Dan Washburn's Shanghai Diaries

“Here’s to China” Johnnie Walker TV ad

When the director said “We need to see a Caucasian more prominently,” that was my ticket to stardom. Don’t blink near the end.

Filmed on a frigid December evening on the outdoor deck at Attica on the Bund.

03.13.2007, 9:04 PM · Television, Video · Comments (2)

The five best albums of 2006 … so far

1. The Starlight Mints, Drowaton: I got a weird look at the gym the other day because of this album. So I was singing on the elliptical machine — what’s wrong with that? This is infectious, catchy orchestral pop from the first place you think of when you hear the phrase “infectious, catchy orchestral pop” — that’s right, Oklahoma.
2. Tapes ‘n Tapes, The Loon: I am going to try very hard not to say this debut album out of Minneapolis sounds like Pavement for the 21st century. Whew. Glad I didn’t say that. Listening to this album makes me wish I was drunk in a dirty bar. That is probably some kind of warning sign.
3. Band of Horses, Everything All The Time: If you have been accused of listening only to “whiny indie rock” and you haven’t heard this album yet, then you, my friend, are no fan of “whiny indie rock”! I have listened to this album more than any other in the first half of 2006, but I have not listened to it much recently. Not sure why.
4. Jason Collett, Idols of Exile: This not-quite-alt-country release from the Broken Social Scene member (seriously, name someone from Canada who isn’t in that group) is so relaxed and easy to listen to it scares the shit out of me: Does liking this mean I really am officially an old man? Have I totally lost my edge? And then Collett throws in a lyric like “I love it when my girlfriend calls me a cock-sucking faggot” — and I feel a little bit better about myself.
5. Built to Spill, You in Reverse: Built to Spill and I go way back, so I put them here partly do to nostalgia. You in Reverse isn’t as good as the band’s previous efforts, but it is solid — and the opening track “Goin’ Against Your Mind” kicks so much ass it would make this list on its own. It’s an 8-minute 42-second song you never want to end.

• Links: Drowaton reviews, Starlight Mints official site, Starlight Mints @ Barsuk, The Loon reviews, Tapes ‘n Tapes official site, Tapes ‘n Tapes @ MySpace, Everything All The Time reviews, Band of Horses @ MySpace, Band of Horses official site, Idols of Exile reviews, Jason Collett @ Arts&Crafts, You in Reverse reviews, Built to Spill @ MySpace, Built to Spill official site

Read more mid-year lists (and post your own) at Shanghaiist.

07.20.2006, 10:44 AM · Music · Comments (2)

My Shanghai story in Budget Travel magazine

A few weeks ago, the July/August edition of Budget Travel magazine hit newsstands across America and, I’m assuming, some other countries, as well. Page 66 featured a full page, color photo of a 32-year-old American sometime-journalist/marginally-informative-blogger/handbag-entrepreneur. A random reader emailed the guy in the photo and said the “pic struck me as nice” and told him “don’t ever stop smiling!” Meanwhile, an immediate family member told the guy his smile made him look “beaver like.” Well, you can’t win them all.

So anyway, I have an eight-page story in the current issue of Budget Travel. And yes, there is a full-page portrait of me (shot by a New York Times photographer, I might add). And yes, the title of the story is “My Shanghai Is Better Than Yours.” Both the photo and the title were the magazine’s idea — I’m sure your Shanghai is just fine.

The story is split up into three parts — Eat, Shop and Play — and I suggest 15 or so places/activities in each one. It was a little tricky. I had to keep in mind that my readers, and anyone who would actually end up putting my advice to use, would likely be be new to Shanghai and their Chinese would be limited or nonexistent. I also had a word count to stay under. As is my habit, I failed miserably in that task, thus the version that appeared in the magazine was a little less detailed than the one I turned in — but that is my fault. I may post the extended version here sometime after August.

You can read the story at budgettravelonline.com or you can download a PDF of the magazine version here. And you can also download the addresses of the places I mention in my story (in English and Chinese) here.

Also, on Tuesday I played the role of China travel expert (don’t laugh) in one of Budget Travel’s “live” Trip Coach chats. You can find the transcript here. And if you are wondering how I can think so well on my feet, keep in mind that I was sleeping when the chat actually took place.

07.13.2006, 10:19 PM · Best of Shanghai, Culture, Stories, Travel · Comments (6)

Introducing Mudan Boutique

I have hinted at it a couple times on this site, and now I am finally ready to go public with my latest project. It’s a bit of a departure for me, but something I am really excited about. It’s an online store called Mudan Boutique. To start, we are featuring affordable pearls and jade and a variety of handbags, fashion accessories and gift items — all of which embody an Asian aesthetic. (We’re offering free worldwide shipping until July 17, too.)

Most exciting to me right now are the partnerships we are forging with local Shanghai designers, like Fiona Peng of Punk Pilgrim and Christine Tsui of Christine Tsui’s Fashion Club on Xinle Lu. That duo is responsible for Mudan Boutique’s current crop of handbags and clutches. And we’re currently working on adding more items from different local designers to the store — products and designs that until now were only available in small stores and boutiques in Shanghai.

Surprised by this? Yeah, me too. But something about Shanghai turns almost everyone into an entrepreneur. Ask most people what they do here, and their answer usually begins with, “Well, that’s a good question …” Most people I know have a few irons in the fire here. Maybe that’s why some people are calling Shanghai the new city of dreams.

So, I invite you to take a look at Mudan Boutique. I am really proud of the way the shop looks right now, and I really like the products we have been able to find thus far. We’re a small “company” — just a couple of us here in Shanghai and a couple of my oldest friends back in the States — but we have big plans and high expectations. Expect our product lines to grow in the very near future.

Mudan Boutique welcomes your input about anything. We have a boutique blog, a newsletter and you can always reach us by email: info at mudanboutique.com. If you are a China-based designer or artist and you think your work would be a good fit for Mudan Boutique, please email me directly at dan at mudanboutique.com.

You might also like to know that Mudan Boutique contributes five percent of net proceeds from each purchase to CARE, a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty.

So there you have it, my new baby Mudan Boutique. Please have a look and tell me what you think. Perhaps it (and Shanghaiist, celebrating its one-year anniversary today) offer some excuse for why I have been so out of reach and this site has been so neglected for, oh, I don’t know, the past year or so.

I sure am busy for an unemployed guy.

Mudan Boutique’s online store was designed by the great team at Rockbeatspaper and the product photography was taken by Brad at Shanghai Streets.

07.11.2006, 12:44 PM · Culture, Diary, Featured, Site News · Comments (1)

How to catch a pirate

The fight against global trade in fake goods is not just China’s problem

This story originally appeared in the February 27, 2006 edition of Business China, published by The Economist. Download a PDF version of this story here.

by DAN WASHBURN

In January when the Shanghai municipal government announced its plans to shut down Xiangyang Market—known simply as the “fake market” to locals—officials trumpeted the decision as a major victory in China’s battle against the rampant trade in pirated goods. Vice Mayor Zhou Taitong emphasised that the market was not just being “removed” but was being “abolished”. And the state media reminded readers that the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau handled 1,227 cases of trademark violation in 2005, confiscating 1.6m fake items from markets, including Xiangyang.

Another property deal?
But the government’s crackdown-on-counterfeits spin seems simply to have been a convenient byproduct of what the manoeuvre was really about: property. A few days after the Xiangyang announcement, local papers reported that Sun Hung Kai Properties, one of Hong Kong’s largest developers, was in “final talks” to purchase the market site—a prime plot on bustling Huaihai Road, in the heart of Shanghai’s commercial district—for US$450m.

A Xiangyang salesperson says the merchants have been asked to leave the market before June 30, adding that many shopkeepers will be happy with a change of venue because rents at Xiangyang are expensive, averaging about US$5,000 per month per stall. “We will continue to sell the same products, but in a different part of the city,” says the 22-year-old, who specialises in fake luxury handbags. “The government is already telling some shops to move to the Longhua area. The market will not go away.” And what if it did? Fake goods can be found stocking storefronts on nearly every street in Shanghai.

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06.20.2006, 10:02 AM · Business, Politics, Stories · Comments (3)

Help offered

In a country with no tradition of classified advertising, eBay sees a bright future for an online version of it

This story originally appeared in the October 24, 2005 edition of Business China, published by The Economist. Download a PDF version of this story here.

by DAN WASHBURN

Already a multi-billion-dollar industry in the US, Internet classified advertising has arrived in China, courtesy of online-auction giant eBay. But China has no history of classifieds, online or offline. So it begs the question: can online classifieds in China make money? According to the people behind Kijiji.com, eBay’s entry into the international online-classifieds market, the answer is yes—easily. How do they plan to pull it off? By taking their online operation offline.

In August 2004 eBay purchased a 25% stake in San Francisco-based online classifieds pioneer Craigslist.com for a reported US$10m-12m. Six months later, eBay launched Kijiji (it means “village” in Swahili), a mostly non-English network of Craigslist-inspired community websites where people advertise jobs, apartments, goods, activities and services for free. After a series of acquisitions, Kijiji now has websites covering more than 150 cities in 20 countries. And Kijiji China, launched in February with the other Kijiji sites around the world, is leading the pack with more than 80,000 postings at any given time.

China’s huge population obviously provides Kijiji with a solid base from which to grow. Even with very low Internet penetration, the number of Chinese going online is estimated to be more than 100m, second only to the US. But China’s low labour costs allow Kijiji to try things there that it would think twice about in other parts of the world, especially when the operation has little or no revenue.

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06.20.2006, 9:37 AM · Business, Internet, Stories

Still in the rough

The success of golf tournaments in China belies the tepid state of the country’s golf business

This story originally appeared in the November 21, 2005 edition of Business China, published by The Economist. Download a PDF version of this story here.

by DAN WASHBURN

Tiger Woods played in an official international golf tournament in China for the first time this month. It was a big one—the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai, the richest golf event ever held in Asia with a US$5m purse. This coupling of cash and the world’s top player brought the buzz surrounding the growth of golf in China to a crescendo. Zhang Lianwei, China’s most successful pro golfer, said Mr Woods’s presence “moved China golf forward by ten years.”

Hot ticket
China is emerging as a hot ticket for international golf tournaments. This year alone, the mainland and Hong Kong hosted five European Tour events—more than Scotland (four) or England (three). But golf in China is all big-money tournaments and almost no growth at the grass-roots level. Events like the HSBC tournament create great exposure for the game in China, but nearly everything about them is foreign. They include few Chinese golfers, even fewer domestic sponsors and lukewarm government support. Domestic media coverage is also perfunctory at best, though a gallery of some 5,000 people followed Mr Woods during the HSBC Champions’ final day.

“People are saying what a great year it has been for Chinese golf—I disagree,” says Nick Mould, senior vice president of Singapore-based World Sport Group. “It has been a great year for golf in China, but not for Chinese golf. This is not sustainable, because nothing is left behind.” He pointed to two high-profile tournaments in China prior to the HSBC—the BMW Asian Open and the Johnnie Walker Classic—where out of US$3.8m in prize money, less than US$50,000 ended up in the pockets of Chinese golfers.

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06.20.2006, 3:30 AM · Business, Politics, Sports, Stories

Michael Bolton fans do not have a sense of humor

Well, at least two of them don’t. I’ve always dreamed about being linked to by michaelboltonclub.com, but for some reason I always thought they would like me. No, love me.

They don’t. Well, at least two of them don’t.

A little back story: Back in December I wrote a post on Shanghaiist about Paul McCartney. Sir Paul, rightfully, was outraged by some barbaric treatment of dogs and cats in China. And, because of that, he said he’d never visit China — and that he was planning to boycott all goods made in China. He implied that anyone who deals with China is complicit in the animal abuse that occurs here. While I shared Paul’s outrage, I thought his response was a little … much. (The post, not necessarily because of what I wrote, was followed by a rather entertaining string of comments.)

I finished my write-up with this:

To sum up. Torturing animals = bad. Beatles = good. McCartney’s stance = misguided.

And then, because Michael Bolton was about to appear in Shanghai at the time, I used McCartney’s false logic and added this intentionally, and I think obviously, outrageous statement:

And one important lesson learned: Michael Bolton is obviously in favor of butchering puppies and kittens.

That didn’t go over well in Bolton land. A superfan named angelsnearu fired off a response titled “Terrible Conclusion on Animal Abuse Support,” calling fellow Boltonites to action: “Anyone outraged at the conclusion of this article … should immediately go to this website and post their opinion.” (No one did, by the way.)

angelsnearu wanted to make it clear:

We all know this is B.S. I saw the footage they are referring to in this article and its some of the most horrific footage of animal abuse I’ve ever witnessed on the news and there is NO WAY Michael Bolton supports this country or animal abuse.

Another concerned Bolton fan, Linduhrella, guessed that Michael had no idea there was animal abuse in China. And then added:

One would think some inspirational artists might help, not hinder, the efforts to create a better and more civilized society in any part of the globe.

How true. angelsnearu then returned to suggest I find another line of work:

You know we’ve seen this kind of stuff for years from people who call themselves writers. You know the type…its called, “Climb aboard the stars gravy train” for the writer who seeks attention. I call those writers, “no names.”

Gosh, it just seems so outdated for this kind of material to still be published. They just need to get a new line or a new job…

Woo-hoo! All aboard the Michael Bolton gravy train! Hold on while I count my money!

And then Linduhrella returned with what could only be the final word:

It’s sensationalism and they’re still using, and abusing, it. Any writer worth his/her salt doesn’t have to resort to it to keep their name in print but they do. Some have become quite rich from such tripe. However, they don’t have any staying power like Michael Bolton’s music does. There’s always that element of jealousy from such air-heads that leads one to the conclusion that were it not for the green-eyed monster, they’d have no motivation whatever to write anything. Lacking talent, AND motivation, they wouldn’t be getting paid for polluting the market with garbage. Maybe there would be more room left for quality literature if we weren’t bombarded with such a large quantity of trash.

Amen.

