Driving in Shanghai

So over the last 2-3 months I've been working on getting my drivers license, arranging a car lease, moving, parking, etc..etc... Pretty much settled into a routine now and thought it was time to post something to the blog.

First of all the precious license:

This is good for 6 years and allows me to drive anywhere in China. Ironically they recently (in the last year?) updated the rules to allow visitors to get a temporary license without taking a test. But those of us with a long-term visa aren't allowed to obtain a temporary license, we have to take the test and get a proper 6-year license.

A lot of people asked me "how", to simplify the answer I created a page you can peruse here. It takes some time since you have to make 3 separate trips, fill out a ton of forms and wait in more lines than you can imagine. The real obstacle is the test. They wrote 1500 questions, translated em to English and ask you to answer 100 randomly selected by a computer. You have to get a 90. The first time I took a practice test I got an 80, after reading all the questions, taking a ton of notes and practicing multiple times I brought my score consistently into the mid 90s. If you are good at trivia you'll do fine :-)

The car:

I contacted a number of places including Avis & Hertz (which gives a GE discount) and several local places. I went with a local place and got a used Santana. I got a larger car by going with something a bit older, I'm not as worried about damaging it and Santana's are far and away the most popular car on the road. Volkswagen apparently cut a deal ensuring all the taxi's in Shanghai are Santana's. We've named it Pidgy in honor of the Flying Pidgeon that dominated China's roads for 30 years.

Driving:

Where to begin? Its taken me awhile to get comfortable learning the special offensive/defensive techniques common to the shanghai roads. The biggest issue is that turning left at an intersection has the right of way. The first time I stopped at a light, turned on my left signal & waited for green was quite a surprise. I  pulled halfway in, so did the guy across from me. He then got upset and began honking because I was supposed to cut in front of him and finish my turn! This has taken some getting used to & I'll need to be retrained when I return to the states.

The next biggest issue is all the bicycles, scooters & pedestrians. They follow the rules when it suites them, but otherwise they do what they want, when they want. Simply go slow, give em room and assume that if they can do something...they will.

Finally what has really sunk-in is that privately owned vehicles are a new concept in China, only becoming significant over the last 5-10 years. The majority of the drivers are the first in their family to get a license and drive a car. They didn't grow up in the back seat. They didn't grow up with very many cars on the road. Its effectively a nation of teenagers. Luckily most of those teenagers saved their own money bought their own car and realize just how much it costs to replace. This group drives very very...very slow and cautious. Its maddening, but I forgive them. The other group is pure adrenaline, in-experienced and still learning. The best group to keep an eye is actually the taxi drivers. They have the most experience and it shows. Visitors find this shocking, but that is because they sit in the backseat and watch the taxi's take advantage of all the newbies.....and the taxi drivers can be brutal.

I was paranoid about parking, luckily it turns out that since there are very few private vehicles  that it leads to a plentiful number of parking spots. I can drive downtown and park in the street in front of most buildings. No meters, no fees. In the really crowded areas you can find a garage fairly easily and the fees are reasonable, I haven't paid more than 10rmb ($1.50) Occasionally you'll find that some spaces in front of a building are being managed by someone, again they ask for money, you give it and all is good.

The final piece of the puzzle is the electronic ticketing. They have cameras everywhere and will issue a ticket for running a red light, speeding or driving on a road without the correct license plate. Each province has a unique license plate and Shanghai reserves specific roads for Shanghai plates from 7:30-9:30am and 4:30-6:30pm. I learned after a week that the signs indicating the roads are written in Chinese, I can spot them now but I was a bit worried. Part of driving a cheaper rental is you don't get Shanghai plates. An upside to this is that they don't send the tickets to your home province. They conduct a border-check and make you pay them as you leave Shanghai....no leave...no pay! A co-worker helped me find the online website where I could punch in my plate and look up my record. So far I'm clean.

FYI, Shanghai license plates are sold in auction with a limited number offered to the public every month. The latest price for a license plate has pushed over $10,000 (USD). You can get plates from another province for a few hundred bucks, but you have to live with the  driving restrictions. Once you purchase a plate you are allowed to re-sell it if you no longer want it. Creates a bit of an investment market, but at least you can get your money back when your done with the plates.

Bits about buying a car. You can buy car in China fairly easily. The base cost is comparable to the US but the taxes push em 15-20% higher. There are some chinese brands emerging, with the quality you expect from a brand-new chinese brand. Car insurance is fairly cheap, mine comes with the car, but you can get you your own for ~200/year. Keep in mind its got to be cheap enough for the taxi drivers to afford it.

