A few months ago, I bought a nice shiny bike in Shanghai, pictured here:

I had it for a whole 7 days before it was stolen from the bike rack in front of my building (the “building gate men” [cannot call them guards, as guard things they do not] proved little deterent).

I had made two mistakes.  The first was assuming the 2 free locks I was given from the shop were any good, and the second was that it looked too attractive. The lock issue really pissed me off, especially when I went back to the shop and the guy proceeded to tell me how shit the locks were (he used a scissor snippy motion to show me just how easy it was to cut).  It’s one thing to give a guy a free lock, but surely you can give a disclaimer at the same time (and I had a chinese speaking friend with me so it wasn’t a comms issue).  He then offered me a $1 discount on a new bike (yes, $1), so I pretty much stormed out of that shop never to return.

Two weeks ago I bought a new bike.  Again this one was a shiny red color (unfortunately this model had no other colors, and the other models were granny bikes).

Here it is:

And now with some modifications :]

My plan is this: make the bike look shit, and lock it up with 2 huge-ass locks (ones designed for expensive mopeds).

I think it worked… was at my local coffee shop (yes I found a sweet western style independent coffee shop in my area, how cool is that!?), and one of the customers (they are all fairly affluent) rode up on his shiny black bike.  Later someone asked him if my bike was his, and they all had a good laugh.  So… show off with it I cannot, but at least it won’t get stolen – and under all the crap, is actually a brand new bike, shimono gears and everything, that rides very smoothly.  Even if it looks like your average 10yo grampa rust-bucket.

So far so good… lets hope it lasts.

This is one valid reason for a “crapification” filter (unlike others, looking at you HDCP).

Signed up a for a new bank account today, BoC is miles away from my home, no handy ATMs either.

Took a bit longer to signup, this ICBC has a longish queue. Took 3 staff to sign me up, passing paper back and forward (the usual). ¥15 to signup, got internet banking working easily, using the free one-time-pad (presumably used for outgoing transfers). All up, no complaints. The website seems cleaner than BoC. Will see how the wire transfer works.

It seems ICBC is more popular, with my very informal poll, and may have more ATMs. Also two times I have tried to use my BoC card outside Shanghai have failed, once in Hainan (apparently the BoC ATM was out of money?) and another in HZ (maybe the bank ATM was not aligned). The g/f has ICBC too so I guess that makes it easier.

Forex rates are slightly better… so that’s good (better than being slightly worse, at any rate).
ICBC 608.82 17:08:28
AUD:
BOC AUD: 608.25 2010-05-12 17:15:20

Just spoke with the BoC regarding wire transfers and such.

RMB is not a settlement currency so you cannot wire it directly.  Instead, whatever currency you wire will sit in your BoC account, in that currency.  Then you must go to the bank with your passport to convert it.  USD$50,000 conversion limit applies per year.

The good news is that the conversion rate that applies is basically the market spot-rate.  Listed here as “Buying Rate”:  this is substantially better than the whopping 3% fee (due to currency spread) you pay at the “Cash Buying Rate” (i.e. over the counter in a money exchange).

There is no fee to receive the money (unlike HSBC in Australia), nor any direct fees on the currency transfer.

BoC hotline is 95566.  The lady I spoke to had excellent english, and knew exactly what she was talking about.  That’s more than I can say about a lot of operators for Australian banks.

Going the *other* way is more problematic.  You cannot transfer RMB out directly (same reason you cannot transfer it in directly).  And changing the RMB back to a settlement currency requires you to prove the source of the funds, apparently involving a visit to a government branch (read: PITA).  More info on that is apparently here. Then if you do change it back from RMB, you can transfer it out again, for a fee.  If you were not physically in China, I don’t know how any of this would be possible.

Net result:  I think I’ll just transfer in only what I plan to spend.

From my memory filling out the customs entry forms, limits also apply to the amount of RMB notes you can take in and out of the country. Something like ¥6,000.  So that limits you from taking the RMB notes out of the country and converting it elsewhere (unless you are a fan of stuffing money down your underpants).

from a promo tent near XuJiaHui

Living behind the Great Firewall, and with Australia planning a Ruddywall of it’s own, I have begun to wonder, are there websites that are simply too big to ban?

Take Facebook for example. First China bans YouTube – annoying, but you can get video content from many places. Twitter is still young, with fewer users here – but Facebook is a giant.

The thing is, you’ve always been able to punch through the Great Firewall using the software originally designed to secure corporate private networks (VPNs). But the average apolitical Joe previously had no need for one (myself included). But like how the anti-Napster ruling helped educate people that you can download music for free, the Facebook ban may educate people that you can visit banned sites. By banning something people have been using on a daily basis (dare I say, addicted too), you educate these users that the firewall exists, and encourage these users to seek ways to get around the ban, which then makes them educated on how to do this. Once you setup your VPN for example, now nothing is banned. All for the sake of Facebook…

So I think it is probably a mistake to ban high-profile sites with millions of users.

This guy has a great writeup on how to get PinYin accents on Mac

Once you have the U.S. Extended keyboard enabled you can use the following key strokes to do the accent marks:

* Alt+a for the first tone – ā
* Alt+e for the second tone – á
* Alt+v for the third tone – ǎ
* Alt+` for the forth tone – à
* To type ü, type Alt+u then u
* To type ü with tone marks, use the same Alt+[aev`] from above for the tone, then type v. For example, to type ǚ, type Alt+v then v – ǜ is Alt+` then v

Here’s what US$3.30 buys you in China:

And it’s so delicious. Without the drink it’s only US$2.20.

In most of the world I struggle to find nice food to eat (even disregarding cost), here it’s impossible not to find something delicious, and probably cheap.

I thought this was pretty funny – iPhone form China preloaded with images

Back in China – and the Family Mart’s now have the Japanese style Rice Triangles!

These are the best snack. Costing next to nothing, delicious, fresh and (I think) healty. Great if you’re waiting for transport, great if you’re out drinking, great if you need an afternoon snack.

I am very happy :D

Rice Triangles