01.26.2006, 1:50 PM · Internet · Comments (11)

The Top 20 Albums Of 2005

Kind of hard to top that last post, so I won’t even try. I’m writing this from Manhattan’s Upper East Side. My fiancee (she has not changed her mind yet) in napping next to me. The sun is setting and everything is pink and gold outside my window on the 26th floor. We’re staying at my good friend Veronica’s place here in New York. Unfortunately, Veronica is not here — still sunning on one of the Caribbean islands. St. Barts, I think. Hopefully she gets back before Bliss and I fly back to Shanghai on the 6th.

We drove here in a rented Ford Taurus, through the Poconos along Interstate 380, where the roadside woods were either covered with snow or encased in ice. Trees, some leaning in from the weight, sparkled in the sunlight — they looked like they had tiny leaves carved out of crystal. The scene felt rather fragile, like one strong breeze could come in and shatter the entire forest and make it fall onto the soft bed of white waiting below.

During the ride we listened to Chad VanGaalen’s beautifully eery album Infiniheart, and that reminded me — although it appeared on Shanghaiist, I never posted my top albums of 2005 on this site. (And, no, not one reader has emailed to complain.)

For various reasons, I have failed to give this site the attention it deserves for the past half a year or so. I hope to change that soon. But my 2005 music list will have far fewer bells and whistles than my 2004 list. In fact, all you get are some snazzy italics. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here are my top 20 albums of 2005:

1. Chad VanGaalen - Infiniheart
2. Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary
3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
4. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
5. John Vanderslice - Pixel Revolt
6. My Morning Jacket - Z
7. Bright Eyes - I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
8. Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production Of Eggs
9. Spoon - Gimme Fiction
10. Rogue Wave - Descended Like Vultures
11. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
12. of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
13. Brakes - Give Blood
14. Iron & Wine - Woman King EP/In the Reins EP (with Calexico)
15. Superwolf - Superwolf
16. Stephen Malkmus - Face The Truth
17. The Decemberists - Picaresque
18. M. Ward - Transistor Radio
19. The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
20. The Capitol Years - Let Them Drink

Some images, links and mp3s can be found over at Shanghaiist or at my mid-2005 picks page. I may add albums beyond No. 20 as I think of them. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. If you are really quick, maybe I can be listening to some of your music picks on my long, long flight back to China.

Related:
The Top 25 Albums Of 2004
This is when I force my taste in music on you

On Shanghaiist:
Shanghaiist presents The Best Albums of 2005
25 after 7: The Best Music of 2005 (so far)

01.05.2006, 4:57 AM · Diary, Featured, Music · Comments (2)

Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck in Shanghai

Monday was good. Got a rare glimpse inside the historic U.S. Consulate here in Shanghai. Met a fellow Washburn. And saw one of the best musicians in the world perform. All in a couple hours. American folk musician Abigail Washburn — no relation, as far as we know — is in China promoting her new CD, which includes two songs Washburn sings in Chinese (she’s lived here off and on since 1996). The album, Song of the Traveling Daughter, was co-produced by banjo player and living legend Bela Fleck, who also joined Washburn on her China tour. Washburn, Fleck, a violinist and a cellist performed an intimate invite-only — thanks for the invite, Paul! — concert last night at the U.S. Consulate on Huaihai Lu and Wulumuqi Lu (you know, the walled compound with armed guards across from the British Bulldog, a bar worth boycotting). The consulate occupies a grand old estate which likely has a fair bit of history, although my initial Google attempts turned up no details. It was nice just to have a look inside the place. I’d show you pics if my phone and camera weren’t confiscated at the gate for “security reasons.” Had a front row seat for the show. It was great. Abby’s voice is strong and beautiful. And Bela’s picking is amazing — when he solos it sounds like three or four banjos playing at once. (Also, I’m fairly certain he played part of one song with his teeth.) The band is playing another gig, open to the public, tonight at the Cotton Club. I encourage you to come. Just don’t take my seat!

Photos: Abigail and Dan Washburn [2], Me and Bela Fleck

Brad’s camera was not confiscated. His pics start here.

11.29.2005, 6:38 PM · Music · Comments (7)

Soon, you too can compete in the Masters Cup!

I scored some sweet Masters Cup tickets on Monday thanks to Shamus — who always has a VIP ticket for something — and the friendly people at Haworth office furniture. The brand new Qi Zhong Stadium is nice, really nice, a proper stadium. It has air conditioning, which immediately makes it better than most of the sports arenas in China. You have to wonder, though — why is it almost in Anhui Province? OK, it’s just a 100 kuai cab ride from city center, but weren’t there some vacant plots of land or bulldozable neighborhoods, say, 20 minutes from the city instead of 50? It’s a hike. And what are they going to do with a tennis stadium the other 51 weeks out of the year?

Anyway, the building is worth seeing even if the tennis no longer is. I managed to see Andre Agassi’s only match before he joined Andy Roddick, Marat Safin, Lleyton Hewitt and Rafael Nadal and withdrew from the tournament. Really, the way he played, his exit from the tourney was only a matter of time. Nadal came out to court to apologize to the fans for not being able to compete due to a foot injury. He could of at least limped! So, now we are left with Roger Federer and these “masters”: Guillermo Coria, Nikolay Davydenko, Ivan Ljubicic, Gaston Gaudio, David Nalbandian, Mariano Puerta and Fernando Gonzalez. Half the field is from Argentina … not that there is anything wrong with that.

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11.16.2005, 5:38 PM · Photos, Sports · Comments (3)

HSBC Champions: Golf still an elitist pursuit in China

This story originally appeared on ESPN.com.

by DAN WASHBURN

Sheshan International Golf Club, site of this week’s HSBC Champions tournament, is about an hour west of Shanghai — if you are lucky. The only way to get there from downtown is a start-and-stop ride along the Hu Ning “Expressway,” an overcrowded stretch of asphalt that cuts through a grim part of the city you won’t find mentioned in any tour book. Most spectators are bussed in and bussed out and never set foot outside the picturesque private grounds. And if you were part of that crowd on Thursday and Friday, it would be easy to draw this conclusion: China loves Tiger Woods.

In a nation of 1.3 billion, crowds are not hard to come by. But on a golf course? That’s something new in a country with only an estimated 200,000 people who play the sport, a country that didn’t have a golf course until 1984. The gallery following Woods for the tournament’s first two rounds easily topped 1,000. Some guessed it was closer to 2,000. That’s more than four times the number of fans who followed Ernie Els during the final round of the BMW Asian Open here in May.

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11.15.2005, 11:04 PM · Featured, Sports, Stories

HSBC Champions: Ian Poulter’s ‘funny looking pants’

This story originally appeared in the November 13, 2005 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only).

by DAN WASHBURN

While the hordes were hovering behind Tiger Woods as he practiced at the driving range Saturday morning, Ian Poulter worked on his putting a couple dozen meters away. There was no crowd surrounding the Englishman, but nearly everyone who walked past him did a double take, stopped and took a photo. Why? Poulter’s pants, of course.

Much has been written about the maverick 29-year-old, his outlandish attire, spiky highlighted hair and reflective sunglasses. And, pants-wise, Poulter brought his A-game to Shanghai — four pairs spun from ornately embroidered Chinese silk.

“A lot have said ‘nice pants’ — the ones who could speak English, anyway,” Poulter said of the fans at the HSBC Champions tournament. “I find it good fun and I don’t want to be boring. There are loads of guys out here who just wear standard stuff, and that’s not what I’m about. I want to be different. And the silk pants were a nice way to do it out here in China.”

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11.15.2005, 10:15 PM · Sports, Stories · Comments (1)

HSBC Champions: Tiger who?

This story originally appeared in the November 12, 2005 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only).

by DAN WASHBURN

While some 2,000 golf fans weathered rainstorms to track every move of the world’s best golfer Friday in the second round of the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai, Yao Guang Mei swept leaves with a bamboo broom. She just might have been the only person at Sheshan International Golf Club who had never heard of Tiger Woods.

“All I know is that foreigners will come here to compete,” she said.

Yao, who lives in a village 30 minutes away from the course, gets paid five dollars a day to work at the club, where a lifetime membership costs $148,000 and furnished villas average $2 million. And she’s happy to do it.

“It looks great,” she said of the grounds. “But all of these big houses look the same. Sometimes I get lost.” Yao stopped to chuckle before adding, “Back home, I don’t get to see much of this modern society. When I got the chance to work here, I was very excited to see all of these new things.”

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11.15.2005, 9:59 PM · Sports, Stories

HSBC Champions: Hope lies on Hu’s slender shoulders

This story originally appeared in the November 11, 2005 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only).

by DAN WASHBURN

The boy who has been dubbed the future of Chinese golf spends 11 months of the year in Florida, and he appears equally comfortable conducting interviews in English and Mandarin. Sixteen-year-old Hu Mu, the eighth-ranked junior golfer in the world according to Golfweek magazine, has a lot resting on his slight shoulders, he’s used to it. He’s been the future of Chinese golf since he was 11.

“There is a bit of pressure to be called that,” admitted Hu, who looks toward the ground when he talks and speaks just above a whisper. “There are so many talented Chinese golfers out there. I do want to be the future of Chinese golf, though. I want to inspire other young kids to learn the game in China.”

Hu is the only amateur participating in the HSBC Champions tournament this week at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai. He opened Thursday with a disappointing 6-over 78, closing with a triple bogey in the rain on the final hole.

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11.15.2005, 9:54 PM · Sports, Stories

An American wedding, Tiger Woods and sleep deprivation

So sorry for my silence recently. Been pretty damn busy. Went to the States a little while back for a week, caught a cold and attended a wedding (photos). Sleep patterns screwed up, several deadlines converged and now I’m pulling long shifts while filing stories from the HSBC Champions golf tournament, which is an annoying commute out to Songjiang District. Why people buy million dollar villas this far from downtown is a mystery to me — Thai Food Station doesn’t deliver out here. Anyway, here’s a story I filed for ESPN.com last night. I hope to get back to regular sleep and posting patterns soon.

11.12.2005, 12:56 PM · Diary, Sports, Stories · Comments (1)

Golden Prods and Organism Waves: An infomercial script

The folks at Gridskipper, and others, enjoyed my post about my first infomercial shoot (up until the point when my payment got stolen, I assume). So, I figured I’d provide you with what I know you are all craving: MORE DR. JAMES. Below you will find all of my “lines” from the infomercial in the form they were originally given to me — and you will see why Johnson, Bliss and I reworked the lines to a point where they kind of made sense. I actually had my first two lines — the long ones — memorized, but none of this mattered. Since the entire infomericial will be dubbed in Chinese, what was coming from the mouths of the “talent” mattered not — they just wanted the impression that this infomerical was taking place somewhere in, say, Burbank, California. I’d get about 30 percent through one of my lines and the director would yell, “Cut! Print!” I had filled the allotted time with my white man mouth movements and it was time to move on. After my first two lines, we just bullshitted our way through the rest, making fun of the product, the director and this odd chapter in our lives. No one was the wiser — or, more likely, they just didn’t care. In fact, one of the girls in the infomercial was from Argentina, and she did all of her lines in Spanish.

So, here they are: The lines for Dr. James, the unshaven inventor or 发明者 or fa ming zhe of the low-powered stun gun known as “Dolly” (or “Doli,” as it is called in the script):

照片放大后� 就能找到答案，使用多丽的半个脸，皮肤更紧绷；额头、眉心、嘴角的15条皱纹，9条彻底消失、6条显著变淡；浮肿的脸型变得瘦美！所以看上去琼斯太太整整年轻了20岁！
After zoom in the photo, the answer can be found!
Using doli, you can find it keeps the skin of half face tense! Originally there are 15 wrinkles from brow, corners of mouth and between eyebrows, now 9 of which are disappear, others become less deeper, the puffy face is changed! So that’s why Mrs. Johns look younger more than 20 years old!

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10.17.2005, 8:33 AM · Humor, Observations, Television · Comments (6)

7,000 photos moved from Gallery to Flickr … easily

In preparation for the major redesign Frank has in store for Shanghai Diaries, we had to figure out a way to transfer all of the photos from our existing photo gallery to my space over at Flickr. Gallery is a fine app, but I just find Flickr much easier to use. And Flickr seems to be more adaptable, too — Frank’s already done some cool stuff with it over at Shanghaiist. We both like the community aspect of Flickr, as well.

Anyway, I figured the Gallery-to-Flickr switch would be a time-consuming nightmare. Actually, I expected I would have upload all my pre-Flickr photos — some 7,000 of them — from scratch using iPhoto. And I was dreading this, because many of the photos from early in my digital days are not very well, um, organized. Thankfully, Frank stumbled upon this page, where a guy offered up $200 to the first person who could solve the very same problem we were dealing with. Someone delivered, Frank installed the script, I started the transfer process before I went to bed one night … and next morning I had 7,598 photos in 69 photo sets (albums, tags and captions survive the transfer, as well) over at Flickr. For free. Pretty slick.

The one downside is that since these photos were tranferred from Gallery and not uploaded directly from iPhoto, they are small. For some reason, I only uploaded pics to Gallery at a 400 or 500 pixels max for height and width. Sorry.

If you’d like to check out my photos from the past three years, head to my Flickr page. Here are some direct links to some of my recent photo sets:

• China: Fujian (2005)
• Shanghai: My First Infomercial
• Shanghai: Asian Gaelic Games
• Shanghai: Shanghaiist.com Launch Party
• Shanghai: Sex Products Expo
• Shanghai: Mr. Window
• Shanghai
• Shanghai: People (2004- 2005)
• Shanghai: Scenes (2004- 2005)

There are about sixty other photo sets that I don’t feel like typing in links for. They include all the photos from my 18-province trip through China and plenty of photos from outside of China: Cambodia, Georgia, Hawaii, Montana, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. and Wyoming. Check it all out here.

10.16.2005, 9:39 AM · Internet, Photos, Site News · Comments (1)

Almost Famous: Google News adds Shanghaiist to sources

Google News tells users they can “search and browse 4,500 news sources updated continuously.” Make that 4,501. Upon the recommendation of DCist editor Rob Goodspeed, I submitted my side project Shanghaiist to Google News for their consideration (you can do the same — go here). And less than 24 hours later, I received a response saying that we had been approved:

Hi Dan,

Thank you again for your submission. We have reviewed www.shanghaiist.com and will be including it in Google News in the near future. You should be able to find your articles in Google News within a few weeks.

