How about the New York Times? My hotel offered a local print version at breakfast. Our brave fourth estate provided readers in China with a half page about books being reshuffled in a library in Idaho, a column on how much tax they’d pay on tampons if they were to travel to Germany, and some material on Puerto Rico, a Siberian island, and Israel (must be true since it is written by a guy smart enough to marry the daughter of a billionaire). There was no mention of anything unusual going on in Hong Kong.
How about CNN? I flipped it on when it was still early morning in the U.S. and therefore hearings had not started at the U.S. Capitol.
I watched it for one hour and learned that I was watching “history unfolding,” that the people testifying against Trump are not anti-Trump. They are “devoted to the rule of law.” The American experts (how many of them would have been able to find Ukraine on a map a year ago?) explained that the president of Ukraine is lying. Ukrainians aren’t actually tired of the Trump impeachment drama. They’re only pretending to be tired of it so that they can retain bipartisan support for aid to Ukraine.
CNN had time to break away from the impeachment story to talk about the most important events elsewhere on the planet, e.g., that Italy beat Romania in a game of soccer. And they did slip in two mentions of Hong Kong. First was in a multi-city weather forecast: high temperature tomorrow in Hong Kong would be 25. (American reaction: “7 degrees below freezing on a subtropical island?!? No wonder they’re protesting!”) Second was in a puffy filler piece on a 100-year-old company that happens to be based in Hong Kong.
This is based on a recent Boston-Shanghai nonstop round-trip, about 14 hours each way on a Boeing 787.
Airfare was only $650 round-trip, including up to two checked bags, a sign of the lack of demand in November (probably the ideal time for a tourist visit to Shanghai due to moderate weather and minimal rain), and the plane turned out to be only 2/3rds full. (incredibly boring video, intended for toddlers, of the plane pulling in to park)
Hainan has a higher staff-to-passenger ratio at the check-in counters. Even though I arrived right at the magic 2-hour-prior peak moment, the typical 45-minute line to check in was absent. A helpful Chinese woman whose English was good checked me in and had me on my way to security within a few minutes of arriving at the curb.
Massport invested heavily in signs promoting free WiFi at Logan:
… and then did the usual American-quality job of provisioning to ISDN speeds:
(See below for how this is 1/100th the speed of WiFi at Shanghai Pudong Airport.)
Thanks to the plane being only 2/3rds full, boarding was a lot faster than less stressful than a typical JetBlue or United attempt to board a narrow-body plane with fewer passengers.
The ordinary economy-class seats are arranged as 3-3-3 and have a reasonable amount of legroom (I’m 6′ tall) and a reasonable recline. I had a whole row of three seats to myself (“poor man’s business class”). Even if the plane had been full, though, it would have been vastly better than sitting in coach on a U.S. carrier. More than 90 percent of the customers are Chinese, so the probability of sitting next to a tall obese person would have been low and, as mentioned above, the legroom is at least as good as on JetBlue and much better than what the typical U.S. carrier provides in coach. Chinese kids are generally cheerful, so the chance of being near a screaming child is also lower than on a carrier catering to Western customers.
The flight attendants begin the flight by standing solemnly near the front of each section and introducing themselves as a group, thanking passengers for entrusting them with this voyage, and expressing the hope that their service will bring us pleasure. They then bow to all of the passengers. All of the flight attendants appeared to be women in their 20s or 30s, elegantly attired in a Chinese-patterned dress. In other words, the people on both flights actually matched the flight attendants you might see in an ad for the airline. From a Hainan web page describing the uniforms designed by Laurence-Xu and introduced in 2017:
From the same web page:
At the same time as our introduction of the Rosy Clouds uniform line, Hainan Airlines has consulted with renowned make-up artist Mao Geping to create a new look that is both simple and sophisticated. This new style is fresh and clean, enhancing the natural beauty that is already there rather than garishly painting over it. The sandy color of the women’s lipstick echoes the colors of the cabin interior. The pearlescent eye shadow not only matches the blue and grays of the uniform but also the fabric on the seats. Our beautiful new uniforms paired with the elegant women who wear them creates a new professional image of the Hainan Airlines flight attendants.
Service is much more soft-spoken and elegant than in the U.S. They do use carts for serving meals from trays, but otherwise everything is done with trays including trash collection. Apparently a Chinese customer does not want to see a flight attendant carrying a trash bag down the aisle. Every passenger is provided with a kit containing a sleep mask, ear plugs, toothbrush and toothpaste, and travel socks. Headphones are offered at no charge.
