Shanghai Street View: Chicken Chatter
Local chicken lovers are clucking with a collective sigh of relief these days, after Shanghai formally ended its 2-month ban on live poultry sales in the city’s dozens of wet markets. I have to commend...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Buses To The Past
This week’s Street View takes us back to the roads of Shanghai once more, with news that the city is rolling out a new fleet of super-long buses to make more room for millions of residents who are...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Elderly Economics
Everyone is looking for ways to keep cool as Shanghai bakes under a nonstop summer heat wave, and retirees are particularly vulnerable to the high temperatures due to their advanced age. But recent...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Musty Mooncakes
Gross! That was my first reaction on reading about the latest food safety scandal in Shanghai, which involved the recycling of paste used to fill the famous mooncakes given out give out en masse each...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Shade Debate
Shanghai’s endless summer heat wave has taken over the city for more than a month now, monopolizing everything from the latest headlines to ordinary conversation. It’s difficult to pick up a copy of...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Subway Scofflaws
This week’s Street View takes us underground to Shanghai’s vast subway system, where metro police are in the midst of a crackdown on people who ride the trains without paying. I’m fully supportive of...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Chinglish Cleanup
Many expats in Shanghai will be pleased to hear about a new campaign to standardize the local use of English and other foreign languages to make the city friendlier to foreigners. Such a drive is long...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Ruinous Real Estate
This week’s Street View shines a spotlight on Shanghai’s hyperactive real estate market, centered on the tale of an unlucky out-of-towner who got caught faking a marriage just so he could buy an...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Reclaiming Hairy Crabs
I’m a big fan of hairy crabs, not so much because I think they taste good but because the delicacy represents a storied Shanghai tradition that can attract headlines not only locally but also from...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Sweeping Soldiers
I must admit I have little interest in or time for the legions of workers who regularly sweep up the dust and litter on Shanghai’s many streets. Perhaps part of the reason is snobbery, although I don’t...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Critter Crackdown
I had to look to my dictionary for answers for this week’s Street View, after reading a local report that Shanghai has banned several exotic animals from sale in local markets and restaurants for...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Aviation Aunties
Most people probably haven’t felt too charitable towards China’s major airlines this past week, following numerous flight delays and cancellations at the end of the National Day holiday due to huge...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Bureaucracy Blues
I don’t usually write about expat-specific topics in this column, as I prefer to focus on broader issues of interest to everyone here in Shanghai. But a recent news story on the difficulties faced by...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Membership Mania
This week’s Street View zeroes in on Shanghai’s growing love for plastic, which has fueled an explosion of membership, gift, credit and debit cards issued by just about anyone in the retail sector....
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Giddy Gating
Shanghai residents who like to show their visiting friends some of the city’s better preserved traditional neighborhoods, known locally as shikumen, will be disappointed to hear that one of the best...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Addictive Advantage
I thought I’d read about every kind of food safety scandal imaginable until I saw a new report on an eatery here in Shanghai that found a creative way to encourage customer loyalty for its crayfish...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Zoned Out
Shanghai often looks more like a laboratory these days than a modern financial hub, as the number of new and experimental zones and projects in the city accelerates under Beijing’s new, reform-minded...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Mobile Control
My first reaction to a report about Shanghai’s latest business scandal was one of disgust, as I read about scoundrels who use homemade radio devices to block mobile signals and send thousands of...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Bathhouse Banter
A recent case involving some bathhouse bandits seemed like a good excuse to look at the colorful history of public showers in China over the last half century. Such public bathhouses were a fixture of...
View ArticleShanghai Street View: Brutal Beauty
A new scandal involving the sudden closure of Marie France Bodyline beauty salons in Shanghai didn’t surprise me much, leaving its hundreds of members holding cards with thousands of yuan in worthless...
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