Thank you for providing your articles to Google News.

Regards,
The Google Team

Pretty easy. It will be interesting to see what kind of a bump in traffic Shanghaiist will see because of its inclusion. Right now we’re fast approaching around 2,000 visits a day, which is not bad for a relatively new, mostly English language website in China. We’d like to be up to around 5,000 daily visits within the next six months. We’ll see.

If you’re curious, here is what I said to Google News when I made my request for Shanghaiist’s inclusion:

We are Shanghai’s only group news blog, part of the Gothamist.com family of sites, and I think readers of Google News would benefit from our inclusion in your service.

Pretty simple. And I think mostly factually accurate. I was thinking about mentioning that I am “famous” and that I “clearly love” Shanghai, but That’s Shanghai magazine did that for me in their review of Shanghaiist in their current issue. It was a very nice review, and I wish certain parts of it were true. Like where they say I have “six staff and twenty contributors” at Shanghaiist. And, yes, the whole famous thing. It must be the Michael Stipe/Athens, Georgia kind of fame where people go out of their way to “pretend” that they don’t have any idea who I am. I get that a lot.

Related:
Write for Shanghaiist
Gothamist LLC

10.15.2005, 1:55 PM · Internet · Comments (1)

This National Day holiday I …

• … flew south to Fujian Province with Bliss — whose ancestors are from Fujian — and her friend Emily, who is visiting from Seattle. My photos from the four-day trip can be found at Flickr. (They can also be found in the Shanghai Diaries photo gallery — I spent a good chunk of yesterday making sure that section of the site was up to date — but, really, I suggest you view the photos on Flickr. Better. Easier. We should be making a total switch to Flickr with the coming redesign of the site.)
• … got a little bit wet thanks to Typhoon Longwang. But was happy to have avoided the flood of people that hit Shanghai. Ri-f*cking-diculous.
• … missed out on the hot springs at Xiamen’s Riyuegu Resort (thanks to the typhoon), but settled for a private room at The Retreat, where I got an hour-long massage, soaked in a hot tub treated with aromatherapy oils … and got my ears cleaned.
• … became an uncle, again.
• … rediscovered the fact that I actually do like Chinese food. Quite a bit.
• … got lost on Gulangyu Island … again.
• … repeatedly bombarded Andrea with questions about what to do/where to go/how to get there in Xiamen. Felt kind of bad, but she is the editor of What’s On Xiamen. Andrea always kindly obliged. I gave her a Shanghaiist t-shirt for her troubles — nothing says “thank you” like a little shameless self-promotion!
• … took a great day-trip into Fujian’s rural Nanjing Province to soak in a little Hakka culture. Was amazed at the size of their tu lou earthen roundhouses. (If you are traveling to Xiamen, I highly recommend a travel agent named Apple. She speaks English and can be emailed at lemon60606(@)hotmail.com.)
• … bought one of these hats for 5 kuai.
• … bought this painting from my friends at oceansbridge.com headquarters in Xiamen.
• … went to a masseuse/chiropractor in Xiamen recommended by Andrea. A burly man, he was unable to crack my back. Is this a good or bad sign?
• … was unable to fit a Blue Frog “Montana Burger” into my mouth.
• … met with a Singapore-based book editor about my book proposal … and received a couple more rejections from the US (news I’m sure Billy Baldwin is very happy to hear).
• … discovered a great new sandwich shop in Shanghai. Very cheap, and near my apartment, too. It’s called Nangka Cafe.
• … listened to Chad Van Gaalen’s great new album again and again and again.
• … confirmed that the pork ribs at Di Shui Dong are among my favorite dishes available at local restaurants.
• … likely gained a few pounds.
• … found out that there is a very good chance I will be playing the role of Santa Claus in an upcoming Chinese Pizza Hut commercial.
• … tried to convince friends and family that China’s new tightened control of the internet likely won’t affect me. Am I being naive?
• … started viewing season two of Lost and still can’t figure out why it won the Emmy for best drama … or why I can’t seem to stop watching it.
• … watched England qualify for the World Cup and realized that my illegal satellite hook-up is better than the one at the Big Bamboo.
• … spent one morning watching the Yankees lose, one watching them win and today woke up at 4 am to discover their game had been rained out.
• … wondered whether American celebrities will hold telethons for the victims of Pakistan’s awful earthquake, the same way they did for tsunamis and hurricanes this year.

10.09.2005, 4:53 PM · Bars, Culture, Diary, Food, Music, Observations, Photos, Sports, Television, Travel · Comments (2)

I am the Johnny Drama of blogging

And so are 289 other people

Yep, I’m a B-list blogger, which means I might get invited to the major Bloggywood parties — but only because my younger more attractive brother happens to be an A-lister, a rising star in the cutthroat world of blogging celebrity. And if a hot blogger groupie flirts with me, it’s because she wants to get into my brother’s pants, not mine. Every now and again I’ll score a part in a Movie of the Week (read: Boing Boing link) but I’m always one f*ck-up away from the online equivalent of reality television (which I guess would be this.) Maybe I’ll get “spotted” when I go out, mostly by guys — no, always by guys … most of them drunk — some of whom might buy me a shot of Sambuca. (Thanks, Pat!) But, mostly, hardly anybody knows who the hell I am. I’m a B-list blogger for chrissakes. And if people think they do know me, they often get it wrong. Way wrong (or, at least, that is the story I’m sticking to). Take this Shanghai forum poster, for example:

After a quick look I concluded I somehow do not fit in this site’s target audience. By the way who is this Dan Washburn guy? I heard this name before. Is he the CEO of a major automaker in China who got fired for massive fraud (I know the story was release to the media in a different way)?

If you haven’t seen the excellent HBO series Entourage, much of this post likely made little sense to you. But really, why haven’t you seen Entourage? And no, living in China is not a good excuse.

Related:
B-List Zen

08.25.2005, 11:44 PM · Internet, Observations · Comments (4)

The best hummus in Shanghai

BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’

I “studied” for a semester in Athens, Greece. Course load included Greek Culture, Greek Language, Creative Writing: Poetry and something called the Philosophy of Love and Sex, taught by a gay man who wore leather pants and a purple scarf and drove to class on a Harley. Our earliest class was at 2 pm. All classes were pass/fail. And, for some reason, the school provided us with ample spending money. That, my friends, is a recipe for disaster. I gained 15 pounds that spring, despite playing shooting guard for the school basketball team. (Granted, we only practiced twice a week and most practices were interrupted by several cigarette breaks.) Copious amounts of beer and wine likely played a factor in the weight gain, but most of it can be attributed to the Greek food. It’s easy to fall in love with. I’m hoping the arrival of Mediterranean Sandwich and Coffee Bar to the neighborhood (it used to be way out in some place called Hongqiao) doesn’t equal another 15 pounds.

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08.12.2005, 9:30 PM · Best of Shanghai, Food · Comments (3)

I knew I should have worn my Testaverde jersey

I was going to write something here about how I don’t get the whole Chinese hip-hop thing, how it’s a rather unoriginal way for Chinese youth to express their individuality, how it would be nice to see these kids clinging to something more Chinese, something that could grow in China organically, the way rap did in America in the 1970s. I was going to write all that — but then I realized to do so would be stupid and hypocritical. These kids have just as much right to their rap music — maybe more — as little white Danny Washburn did in lily-white Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania in the 1980s. And I listened to rap music. Lots of it. I hooked up my stereo to a TV cable and was able to get Power 99-FM from Philadelphia. So I knew about all the new rap and R&B before even the guys at the record store on Main Street. It made me feel special. I liked being different. Eric B and Rakim were some cool motherf**kers, and because Follow The Leader occupied my Walkman, so was I. What’s more absurd: And honor student in rural Pennsylvania listening to gangsta rap or city kids in China flashing gang signs for photos?

The kids I saw last night at the Shanghai Hiphop II Party at Club Fusion had the style down, alright. In fact, it looked as though the event was cosponsored by Champs Sports and IcedOutGear.com. (Actually, it was cosponsored by ShanghaiNing.com and Sony-BMG, which helped release the Shanghai Rap CD that Friday’s partygoers got for free.) Where can you get cool retro NBA jerseys in huge sizes in Shanghai? Ask this guy. And if you’re a Christian in need of some bling, this guy might be able to point you in the right direction. And what of the music? Hard to say. I couldn’t understand any of the lyrics, save for the odd “baby girl,” “check it,” “murder” or “word up.” Actually, most people in China wouldn’t have been able to understand the lyrics. They were in Shanghainese, which is cool, because the dialect is at risk — fewer and fewer young Shanghainese are learning it. The beats, however, were universal — and, often, very tired and familiar. The only thing original about the music was the language. But give these guys some time. It’s early yet. And hey, Shanghainese rap is already less annoying than Vanilla Ice.

Links:
42 of my photots from Friday night on Flickr
All Flickr photos tagged “shanghaihiphop”
My videos from the show on YouTube (Direct links to the three clips: Bamboo Crew, Super Rap Crew, Super Rap Crew slows it down)
Shanghai Rap page on ShanghaiNing.com, with downloadable songs
Shanghai blogger Josh reviews Shanghainese rap songs

More at Shanghaiist.

07.30.2005, 9:01 PM · Audio, Music, Observations, Photos, Video · Comments (3)

This is when I force my taste in music on you

It’s already been a great year for music … and it’s still July. The following are my five contributions to the Shanghaiist The Best Music of 2005 (so far) list. Other albums on the Shanghaiist list that I highly recommend are I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning by Bright Eyes, Face The Truth by Stephen Malkmus, Gimme Fiction by Spoon and Illinois by Sujan Stevens. After these five blurbs, I’ll list some other albums that are on my personal Best of 2005 (so far) list. Why should you care about any of this? That is a very good question.

The Mysterious Production Of Eggs by Andrew Bird

I was somewhat — no, very — surprised to like an album by a former Squirrel Nut Zipper, but I’ve always had a thing for professional whistlers.

Buy | Reviews | Official site | “A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left” | Stream the entire album

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Shhhh. Hear that? If you are quiet, you can hear the buzz surrounding this Brooklyn band from any spot on Earth. Arcade Fire for 2005.

Buy | Reviews | Official site | “In This Home On Ice” | “Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood” | “Over and Over Again (Lost & Found)”

The Sunlandic Twins by of Montreal

“We’ll have bizarre celebrations,” sings Kevin Barnes, and that’s exactly what this album is. This is what happens when indie psych-pop boys play with computers.

Buy | Reviews | Official site | “So Begins Our Alabee”

Black Sheep Boy by Okkervil River

No new Wilco album this year? Not to worry. This Austin band offers homespun tunes and stories … and some of the year’s weirdest album art.

Buy | Reviews | Official site | “For Real” | “Black”

Apologies To The Queen Mary by Wolf Parade

This album “officially” doesn’t get released until late September, but jump on this Montreal band’s bandwagon now. Partially produced by Isaac Brock, and it shows.

Buy | Reviews | Official site | “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son”

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07.30.2005, 6:30 PM · Music · Comments (4)

The best steak in Shanghai

BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’

I wasn’t expecting much from the Backyard Cafe, just a semi-normal sandwich within walking distance from the apartment. What I got was the best steak I’ve eaten in nearly three years in China. So tender, so tasty, so juicy … so ridiculously cheap. For just RMB 69, Backyard serves up a thick 220 gram beef tenderloin prepared on a proper outdoor grill. It comes topped with a black pepper sauce that provides just the right amount of spice and, as if that wasn’t enough, Backyard also throws in some spinach and potatoes, too. Still not enough? Add two ears of corn on the cob for 19 kuai. Yep, they’ve got that, too.

It was so perfect, I had to wonder — was this all a big joke? Was this some sort of Spanish Prisoner-esque ruse that ends with me returning to the restaurant the following day only to find that it’s really an abandoned warehouse and Steve Martin has run off with my life’s savings? (If so, the joke’s on you, Steve. I have no life’s savings. Ha!) Aware that Chinese television has been dabbling in reality, I started looking for hidden cameras, worried that I might be the unwitting subject of a new Shanghai TV production called The Make A Foreigner Think He Finally Gets A Good Steak In China And Then Visciously Rip His Heart Out And Dip It In That Brown Sauce His Ayi Drowns Everything In, Lycra Show. (It’s a working title.)

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07.21.2005, 8:38 PM · Best of Shanghai, Featured, Food · Comments (3)

They shoot catfish, don’t they?

Nah. They grab ‘em!

I love America. Home of the free. Home of the brave. Home of people who fish for giant catfish with their bare hands. Now, I’m not talking about catfish this big. Or even this big. But still, pretty damn big. I mention all this because a friend sent me this story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday:

“Hey, we’re rednecks,” Brown said. He cracked open a Bud Light as he aimed his 16-foot Alumacraft johnboat toward a mound of rocks where water eddied under a low-hanging limb. “We like any kind of fishing.”

Brown, Owen and anyone else hoping a fish will bite their fingers can thank the Georgia Legislature for the privilege. Legislators this year passed a bill making noodling — also called grabbling, hand-fishing or hogging — just as legal as using fishing poles, rod-and-reels and trotlines for freshwater fish. Georgia joined neighboring states Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina in opening the state’s waterways to noodlers.

When they heard noodling would be legal Friday, Brown and Owen made sure to have the day off work for a day on the river. By midmorning, they were on the Flint, five miles south of Concord, waiting for something to move under their hands.

They didn’t wait long.

“Whoop!” Owen, 39, came out of the water like a dog, shaking himself, then plunged back under a gray rock in 4 feet of water. He thrashed once, twice, then came back out, grumbling.

“Got away” he said. “It was a little ‘un.”

When I lived in Georgia, handgrabbin’ was illegal. Can you believe that? It’s our God-given right as Americans to do stupid shit. I wasn’t about to let the damn state gubment keep me down. So, I drove over to the right-thinking state of Mississippi to stick my hand up in some catfish. (I actually rather enjoyed myself.)