The plane was configured to deliver WiFi Internet, but the service was not available on our flight. I am not sure how it would have worked given a route that goes over Greenland, Svalbard, and Siberia.
Food service is calibrated to the non-obese and the sleeping: a light dinner, some self-service snacks, sandwiches starting after about 6 hours, and a medium-sized breakfast. Pitchers of green and black tea are prepared for the Chinese customers. A request for coffee yields a cup made with freeze-dried instant coffee. If you’re planning to stay up for the flight and are accustomed to the American diet, it would make sense to bring fruit, nuts, carrot sticks, and cold-brew coffee.
I was expecting the Boeing 787 to be a whole new world of comfort and quiet and the noise control for a composite fuselage does seem impressive. However, the net result does not seem dramatically quieter than the front portion of a Boeing 737, for example (I neglected to bring my sound level meter, and the iOS ones are junk). Cabin pressure at 33,000′ was 4,650′ according to ForeFlight (3.8 psi versus 12.4 psi, for a differential of 8.6 (compare to 7.8 max differential on a Boeing 737, so I am not sure what all of the fuss is about)). Walking up and down the aisle it is plain that there is a “extra noise zone” near the back of the wing and therefore the engine exhaust. Try to avoid a seat around row 46. Seats farther back were actually quieter.
Seatback entertainment offers at least 100 movies and an awesome “3D Airshow” from Panasonic Avionics, much better than anything I have experienced on a U.S. or European carrier (video of the system’s animation of our route). There are power outlets (compatible with U.S. plugs as well as European) and USB A outlets for all of the economy seats.
I had thought that the weather over the Arctic tended to be smooth, but we hit some turbulence over Greenland at 33,000′ and experienced at least a few bumps for about 1 hour out of 12+. Everything in China was kept a bit warmer than in the U.S. and the Boeing 787 was no exception. I was comfortable in a T-shirt and jeans, but consider packing shorts to change into during the flight.
Arrival in Shanghai involves escalators, hallways, and a train. The distances seem vast, on the same scale as Heathrow, but everything is new and shiny. We arrived at what would have seemed like a busy time, around 6 pm on a weekday, but clearing immigration required waiting behind just one other person and took just a couple of minutes. Unlike in the U.S., the folks who check passports and suitcases are not armed. In fact, I did not see anyone in the Shanghai airport with a gun.
Apple Maps showed that the quickest way to central Shanghai was simply a taxi ($30 for a 45-minute drive despite the evening rush hour; note prices posted above baggage carousel), but I wanted to try the maglev (a fairly long walk from Terminal 2). If you’re on a budget, just take the Metro anywhere in the city straight from the airport for less than $1. That adds about 15 minutes compared to the maglev.
The return journey was equally smooth. My hotel was not right at a Metro station so I just jumped in a taxi for a 40-minute Sunday morning ride. Again arriving exactly two hours before the flight, I went from curb to bag check to passport control to the completion of security in about 10 minutes. China is a bit like Turkey in that passengers who can afford air travel are treated by the airport staff, even those involved with security, with a certain amount of deference and respect. As with the arrival, I did not see anyone carrying a gun. WiFi is fast, but the Great Firewall won’t let you reach Google, Facebook, or Wikipedia so you may end up sticking with roaming LTE (there does not seem to be any restriction on what can be accessed when roaming from a foreign country).
If you’re going to the G gates, accessible via train, keep in mind that there is more variety in shopping and food in the main D section of Terminal 2, i.e., before you get on the in-airport train. Most of the souvenirs that you’d want to buy, including fine silks and hand-made fans, are available at the airport and at roughly the same price as at a nice shop in the city.
Some items to note from the photos below: “Taiwan” is classified as something other than an “International” departure; the bathroom signage is pretty clear on what a “man”, “woman”, and “family” might look like. There are no “all-gender” restrooms. Starbucks and Burger King are available. See if you can find the special lounge for PHP programmers:
The flight back was just as good, but smoother and a bit longer. Again I had three seats to myself. The route stuck closer to the north coast of Alaska and took me back to Gjoa Haven and the heart of the Northwest Passage.
