Last week, amidst the coldest weather I’ve endured since Haerbin (-23 degrees!) Tuck hosted speakers from across the U.S. for its leading graduate student-run annual conference on sustainability and responsible business.

Thanks to our panel managers’ keen eyes for talent, and the moderation of our professors-in-residence, discussions were kept “pithy, provocative, and particular” – not to mention humorous.

But, while most panelists yeah-sayed in reply to this year’s theme (“Is Capitalism Sustainable?”) what really struck me were two recurring points raised throughout the conference:

1) Capitalism fails to effectively deal with externalities and long term horizons; and – perhaps more importantly

2) People value consumption, not efficiency.

Either one of these notions is a discussion unto itself but the second point is of specific interest and – having worked for a company that promotes efficiency – concern. As our GEM (General Accounting for Managers) professor instructs us that ‘pushing out the PPF’ (Production Possibilities Frontier – aka “the hill of happiness”) is always better I can’t help but wonder: is it?

Every time technological advances have increased energy efficiency, for example, increased consumption has pushed energy use back out to its original level or beyond. But can we continually increase our consumption without consequence?

I think, quite clearly, the answer is no. So where do we go from here?

Once upon a time, when the local river wasn’t frozen over, a few brave (read: foolish) Tuckies trekked into the woods and goaded each other to dangerous heights on a rickety platform…

On the heels of the CNN reported ‘Cardboard-in-Beijing-Buns’ story, a new headline appears:

China reporter held over cardboard-in-buns story

So, is Beijing pulling a cover-up here, or is the story really fabricated? And, since this is a time of “intense international scrutiny” for China regarding food-related scandals will this reporter be unduly executed… I mean punished?

According to a the Harvard Business Review (Scorched Earth, June 2007):

“International standards define a serious water shortage as the availability of 2,000 cubic meters or less of water per capita per year; 1,000 cubic meters per year is considered the minimum for existence. Currently in Northern China – which stretches from Shanghai to Beijing and contains nearly 40% of China’s total population – the average amount of available water is only 1,100 cubic meters per capita per year, and the water table for the entire region is dropping precipitously.”

I have an idea that might help: stop hosing down the damn trees!

It’s been humid and pouring rain for the last few weeks and yet… someone on city council feels that spraying high powered jets of water into the air is a good idea. Please allow this photo and video to elaborate on a particularly wasteful, sonically atrocious, likely toxic and generally ludicrous Shanghainese activity.

We assume it’s a pesticide dispersal system of sorts. The same truck has been patrolling up and down the French Concession neighborhood for several days warning off pedestrians with fairground tunes and leaving a soaked path of mystery in its wake.

Perhaps there’s a visiting dignitary, a shift in national policy, an intense WTO wrangling session in process or maybe someone in the Great Firewall is just playing for trix… whatever the cause, Wikipedia works today and that makes it a good day.

Better yet, the wordpress.com blogging platform also works, allowing me to bring you this exciting news from my sorely neglected internet home, which has sat in digital jail for most of the last two years. Huzzah.

And, in keeping with the theme of good triumphing over the annoying, Germany has chosen not to allow Tom Cruise to film at one of its military bases on the basis of his being a Scientologist. So says the NYTimes: “The German government has long been at odds with Scientology, which it does not regard as a religion but as a dangerous sect.” (okay, okay, this is old hat and may yet be resolved… but leave me my dreams)

In other news, China continues to make outlandish claims that it will solve all the mysteries of operating a harmonious society by 2010. If I had a dollar for every goal to be accomplished by that date…

Just a quick note… the super cool site GrandCentral.com, a lust-worthy online centralized phone forwarding service (and so much more…), has just been acquired by Google.

Being back in the US, I was finally able to procure myself a much wanted account (you can’t register from an overseas IP) but while I love the features I have so far been hesitant to pass on the number due to a worry that, while cool, the site wouldn’t be around long.

Worry no more. It’s not convenient to change your telephone number but switching to, or at least phasing in, GrandCentral is now worth the hassle for all it’s amazing features and its new Google-backed future reliability.

Among it’s awesome abilities: simultaneous or scheduled ring-through to your home, cell or work phones; online accessible voicemail that will notify you by text message or email; personalized incoming ring tones for your callers; ability to listen in on voice messages as they are recorded or even take the call in the middle if you want; and, not to mention, one phone number… forever… for all phones.

Oh yes, and it’s free!

www.grandcentral.com

Hello World. It’s been a long Net-absence but I’m back in the US for a lavish second time in as many months, and this time for a proper holiday. Lindsay’s wedding to be precise, which simultaneously affords one week of wonderful life on Cape Cod along with a yoyo’d international group of childhood friends. It stands to be an excellent time all around.