I know I’ve linked to this story before. But hey, chicks dig it. And it’s the Fourth of July — so I thought this rather fitting. Our founding fathers would have wanted us to go noodlin’. I know that for a fact.

Happy Independence Day!

07.04.2005, 4:34 PM · Sports · Comments (4)

Hurry! Three more days to catch Alien vs. Predator!

I wrote this for Shanghaiist, but since we’re not live yet over there, I figured I’d post it here, too.

If you’re like Shanghaiist, you like going to the movies. And if you’re like Shanghaiist, you rarely go to the movies in Shanghai — because, well, most of the movies that show here are crap. (And because you can buy 10 DVDs on the street for the price of one ticket to the theater.) Thank God then for the Shanghai International Film Festival, which concludes this weekend. Finally, we get some indie and art house fare on the big screen. Right? Right?

Well, you tell me. This year’s SIFF, the eighth annual event, includes high-brow offerings such as The Pacifier, Alien vs. Predator, Ice Princess, 13 Going On 30, Van Helsing, Meet the Fockers and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. That’s an average Metacritic score of 42, people.

OK, with that off our chest, we should note that the festival also includes plenty of films that are worth seeing: Sideways, Vera Drake, Big Fish, Sin City, Hotel Rwanda, We Don’t Live Here Anymore to name a handful. But many of them are kind of old, films that would have shown on the real festival circuit years ago. Still, some of them would be nice to see on the big screen instead of a pirated screener with “For Review Purposes Only” flashing on the bottom of the screen.

Speaking of old, Fei Mu’s classic 1948 chamber drama Spring in a Small Town is also showing. The Hong Kong Film Awards Association named that the best Chinese-language film of all time.

The SIFF also includes many films that Shanghaiist admittedly has never heard of. So for those, we defer to That’s Shanghai reviewer Wayne Hsu’s recommendations. Some of them look pretty interesting, especially the Hitler pic Downfall, which is getting excellent reviews. Shanghaiist has had beers with Wayne and you have our word that he is a good guy (and deceivingly young looking). Another friend of Shanghaiist recommends two Chinese films: buzzworthy director Jia Zhangke’s The World and Lu Yue’s The Foliage.

Hurry up, though. The festival closes on Sunday and some of these films don’t show after tonight. Here is the somewhat cumbersome festival schedule.

Pictured: A scene from The Foliage.

06.17.2005, 2:00 PM · Movies

‘Consummate’ your relationship with the internet

‘0 people would do ShanghaiDan.’ Awwwww.

“ShanghaiDan is a 31-year old boy located in Shanghai, who is taken and looking for boys and girls for friends, online buddies, and consumating fun!”

So begins my profile on the social/dating website Consumating, which according to its tagline is targeting the “Hot nerdy girls and indie rock boys! With glasses!” crowd. You might be wondering why someone who labels himself “taken” would sign up for an online dating site (or maybe you’re not … some chicks dig “unavailable” guys). I signed up for Consumating because it’s the site Shanghaiist is going to partner with for personals — and right now there are a total of two Consumating users living in Shanghai. It’s me and Micah, and he only signed up because I asked him to. I’m trying to build up a base of Shanghai users before Shanghaiist officially goes live in a couple weeks. So, head on over to Consumating and sign up!

You don’t have to be single. You don’t have to be looking for a date. It’s a social site, not just a dating site. And it’s 2005 — I think the stigma associated with meeting people online has gone the way of the Yunnan Box Turtle. Especially in a sometimes intimidating city of 20 million, it’s often easier to meet people with similar interests online than inside a shabbily appointed, smoky bar playing a Celine Dion/Kenny G/Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey mix CD. Of course, if you’re from Shanghai and your interests aren’t similar to mine or Micah’s, you are pretty much screwed right now. That’s why you need to get all your friends to sign up for Consumating! Or else you’ll spend all your time at the site flirting with hipsters in Seattle. And, I guess there are worse things in the world to do than that.

Consumating uses the oh-so-hip tagging technology, which is like crack for computer geeks. Oh, the site is free, too. That’s also pretty cool. (And, one of Consumating’s creators is the editor of Austinist.)

Finally, Shanghaiist will also be running a feed from 43 Things, a goal-sharing social site. This is what 43 Things’ Shanghai users want to do with their lives.

So, check these sites out. (And would someone please give me a thumbs-up at Consumating? This is getting embarrassing.)

06.15.2005, 4:43 PM · Internet, Site News · Comments (3)

Do you want to write for Shanghaiist.com?

Site will be better than Star Wars III. I promise.

While in New York a few weeks ago, I had lunch with Jake Dobkin, publisher of the highly-successful Gothamist family of city blogs. We met at a bagel joint on 20th and 3rd. I had a very tasty Reuben and a Diet Coke. I can’t remember what Jake had, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Jake and I decided to team up and launch Shanghaiist. It will be the first -ist site in Asia — and I’m confident it won’t be long before Shanghaiist is considered the best website about Shanghai on the internet.

I am in the process of of putting together the Shanghaiist team. Interested?

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06.06.2005, 1:50 PM · Culture, Site News · Comments (13)

ESPN.com’s package on golf in China

You just might recognize the author

ESPN.com, the internet’s sports website of record, is running two stories I wrote about golf in China:

• Golf in China grows bigger by the day
• Chinese events bring interesting questions

At the time of this posting, the package was ESPN.com’s featured story on the site’s main page. But that changes pretty often, so here is a screen shot. It’s also the lead story on ESPN.com’s golf page (screen shot).

And yes, I think this is all pretty cool. It’s not too often you get to write for one of your favorite websites. (Even if they do initially spell your name wrong.)

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05.19.2005, 2:20 AM · Featured, Sports, Stories · Comments (2)

MLB invests in China’s baseball growth

A version of this story appeared in the May 11, 2005 online edition of Baseball America.

by DAN WASHBURN

SHANGHAI — The China Baseball League celebrated its Opening Day in April, but in Shanghai, the country’s showpiece “international city,” the invitations must have been lost in the mail. As the fledgling pro league’s Shanghai Eagles and Tianjin Lions battled it out in the ironically named Shanghai Sports Palace, a dusty field far northwest of city center, there was more activity at a bustling fish market nearby.

About 75 fans and curious onlookers were scattered throughout the stadium’s 800 or so seats, and they were treated to an exciting game. Shanghai, last in the league in wins and attendance since the CBL launched in 2002, squandered a 4-0 lead in the ninth inning and ended up losing 9-5 in 12 innings. Most of the cheering during the game, however, came from the dugouts.

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05.17.2005, 3:48 AM · Sports, Stories · Comments (2)

Luxury cars, pro golfers and dirty underwear

The nice thing about covering a professional golf tournament sponsored by BMW is that there’s always a chance you might catch a ride home in a BMW. That happened to me three times during the Asian Open, which concluded Monday — a day late because of rain — at Tomson Golf Club in Pudong.

On Sunday, I shared a 7 Series Sedan with a caddie and two golfers who were competing in the tournament … and I had no idea who they were. I didn’t want to ask — I thought that would be insulting. It would also have been a little embarrassing. I mean, I was wearing a media badge — I was writing about the freaking tournament — so you would think I should be able to recognize the competitors. But I couldn’t. You’d be surprised how little golf you actually watch when covering a golf tournament.

A little internet digging told me that the professional athlete seated directly in front of me in the passenger seat was Richard Sterne. The professional athlete to my left — seated on the hump seat — was Wade Ormsby. “I’ll sit in the middle,” he offered. “I’m small.”

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05.04.2005, 2:38 PM · Humor, Observations, Photos, Sports · Comments (1)

China’s top golfer demands more domestic support

Zhang: Playing for PRC an “ordeal”

Coverage of the BMW Asian Open, a professional golf tournament co-sanctioned by the European Tour and the Asian Tour. A version of this story appeared in the May 1, 2005 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only).

by DAN WASHBURN

SHANGHAI — China’s top-ranked golfer Zhang Lian Wei criticized his government and Chinese companies Saturday, delivering an emotional post-round press conference that elicited applause from members of the Chinese media covering the BMW Asian Open at Tomson Golf Club.

Zhang, who turns 40 on Monday, said he has never received any state funding during his historic 11-year career. He added that he has zero domestic sponsors.

“It’s such an ordeal playing golf in China over the years,” Zhang said, his voice cracking at times. “It’s tough, it’s difficult and it’s lonely. I know golf is not an Olympic sport, but I think the sports authorities should at least have shown some kind of support, like air tickets or something, to show their appreciation of my contributions to Chinese golf.”

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05.03.2005, 1:20 PM · Photos, Sports, Stories · Comments (2)

Els to fans: Put your phones on vibrate

Coverage of the BMW Asian Open, a professional golf tournament co-sanctioned by the European Tour and the Asian Tour. A version of this story appeared in the April 30, 2005 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only).

by DAN WASHBURN

SHANGHAI — There are, by the most recent count, some 330 million mobile phones in China, so it’s not too surprising that one of them happened to be five feet away from Ernie Els as he lined up a putt Friday during the second round of the BMW Asian Open at Tomson Golf Club in Shanghai.

Els was at hole No. 6 and, already at 13-under for the tournament, enjoying a rather commanding lead. He was putting from 10 feet for his third consecutive birdie, his fifth on the first six holes of the back nine.

And then that darn phone rang.

Els stopped his putt in mid-swing, turned around and smiled at the phone’s owner, a middle-aged Asian woman. Others weren’t so kind. Fans yelled at her in English and Mandarin. She managed to stop the ringing — and then the phone rang again.

“It happens a lot more over here,” said Els, the world No. 3. “It seems like everyone has a camera and everyone has a mobile phone that can also take pictures. Most of the time I take it in stride, but hopefully it doesn’t happen too often over the weekend, because it is a bit of a distraction. You want a bit of quiet over the ball.”

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05.03.2005, 12:20 PM · Photos, Sports, Stories

This post has absolutely nothing to do with Japan

It’s about soccer

Or footie, as the cool kids call it these days. Sunday evening, Cecil, Gavin, Marina and I headed over to Hongkou Stadium to watch some China Super League action. Shanghai Shenhua vs. Inter Shanghai, to be specific. This is called a derby. But it’s pronounced darby, I think. Now would be a good time to admit something: Living in Shanghai, I believe I have learned more British English than I have Chinese.

When I was around six years old, my mom bought me some new pajamas. The shirt had a picture of two guys playing soccer on it. And, since some 6-year-olds are stupid, it also had the word “SOCCER” printed in big bold letters. I threw a fit. Screaming. Crying. Why? Because I’m an American, Godammit! We hate soccer.

And then my family moved to England. The West Midlands. Sutton Coldfield. I attended the Penns Combined School — uniform required. Everything changed. I wore Adidas Sambas. I played Subuteo. I collected soccer sticker albums. I pulled for Aston Villa. I played soccer, excuse me, football — with a tennis ball, on blacktop — during recess. (I also played marbles, something called conkers … and got sent to the headmaster’s office because I somehow convinced a fellow second-grader to, inside our Ally McBeal-style co-ed bathroom, pull her knickers down. I still feel bad about that. Kind of.)

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04.27.2005, 1:22 AM · Observations, Photos, Sports, Video · Comments (2)

Just what were the anti-Japan protesters thinking?

Chatting with a Shanghai college student

Well, Japan has apologized to China … again. But Japanese officials also visited the highly controversial Yasukuni Shrine … again. (Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi hasn’t made his annual pilgrimage to the shrine — yet. He was busy meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Indonesia. A recent poll by Japan’s liberal Asahi Shimbun newspaper, by the way, shows that nearly half of Japanese voters wish Koizumi would halt his visits to the shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead — including 14 convicted World War II Class A war criminals.) And so, China responded to the apology by saying Japan needs to match its words with actions … again. And now, the feud turns to school textbooks … again. This time, Japan is calling China’s history books “extreme.” Not exactly breaking news.

The China-Japan issue is not going away any time soon. If you have read the comments to my previous post, that is abundantly clear. (And if you haven’t read the comments yet, don’t try to do it in one sitting.) Most Chinese feel one way. Most outsiders feel the opposite. The Chinese don’t understand the outsiders. The outsiders don’t understand the Chinese. This is not the first time in history this has happened.

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04.25.2005, 3:16 PM · Observations, Politics · Comments (18)

Tens of thousands take to the streets of Shanghai

Huge crowd has fun hating on Japan

Click here for photos of today’s anti-Japan march in Shanghai.

[UPDATE: Video clips of the march are here, here and here.]

So, I ended up going to Shanghai’s anti-Japan march this morning anyway. Going against the advice of a Chinese friend who told me the protest would be “very dangerous.” Going against the advice of the American government which warned U.S. citizens that China’s blanket hatred of all things Japanese could mutate into acts of violence toward all things foreign. I picked up the protest near People’s Square at around 9:30 a.m. expecting to see lines of Shanghai police, worrying slightly that my camera could get confiscated, not necessarily because it is a Japanese-made Canon — although that thought did cross my mind — but because I figured Shanghai authorities, desperately worried about the image of China’s most international city, would be doing everything in their power to limit the event’s exposure to the outside world.

Well, nothing of the sort happened. There were no lines of police. There were some, of course. But the majority of police that I saw today were smiling and laughing and marching along with the protesters. No one said a thing about my camera — not one of the police officers atop their Yamaha motorcycles, definitely not the Chinese student who wanted me to answer a question into his Sony video camera.

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04.16.2005, 3:50 PM · Observations, Photos, Politics, Video · Comments (100)

‘A detailed instruction on the Protest Against Right Wing Japanese’

And other notes about ‘warm patriotic sentiments’

The following is a translation of an email making the rounds in Shanghai regarding the fun-filled weekend the city has in store. The instructions include some tips that I think we can all apply to our everyday lives, like “If you are spotted throwing stuff at the consulate, smile at the policeman” and “Be careful when burning the Japanese flag and the Prime Minister’s portrait! Don’t end up burning yourself!” That’s just common sense.