Since it had been around 70 degrees and dry every day in China I hadn’t bothered to check the weather for Boston. It turned out to be low IFR with a heavy rain cell right over Logan Airport during our scheduled arrival time. We were vectored around a bit and then, contrary to Malcolm Gladwell’s brilliant theories, the Hainan crew did a perfect smooth landing. I checked the METAR:
That’s wind from the northeast (020) at 25 knots gusting 37 with 3/4 statute miles of visibility (everything else in aviation is generally nautical miles). Compare to 1/2 miles of visibility as the minimum for the standard instrument approach to Runway 4R at Boston. Runway visual range (“RVR”) was as low as 2000′, variable up to 5500′. Compare to 1200′ RVR as the minimum for a CAT II ILS 4R at Logan. There was heavy rain and a broken ceiling of clouds at 900′ above the surface (compare to 200′ for the minimum on an ordinary ILS approach to 4R). Temperature 8C, dewpoint 6C.
For the non-Global Entry masses, the immigration lines were epic. Back in the Land of Freedom (TM), there were close to 100 government agents carrying guns in the immigration and customs area. The sluggishness of clearing people through immigration meant that baggage piled up on the carousel (passengers not having emerged in time to claim it). I saw more obese people in the 10 minutes after landing than during 10 days in China.
The good news for U.S. airlines is that it would be illegal for Hainan to operate U.S. domestic routes! Certainly this would be a preferred choice for an American consumer.
(Note that if you take Hainan to Shanghai and then need to connect to a flight from the second airport on the other side of the city need to connect across airports in Shanghai, there is a direct Metro line (2) that does this for $1. This should never be necessary since both airports are international and serve most destinations, but it would not be inconvenient or expensive.)
In “Cuba could attract Americans with sin?” I pointed out that Boston and Havana had pretty much switched places in terms of access to debauchery. I think the same may be true of China, a place that shocked Christian missionaries who arrived during what Professor Andrew Wilson calls “the golden age of commercial sex” in China (I recommend his 24-lecture course, Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Life, and Culture). Westerners were responsible for the expansion of opium use in China (history), but then they professed to be shocked at the number of opium users.
How about today? Let’s compare China versus the United States along various axes of debauchery.
Opium use? “The United States makes up 4.4% of the world’s population, and consumes over 80% of the world’s opioids” (source). Most consumption and addiction is funded by taxpayers (previous post). Drugs of abuse are available to some extent in China, but taxpayers don’t fund them and they are illegal.
Need to smoke some medical or recreational marijuana every morning? The U.S. is the place to do it, depending on the state. (see “China Cashes In on the Cannabis Boom” (nytimes) for how China may want to supply the U.S. market)
Need to unwind from demanding college classes by getting drunk every weekend and hooking up with a new friend? America: Yes. China: No. “Acceptance of premarital sex is relatively recent,” said a 50-year-old who got a degree and worked in the U.S. before returning to Shanghai, “but certainly the Tinder culture would never be acceptable for a properly raised young Chinese.”
What if the casual sex results in pregnancy? Will a single mom get the standard American package of free apartment, free health care, free food, and free smartphone (funded by taxpayers if she had sex with a low-income partner; funded by child support revenue if she had sex with a high-income partner in the right state)? “No,” replied my local hosts. “That’s simply illegal. The child will not be recognized by the state and will not be entitled to attend a state-run school or use the state-run health care system. Being a single mom is possible only for the rich who can afford to pay for private school and private health care. Some women will fly to the U.S. or Hong Kong to give birth and then the child can have a legal status in China as a foreigner.”
As in the U.S., prostitution is illegal but purportedly common. (I did not see any evidence of this, but let’s call this a draw in debauchery.)
Supposedly the Chinese now drink slightly more alcohol per capita than Americans (Guardian), but I did not see a drunk person during my peregrinations around Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. Nor did I pass by a loud bar, though I was told by locals that I was walking down “the most famous bar street in Shanghai.” If the Chinese are drinking they’re doing it quietly and without having sex with a stranger right after.
How about porn, that cornerstone of the U.S. Internet? It is illegal in China.
Gambling? The U.S. has casinos in 43 states. China proper is home to 0 casinos. Chinese who want to gamble in a fancy casino need to get on a plane and fly to Macau (or the U.S.!).
How about vandalism? If we accept that as a category of debauchery, China comes out as much less debauched than the U.S. There are clean public restrooms in seemingly every metro station in Shanghai and Suzhou. I don’t think that they run security cameras inside the restrooms, so we can’t say that the lack of destruction of fixtures is due to surveillance. I am sure that it exists, but I did not notice any graffiti anywhere in China. Here are some photos that drew a few quizzical looks from the locals:
From a shopping mall (note the child-height sink, very common in China and also the signage giving a more limited array of gender ID options and family structures than you might see in a California restroom sign):
This is not to say that vandalism is non-existent. Here is a sign describing an incident that occurred in the 1960s:
Maybe the U.S. will end up with a sustainable economic advantage as a destination for Chinese who want to indulge in debauchery? We will be the 1920s Havana to 2020s Shanghai.