A year ago gas was cheaper in china than in the US. The prices are regulated and everyone charges the same price. Over the last year there have been 2-3 increases that have pushed prices higher than most of the US. I'm just starting to log gas & mileage and will have better data in a few weeks. Since gas is regulated and sold by state owned enterprises the stations are hard to find. They are reasonably placed, but there isn't one on every street corner. Took me awhile to find all 4 stations within a 4 mile radius of my house.

Drive throughs don't exist, not for banks or for food. There simply isn't enough interest.

So, that's all for now. As a driver I'm seeing an entirely different side to Shanghai and loving it! Freedom has been restored, I live 3x as far from work as last year, but spend about the same amount of time getting to/from work. I come/go as I please.

Ghost Town

Yesterday I had lunch with one of my coworkers from Michigan. On a whim we went to the town of Anting at the end of line 11. That part of shanghai is home of the Chinese auto industry. The train passed by "Shanghai Automobile city" and one of the subway stops was located in the infield of Shanghai's formula one racetrack.

The town of Anting is a true ghost town. We saw many residences complete & ready to move. All empty. The sales office was open and had a map of the town. While construction was complete for a huge section of it, they were also still building many parts. Perhaps nobody wants to move in until is done???

I wanted to find the statues of the German poets. But the village was simply to big, to empty and the rain was to persistent.







This was all done as part of a government 5 year plan to establish "one city, nine villages". Searching around I'm not sure how much progress they made. The British "city" is near (3km?) the end of line #9. It is supposed to be very picturesque, a popular place for wedding photos. But I cannot determine if they built all 9 of the villages or not.

One City
Songjiang, British
Nine Towns
Anting, Jiading District, German
Luodian, Baoshan District, Scandinavian
Zhujiajiao, Qingpu District, Traditional Chinese
Fengjing, Jinshan District, Canadian
Pujiang, Minhang District, Italian
Gaoqiao, Pudong District, Dutch
Zhoupu, Nanhui District, USA
Fengcheng, Fengxian District, Spanish
Chengqiao, Chongming District, Traditional Chinese

Some searching shows that the British one is showing signs of life, check out the story here:

http://downtownsongjiang.com/2011/10/03/thames-town/

Some good pics of it here:
http://thebusinessofrealestate.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/more-chinese-ghost-towns/

The British city would actually be fairly close to where I work...hmmmm....

The other half

On our first visit to Shanghai, we stayed on the East side of the river, in an area called Pudong. This is the newer side of Shanghai, and we found the city blocks long, the streets wide and the entire area uncrowded. It wasn't particularly charming or exciting. In fact, it felt a little bit cold and sterile. Papa works on the West side of the river, so it was easy for us to chose to live  in Puxi, which is older, more charming and quite lively. We have been happy with that choice. But now we are switching to a new school, which is not only in Pudong, but it is on the China Sea.  Although we do occasionally visit Pudong, today we decided to spend the afternoon exploring one Pudong neighborhood more closely. We are all glad that we did! We were able to locate the Pudong branches of many of our favorite shops and restaurants. We saw a few potential housing compounds, and even found the church. We were surprised how easily we were able to cross the street. We noticed car honks with decreasing frequency and fellow Americans with increasing frequency. This time Pudong didn't strike us as cold and sterile, but quiet and comfortable. I guess a year living in the bustle can do that.  Next year we will have an entirely NEW China experience!

Local Laowai

Found a nice series of youtube videos about traveling or visiting to China. I think the guy who made them is a college student or recent graduate living in Beijing. Covers topics like visas, health-checks, drivers-licenses, car-rentals/purchases, office behavior and a bunch of other useful cultural tips.

http://bon.tv/locallaowai (website)
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL368A45B29D69F8BB&feature=plcp (youtube)
https://www.facebook.com/Locallaowai (facebook)

A very good week

This week was a very good one indeed. We learned that both of our boys have been accepted at the Shanghai American School (SAS). It may not sound like that big of a deal, American kids being accepted at the American school.  But there are many schools in Shanghai that offer an American curriculum and admission to SAS is highly competitive with a very high demand from students the world over many other seeking a quality American education. It is considered one of the best schools in Shanghai while also being widely recognized as one of the best international schools in the world. We are very proud of our boys and excited by this opportunity. Now all we have to do is find a new place to live and move across town :-)

This week we also celebrated Engineering Recognition Day. Once a year GE celebrates engineering accomplishments, takes everyone out for lunch, brings in a speaker or two and gives out awards. I was surprised to learn that I received an award for Innovation and Imagination. Quite an honor given there are hundreds of very bright/capable engineers working on a wide variety of innovative projects. There were other categories like "customer hero" and "success in the face adversity"...but I must say as an engineer it feels good to be recognized by my peers for being innovative.