The trip over was a hellish 28-hour odyssey starting with a delay in Shanghai and then thunderstorms upon arrival in Chicago. The delay turned into a partial blessing since I ended up arriving before my sister and Louise who had departed before me on a parallel United flight (I took AA). They arrived amidst the worst of the storms and were grounded for two hours at nearby Rochester. All of our ensuing connections were cancelled and we didn’t get to Logan Airport until 3am, 7 hours after we were supposed to be on the Cape (… still a two hour drive away). Lily didn’t make it out to DC until the next morning and “slept” on a baggage carousel.

On the upside, the car rental lady took pity on us and we drove down in muscle car style with a bright red Mustang. Would’ve made my friend Steve proud. But on the further downside, our first day was wasted since we pulled up my driveway just after daybreak and collapsed into bed until 4pm. Naturally, I’m now wide awake when I should be face down in my pillows.

A good time to blog I say. So, thusly back in a land where my favoritest sites WordPress.com and Flickr are not blocked, what do you suppose I might ramble on about (aside from my travels)?

Rats and cucarachas of course! I thought I’d briefly relate a recent ‘life in China’ story and refer you to an interesting blog posted by my friend Kaying regarding the intersection of globalization and unconscious racism in The Netherlands. You are referred.

And now the insects:

On my way to meet Lily and Liz at the Pudong Oriental Pearl Tower (yes indeedy, that’s two sister (√) and no parents (X) who have visited me in the Middle Kingdom) I walked through one of People’s Square’s many snaking exit tunnels.

Upon entry, at the first landing, I noticed a crowd of people gathered in a semi circle against one wall. Now, this typically means one of three things: there is an accident and everybody has stopped to stare (but not help), there is a fight and everybody has stopped to stare (but not intervene), or there is someone selling something very interesting.

I had happened upon the later. Draped across the ground was a printed poster depicting text I could only partially decipher and pictures of six common household pests: mice, rats, cockroaches, centipedes (see my recent Hangzhou pictures for reference), snakes, and spiders.

The sales-pitch that accompanied this unusual sign clarified all in an inhumane but extremely effective manner:

For 10rmb a piece, the vendor appeared to be turning a brisk sales of small heart shaped night-light that glowed blue when plugged into his portable generator. Six feet from the vendor was a rather large gerbil in a rather small cage spasming in awful fits corresponding to the plug and unplug.

Vendor:

“Does it work? See for yourself!” ZAP! [gerbil spasms] [Sale]

“Rats, Cockroaches, sure… it keeps them all away, just look!” ZAP! [gerbil runs to other side of cage, slams into the bars, falls on its back and spasms] [Another sale]

I know this kind of thing must be outlawed in most developed countries but it was a very convincing demonstration. Perhaps I’ve been living in this country too long, or maybe it was the two inch roach that I discovered on my towel after a shower last week but I almost found myself reaching for my wallet. Almost.

I shot this using Lauren’s digital camera from the gusty top of Huashan’s “Plank Path”. I’ve never posted a video before, so bear with the quality. Hope you enjoy!

(Incidentally, I tried to do this using YouTube, but couldn’t get the clip to upload, so I ended up going with Google Video. Nice to have options)

It was a week of reunions and re-goodbyes here in Shanghai. Mathieu was back in town after a trek about China (he leaves today – but we expect him back), as was Pierre, and so too the festivities that go along with great personalities. Dinners at Dongbei, drinks at Cotton’s and Senses, and few more exotic events.

Last Sunday (Sept 3) Mathieu organized a group to head out and enjoy the Shanghai Boat & Yatch Club’s “Open Day” on Lake Dianshan (淀山湖) – SBYC’s base of operations about an hour from Shanghai. The lake sits exactly over the border to Jiangsu Province, with Suzhou just on the other side. After a pancake breakfast (pics later…) and a bus ride past some fairly strange mushroom and elephant shaped buildings (no pictures, unfortunately) we found ourselves to one side of the Shanghai Olympic Aquatics Training Facility.

The gorgeous weather brought a near-record turn out, 70 people (fortunately we made it into the first bus), and the day kicked off with everyone clambering for spots on too few boats. Our team (ahem, Steve) mis-interpreted the whiteboard’s “cat” for catamaran and we unexpectedly found ourselves on Bill Crampton’s tubby New England cat-boat. Bill won’t mind me saying this because while the Monicat isn’t a trampolined speed machine, she does indeed embody the pleasurable antithesis of an adrenaline thrill ride and we owe him a big thanks for an incredibly welcome and relaxing experience – even if he did make us scrub the decks… literally A fine day out day she does provide.

Apparently, Bill’s uncle, Hans Christian, is a semi-famous boat designer in the New England area and Bill and Hans custom designed and built Monicat at a local factory in Shanghai. She and her newer sister are probably the only cat-boats in China. The factory, thanks to Bill, is now a successful boat manufacturer.