What happens when Disney expands into China? How do the master storytellers of Hollywood tap into 5,000 years of history, art, language, and culture? Answer: you get U.S. Disneyland with a Chinese restaurant and without any obese people on mobility scooters.
A Metro ride will get you in smooth modern comfort from anywhere in the city to Shanghai Disneyland for between 50 cents and $1. There will be a clean restroom in every station through which you travel and the trains run every 2-5 minutes. From the center of Shanghai it is roughly 45 minutes on the Metro to Disney.
Bring your passport. Disneyland has not been briefed on the merits of hosting a large population of the undocumented. Tickets can be purchased in advance or at a ticket booth on site (no line at 10:00 am on a Monday, one hour after opening) at a cost of roughly 50 percent of what you would pay in Florida or California. Lines for rides can be 30-45 minutes so it makes sense to pay roughly double (still no more than the U.S. price) for a “Premier Access” add-on that gives you an anytime fast pass for each big ride.
You can do all of the big rides in one day, but it would probably take two days to explore all of the corners of the and wait in line for the smaller rides for which fast passes are not available (you can pay about $1,000 for the super VIP guide, though, and maybe skip those lines too?). As a strategy, consider saving the Crystal Grotto ride for after dark. It has beautifully lit scenes that might not seem magical during the daytime.
Most of the rides are tame so it is easy to get inured to the dire warnings cautioning the pregnant, the drunk, etc. The TRON roller coaster (ride through), on the other hand, makes you wonder “Why is this legal?” There is a “recovery area” for after the ride.
There is a fun ropes course:
Alice in Wonderland gets a maze (how long before everything related to Lewis Carroll has to be ripped out of U.S. parks?):
I did try the Chinese restaurant for lunch, noting on Facebook “The same boring noodles with crab sauce as at US Disney parks.”
Prices are fairly reasonable, but the most sensible strategy is to have lunch in the adjacent “town” that has a bunch of ordinary restaurants, including a Cheesecake Factory(!), selling Shanghai mall-style food at Shanghai mall-style prices (e.g., about $5 for a bowl of noodles with dumplings or whatever; divide the 35 price below by 7 and remember that it includes tax and service/tip). It is about a 5-minute walk from the park to these restaurants and getting back in is easy with your ticket.
Disney did bring the best of American cuisine to the captive Chinese audience e.g., turkey legs and corn dogs. A water bottle inside the park is about $1.50, but most Chinese bring their own bottles and refill as necessary.
Skip Remy’s Patisserie. Maybe a rat can cook, but he can’t bake.
If you need a souvenir, the castle contains a gift shop with a $260,000 glass replica of the castle..
The parade (video I made for the kids) is off the charts with between 5 and 20 dancers milling around each float and one float per movie. People begin occupying prime spots 30 minutes before it starts, though the Premier Access top level pass should give you a dedicated viewing area. It is helpful to be at least 6′ tall if you’re not going to arrive well before.
Going back to a downtown hotel is as easy as strolling to the Metro station:
Overall: a much better experience than in the U.S. Disney park due to the reduced crowding, a fun activity for an off-peak weekday if you’re in Shanghai, not too much Chinese-specific design.
If the Chinese ever start celebrating Thanksgiving (or joining Elizabeth Warren in a National Day of Mourning), the supermarkets are ready. Turkey-flavored Cheetos:
I’m in Shanghai and on WeChat with the imaginative name of “PhilipGreenspun”. Who wants to get together? I’ll be visiting Suzhou and Hangzhou next week before returning to Shanghai (Nov 22) and Boston (Nov 24).
Many have characterized the competition between these two giants as a clash between democracy and authoritarianism. But this is false. America and China view their political systems in fundamentally different ways: whereas America sees democratic government as an end in itself, China sees its current form of government, or any political system for that matter, merely as a means to achieving larger national ends.
The fundamental difference between Washington’s view and Beijing’s is whether political rights are considered God-given and therefore absolute or whether they should be seen as privileges to be negotiated based on the needs and conditions of the nation.
The West seems incapable of becoming less democratic even when its survival may depend on such a shift. In this sense, America today is similar to the old Soviet Union, which also viewed its political system as the ultimate end.
Certainly the elites would be happier today if they’d remembered to take voting rights away from anyone who doesn’t live in a coastal city, thus making the U.S. “less democratic” if not “less Democratic”!