Not sure if you were planning on checking out the protests in person or not — a little too early in the day for me — but the organizers promise it will be “quite a view.”

Here, comrades, is everything you need to know:

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04.15.2005, 1:15 PM · Observations, Politics · Comments (21)

The best vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai

BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’

My girlfriend is a vegetarian. Actually, no she’s not. Well … kind of. Really, she’s a pescetarian, but no one knows what the hell that means. So, she usually just tells people that she’s a vegetarian who eats fish — a label that likely infuriates hardcore vegetarians. But at least it’s not as bad as those “I am a vegetarian … but I eat chicken” posers. (I actually know a girl who is a “vegetarian” … but eats barbecued lamb skewers. That amuses me.)

My girlfriend, by the way, is now very close to dropping her pesce- prefix altogether. Why? Because a fish recently attacked her … in our kitchen. Earlier on the day in question, I had heard some strange noises coming from that part of the apartment. A crashing. A rattling. I couldn’t place the sound. I checked it out, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and assumed the sound came from some sort of construction project in my building — people are always drilling, hammering, scraping, sawing, etc., in this place (this place meaning China) … and sound travels all too well in uninsulated apartment buildings … especially when I am trying to sleep. So, I thought nothing of the noise — until my girlfriend screamed.

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03.30.2005, 1:28 AM · Best of Shanghai, Featured, Food, Observations · Comments (8)

I’ll be the guy in the tux

I’m considering making the tuxedo the main item in my wardrobe. I’m going to start doing my grocery shopping in one. I’m going to wear one while I work on my computer during the day. I may even start wearing one to the gym. People simply treat you better when you’re wearing a tuxedo. They assume you’re someone important, full of mystery, coming or going from someplace spectacular — not an unemployed writer who seems to spend more time traveling than actually writing. (And in China — if you look like a foreigner, at least — no one will ever assume you are a waiter or a valet.)

I found myself in a tuxedo Wednesday night. The occasion was Shanghai Talk magazine’s annual party (photos). It was at La Fabrique, an uberchic restaurant/club, the regular clientele of which is likely very familiar with the latest international DJ rankings. (I’m not kidding. People really rank DJs. Seriously.) The theme of the party was “art deco,” which clothing-wise left me clueless. The invitation said “think Josephine Baker/Noel Coward.” I Googled both Baker and Coward and, and after looking at several images of both, concluded that most men would arrive wearing ascots — and the women would be topless.

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03.19.2005, 8:10 PM · Bars, Music, Observations · Comments (9)

I think I have found my bar … finally

If I had owned my own label, I would have signed the dude to a record deal on the spot. A Chinese guy who can handle indie rock and reggae? Not to mention the fact that he had more stage presence than there was stage. Not to mention the fact that he went toe-to-toe with the police in between sets. Not to mention the fact that he always appeared to be stoned or drunk — or both — until he opened his mouth to sing. This guy had rock star written all over him. And he was performing for a crowd of a few dozen in an unassuming watering hole tucked away on a lonesome residential Shanghai street, far away from where the city’s pretty people play on Saturday nights.

It was exactly where I wanted to be.

The bar is called Tang Hui Pub and it is located at 13 Xingfu Lu, near Fahuazhen Lu. On my city map, it’s about five inches northwest of Xujiahui. It was a 16 kuai cab ride from my apartment on Madang Lu. I first learned of Tang Hui from a Swedish journalist named Ola Wong who plays electric bass for the country band Shanghai Cowboys and used to play in a punk band back in Sweden. Then, after I posted my Top 25 Albums of 2004 a reader commented that I should DJ at Tang Hui. And then at brunch on Saturday with Cecil and Bliss at Zentral, Bliss stumbled upon an article about Tang Hui in one of Shanghai’s 107 English-language magazines. We decided to finally check the place out. (Cecil couldn’t go, having purchased an RMB 700 (!) ticket to attend the black-tie St. Patrick’s Day Ball at the Pudong Shangri-La. Tickets included dinner and “free” flow of Jameson and Guinness — but they also reportedly included river dancing and Bee Gees covers by one of Shanghai’s 107 Filipino bands.)

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03.14.2005, 1:10 AM · Audio, Bars, Music, Observations, Video · Comments (8)

2005 Shanghai Diaries Movie Club

Sideways stands tall (and no minority winners for the fourth year in a row)

OK. I’ll get this out of the way up front: There are no Chinese members of the Shanghai Diaries Movie Club. And only one member actually lives in China. The SDMC was formerly known as the Orange Street Oscars and it was based in lily-white Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. We have moved our operations to Shanghai because labor is cheap, movies are cheaper and the Chinese appear to be on a cinematic hot streak (especially when compared to the Amish, who, frankly, have been a big disappointment since showing so much promise in Witness).

Released just in time to be dramatically overshadowed by the real Oscars, the Shanghai Diaries Movie Club is the year in film as seen through the eyes of five guys in Pennsylvania, one guy in Shanghai and another guy lost somewhere in New Jersey. We give you our Top-20 Films of 2004 and a glimpse of what the Oscars would look like if we were in charge. Scroll down and see rough biographical sketches and individual top-20 lists from each voter. (One movie club member only managed a top-12 list this year. Forgive him — he’s from Scranton.)

The SDMC is looking for new members — especially ones based in China. So, please leave your comments and your own top-whatever lists as comments to this post. We’d love to hear from you. Maybe we’ll invite you back next year. We know you are dying to learn the secret club handshake … and meet the man known to millions of women worldwide simply as Big Daddy.

Enjoy.

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02.27.2005, 5:47 PM · Movies · Comments (55)

IBM’s moronic new ad about China

If you live in a America and you have watched any television in the last couple weeks, you have likely seen some of IBM’s “help desk” commercials, the company’s attempt to, as Reuters phrases it, “put a human face on the services it offers.” In IBM’s whitewashed parallel cyber-universe, friendly, soft-spoken people sit behind desks waiting to help real people solve their real-people problems. “We wanted to show that we’re not just talking about technology for technology’s sake … but things that affect not only business but the world and society at large,” said Deirdre Bigley, IBM’s vice president of worldwide advertising.

Unfortunately, one of the ads — produced by Ogilvy & Mather — shows IBM to have a rather myopic view of the world at large, especially China. This is a common problem in corporate America, blinded by the supposed gold in them thar Chinese hills. The 30-second spot does not bode well for IBM’s future in the “world’s fastest-growing economy.” Nope, the “Big Blue” just doesn’t get China at all, it seems. Interesting for a company whose computer business was just taken over by Lenovo — a Chinese company.

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01.24.2005, 2:35 PM · Business, Television, Video · Comments (18)

The coldest looking sport in the world

Also: I am a bad Pennsylvanian

As some of you may know, I’m in Honolulu now. The forecast for Sunday is 80 degrees and sunny. Perfect beach weather, right? Nope. Not today. Today, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. I will be seated in front of a television set. And I will be loving every minute of it.

This is a great time to visit America for NFL fans who happen to live in China. The division championships. Atlanta vs. Philadelphia. New England vs. Pittsburgh. Winners advance to the Super Bowl. And I get to watch both games live. I know it sounds ridiculous, but other than meeting my nephew and visiting with family, the prospect of watching NFL games live was the thing that excited me most about coming to Hawaii. Well, OK — the weather’s a draw, too. It’s nice to go “home” without freezing your ass off.

Speaking of home — and freezing your ass off — thanks to FOX and CBS, I’ll get to spend six hours in Pennsylvania tomorrow … and the only thing cold will be the beer in my right hand. They are expecting a foot of snow before kickoff in Philly. The high temperature Sunday in Pittsburgh is expected to be 17 — with wind gusts of 30 miles per hour. And I, if I get sick of the commercials, can walk barefoot out onto my brother’s porch and see the Pacific Ocean.

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01.23.2005, 7:03 PM · Sports · Comments (6)

Tonight and Tomorrow: Country music … all the way from Japan

From Gary of the Shanghai Cowboys:

Stopped in Tokyo for a few days and played last evening with some of my old band members from the Tokyo Cowboys. Great fun. The quality of playing by young country musicians here in Tokyo has really improved over the past few years! Tomorrow, Thursday Jan 20, I return to Shanghai. Also tomorrow a Japanese band from Kyushu will arrive in Shanghai to play at Ark on Saturday Friday evening! My good friend, a great young pedal steel player Hiroshi Ozaki, who is the son of my old pedal steel man Takashi Ozaki, will be coming with them. Hiroshi is one of the musicians I played with last night and he really swings! The lead singer and band leader is Charlie Nagatani, who Shawn Waters worked together with in Fukuoka a few years back. So it will be a great weekend. See you all at Ark Saturday tonight!

UPDATE from Gary:

Correction! Tonight at 8:30 the band plays at Ark. Tomorrow at Oldies in Hongqiao. Hope this reaches you all in time.

Sorry, still no word on the band’s name, what time the show starts on Saturday, the admission price or whether any other bands are playing. I tried to see if the info was on the new That’s Shanghai website, but that thing is soooo bad. The Ark Live House site looks better, but it is also of no use whatsoever. I’ve never been able to find listings on it, not on the English version at least. I’d call Ark myself, but I’m in Hawaii. I’ll let you do it:

Ark Live House
Taicang Rd, Lane 181
Xintiandi (North section) #15
太仓路边181弄
新天地广场北里15号
Phone: (021) 3308-5000

This might be the venue for Saturday night (I’d call if I were you):

Oldies But Goodies 温故知新
1440 Hongqiao Lu (by Yan’An Xi Lu)
虹桥路1440号，近延安西路
Phone: (021) 6219 3364

Related: Shanghai Twang: Country music in the big city

01.21.2005, 3:30 PM · Music · Comments (1)

The Top 25 Albums Of 2004

THE YEAR’S BEST MUSIC

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01.03.2005, 11:01 PM · Audio, Music · Comments (22)

This bug’s for you

Some say the new Shanghai Oriental Arts Center looks like a butterfly. I say it should have spent some more time in its cocoon.

From PlaybillArts:

Designed by French architect Paul Andrea — who also designed the opera house currently under construction in Beijing — the hall is variously described as resembling a butterfly and an orchid, with five segments containing the main entrance, the concert hall, a 1,020-seat opera house, a 333-seat auditorium, and an exhibition space. At night, lights on the roof will change color in coordination with the music inside.

I attended a show inside the butterfly last night, just two days after the $120 million dollar Shanghai Oriental Arts Center opened its very expensive doors. The concert — performed by the Berlin RIAS Broadcasting Philharmonic Orchestra — was billed “The Night of Dynamic Crystal.” And that billing makes absolutely no sense unless you know that the evening was sponsorerd by a real estate development firm that, for some reason, named itself Dynamic Crystal. I was given two free tickets to the concert because of some relatively shady “work” I did for Dynamic Crystal a couple weeks ago.

So please, follow me as I take you on a walking tour though the latest impersonal monstrosity to go up east of the Huangpu. The photo essay begins here.

01.03.2005, 9:50 PM · Music, Observations · Comments (5)

‘From travel bug to travel blog’

That’s the title of ShanghaiTalk’s January 2005 cover story — and you may recognize the “cover boy.” Oh, wait. You probably won’t. My face is covered in the photo, which likely explains why it made the cover. The magazine’s managing editor Shamus Sillar did a nice little story about The Trip and the two-page spread also features a slew of my photos and an excerpt from one of my trip stories. I’m pretty pleased with the way it all turned out.

Unfortunately, ShanghaiTalk does not have a real website — it is only 2005, after all — so if you want to read the story, you’ll have to pick up an issue in Shanghai. This may prove to be difficult if you happen to live in, say, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, or anywhere else in the world. The photo is also the cover of this month’s BeijingTalk, but I’m not sure if the story ran in that magazine, as well [UPDATE: The story did run in Beijing … and Guangzhou, as well]. Maybe Shamus can hook me up with a PDF file of the story that I could post here or something [UPDATE: See below … Thanks, Shamus!]. I’ll let you know.

For now, you can check out these not-so-great pics of the story high-quality images Shamus gave me. Just click on the icons, keeping in mind that some of the images are rather large:

But, really, if I were you I’d check out this great video of The Arcade Fire playing live instead (thanks for the link, Daily Refill). And stay tuned for the Shanghai Diaries Top 25 Albums Of 2004 list, which will appear right here very soon — maybe even tomorrow. I have a feeling The Arcade Fire might make it. Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that.

01.02.2005, 2:15 AM · Music, Site News · Comments (5)

The best pizza in Shanghai

BEST OF SHANGHAI: ‘One man’s opinion’

My girlfriend thought we moved into our new apartment last June because it was walking distance from the Huangpi Nan Lu subway station and our gym. That’s what she thought. The real reason I thought the location was prime? Its proximity to pizza — the best damn pizza in Shanghai.

I like pizza. A lot. And this Best of Shanghai entry is easy to write. It’s no contest. Da Marco on Yandang Lu has the best pizza in the city. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. (Well, except when the Yankees were up three games to none over the Red Sox in this year’s American League Championship Series. Wait a minute — that doesn’t really help my case.)

Tastes in pizza — like all of these “best of” topics — are very subjective. If you grew up near Chicago, you probably like a thick crust. If you grew up near New York, thin is your thing. If you grew up in Shanghai, I am sorry — your country’s pizza is appalling. And pizza is the greatest thing since sliced, um, noodles.

Go to Da Marco and you’ll see what I mean.

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12.21.2004, 2:33 AM · Best of Shanghai, Food · Comments (32)

Manhattan Bar: No longer ‘hookers, drinks and DVDs’

I don’t make a habit of going to invitation-only grand opening parties for new bars — largely because I never get invited to them. But thanks to my friend Diana, I got on the guest list for a gala last night. The bar was called Manhattan. The street was Tongren Lu. The block was just south of Nanjing Xi Lu, site of a flashy new bar strip where many of the drinking holes and dance spots forced out of Maoming Nan Lu have sought considerably swankier refuge. Manhattan is one of the first new Tongren Lu establishments to debut. And the place was packed — the manager says he has quite the email address list.