We spent the day tacking back and forth just off-shore, playing chicken with enormous concrete buoys, observing fleets of floating backhoes dredging a new channel (the entire 62 sq-km lake is only 3-5 meters deep), heeding the confusing calls of local fishermen, dodging unusually placed iron pipes sunk into the lake floor – and lurking just beneath water level, and admiring the remnants of an elaborate network of fishing nets that used to cover the entire surface of the lake before it was officially designated an aquatic recreation zone in about 1998.

Among the lake’s other strange attractions is an old Russian Ekranoplan, aka Ground Effect Vehicle, anchored at a PRC army recreational facility (the one we saw didn’t quite look like any of these, but it’s an interesting technology that’s still being researched). Though it hasn’t appeared to move in the last four year, the Ekranoplan can evidently reach the other side of the lake in just 8 minutes while flying at an altitude of about 2 meters. GEVs were originally used by the Soviet army to transfer ground troops across the Caspian Sea. They’re still used in some parts of the world, especially Australia, as an efficient form of travel over smooth bodies of water.

Back on shore, this land lubber finally re-joined a gym, not Your Gym this time, but Fitness First.

Last Wednesday we had the old gang around, avec Pierre and Mathieu, for some internet-delivery Thai food from the friendly folks at Thai FoodStation (we discovered TFS a few months back at another newish Shanghai pleasure, the Garden Bookstore flea market – every 3rd Saturday of the month). Lou baked up a tofu chocolate storm and Mathieu shared his incredible new – and plasmotically fresh – tattoo.

Stories from this weekend’s apartment hunting and Dino-beach “Splash” experience will have to wait. The highlight: Shanghai has suddenly become quite chilly. I’ll check in soon with new pictures. In the meantime I’ll be pulling my sweaters out of storage; I’m suddenly having trouble believing this season will bring an “Autumn Tiger“.

Not that most people reading this blog will be particularly interested, but I was unable to find an easy, consolidated resource for these acronyms today so I thought I’d post a few as a possible future convenience to others. The universe of abbreviations related to this topic seems pretty small (and yet still hard to find) so I may have covered most of them here.

COS Certificate of Suitability issued by the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM)

CTD Common Technical Document OR Comparative Toxicogenomics Database

DMF Drug Master File

EDMF European Drug Master File

FDA Food and Drug Administration (USA)

GMP Good Manufacturing Practice

The following site was quite useful, but not wholly complete:

http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalabbreviations.php

We’re being ravaged over here. Anyone know what these guys are:

Our solution, to be implemented tonight, is the following organic pesticide:

Garlic Insecticide
Pulverize in a blender a couple of whole cayenne peppers, a large onion and a whole bulb of garlic with a little water. Cover this mash with a gallon of water, let stand 24 hours and strain. Spray daily on roses, azaleas, and vegetables to kill an infestation of bugs. Don’t throw away the mash; bury it among the plants where insects occur.

And, for your optical pleasure, the world’s cutest Flickr set: Tiny Animals On Fingers

Hi Guys – Great to hear from so many of you recently. Sorry I’ve been out of touch. I’ve managed to let about fifty messages from friends and family pile up. I’ve devoted this whole weekend to catching up, aside, of course, from our newly habitual bike ride to O-Store – China’s only organic food store [pause for memories of WholeFoods]. And, since we were there, we also stopped by Shanghai’s Third Annual Adult Toy Expo… O!

Aside from not replying to you all, I’ve been busy with a lot of fun stuff. Have a gander at these ecclectic pics for a glimpse into my last few weeks. It’s hard to offer too much by way of explanation for these, but here it goes:

- Thanks to work, and a few recent “field visits”, I managed to procure (and temporarily enjoy) a firesuit. And a Chef’s hat. You know what that means around my household

- Thanks to Mom and Dad for sponsoring a tantalizing Birthday dinner. Fully my doing on the belated side but it took a while to gather the international troops and find the right restaurant. Our group was dazzled by the fabulous courses at Li Family’s Imperial Cuisine. The set menu consists of Empress Dowager Cixi’s favorite recipes memorized and smuggled out of her royal kitchens by one of her Generals. The public’s tastebuds have been thankful ever since 1985 when his descendant’s opened a restaurant following success at a PRC Iron Chef-esque national competition. Their new flagship restaurant was opened in Shanghai this May.

- Prep for Lou’s upcomining “café” venture at Shanghai’s 2nd largest kitchen kit supplier

- Every morning we wake up to chopping sounds emanating from behind our flat. It’s one of two downsides to our otherwise incredible 2nd floor flat – the other being roaches, but those are mostly under control since we engaged in small chemical arms race. I’m not quite sure what these women were doing but it looked like they were stuffing intenstines with other intestines. Mmmm. Their meat pail has a shiny hypnotic allure. Quite planely, their partner in gastronomic crime is ashing on his vegetables. We never eat there.

