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FIFA observations

chang_in_china — Mon, 7 Jul 2014 20:43:00 GMT

The World Cup has caused a sort of marketing and media frenzy in Shanghai... its inescapable, brightly coloured frenzy is overwhelming yet typical of Chinese capitalism.

A few things I've noticed: The World Cup has completely permeated Chinese media! Take for example last night's Federer vs Djokovic Wimbledon final, that was... streamed in our hotel room from a laptop that was connected the hotel ethernet cable. The final was completely absent from all of the 40+ television channels in ShenYang. Any trace of Wimbledon has seeming been completely erased from the Chinese mindset, if the Communist mainstream media is any indicator to go by (haha but it is not!).

There is a channel that seems entirely dedicated to the World Cup, that being CCTV5 (and another channel which is more fuzzy and less coherent that's a few 20+ clicks of a tv remote away). At first I had thought CCTV5 would be the equivalent of the Australian Channel One or even 7mate to an extent, though that quickly proved untrue after the program ran what seemed like it's 5th consecutive talk show about the World Cup in one night. Personally it would make more sense for it to just show repeats of the games, though whatever floats your boat. At least it's great for rabid FIFA fans. Rabid fluent-in-Chinese FIFA fans.

One final observation I have to make is that Fuleco and general World Cup marketing is everywhere! Especially clever ambush marketing. Walking down the main streets of Shanghai and Shenyang, it seems like every second restaurant/shopping centre/complex has hung up a string of various country flags, pasted on their walls the playoffs schedules, and some even have outdoor TV screens precariously mounted on the restaurant's walls, showing previous games, all without any imagery of the World Cup logo or FIFA or the alike. Fuleco the poor armadillo has also found itself roped up in all this. I remember once driving down a road in Shanghai, and stopping at the red lights, just iin front of an active construction site. A giant, blowup Fuleco stood, seeminly guarding the entrance, football under one arm, sighing under the weight of the heavy grey construction dust. As we drove away, it seemed even more confused than I was as to its whereabouts.

Stay tuned for more World Cup stories (probably maybe just one)

Amy

How the Shanghainese celebrate the World Cup Pt2

chang_in_china — Sat, 5 Jul 2014 12:49:00 GMT

The giant TV screen couldn't have chosen a better time to start lagging crackling and blacking out than at the ripe time of midnight (at kickoff!). And in the classic Chinese chaotic mannerisms, the audience started shouting out "fix the screen!" "play the game!" "REFUND REFUND REFUND" before the poor AV crew had to turn off the TV screen and spend a few minutes fixing the screen. This of course, was all after we missed Brazil's first goal, instead being treated to a 30 second freeze frame of a wide blurry shot of the green football field. A few notes to make about watching a live stream in Shanghai:

- The TV hosts were still 'hosting' when the game started. This consisted of all 4 hosts, microphones in hand, blabbering (I do believe blabbering is justifiably correctly in this context) over each other about the betting app, about previous games that Brazil and Chile have played, about forecasted teams for the semi finals and finals; they shouted over each other about everything under the sun other than the actual game at hand. This was additionally on top of the actual CCTV5 commentary as well- I think more energy was spent trying to block out the noise than watching the ball.

- Maybe people did not seem to be there for the game itself. TV hosts from different channels were busy mingling and lots of ass kissing was seen from the general bar manager.

^ One couple next to us at Table 9 left before the game started! Maybe they were just super keen for beer and popcorn, and had an extra 2k in their pockets. Ahhh I suppose we'll never understand the mindset of the 1%.

After a while the many waiters sweating in suits who were just milling around with little to do informed us that the the actual BBQ finally started! The line was however unfortunately long, but my aunt toughed it out and lined up a good while for plates of chicken and lamb kebabs, chicken wings and corn on the cob. The corn on the cob was a standout- grilled and smoky, and flavoured with some sort of Chinese spice. The kebabs were an adventure as well! There was one skewer with perfectly shaped chicken pieces, chewy and juicy and really surprisingly chicken-y. I quickly gobbled down a few pieces, and then went to pick off a funky white piece of skin off the next piece of chicken. Upon closer inspection, I was not picking off a piece of white skin, but rather a piece of vena cava superior. That was a pleasant surprise, to say the least!

At half time, the talk show hosts excitedly announced that it was time to draw the lucky dip prizes! The basic process was all the collected ticket stubs to the event were held in a large perspex box, and the host would draw out 10 3rd prize winners, 5 2nd prizes and 2 first prize winners. I don't recall what the 2nd and 1st prize was, though my aunt won a 3rd prize prize! (the odds were definitely in our favour as about half the attendees won a prize). Our prize? 10 $10 Scratchies equivalent to an $100 prize. Thus we began our Scratchie Scratching and by the end of half time, we proudly collected our winnings of $50. Such is the bureaucratic process of winning and then claiming cash.