If you are familiar with the Manhattan Bar on Maoming Lu — yes, that sticky, smoky, smelly dive with DVD hawkers hounding people at high tables — you should know that this new version does indeed come from the same ownership. But the two places have nothing in common. Manhattan on Tongren Lu is upscale, sophisticated and tastefully appointed. A huge silhouette of the Manhattan skyline — or, at least, some artist’s rendition of it — glows behind the bar. There’s a stage for live music and a balcony for a bird’s eye view. And the DVD hawkers have to stay outside.

“When you make enough money selling hookers and drinks,” said one party-goer familiar with the old Manhattan Bar, “you can afford a place like this.”

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12.17.2004, 7:09 PM · Bars, Observations · Comments (7)

Shanghai Twang: Country music in the big city

Y’all come now, ya hear?

When you get an email from someone you don’t know telling you to go to a bar you’ve never heard of so you can hear a band “practice,” usually it’s a good idea to deposit that email into the trash. But something about this particular email grabbed me. Maybe it was the fact that it began not with Dear or Hello or Hi, but Y’all come!! Maybe it was the band’s name — the Shanghai Cowboys — and the promise of passable country music … in Shanghai. But likely it was the paragraph’s closing sentence that prompted me to head on over to a place called The Literature Club last night:

“Please pass the word and bring along some of your shit-kicking friends.”

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12.11.2004, 7:21 PM · Music · Comments (5)

The best hot dogs in Shanghai

Best of Shanghai is a new category on the site that will be updated from time to time. WARNING: This is one man’s opinion — but it’s usually right.

I broke a longstanding personal maxim over the weekend: Never utter the word “dog” while ordering at a Chinese restaurant. But at Orange Dog, a snack shop in the basement of Jiu Guang City Plaza, the big new mall on Nanjing Xi Lu next to Jing’an Temple, it’s hard not to — hot dogs are their specialty. And I’d rather eat a phallus of ground up pig snouts than poor old Rover any day. (Actually, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, hot dogs are not made of snouts and other sundry swine parts. They are made of “specially selected meat trimmings of beef and/or pork.” And I can’t think of any reason why the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council would lie about something like that. Oh, wait — yes I can.)

The best hot dogs I’ve had in China were cooked by my friend Luis at one of his famous back porch barbecues, which always include — curiously — several boxes of Kittyland cookies. Don’t tell Luis I told you this: His hot dogs usually come burned. But, in China, you take what you can get. I once ordered a hot dog in Lanzhou (I know, I know) at one of those Western knock-off restaurants where everything looks kind of Western but ends up being really weird. I got a big bun that looked even bigger because of what was inside it. It was a small Chinese sausage. You know, the reddish, kind of sweet ones. It was about the size of my middle finger, ironically. They sliced it in half length-wise and placed the two pieces end to end. Even then it didn’t fill up the bun. Making things worse, the meat was lathered in mayonnaise. Mayonnaise! Where was I? Britain?

So, I was excited to stumble upon Orange Dog, where everything looked and tasted normal.

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12.07.2004, 8:07 PM · Best of Shanghai, Food · Comments (19)

In search of baseball’s Yao Ming

China takes a swing at America’s Pastime

A version of this story appeared in the July 18, 2004 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription required).

by DAN WASHBURN

SHANGHAI — Seattle Mariners scout Ted Heid has spent the past four years searching China for “diamonds in the rough.” He hasn’t found any yet. Right now, he says, he is closely monitoring the progress of a lot of “lumps of coal.” But Heid will be back in Beijing and Shanghai next year, and the year after that. China’s baseball boom is coming … sometime. Only no one seems to be sure when it will finally arrive.

“You can’t discount China in anything, whether it is business or any athletic event,” said Heid, the Mariners’ Director of Pacific Rim Operations. “Once they make it a focus, their greatest asset is people.”

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11.30.2004, 1:24 AM · Sports, Stories · Comments (3)

Shanghai music scene gets mo’ better

It’s taken me a while, but I have finally found good live music in Shanghai. I’m going to have fun exploring the city’s resurgent jazz scene. It may not be indie-rock — my music of choice back in the States — but it still rocks, in its own way.

My girlfriend’s brother, A.J. Khaw, an accomplished jazz pianist living in Miami, is in town for a couple weeks. We didn’t have time to set up any gigs, and as it turns out we didn’t need to. One night earlier this week, we headed over to the Cotton Club and Club JZ — and A.J. ended up on stage in both places. Check out the photos.

I’ve also seen decent live shows at the House of Blues and Jazz, but the atmosphere there is a little too sterile for my taste. To properly enjoy jazz and blues, I believe, you need to be at a place where the smoke hangs in the air and your feet stick to the floor. And, ideally, sticking to your ribs would be some good Southern barbecue.

Not sure if the pulled-pork sandwich will ever make its way to Shanghai. But right now, the jazz music is enough for me.

07.02.2004, 7:15 PM · Music, Photos · Comments (2)

Slash of the Titans

How government censors — not audience members — were the most annoying part of my first movie-going experience in China

I am somewhat of a movie buff, yet I waited 18 months to see a movie in the theater in Shanghai. Or perhaps it’s that I waited 18 months to see a movie in the theater in Shanghai because I am somewhat of a movie buff. Let me explain.

Generally an easy going guy, I am the anal retentive movie-goer. I hate when audience members talk. I hate when their mobile phones go off. I hate when they have annoying laughs.

In America, I would choose show times based on when the theater was likely to be at its emptiest. I would choose a seat far away from anyone else. If someone would come in late and sit near me, sometimes I would get up and move.

I figured China would be just about the worst place for a person like me to go see a movie because — and I know I am generalizing here — Chinese people have no problem talking during anything, Chinese people love their mobile phones and the Chinese language comes in two volume levels: loud an louder. The whisper, I’m convinced, is a Western innovation.

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06.27.2004, 3:04 AM · Culture, Movies, Observations · Comments (13)

Too rainy for you? Blame the government.

Shanghai summers are hot and humid, sometimes unbearably so. Last summer, the city’s high temperature remained above 95 degrees for a record 40 days in a row. And sorry Shanghai dwellers, summers aren’t likely to get better any time soon, because — as we all know — Shanghai is also one of the most polluted megacities in the world. What little bit of ozone our sky has left will likely be burned away soon. Automobile sales here are growing at a record pace — even though the roads are already overcrowded and the city has about one parking lot downtown — and factory emissions go largely unchecked. Oh, the country is also in the midst of an energy crisis because the government forgot to figure out how it was going to power its economy’s historic growth. Last summer, Shanghai experienced a series of power shortages because too many people were using their air conditioners at the same time.

But, have no fear, people of Shanghai. The government is coming to our rescue. It has a plan to solve all of our problems. The government’s going to make it rain, baby.

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06.20.2004, 1:28 PM · News, Observations, Politics · Comments (10)

Commander in Grief

Was cleaning out my desk during the move and found this sticker that was given to me last summer in D.C.

I like it. Thought I would share.

Enjoy.

06.13.2004, 6:27 PM · Politics · Comments (1)

“Have your good time, Mr. Sadam”

yesterday was my last day of teaching at shanghai university. forever. and, right now, that’s all i have to say about that.

i will leave you with the transcript from a mid-term skit two of my students performed for me monday, five weeks after it was due. no, the dialogue has nothing to do with what the assignment was actually about. yes, the students received very bad grades for their efforts.

but i thought it was fittingly bizarre. enjoy.

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05.27.2004, 1:47 AM · Humor, Politics, School

Tracking The Shark

click here to check out my photos from day two of the bmw asian open, a pga european tour golf tournament held this weekend at shanghai’s tomson golf club in pudong.

i followed the group that included greg norman (otherwise known as “the great white shark”) and zhang lian wei, arguably china’s top pro golfer. last year, he became the first chinese golfer to win a european tour tournament.

most of these photos were taken on the sly, as photography by fans is strongly frowned upon. and imported security personnel communicating through earpieces, looking like members of the aryan nation or perhaps extras from sprockets, loomed and chastised those who dared to disobey their directives.

camera nazis notwithstanding, i must say that, after several years spent covering sports for newspapers, i’m having fun just being a sports fan again. it no longer feels like work.

anyway, enjoy the photos.

05.15.2004, 2:54 PM · Photos, Sports · Comments (1)

Chinese Football: Wilkinson’s Shanghai surprise

Versions of this story appeared in the April 4, 2004 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only) and the May 2004 issue of that’s Shanghai. To download a PDF of the SCMP story, click here.

Hired by reigning league champs, Sgt. Wilko could be gone before the fall

by DAN WASHBURN

SHANGHAI — Every time Howard Wilkinson exits his five-star Shanghai hotel, he thinks about Flash Gordon. Overlooking the Huangpu River, the Oriental Riverside Hotel sits in the shadow of the Pudong skyline, a scattershot vision of the future that feels about as humanistic as a set for a science-fiction movie. One of the otherworldly skyscrapers reminds Wilkinson of the Saturday morning trips to the cinema he used to make as a child in Sheffield, England. To him, the building looks just like Flash Gordon’s rocket ship. To him, the building, and those that surround it, look nothing like China — or at least the China that he was anticipating when he arrived in Shanghai in March.

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05.14.2004, 9:59 AM · Sports, Stories · Comments (6)

Alex Scales: Standing tall in Shanghai

Versions of this story appeared in the March 10, 2004 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only), the April 18, 2004 edition of the (Eugene, Ore.) Register-Guard and on FIBA.com, website for basketball’s worldwide governing body.

NBA dreams take former Oregon star around the world — and out of his element

by DAN WASHBURN

SHANGHAI — Alex Scales was surrounded. Moments after the Shanghai Sharks defeated the Zhejiang Horses, a huge push of people had its favorite foreign player corralled. His head and shoulders poking through the throng, Scales was at the mercy of the masses. If the crowd moved, he moved too — a bust bobbing on a sea of black hair. They wanted autographs and photos. He wanted a way out. It was the only time Scales looked lost on the basketball court that night.

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04.19.2004, 6:44 AM · Sports, Stories · Comments (6)

This just in from Hong Kong …

today i received PDF files of my two most recent stories for the south china morning post (subscription only). to check them out, click the links below:

:: pro basketball: cultural rebound :: :: pro soccer: wilkinson’s shanghai surprise ::

04.14.2004, 6:31 PM · Sports, Stories

take me out to the bangqiu bisai

if you’re a fan of mediocre baseball — yes, i mean you, pittsburgh pirates fans — you’re just going to love the china baseball league. baseball, huge in japan and taiwan, has never really caught on here in china. for evidence of this, just look at the CBL (the only pro league in a country of 1.3 billion), which could only scrounge up four teams.

this is the CBL’s third season, and last friday i was there for opening day: shanghai eagles vs. beijing tigers. shanghai’s congbei stadium in pudong is not conveniently located — the nearest subway stop is a 22 kuai cab ride away — but that didn’t stop shanghai’s baseball fans from coming out in droves.

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04.08.2004, 3:06 PM · Observations, Sports · Comments (4)

stripped: beijing youth whips out story about nude men

i think i’m the guy on the right. the one with the big nose and the bad haircut. i can’t read what i am saying, but i imagine it has something to do with the nude bald man talking on his mobile phone or the nude midget to my left.

this cartoon recently appeared in the beijing youth daily (beijing qingnian bao) newspaper, which claims to have a paid daily circulation of 600,000. the cartoon accompanied english and chinese versions of one of my recent posts. it had to do with nudity in locker rooms.

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04.08.2004, 1:24 AM · Observations, Politics · Comments (6)

i challenge you to a personality contest

i generally avoid reading the chinese media … because, well, it’s the chinese media. but during lunch yesterday at rendezvous cafe — my new favorite shanghai slop house — i happened to glance at a china daily. and now, dare i say it, i think i might be addicted … because, well, it was hilarious. unlike most newspapers, state-run chinese newspapers aren’t bogged down with real news stories. they don’t confuse readers by offering two sides to every story. hell, sometimes they don’t report on stories at all — thus saving readers valuable time.

all this free space allows chinese newspapers to print some pretty weird shit. the onion ain’t got nothing on these guys.

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03.20.2004, 11:27 PM · Humor, News · Comments (5)

i have the jaspers in the elite eight. and you?

earlier this week, i thought i started to feel march madness … but it turned out just to be food poisoning.

but now i feel the real thing. my brackets are all filled out and we’re just 13 hours from tip-off. i have the feeling, however, that i may be the only person in shanghai who cares about college basketball. please let me know that isn’t the case.

so check out my bracket if you like. and share your thoughts. just bear in mind that i haven’t seen a college basketball game in two years.

speaking of which, does anyone know any place in shanghai that is showing ncaa tournament games? if so, let me know. i’ll buy you a beer when i get there.

03.18.2004, 12:40 PM · Sports · Comments (1)

dirty american orange girl rider

you’ve seen all the other awards shows, now check out the, um, latest …

click here for the 2004 orange street oscars, the awards that have everyone in hollywood talking. (we just checked, people in hollywood are indeed talking … right now.)

here’s a sneak peak …

dan’s top twenty films of 2003

01. Lost in Translation
02. American Splendor
03. In America
04. City of God
05. Pieces of April
06. Owning Mahowny
07. The Triplets of Belleville
08. Capturing the Friedmans
09. Dirty Pretty Things
10. Mystic River
11. The Dancer Upstairs
12. Girl with a Pearl Earring
13. Spellbound
14. Master and Commander
15. The Last Samurai
16. Kill Bill, Vol. 1
17. Elf
18. School of Rock
19. The Man on the Train
20. Bend it Like Beckham

Also Receiving Votes
21 Grams, A Mighty Wind, Elephant, Finding Nemo, The Hulk, The Italian Job, Monster, Phone Booth, Run Ronnie Run, Seabiscuit, Whale Rider

Not Receiving Votes
Daredevil, Down With Love, Holes, In the Cut, Intolerable Cruelty, Laurel Canyon, Northfork, Old School

Definitely Not Receiving Votes
Bringing Down the House, The Core, The Shape of Things, Something’s Gotta Give, Swimming Pool, XX/XY

Movies I Own, But Have Not Watched Yet
28 Days Later, Buffalo Soldiers, Gerry, The Good Thief, Mona Lisa Smile, Pirates of the Carribean, Secret Lives of Dentists, Stuck on You, Thirteen, Veronica Guerin

Movie I Am Currently Downloading
Shattered Glass

Movies I Haven’t Seen, But Want To
Big Fish, Cold Mountain, The Cooler, The Fog of War, House of Sand and Fog

so get there, now! and don’t forget to leave your comments.

