National Day Parade?

My friend, with whom I shared a flat in Scotland, gave me a call on Monday and invited me to dinner on Tuesday evening. He also invited two lovely British girls who are currently traveling in Beijing. He made good friends with the parents of one of the ladies when he was studying in Britain. So, the girl called him to meet up and here came the welcome dinner.

We watched the traditional ‘face changing’ shows in the Sichuan restaurant named 'Ba Guo Bu Yi' near the famous 'Nan Luo Guo Xiang (南锣鼓巷)', had a nice dinner and chatted happily on various topics. During the dinner, the two ladies asked us if they could go and watch the National Day parade at Tiananmen Square and if there would be any fireworks. Neither my friend nor I could say definitely if they could be allowed access to Tiananmen Square to watch the parade. I said hesitantly, ‘Yeah, maybe … we don’t know about that. There could be some fireworks on that day.’ My friend said, ‘We really don’t know. Actually people here don’t care much about the National Day celebration … They are busy preparing to travel outside Beijing during the national day holiday’. Then, I realized how much the people living in Beijing cared about the 60th Anniversary celebration. Very little! This is in sharp contrast with the media coverage of the event.

Perhaps, people in Beijing are just not in the mood to celebrate? It's more about holiday than National Day, I guess?

Land King! 地王！

Property developers surrounded by journalists at the public auction

No. 3, the winnerPan Shiyi, Chairman of SOHOChina, gestures "Niu (牛)".

You don't have to be the 'King of Pop' to get the media coverage and become a super hot topic in China. To be a 'Land King' is enough to make it a hot topic and get continuous and intensive media exposure in this country. What is a 'Land King'? 'Land King' in Chinese refers to the real estate developer who pays the highest land transfer price ever in history to buy a piece of land in a certain geographic area (e.g. a district in Beijing, a city, a province, or China). So, a property developer could be a 'Land King of Haidian District' if it pays the record high price in Haidian District to buy a chunk of land. The developer could also be a 'Land King of Beijing' if the price paid is also the highest price ever in Beijing.

Housing price has been the most talked-about topic in China for years. The surging housing price is the real pain for people living in Beijing, Shanghai and almost everywhere in this country. You MUST have your own house! That's what people think here. The financial crisis brought down the housing prices to the delight of prospective buyers. Apparently, the financial crisis was so 'weak'. The housing price plunged for a short period and begins to soar again! Record high prices have been paid for pieces of land in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou respectively this year. When 'Flour (land) becomes more expensive than bread (house)', the price of the bread (house) will naturally go up. On June 30th, Fangxing Property, a subsidiary of state-owned Sinochem, acquired a chunk of land on Beijing's Guangqu Road for 4.06 billion yuan (US$59.7 million), the highest land transfer price ever in the city's public auction. Fangxing Property is not a big name developer in Beijing. But the developer successfully outbid big players such as SOHOChina, Vanke, Poly and was crowned the 'Land King' in Beijing. This has been big news recently. Those who were selling their houses in the nearby area had either increased the asking price dramatically or withdrawn their properties from the market to wait for a better time to sell. Pan Shiyi, the Chairman of SOHOChina, says to media that the record land price will surely push up housing prices in the nearby area of that piece of land. Understandably, he wasn't happy that SOHOChina failed to win the bid. However, he pointed out that his company could not compete with the less known Fangxing Property, a state-owned enterprise that had benefited from the government's 4 trillion yuan stimulus package and obtained huge loans from Chinese banks. Also, the 'Land King' in Hangzhou 'coincidentally' turned out to be a company with SOE background. I assume we can see clearly where China's soaring bank lending goes! It goes to SOEs and the real estate market (and the stock market, too?). Isn't the government trying to curb speculation in property market? We don't want to see so many 'Land Kings', especially the 'Land Kings' with SOE background! If the housing price continues to rise crazily, a 'HOMELESS' generation of young Chinese will soon come up!