The craziest part is that I was standing on stage in front of all the engineers in Shanghai when the phone rang. We'd learned that morning that SAS wanted to speak with us and we expected to learn if we were in or out. I couldn't take the call or even glance at my phone until the presentation was complete. It was very difficult to stand there wondering what I would learn when I could finally look at my phone...happily it was very good news indeed.

So this week The Paying Customer, The Works and Papa-Dumpling were all recognized for their capability and potential. Time to move on to the next adventure!

The ERD award is the sparkly one in the middle, to the left is a model of the C919 and t o the right is an award I received from Boeing for work done on the 787.

A Dog's IQ

Yesterday Mom and I tested Biscuit's IQ with five simple tests. We got the idea from a TV show about a dog who can do math. If you would like to test your dog you are going to need the following items: a pillow, a cup, two chairs that can be put on their side, some string, and a bag of dog treats.

The first test is the spacial awareness test. To do this test you will need to put a pillow on a low-lying piece of furniture then you must drop the treat on top of the pillow and see if the dog looks up to the pillow or under the furniture. If the dog looks up at the pillow the dog passed. If they look down the dog failed. Biscuit failed this one.

For the next test place a treat under an (opaque) cup. This tests to see if the dog cannot see the treat if it with think it's not there. If the dog thinks the treat is there it will try to get it. If the dog starts to wander away it means that the dog failed. Biscuit passed this one.

The next test is the chair maze. To do this test you take two chairs and line them up on the ground so that the backs of the chairs are facing each other. Then take the dog to one side and put a treat on the other. If the dog tries to take the shortest route the dog failed. If the dog goes around chairs the dog passed. Biscuit passed this.

Probably the trickiest of the tests is the string test. To do this test you need to tie a treat to a string and a knot in the string. In this test we will see if a dog can figure out how to use the string to pull the treat out from under the low-lying piece of furniture. For this test you may show the dog how to get the treat. Even after seeing the solution the dog still might have a problem with this test. Biscuit did this after she found out that we were not going to do it for her.

The final test is the memory test. For this test you're going to need at least four treats. To do this test bring the dog into a room and show the dog where a treat is hidden and let the dog eat it. After the dog eats it take the dog out of the room and hide one treat in the same location and a few others in different locations to throw the dog off. Now bring the dog back into the room and see if the dog goes straight for the treat in the location you showed it earlier. Biscuit found one of the treats that was meant to throw her off.

In the end Biscuit did pretty well. If you want to test your dog you will have to remember to give the dog treats if successful on a test. Well that is the end of this essay.

I told you that this essay is over! Do you understand???

Healthy Apostrophes!

We have chinese cell phones with chinese calling plans. Overall I like their model a lot better. You buy the phone up front then purchase a service plan to go with the phone. The total cost is much lower than the bundled phones you get in the US (about 30 RMB/month or $5/month) after spending $2-300 on a phone.

The odd part is we get text messages from the phone company, written in chinese. Recently I got this one:

有一天"我"字头上丢了重要的一撇,就变成了"找"字,为了找回那非常重要的一撇,问了很多人，那一撇代表什么?商人说是金钱,……最后长寿的人们告诉我:那一撇是健康和快乐,否则什么都是浮云！亲爱的朋友，工作再忙，压力再大，也别忘了照顾自己！

Which Google translates to:

"I" head lost an important one to write, it becomes a "find" in order to recover a very important one to write, ask a lot of people, the apostrophe mean? Businessman said the money . last longevity of people tell me: the apostrophe is healthy and happy, otherwise, what are the clouds! Dear friends, no matter how busy work, the pressure is big, do not forget to take care of themselves!

Yes, this message was sent by the phone company! I need to ask a co-worker to explain it to me, I suspect in Chinese it is a clever play on words using some ancient chinese proverbs mixed with modern slang. Either that or somebody's kid got their hands on the keyboard & hit <send>

So, take care of yourselves and watch your apostrophes!!