03.12.2004, 2:07 AM · Movies

where the hell have i been?

in a cave? well, yes. but only part of the time. NOTE: i added a couple hundred new photos the other day. follow the links found in the text below to see them.

you know it’s been a long time when you start getting text messages from your students telling you to update your website. so here you go, bonny.

over the past several weeks, i chose to concentrate on money-making ventures — you know, freelance writing and standing next to cars — instead of this website.

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03.11.2004, 1:06 AM · Guangxi, Movies, Observations, Photos, School, Sports · Comments (4)

america in decline: first the war, now the mullet?

seriously, what is america thinking? has playing bully in mess-‘o-potamia not already alienated us enough from the un-american world? do we crave more scorn and ridicule from our foreign former friends? or do we just not give a shit?

if jimmy fallon’s hair is a barometer for america’s screw-everybody-else attitude — and i think we all know that it is — then we’re in a heap of trouble. because fallon, for some ungodly reason, has chosen to sport … gasp … a mullet.

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01.27.2004, 10:05 PM · Television · Comments (3)

the top 20 albums of 2003

apropos of nothing, i am posting my top 20 albums of 2003 … and i am doing it in late january 2004. you may ask: why? a valid question, indeed. but if i can stop one chinese kid from listening to linkin park, then this list was worth the trouble.

20. quasi :: hot shit
19. the decemberists :: her majesty …
18. outkast :: speakerboxx/the love below
17. the strokes :: room on fire
16. califone :: quicksand: cradlesnakes
15. broken social scene :: you forgot it in people
14. manitoba :: up in flames
13. radiohead :: hail to the thief
12. jay-z :: the black album
11. death cab for cutie :: transatlanticism
10. the unicorns :: who will cut our hair when we’re gone?
09. my morning jacket :: it still moves
08. clearlake :: cedars
07. the wrens :: the meadowlands
06. the constantines :: shine a light
05. grandaddy :: sumday
04. the postal service :: give up
03. the new pornographers :: electric version
02. cat power :: you are free
01. the shins :: chutes too narrow

a second opinion (from richmond eustis) …

10. eels :: shootenanny!
09. bobby bare jr. :: young criminals starvation league
08. quasi :: hot shit
07. the decemberists :: her majesty …
06. bonnie prince billy :: master and everyone
05. the new pornographers :: electric version
04. ted leo & the pharmacists :: hearts of oak
03. dean wareham & britta phillips :: l’avventura
02. calexico :: feast of wire
01. cat power :: you are free

please feel free to post your list below.

01.27.2004, 4:21 PM · Music · Comments (5)

so much news about china, so little time

i know i’ve left you hanging for several weeks now. so in case you were wondering, china cut its diplomatic ties with kiribati.

and the posturing and finger-pointing across the strait reached new, shrill heights with the contested referendum vote that started with bold talk of bolstering taiwanese democracy, and predictably ended in a compromise that created more ambiguity on taiwan’s integral position as china’s democratic territory that runs itself and seems to have diplomatic status, but not really. after needlessly getting their panties in a wad for a few days, the CCP was able to take satisfaction in the subsequent dissatisfaction of the pro-independence taiwanese.

the WHO cautions china as the country is moving quickly in testing its SARS vaccine. and it all started with the eccentric eating habits of those southerners.

an interesting, if not questionable move, as larger chinese cities are arguably already struggling to accommodate their burgeoning populaces:
China encourages mass urban migration (ft.com)

it could very well be that you don’t care one bit about all of this boring talk about chinese banks and bad loans. but china news will take an interest in this extremely important subject, not only because it is of great interest to the editor. and to standard & poor. sorry for you, just skip over the section if it puts you to sleep.

not one to disappoint, this edition of china news will close out with a little communist-sponsored safe sex, the next chinese model, china’s silicone wonder and rapping mao.

DISCLAIMER: the views expressed by the news editor do not necessarily reflect those of the shanghai diaries … but they probably do. no, the news editor is not dan. yes, the news editor is sometimes too busy to post editions of china news on a more regular basis. deal with it.

11.30.2003, 2:16 PM · News

wild on xinjiang: setting the stage

note: the following is the first of many posts that will document my 10-day stay in china’s xinjiang uighur autonomous region during the national day holiday. now, i’ll be the first to tell you that this introduction has little to do with the xinjiang i saw. but i’ve been doing some research on the topic lately. i find it interesting. and there you go.

the uighurs wobble … but will they fall down?

the place: china might as well add “restive” to its already long and disingenuous name for the xinjiang uighur autonomous region. read a newspaper or magazine story about this vast and mysterious northwestern non-province, and restive will undoubtedly show up somewhere. (see, i’ve already done it twice.) this makes me chuckle. my dictionary defines autonomous like this: “not controlled by others; independent.” and restive like this: “difficult to control.”

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11.09.2003, 10:56 PM · Politics, Xinjiang · Comments (4)

i love china. honest, i really do.

combine an irresistible urge to procrastinate and an oncoming stream of sarcasm, and you get another issue of china news. good for you, of questionable benefit for me. but china news is all about the readers, the masses of you that are surely out there.

to get things started, the most laughably obvious statement of this edition: China admits it can do more to combat piracy (straitstimes.com)

a couple more rather pressing issues that china still considers to be less important than making plans for shenzhou reloaded and shenzhou revolutions:
China’s bad loan disposal worries Moody’s (ft.com)
Epidemic threatens to devastate China’s economy (globeandmail.com)

the CCP, being the pr darling that is has always been, throws yet another tantrum over taiwan’s latest outrage: a visit to the states combined with formalizing diplomatic relations with that international political giant kiribati (where exactly is this?). quick, see if you can jump to conclusions about taiwan’s clear moves towards independence as fast as china has.

winning this edition’s “most ballsy foreigners” award, read this story to learn how to very effectively use history to step on china’s toes. read this story to learn how to very effectively step on hong kong’s toes after trying the same thing before and nearly getting hk’s top communist bureaucrat torn to shreds by over half a million angry protestors.

like cabbage? the chinese used to. see how this ap writer managed to get a story published on the historical significance of chinese cabbage:
China’s appeal for cabbage withering (news.yahoo.com)

DISCLAIMER: the views expressed by the news editor do not necessarily reflect those of the shanghai diaries … but they probably do. no, the news editor is not dan. yes, the news editor is sometimes bitterly cynical. deal with it.

11.08.2003, 10:11 AM · News

bush vs. china

in this first edition of china news, president bush comes out looking like a surprise winner as he actually decides to put more stock in expert advice rather than interest group demands. suddenly, pushing for the revaluation of the chinese yuan as the top priority on the china-bashing agenda seems like a bad idea. read it to believe it:
Why Bush Won’t Bash China (caltradereport.com)

keep in mind that dubya’s prime, newsworthy competition consisted of SARS and the chinese communist government (aka gungho for shenzhou) which finally decided to acknowledge the existence of poverty and homelessness in china. a step in the right direction, but a miniscule step that has taken far too long. making an empty gesture of assitance and deciding not to throw beijing’s homeless in jail does little to help the problem. in fact, it doesn’t do much good for the CCP’s image, either:
China finally opens its eyes to surging homeless crisis (chicagotribune.com)

DISCLAIMER: the views expressed by the news editor do not necessarily reflect those of the shanghai diaries … but they probably do. no, the news editor is not dan. yes, the news editor is sometimes in a cranky mood. deal with it.

11.05.2003, 12:31 PM · News

a fond farewell to a friend

over the past six or so years, i have listened to no one’s voice more than elliott smith’s. his music has spoken to me more than girlfriends, parents or friends. he’s always been there for me — i wish i could have been there for him. elliott died tuesday. he stabbed himself in the heart with a steak knife.

elliott had his problems, obviously. alcohol. drugs. depression. he was fragile, uncomfortable with fame. i’ve seen him in concert several times. and after each one, i always thought the same thing: “i hope elliott is ok.”

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10.25.2003, 12:35 AM · Music · Comments (3)

add my name to the list!

Film Actors Join the Fray Against ‘Screeners’ Ban (news.yahoo.com)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Several top actors and past Academy Award winners are joining the battle against a controversial ban on Oscar movie “screeners” by voicing their opposition in a newspaper advertisement, a film industry source said on Tuesday. …

… The ad will ask the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood’s major studios, to reverse their decision to issue screeners to Academy members who vote on the awards.

The ban on “screeners” — videotapes and DVDs of movies vying for awards — has raised a major outcry by filmmakers, directors and now actors who say it will limit the number of people who will see contending films and discriminate against smaller independent studios.

The MPAA instituted the ban out of concern the videos and DVDs will be illegally copied and sold on black markets or distributed for free over the Internet, which happened last year.

why i care: now i, obviously, have different reasons for opposing the screener ban than the “top actors and past academy award winners.” in addition to being a big-time supporter of independent film, i am also a big-time supporter of the black market here in asia. i rely on illegal copies of these screeners. they keep me sane. please jack valenti, don’t make me wait until next summer to see lost in translation! please! lift the ban! if you don’t do it for me, do it for the orange street oscars.

see also: What’s the big Oscar DVD ‘screener’ flap?

10.16.2003, 11:28 PM · Movies · Comments (1)

blame china: part 473

Commission: China’s manipulation of its currency hurting US economy (news.yahoo.com)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An independent review panel has determined in a report sent to the US Congress Wednesday that China is manipulating its currency, to the great detriment of US industry.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, after hearing the testimony last month of economists, academics business and labor leaders and lawmakers, determined that “China, in violation of both its (International Monetary Fund) and (World Trade Organization) obligations, is in fact manipulating its currency for trade advantage.

The panel recommended in its report to the US Congress that the Treasury Department “immediately enter into formal negotiations with the Chinese government” over its currency the yuan, which the commission estimates is undervalued by between 15 and 40 percent.

Meanwhile a US lawmaker introduced legislation Wednesday calling on the George W. Bush administration to repeal permanent normal trade relations with China, saying the policy is destroying US manufacturing and threatens to eliminate US service industry jobs as well.

the gut reaction from a close friend: “so it’s ALL china’s fault. can you imagine if suddenly things from china started to cost 15-40% more? or if we just stopped receiving their exports at a large scale? what happened to all the economists who would say that just revaluing the yuan isn’t likely to help america’s manufacturing sector, because there are other problems at the heart of the job losses? argh.”

10.16.2003, 11:02 PM · News · Comments (1)

‘i think we should be slaves’

so my students are giving mid-term presentations now. the topic: any story about something they experienced over national day holiday. basically, my students are a boring lot … and they readily admit it. i heard over and over again how they slept, watched tv, played computer games, surfed the internet and ate “some delicious foods.”

a few students stuck out, though. one in particular. her father is a history professor, so she spent part of her time reading chinese history books that were lying around her house. her presentation was about the fact that she couldn’t trust anything in those books, thanks to the chinese government’s habit of rewriting — or just erasing — messy bits of history.

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10.13.2003, 11:33 PM · Observations, Politics, School · Comments (1)

lost in translation

click here if you would like to see the shanghai diaries translated into chinese, korean, japanese, italian, german, french, spanish — hell, even portuguese. someone is trying to sell me this service … but i’m not buying. have a feeling there would be lots of “super karate monkey death car”-type stuff in there.

don’t get that reference? well, you need to watch more newsradio, one of the best television shows — ever.

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10.13.2003, 1:07 AM · Site News, Television

california goes commando

it’s times like these that i’m glad i don’t live in america.

10.08.2003, 11:28 PM · Politics · Comments (3)

Up in Smoke: Shanghai is all tied up in the tobacco

NOTE: Versions of this story appeared in the South China Morning Post (subscription only) and that’s Shanghai magazine.

by DAN WASHBURN

SHANGHAI — Song Hai Pei’s front teeth are stained brown from smoking cigarettes. A pack of Red Double Happiness rests at the ready in his breast pocket. He often offers smokes to the patrons of the small restaurant he owns in northern Shanghai. Song, 47, has been a smoker for 25 years. Not once has he thought about quitting. No reason to, he claims, as long as he feels healthy and can afford the financial burden of his habit. When asked whether he believes cigarettes are addictive, he responds: “No. I can go without smoking for one whole day without feeling a thing.”

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09.29.2003, 12:26 AM · Politics, Stories · Comments (2)

today is a sad day

my inspiration died today. well, not all of it … but a big part of it. george plimpton passed away from an apparent heart attack. he was 76. plimpton, the godfather of “participatory journalism,” was, unwittingly to be sure, a major influence in the odd course my “career” has taken over the past half decade. reading the best of plimpton, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, literally changed my life. never got a chance to thank him.

to read his new york times obituary, click here.

to take a look at all of the stupid things i tried in the name of plimptonian participatory journalism — including bull riding, nude water volleyball, sky diving and handgrabbing for giant catfish in mississippi — click here.

09.27.2003, 8:32 AM · Words · Comments (1)

another reason not to eat fast food

bombs over hubei (news.yahoo.com)
the explosions were “planned.” good detective work.

09.23.2003, 6:42 AM · News

cricket fighting: shut the hell up, russell!

cricket fighting — yes, cricket fighting — has been a popular activity in china for thousands of years. they are the roy jones juniors of the insect world: they sing … and they kick ass!

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09.22.2003, 11:35 PM · Observations, Sports · Comments (10)

drew barrymore fights crime in henan … and other news

Squad of Chinese “Charlie’s Angels” act as bait to nab rapists (news.yahoo.com)
Policewomen in central China’s Henan province are tossing aside their uniforms and donning high heels, mini skirts and low-cut blouses in hopes of luring and nabbing rapists. The women are part of a special squad of young, attractive female officers recently formed by the city of Zhengzhou’s police department to serve as bait for sex assailants. … “In the past, we had male police officers dress up as women. They thought women were too weak to perform such work. But the men were not very convincing,” Liu said.