- Sexpo.

Other big news, I’ll be back in the US for a grand East Coast tour with Louise from about September 28 through October 10 (just after Columbus Day Weekend). No schedule yet, but wanted to let y’all know I’ll be coming ’round the mountain, and probably DC, NYC and Cape Cod too. Hope to see you all while I’m home.

Another dripping scorcher here in SH. In the ongoing battle against heat my face is continuing to discover ever new upper cheak sweat glands. I think even my eyes know how to sweat by now.

Stuffed ourselves on fish hotpot tonight. America, you are missing out on the wonders of fishballs.

On the way to drinks afterwards with a few visiting friends our cabbie fell asleep at the wheel. In an inverse irony, this cab actually had seatbelts and we were all strapped in safely. Fortunately, he fell asleep off the pedal and not on the accelerator. I’m not sure what makes me sympathetic to this guy as opposed to the many others I’ve given a piece of my mind, but he stopped the meter for us and seemed nice enough. These guys work 20 hour days just to break even, I guess I’m almost surprised this kind of thing hasn’t happened more often. Anyway, phew.

"… he earned both filthy pelf and fame among the local up level powers of the time"

Pelf
Synonym: Boodle
Definition:  Wealth or riches, especially when dishonestly acquired. An informal term for money.

I love and loathe my analysts’ creative use of the dictionary. But I just plain love words of exacting specificity.

Since the dawn of official registration, Shanghai has documented approximately 290,000 taxi drivers. I’m not sure how many are currently in circulation, but I’ve been told the figure is more taxis than in all of France. It truly is a marvelous convenience. And not only are they bountiful, queuing one after another on desolate, backwater roads, but they’re cheap. The meter starts at $1.25 and runs up in 12-cent increments after 10 minutes or so. A 45-minute ride to the Pudong airport will set you back $18 at most.

But, perhaps my favorite aspect of riding taxis is the ongoing idyll of tracking their driver certificate numbers. Shanghai’s responsible public transportation organ decided it would be thoroughly efficient, not to mention fun, to track registered drivers starting from the number 000001. You can imagine that these days most drivers you encounter run around 250000, or occasionally 180000. This morning I rode in Mr. 0025067. I was blown away. He was a veritable fossil complete with 4-inch long hair growing from grotesque mole and a sarcophagal patina of city grime. I was thrilled, and disappointed only that I didn’t have my camera. Little did I know this guy would be massively eclipsed later in the day.

Today was my short day at work. I complete a 3-hour Mandarin class in the morning, grab lunch and head into the office. The class is a short but attractive walk from the Jing An Temple subway stop. I can cut through the temple park and make it there in five minutes. The Jing An stop is on line 2 so I breeze right into Pudong in about 12 minutes skipping the usual line switch at People’s Square (a full one kilometer underground haul up and down various steps and always through a sea of slower moving zhongguoren).

Better yet, today I had the opportunity to duck out early and attend an evening AmCham event. Nice 3.5-hour workday. The Consul General spoke about this and that “off the record” happenings in China, bird flu, the political and economic repercussions of recent visits by US dignitaries, etc, etc, cocktails, buffet, hand out mingpian, hello, hello, and I’m done. Actually, I was caught in a conversation with a fascinating inverted bowling pin of a man. He rocked precariously on his loafers like bobo the punching bag clown and spat on me as he vehemently derided Sony Ericsson for allowing (!) grey market SE branded goods to be sold in China. The bastards. Then he launched into an epitribe monologue, albeit well researched and delivered, about how and why the question of China’s self-imposed isolation starting in the 1400 is “the greatest historical mystery of the last 1000 years” and espoused grand but probable projections on how the sheer scale of this country will eventually allow it to impose its culture, and then its will, on the rest of the world. Given the excessive ways in which global policy makers, corporate and governmental, acquiesce to this country’s fabled ‘1 billion customers’, that scenario might come about sooner than expected.

After the event, held at the swish Ritz Carleton hotel, I walked through several of Nanjing Xi Lu’s spanking high end malls. I was impressed. The Christmas decorations are actually good and it felt rather odd to grab a cappuccino at Starbucks and then wander from the Bose Store to the Bang & Olufsen boutique while listening to winter wonderland. Happily, I emerged to the reality of China, and the bitter cold front that set in two days ago, where I met your typical everyday street scene: workers blowtorching the road’s painted yellow divider line, and scraping it up with a shovel… without masks or cones to protect them from oncoming traffic. Wonderland indeed.

Anyway, the point of the blog is this: on my way home I was treated to taxi 0007374. Rock and Roll.