  (The market is on the south side of the railway station.  Don't go out the north side, you'll never find your way from there; I've tried!)  Go through the big doors, head up the escalator, and prepare to be mobbed by hundreds of Chinese ladies trying to tell you that they have the best deals.  It helps if you have a Chinese speaker in your group, but most everyone seems to be willing to work with you by typing their asking price into a calculator for you to see.  Check out CNN Travel's write up here.

[Link to the map]

The rules of bargaining apply here just as much as elsewhere.  You should easily be able to get at least 1/3 off of their asking price if your prescription isn't too bad (i.e.: if they ask 300RMB, offer 200RMB and don't budge).  But as with everything else you might barter over, don't fall in love with a specific one and have a backup.  Shouldn't be a problem with the hundred or so vendors at the 3 Yeh market.  The vendors can be quite pushy, so if you don't want them to keep shoving glasses at you, I found the silent treatment worked pretty well.

Since I already have my good pair of glasses from Warby Parker and spring is just around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to try to find some prescription sunglasses.  I have a tough face to fit glasses to, so I wasn't super optimistic, but lo and behold, I managed to find two pairs that I liked at two different stalls.  With a little bargaining, and because I have an easy prescription, I got one pair for 150RMB and the other for 170RMB.  That's about $24 and $27, respectively.

[picture of my glasses]

Not bad, although I really owe it to my girlfriend and her potent combination of language, bargaining skills, and stubbornness.  They were done in less than an hour, and there's even a decent Ramen place on the ground floor to grab lunch at while you wait for your new specs!

3 Yeh optical market, 4-5/F, 360 Meiyuan Lu, near the Shanghai Railway Station (梅园路360号, 近上海火车站), 9 am - 7 pm

UPDATE! 14 March 2013 -- It appears that the most convenient exit to take out of the metro station changes depending on which line you came in on.  If you took Line 1, then Exit 4 is your friend.  If you came in on Line 3/4, take Exit 2 and then cross the bus-filled street straight in front of you.  Even though you can connect between Lines 3/4 and Line 1, the station is pretty spread out underground and there are separate exits for each line.

Also, some of the prices are so cheap that bargaining isn't even worth your time.  If the opening offer is 150rmb for a stylish, half-way decent pair of specs, just go with it.  Stall 4099 was great to deal with on my most recent trip.

Smoggy View

Today I woke up to lightning, thunder, and a nice rain at about 6:30am in Shanghai.  It hadn't rained here in weeks, which is nice for wandering around in this warmer than average fall, but things tend to get pretty dusty and grimy without a little rain to rinse them (and the air) clean, so the rain was very welcome.

But it didn't last.  Something like 5mm actually fell, and the rain didn't knock the pollution out of the air, it just added some humidity to an already humid week and seems to be making the smog hang significantly thicker than usual.

Looking northwest at the smog.  Like the plant and the
cushions on the window seat though?

Above and right are a couple of shots I just took out of my office window to illustrate my point.  Eeew.  When these pictures were taken, about 11am, the pollution was in the "Very Unhealthy" category and the EPA recommends that "People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid all physical activity outdoors. Everyone else should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion."  That's why I'm staying inside.  ;)

The amount of pollutants in the air is definitely harder to gauge by looking at than I would think though, so luckily there are monitors to take the guesswork out of it.  The really harmful stuff is super small (2.5 micrometers in diameter) and stays suspended in the atmosphere for a long time.  Particles this small can go straight into your bloodstream through your lungs, and are therefore what is monitored by the U.S. Consulate here in Shanghai.  Check out their website for a good description of what they measure and hourly updates of what the PM2.5 count is at the Consulate building in Shanghai.  You can also check out their Twitter feed.

(Why it's posted on Twitter - which you "can't" get to from within China - is a slightly complicated story, which you can read about if you just Google "u.s. consulate shanghai air quality monitor" and read the WSJ and other stories.  The "official" (and reasonable) reason is that, in China, Americans primarily use Twitter, not Weibo, the Chinese equivalent, and since Americans are who the U.S. Consulate is there to educate, Twitter is what gets used.)

It's also worth comparing the U.S. readings to China's own readings, which are sometimes wildly different.  But not as bad as Beijing's Chinese versus U.S. readings, I hear.  Try the Shanghai Daily Air Quality page and the Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center, but you'll have to get Google to translate it for you.  The Chinese authorities also measure totally different things and report them differently, so there is oftentimes good reason for the readings to be different.

So yeah, I'm just going to hang out inside today and catch up on some of the reading that I've been ignoring lately.

Update (1:09pm China Time): Newest U.S. Consulate pollution reading puts the level at "Hazardous".  Dang.

I'm in China!

Well, I made it to Shanghai, China a week ago last night, and it's been a whirlwind ever since I touched down and I haven't had time for a proper update yet.  

...And I still don't right now, so this is just a quickie to confirm that I am here, I am taller than almost everyone, I'm the only one with a beard, I still can't read or speak Mandarin, and the food is (for the most part) amazing.  

I haven't taken as many pictures as I had planned, but I got some good phone-shots, so I'll post those soon. (This one is the view out the living room window on a slightly hazy day.)  And then I'll bust out the good camera and the little video recorder and post the results.