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09.15.2003, 9:35 PM · News · Comments (3)

buy me some peanuts and … soy sauce rice crackers?

something almost made me drop my tsingtao on friday (i said almost). at a bar, i glanced at a television expecting to see beckham or billiards or some bad chinese drama where the guys sport shaved heads and ponytails. instead, i saw my beloved new york yankees take on the toronto blue jays. i was stunned — my first time watching baseball in mainland china.

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09.07.2003, 5:10 PM · Observations, Sports · Comments (2)

from the “it’s about time” department …

hong kong declares war on smoking (smoking, on an extended vacation in shanghai, could not be reached for comment)

bush’s job approval rating goes down (meanwhile, queer eye for the straight guy ratings continue to soar)

09.07.2003, 4:45 PM · News

worth reading: the dark underside of china’s economy

from the New York Times …

HANGZHOU, China — Migrant workers are China’s untouchables. They are assumed to be behind every unsolved crime. They are the yokels on the street corners of every city, barely able to speak Mandarin Chinese, wide-eyed with fascination or fear.

They are also the dark underside of China’s economic success, which has been marked by annual growth of 8 percent for more than a decade and exports to the United States growing so fast that they have surpassed Japan’s. In general these people are vulnerable, pliable, cheap to employ and easy to suppress.

click here for the entire story.

09.07.2003, 2:00 AM · News

worth reading: will china’s boom go bust?

from the New York Times …

GUANGZHOU, China, Sept. 3 — Looming through the gray smog of every big Chinese city these days, high above the incessant rattle of jackhammers, are the construction cranes, slowly swinging back and forth over huge steel and concrete boxes wrapped with fine lattices of bamboo scaffolding.

The question here and across the country, though, is how much longer the cranes will stay busy, and with them an economy that is powering a big chunk of the world’s growth and terrifying trading partners from Tokyo to Washington to Brussels.

While this week’s visit by Treasury Secretary John W. Snow has focused attention on the value of China’s currency, the yuan, the worry in China is that the economy is overheating.

click here to read the rest.

09.07.2003, 1:54 AM · News

DVDos and DVDon’ts

perhaps i was bored. more likely, i was procrastinating doing something that really mattered. but for whatever reason, in the days leading up to my return to shanghai, i organized and cataloged all the DVDs i purchased in china last year. there are almost 200 titles on the list. which means the entire collection cost less than $200. all of these discs were purchased on the black market (which is actually rather out in the open here), but their quality, for the most part, is very good — and they all worked on my DVD player in the USA.

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09.03.2003, 1:00 PM · Movies, Observations · Comments (1)

i’ll believe it when i see it

from today’s new york times …

SHANGHAI — For many tourists, one of the indelible images of China is that of the cutie-pie baby wearing the pants with the giant hole on the bottom. If their timing is right, the tourists might even catch a toddler relieving himself, right on the street.

Visitors may find this disgusting, or delightful, but they may not see such sights much longer, at least in the cities. China’s famous split pants may soon be eclipsed by the disposable diaper.

Urban consumers are embracing the diaper and turning China into one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Annual sales for some brands are climbing by 50 percent or more. Upscale stores are no longer carrying split-pants outfits, but rather shelf after shelf of diapers. Just about all of the babies who grace China’s sleek parenting magazines are wearing diapers.

click here for the entire story.

08.05.2003, 1:12 PM · News · Comments (6)

it’s real good

good friends. good food. kick-ass southern rock. big-ass tattoos. a newpaper-reading cow. and a statue of a confederate soldier who is really a rough rider from the spanish-american war.

what more could a person ask for from four days in georgia?

click here and you will see:

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07.21.2003, 1:25 AM · Audio, Music, Photos, Summer Tour 2003 · Comments (2)

dc talk

so i’m sitting here watching late night television … again. on leno, i saw sir sean connery shake hands with a rapper who goes by the name chingy. surreal. (and no, i don’t watch leno, but sometimes suffer through five minutes of his lame schtick while waiting for conan to come on.) and now on elimidate, some ass clown just uttered this classic: “when they found out i was a fireman, their panties burned off them.” if you’re living in china right now, this is the kind of sublime crap that you’re missing on american tv.

but that’s not what i’m writing to tell you about. i’m writing to tell you to look at the 39 photos i uploaded from my recent visit to my nation’s capital. click here and you will see:

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07.18.2003, 4:09 PM · Photos, Summer Tour 2003, Television

buddha made of stone

the latest from my student terra, the biggest NBA fan this side of the pacific:

as for the NBA playoffs, spurs finally won the game over mavericks,i believe it can win the final champion and also glad to see that result, because besides jordan and yaoming, i like tim duncan best.he is so calm in the court and never shows off and i can’t help appreciating this kind of property.his nickname is so great,but i don’t know how to say it in english, while in chinese called “shi fo(pronounce like four)” it means a buddha made of stone.

06.01.2003, 7:39 PM · School, Sports · Comments (7)

Green Acres?

Some people really think Shanghai is a “Garden City”

NOTE: A version of this story appears in the June issue of that’s Shanghai magazine.

by DAN WASHBURN

To most people in Shanghai, green is the color your face turns when the city’s air is at its most acrid. But Shanghai officials hope to force the color from your face and stick it in the ground … tree after tree after tree. They are overseeing a greening of Shanghai’s acres that would make Oliver Wendell Douglas proud. And soon — maybe even late this year — this concrete jungle will officially be known as a “Garden City.” Believe it or not, the Shanghai Landscaping Administration Bureau claims that at the end of last year Shanghai was 30 percent green space. The goal is to have that figure at 35 percent by the end of this year, which would satisfy one requirement for the Construction Ministry of China’s “Garden City” status. This begs the logical question: Where exactly is all of this green space? Well, you may be standing on some right now and not even know it.

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05.30.2003, 4:33 PM · Politics, Stories · Comments (3)

blues in the city

Click here for photos related to this story.

I learned early in my Shanghai stay never to leave home without my camera. If you wait until tomorrow to photograph what you see today, you usually get screwed — because what you saw yesterday very well could have been bulldozed overnight. This city is under construction.

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05.28.2003, 2:17 PM · Observations, Politics

sth about SARS

yeah, i didn’t know that sth was an abbreviation for something, either — until i moved to china. it’s just one of the many bits of “english” that chinese students use for years thinking it sounds perfectly natural until a native speaker stops them with “what?” the problem is that most of their english teachers are chinese. and those teachers learned from other chinese english teachers and so on and so on. it’s an insular english community, one that assumes all americans sign e-mails with the salutation “wish you happy every day.” really, my students were perplexed when i told them stuff like that, while cute, doesn’t cut it in the english-speaking world. “we were actually taught that,” one of my students gasped.

anyway, i’ve gotten off topic. i just wanted to share a SARS-related e-mail i received from one of my students. it refers to some stuff i mentioned in my 4.29 blog entitled don’t sneeze at others.

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05.22.2003, 11:49 PM · Observations, Politics, School · Comments (3)

don’t sneeze at others

It’s late April, nearly six months after the deadly SARS virus launched its sneak attack on southern China, and Shanghai — the country’s most populous city — has just seemed to take notice. About a week ago, we went from inaction to overreaction literally overnight. I remember the day well. It was a pleasant day: not too hot, not too cold. I went for a run that night, and I could actually see the stars. I took a deep breath, and the air actually felt fresh. Little did I know that, all of a sudden, I would be surrounded by one of the most rapidly spreading infectious diseases known to man … fear.

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04.29.2003, 4:02 PM · Observations, Politics · Comments (3)

no mom, it wasn’t SARS

People say you haven’t really visited China until you’ve vomited in China. Well, I’ve finally arrived! Not sure if it was the 24-hour stomach flu or just some bad fried rice — maybe it was from doing my taxes — but I found myself either kneeling or sitting (or, sometimes, with the unfortunate need to do both at the same time) most of yesterday and some of today.

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04.16.2003, 2:04 AM · Observations, Politics, School · Comments (6)

Build Me Up, Tear Me Down

NOTE: A version of this piece was the cover story for the April 2003 issue of that’s Shanghai magazine. The South China Morning Post (subscription only) also ran a version.

by DAN WASHBURN

The Shanghai Concert Hall looks lonely. It sits by itself, surrounded by bulldozers and dirt, cowering in the shadow of Yan’an Elevated Highway. Once grand, the 73-year-old theatre now just looks grimy. This building deserves better. And later this month, many believe that’s just what it will get. The hall — all 5,650 tons of it — is being hoisted up and moved 70 meters southeast. It is the largest relocation project Shanghai has ever seen, and no doubt will be touted as a sign of the city’s dedication to preserving its past.

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04.10.2003, 7:40 AM · Politics, Stories · Comments (1)

it’s the end of the world as we know it …

… and i feel fine

Back in America, when I first told people I was moving to China, some immediately expressed concern for my safety. Communism equals crises in the minds of most Americans, who still have an antiquated Cultural Revolution image of the country. Before I left, one of my former co-workers advised me to call the same person back home at the same time every week. That way, if one week I failed to make that call, my family would know something was wrong — they could call the American government and put into motion the process that would lead to my safe removal from the country. I never took her advice. And now, as my dear nation is in the throes of war, I find it strange that I feel much safer here in communist China than I would in nearly any city in America.

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03.31.2003, 11:31 PM · Observations, Politics · Comments (5)

or do i? (cough, cough)

Um yeah, well there’s that SARS bug going around over here. Just over a week ago, I asked one of my Shanghainese friends about it … and he had never heard of it. Ah yes, that good ol’ state-run media. Never let a worldwide epidemic get in the way of a story that promotes party politics.

But who will be laughing when the entire readership is dead? Well, no one, I would assume.

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03.31.2003, 11:28 PM · Observations, Politics · Comments (2)

your taste in movies sucks

Disagree? Well, check for yourself. Go to the orange street oscars website to see which movies you should have liked in 2002. This site’s got so much indie cred that no one’s ever heard of it.

Think the orange street guys are full of shit? Tell them on their message board.

03.18.2003, 7:33 PM · Movies · Comments (5)

mayer for mayor?

This has nothing to do with Shanghai. This is just a story about a guy who won a Grammy.

Three short years ago John Mayer was playing cover tunes in my friend Brian’s basement in Atlanta. On Sunday at Madison Square Garden, Mayer won the Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, beating out industry “lightweights” like Sting, James Taylor and Elton John.

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02.26.2003, 1:31 AM · Music · Comments (5)

md or nba?

My students may know me better than I think.

More than a few of them accused me of canceling classes last Monday so I could stay home and watch the NBA All-Star Game on TV — not so I could go to the hospital and have a doctor check out my bum ankle.

I did go to the hospital. I promise. Of course, before I did, I watched the NBA All-Star Game on TV.

02.23.2003, 12:06 PM · School, Sports

super bowling

I was in Nanning, China on Jan. 26 … and I couldn’t watch the Super Bowl for the first time that I can remember. Granted, the Super Bowl started at around 7 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 27 for me, but for some reason I still thought I might be able to catch the game on TV. (We Americans tend to think that the Super Bowl is the most watched sporting event in the world.) The TV in the $12-per-night “hotel” I was staying in had Star Sports and what appeared to be ESPN Asia — although the information on the station appeared to be a couple days old — but there was no Super Bowl to be found. The closest thing? The Asian Bowling Championships. And I watched every last frame. Would you believe a white guy won?

02.23.2003, 11:51 AM · Sports

dvd doozies: ocean’s eleven/legends of the fall

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
Legends of the Fall (1994)

Maybe they were busy drooling over Brad — excuse me, Bard — Pitt. Maybe they had taken a hit of that "head-shaking drug" my students keep telling me about. Or maybe there were some keys missing from their keyboards (check out the credits for Legends). Whatever it was, the folks who put these covers together are currently the odds-on favorites to take home the inaugural DVD Doozie Awards for Synopsis Writing. Excellent work guys. You have set the bar very, very high.

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01.11.2003, 1:31 PM · Humor, Movies

dvd doozies: undisputed

In Shanghai, few things are more plentiful than construction cranes, rice and neon lights. The DVD is one of them. Supposedly illegal, the bootleg industry is booming. Discs can be purchased everywhere: from back alleys and back rooms to well-lit streets and even actual stores (the owners of which must pay policemen Jackie Chan movies to look the other way). On the city’s busiest streets, DVDs are dealt like drugs. Men in suits greet you with a whisper, “Watch? Shoes? CD? DVD?” Nod your head, and he’ll start walking. Follow, and you’ll end up somewhere — a dark sidestreet, a windowless room, even upstairs at a restaurant — staring at a suitcase full of DVDs.

The selection can be impressive — everything from classics to current stuff — and if you know the Chinese name of a movie they don’t have, they can probably get it for you. Concerned about quality? Don’t be. Most DVDs here are, well, DVD quality. Even the camcorder jobs can be bearable, assuming that no one seated in front of the cameraman was called “Head-and-a-Half” in college. Yeah, you’ll have the occasional dud, but each bad disc makes a fine drink coaster — remember, unless you’re a sucker, DVDs only cost 8 yuan here. That’s $1, folks. You still get to keep the DVD cover, anyway. And in Shanghai, the DVD covers are often more entertaining than the movies they come with.That’s what this part of the website celebrates.

Some fool with Photoshop obviously worked very hard on these masterpieces of misinformation. All the parts are there — title, photos, synopsis, cast, credits, the occasional critic’s quote or two — but it never quite adds up. If something is actually spelled correctly — and that’s a big if — it likely has nothing to do with the movie contained inside. At least the title is usually right … usually. I suppose this all makes some sense. Most people buying these DVDs read Chinese and nothing else, so any English letters and words are just there for show. But the errors occur so often, the wrongs so randomly, that getting it right would seem to be a much less time-consuming task.

Here’s hoping they never get it right.

And now to today’s DVD Doozie …

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12.27.2002, 2:36 AM · Humor, Movies