I look back at the night as a whole with mixed feelings. Was it luxurious, abundant in food and drinks and over-excessive? Definitely yes. Did I enjoy myself? Also definitely yes. Would I go again? Probably not. There was little to be gained from the night other than an exercise in how to trivialise a night of watching football. Oh well. Maybe they'll fix the screen by the time Russia rolls around.

Stay tuned

- Amy

How the Shanghainese celebrate the World Cup Pt1

chang_in_china — Thu, 3 Jul 2014 12:43:00 GMT

WORLD CUP PARTY!!! My aunt shouted at me in Shanghai, brandishing out 2 festively bright green and yellow tickets. I wasn't sure what a sports 'party' in Shanghai entailed yet, but I was always keen for a night out, so I excitedly agreed to hop along to this event with my aunt that was to be held at the Shanghai Olympic Hotel on the 28^th/29^th June (games start at midnight on here in China).

My aunt was visibly the most excited out of the two of us- I think she kept trying to sell the event to me even though I had long ago enthused about going. I now conclude that if there was a Worst Salesperson of the Century Award, she would decisively reign victorious in receiving it. 'There's going to be a BBQ, Amy!' she would often say to me, sometimes whilst watching the world cup, sometimes just over dinner. When she first showed me the tickets, her main selling point would be

‘There’s dinner and drinks provided'

Followed by

‘They’re going to cook meats on the grill’

And then she lowered her voice and looked me straight in the eye

‘There’s going to be a BBQ’

I didn’t ask how she acquired these tickets, but I suspect it all started with her muttering in the office ‘Man of man I’m craving some BBQ’.

So on the night of the 28^th, we pack our bags of PJs and toiletries and loads of mozzie repellent, and we head off to the Shanghai Olympic Hotel.

At this point, I’m expecting a classic “World Cup Celebration party”, quotation marks deliberate, in the style of a grotty bar, plenty of drinks a-flowing, loud projector screens showing the game at the end of the room, sticky floor tiles and maybe a grill in the corner cooking up some beef patties and hot dogs with onions and white bread. And I would most definitely be perfectly at home there- BBQ & mustard please and don’t give me the ‘butt’ ends of the bread loaf.

However what we walked into, once we had checked into our rooms with the 2 king sized beds (!!!!!) and had given in our tickets, was the Shanghai Olympic beer garden hosting a posh picnic style tea-party with a completely decked out DJ set, performance stage and a TV screen the size of 2-storey house. Round tables in thick maroon tablecloths, with white covered chairs tied with matching maroon sashes were scattered around the grassy garden.

We arrived at 10pm for the game to start at midnight, with the only guiding light from the glare of the TV screen and what looked to be kilometers of fairy lights everywhere assisting us to table Number 8. My aunt wasn’t kidding. There was abundant food and drinks: plates of flavoured peanuts and broadbeans, chips and caramelized popcorn were freely refillable, and the buffet provided a mix of fresh fruit plates, wontons, burgers and oily, fried potatoes in all sorts of glorious shapes and sizes. The beer stand attendents was happily handing out mugs and jugs of beer.

The performance stage lay hosts to an eclectic mix of a couple of dances followed by a couple of talk shows relating somehow to the World Cup. Again, being fluent in Mandarin would've been a huge help but that's okay, it was interesting watching the talk show hosts trying to rally up the audience (us) into downloading the app to bet live on the game- any restrictions at all on lottery and gambling advertising in China seem to be next to non-existent. Maybe we Tom Waterhouse should think about expanding his business here.

Stayed tuned for pt2 coming soon!

Being a technological failure

chang_in_china — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 10:00:00 GMT

I've used bing.com more times in the past 6 days than I have in the entire 18 years of my life. Maybe chuck in the combined 100+- years of my parents too. This is how unprepared I was for the 'Great Firewall of China'. (It might also be a wake-up call that I rely on Google too much. Yahoo, your time has finally come!)

Note: this post is a long complaint fraught with first-world privilege and bad writing.

Further note: this entire blog is a long complaint fraught with first-world privilege and bad writing.

So for the past almost-week since I've been out of Australia, I've been fighting a downhill battle against technology. Something I always thought I could do without was my only-just-functional Asus notebook. So when the opportunity came for me to leave the country and most of my belongings behind, I jumped at the opportunity to leave my laptop and rely on only my phone for 6 weeks.

Thank Merlin's Beard I decided to pack my (read: Charle's) 1st gen iPad on the morning of the flight.

Honestly, it's usefulness outweighs that of my Galaxy s2 by the fact that I can read reddit without squinting too much, and inserting a 'Sent from my ipad' signature from my Gmail so I no longer have to worry about filling blank space with an interesting ending. Spices things up.

The things that has annoyed me the most is that I forgot to set up a VPN before I left Australia. For those who aren't in the know (and for those who are) owning a Virtual Private Network basically allows access t

o blocked sites in China, such as the classic Faceyb and YouTube, but also through my findings newspapers such as The Guardian and also access to Gmail (though I'm now located out of central Shanghai and Gmail seems to be working again).