(Regarding the similarity to the Soviet system, Russian immigrant friends say that a big difference is “Back in Russia, we didn’t believe the propaganda.”)
I wonder if this article could get published today, now that the NYT tells us that we have an unbalanced strongman in the White House.
While Americans argue about how much teachers should get paid, people in China are teaching and studying…
Predictably, this was not appreciated by the righteous. Striking workers, even when they’re avoiding teaching American children, are a beautiful sight. They said that it was irrelevant that Chinese students are studying because Chinese schools are of low quality. This was also a good chance to bash Chinese society:
I don’t think we typically hold China as our human rights/equity model.
Are you aware that China is a dictatorship with one official political party?
I replied wondering if China’s political system at the municipal level is that different from what Chicago has. Both Shanghai and Chicago will have one political party, but multiple candidates in elections. I pointed out despite the lack of any partisan division, the Americans in all-Democrat Chicago could not reach a consensus on appropriate pay and the result was an interruption in their children’s education. In China, by contrast, the divisions among people are not so great that it prevents them from continuing to operate schools.
I do wonder why it is socially acceptable for Americans to whitesplain the inferiority of nearly everything that happens in China. Most of the whitesplaining is contradicted by recent GDP growth data and a history of thousands of years of stable government within China (the Ming dynasty alone lasted for longer than the U.S. thus far). But even without these data, why is it always okay to bash China? Whatever the merits of their political system might be, China has not sent its military halfway across the planet to start wars. American Freedom (TM) means an imprisonment rate that is 5X as high as China’s. Whatever the system is for compensating teachers in China, the work is voluntary (i.e., teachers could quit if they don’t like it, just as a schoolteacher in the U.S. could quit (though American teachers are only 1/4 as likely to quit as American workers on average (Fortune)).
The average Chinese citizen does not have a huge say in how government operates, but the same can be said for the average U.S. citizen.
(Separately, I wonder if the fight around teacher salary is China-related. The average teacher in Chicago under the city’s latest offer will be earning over $100,000 per year within a few years, plus a guaranteed pension and other benefits worth another $100,000/year or so. Yet in a globalized economy with a growing population, including a rapidly growing Chinese middle class, $200,000/year in total compensation isn’t sufficient to command what would be an acceptable (to the teacher) share of resources.)
from Travel and Leisure magazine: “Within an hour of landing in China, there will be malware on your mobile device,” says Dave Anderson, a senior director at Voltage Security in Cupertino, Calif
Is the situation truly riskier than in the U.S.? What special tools do attackers in China have that couldn’t be deployed at a Starbucks in Peoria?
I’m not worried about someone from the Chinese government reading all of my email. Any opinions that I have about China and the Chinese government are already published here on this blog (and they’re mostly wrong! In 2003, I predicted that the Chinese would be able to make and export a basic automobile for $2,000 to $3,000 (at most $4,200 in today’s mini-dollars). As of 2016, there was a $2,400 Chinese four-seat car, but it lacks A/C and other “basics”. Today there is a $9,000 Chinese made four-door electric car.)
I wouldn’t want someone transferring money out of my online banking accounts, using my credit cards, etc., however. Given two-factor authentication with text messages to my phone, can people truly do that without having control of my mobile number?
Update: Based on Denis’s comment below, I updated the “SIM PIN” on my iPhone away from the Verizon factory default. I hope that is what he meant by “Make sure your sim is locked.”
In accordance with the Shanghai municipal environment regulations, unless requested by staying hotel guest, the hotel no longer proactively provides single-use toiletry amenities such as toothbrush, comb, razor, nail file and shoe mitt from July 1st, 2019. If you have further inquiry please contact the hotel’s guest services.
I think this proves my theory that it will be the Chinese who will save Planet Earth. Californians will need until 2024 to achieve this goal (previous post).
Separately, who wants to get together in Shanghai, Suzhou, or Hangzhou?
What about hotels? Okura Garden comes up as “best value” in the booking engines. Is it better to stay right on the Bund? I will be visiting NYU Shanghai across the river, but mostly hitting all of the tourist sites, museums, etc.
(Airfares to China show the absurd lack of competition for domestic travel. The basic fare plus tax from Boston to Shanghai, 14+ hours of flight time, is $590 (United, with a connection) or $640 (Hainan, nonstop).)
Here’s a dumb question, but I haven’t seen it answered in the media: What were young folks in China doing while #ClimateStrike was trending worldwide last week?