Can you afford to buy an apartment for CNY13,000-24,000/sq. m. with a monthly salary of CNY 3,000-10,000 (before tax) in Beijing?

P.S. The 2008 average monthly salary of staff in Beijing is CNY3,322 (US$488.5).

Apricot-picking trip

Apricot trees

Apricot

I got a call from my ex-ex-boss early last week, inviting me to join his family, relatives and former workmates to go on an apricot-picking trip to a village in Haidian District on Saturday. I said, 'Great, I'll be there'. On Friday, a former colleague, also a good friend, invited me to dinner and asked me to stay at his flat so that we could go together in his car early in the morning. It was raining when we hit the road. It took us about 1 hour to get to the village. When we met the other people we headed for the apricot orchard, which is on the hill near the village. We did apricot picking in the rain, which took away some of the fun. However, I noticed that a lot of people/families still managed to come out to do the trip. Anyway, the trip was not so bad. It's great to meet some friends I haven't seen for a while. It's my second fruit-picking trip. I did one many years ago. Fruit-picking is the activity that you go to a fruit orchard, enjoying your time with family/friends while picking fruits. Then, you can bring the fruits home after paying the farmer. Fruit-picking trips are popular in Beijing in Spring and Summer when fruits are ripe. Families/friends drive to the fruit orchards in the countryside. They are welcomed by the farmers who raise fruit trees in orchards, because it helps speed up sales during fruits' short maturity period.

By the way, unlike the other people, I didn't bring back any apricot which is not my favorite fruit. Next time, I'll take an apple or peach-picking trip. :)  

The salty fish turns around

Photos from http://boston.com

The Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony at the Bird's Nest on Aug. 8th was such a feast. One of my friends kept texting me yesterday talking about how impressive it was. He also recommended that I watch the BBC and NBC versions of the opening ceremony respectively again, which, according to him, were much better than the CCTV coverage. I had watched the excerpts of NBC version of the Opening Ceremony. To me, the version of coverage does not really matter. This is truely the best Olympic Opening Ceremony I've ever seen, which has dwarfed previous opening ceremonies in Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004).

'WOW', 'amazing' were the words I uttered when I was watching the ceremony live on CCTV. I've seen Chinese culture well embedded in a ceremony delivered by hard working performers and through modern technology. You know what? I am a very proud Chinese, very proud.

It seems Zhang Yimou, the director of the ceremony, is what we say 咸鱼翻身了(The salty fish turns around) in Chinese. Most of his films have not been appreciated by many Chinese and he has been bashed a lot. Neither do I like any of his past films. But this time, he has got my applause. Well done!

According to a survey by mediametrie.com, the Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony was indeed one of the most watched live events in the world, without however breaking records in Europe due to the time difference. In America, NBC gets record rating for tape-delayed Opening Ceremony. It seems the world is impressed by the dazzling Opening Ceremony. Great start!

What will the Closing Ceremony be like?

Olympics? I could have cared less

Thanks to the riots in Lhasa, the farce orchestrated to disrupt the torch relay and the devastating earthquake, it has been a hectic year for China so far. Finally, here we are, just two days away from the long-awaited opening of Beijing Olympics. Before the celebration begins, I would like to talk a little about the question: what does Beijing Olympics mean to you personally? I came cross this question about 2 months ago when I was browsing an expat's blog on the internet. The blogger wrote about his observations on Chinese reactions to the Olympics. He was surprised by the enthusiasm and the passion Chinese poured into this event. A couple of weeks ago, I had a chat with one friend who is not a fan of the Olympics. He said it was just another big event, no more than that. No enthusiasm, no passion and in a plain tone. I sort of expected it. Honestly, Beijing Olympics could have meant very little to me personally. The Word Cup (soccer) is far more attractive. However, the chaotic scenes in London and Paris legs of the torch relay and biased western media have worked and infused meaning into the Olympics. Now I couldn't care more about this event. I strongly hope that this Olympics can be the best Olympic Games ever held in history. Biased western media? Well, we stay defiant.