> So here's the thing: I'd much rather post pictures here on my World Nomads journal than describe how the buildings on the Bund of Shanghai has smooth concrete that smells like foot and looks shiny (this is what happens when I try write fiction) (Mary had ate a bread and it was delicious to her though it is stuck in her teeth and she's removed it with a shovel) (point proven again)

> However the pictures taken on a mobile device ie my galaxy s2 go through a lengthy process to be uploaded to this blog, namely being transferred through a 3rd party app called Aurigma Up. So I obligingly hop onto the Google Play store and try download Aurigma Up. Knowing that access to Gmail and Google eas blocked, I wasn't sure what I was expecting with Google Play, but it sure as hell wasn't 3 hours of my night trying to install this app.

> So after that ordeal, I decided upon an alternative method: transferring photos from my Samsung to my ipad, and then uploading from there- the ipad is a mobile device hence it also needs Aurigma Up though it downloads through iTunes which has mo problems in China). Here we begin our two tumultuous nights of my war with technology/myself. I tried a few alternatives: emailing myself the images (Gmail was still being nasty- I could read but not

send emails), I tried Evernote (never got past the log in stage as I decided using up all my monthly data for a few pictures was not worth it), Wechat (lost my verification code for my login and couldn't recieve it via SMS), Dropbox froze and then Australia lost to Spain.

> Eventually though I got through to sending one email to myself- see the photo of outside the airplane on my gallery! It might just be one photo out of hundreds, but if you count it as a private victory then I'll take it!

> Until I figure out a foolproof/faater than waiting hours for an email to send, you'll have to put up with my attempt at narrative English for now.

> Peace.

> Amy

> You can view some of my pictures on my Instagram account, @metaamy. If you keep scrolling you'll find poor photography of flowers and some hands. Apologies to any broken brains in advance.

Sent from my ipad

Just touched down in Shanghai town

chang_in_china — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 11:21:00 GMT

I feel Kanye West would definitely appreciate this place- people at the airport in leather pants (a lot of them, too!), the otp extravagance of the neighbours...

Shanghai airport seems to operate on a basis of over-trustworthiness as I strolled under the massive NOTHING TO DECLARE sign in the fading bright green, where an airport guard dressed in a monochrome uniform and an official looking cap scowled at all who dare declare nothing, and I know Sydney airport operates similarly yet we have a declaration card. But then again China has seen just about every microbe under the Earth's sun and beyond, so I suppose there really is nothing left that would possibly trigger a surprise zombie apocalypse.

Continuing my journey through baggage claim and declarations, I came out to the general pickup area, looking for the round face with glasses that belonged to my eldest uncle- he drew the short straw and was assigned the benign duty of airport pickup. I followed the long and winding path through the pickup area, scanning and passing by all the other Asian uncles but had reached the end without seeing him.

Dammit, I thought, while reaching for my phone to send him a wechat when lo and behold he coughed loudly behind me. I turned around and was ready to smack that giant grin off his face but he started laughing and animatedly recalled how he spent the last 5 mins walking behind me and was wondering when I would turn around. Note to self: revenge.

Even in the airport, you could feel the heat of the night. It's less Sydney-heat, where the sun beats down and stings the skin, but rather summer in Shanghai tends to smoudler you giant hot moist blanket. A gross analogy yes, but there really isn't another way to describe it. Maybe stifling, sweating humidity.

Watch this space for 9 more days of stifling sweating humid days to come!

Night before/Morning of

chang_in_china — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 00:32:00 GMT

I'll be in Shanghai in 18 hours!

This will be my first public travel blog, and the first time I've travelled 'alone'! (Referring to the classic lone-backpack-around-Europe that continues to elude children of Asian parents; if catching an airplane to Shanghai and sort-of visiting the city by myself counts as 'alone' then I'll take it!)

The alarm has been set to 5:30am, so in just over 5 hours, though knowing my sleeping patterns there really should be consecutive alarms set for each following minutes + maybe a marching band and live fireworks. Though in this golden paranoid state of mind of early Friday morning I'm convinced my dad is trying to sabotage my trip. With a plane departure time of 0930, he suggested ariving at 0800, leaving just enough time for me to madly dash through clearance, security and the duty free, break an ankle in panic, miss the plane while being chartered off to the hospital, still clutching my Conversational Chinese and cursing the day I ever asked my dad for a lift to the airport. But more on that later.

The suitcase, weighing in at a hefty 30kgs, is quite literally bursting at the seams. I'm slightly worried about it cracking open and spilling, though I know I have little to worry about as the only valuable items in there are just $30 jeans and copious amounts of Australian milk powder

So it's time to hit the hay, and as I arm myself with generous doses of Arctic Monkeys/Mark Twain (with the full knowledge that I'll probably end up watching reruns on Toddlers & Tiaras for the full 10 hour flight), I say adios Australia, see you on the other side!

- Amy