Public toilets

When I was in taipei, I stayed at a empty room in my friend's own music studio.

He's a nice guy, but likes to joke about some of my interesting habbits.

"He treats the floor in the room as the laundry basket" he told our mutual friends after seeing how i stay in his room.

hahaha, well said!

Borrowing his words, some people, not neccssary the shanghainese, treat the ground in shanghai as the public toilet.

I am not talking about going to a corner in a dark alley to relieve your number 1 without people seeing.

I am talking about people shitting in broad daylight, in the middle of a common walkway or a public square.

Sometimes, they would carry their small babies or kids by the legs to spread open their asses, and shit through the pants that has a slit opening at the back. these pants are made to allow kids to shit without taking down their pants.

You can't blame these foreigners, most of them are farmers from the poorer provinces coming to the city to earn a hard living. Back at their provinces, they probably shit wherever they want.

But, could it also be a scarcity of public toilets in shanghai that encourages sych behaviour? the railway station is the best example.

It is the place with huge human traffic, yet it is hard to find the public toilets. and if you can find one, the toilets are not big enough. not surprisingly, an area filled with ex-farmers coming into and going out of shanghai, has the highest probability to have a lump of faeces lying in the middle of a passage way of in the middle of the open space.

Almost everytime I goes there (due to inter province travel and a camera wholesale centre there), I can discover shit lying on the ground.

For the record, i also saw once in a walkway near where I stay, once near People's square, and once in the greeneries outside Park 97.

So next time when you are in shanghai, watch your steps.

Eye Power

Today, I would like to introduce a term..."Eye Power"

This term was a singaporean term, but then, this term is even more suitable in shanghai.

"Eye power" is a sacarstic term describing the effort someone contribute by ONLY looking at somebody esle doing a job that is obviously under manpowered. It can also be used to describe people who simply prefer to supervise you and ask you to do something faster when the work can be faster if he joins in the work.

In shanghai, the "power" is so much stronger.

Now, let me introduce another term..."Chained eye power"

If you ever worked in shanghai long enough, you may or may not encounter really efficient shanghainese workers.

But you will have a higher chance to experience this "Chained eye power"

In a team of 10 people, A's job is to supervise B. B's job is to supervise C, who job is to supervise D...etc etc...

The only guy who is actually doing the job is J, the lowest rank guy in the team of 10.

That's why I always tell me friends who needs something to be done in shanghai, to work directly with the lowest rank people.

First, you save time on communicating through the hierachy, secoond, you save money paying people to supervise each other and lastly, you feel much better.

How do you feel much better? you may asked.

I for once, witnessed 1 man carrying 4 x 20kg boxes from Point A to Point B, with 7 people watching him do it. Of course, they don't look at him do it all the time, they are also chatting and smoking.

You would think to yourself, why the hell wont 3 more guys just each make 1 trip and the 4 boxes can be carried in 1/4 of the time? (We were in a rush by the way)

This is a very small working unit..of only a total of 8 person.

I can't imagine how its like in those so called big chinese companies.

Common tricks of lousy photographers in shanghai

I am not the best photographer in shanghai...I AM REALLY NOT.

There are really some really really good photographers in shanghai.

but as we all know, money makes the world, including shanghai, goes round.

Before I say what are the things that lousy photographers in shanghai do, let me define what is my version of a good photographer.

1) He is proud of his WORKS. As in photographs, concepts, ideas.
2) He knows in this industry, there is no REAL competition, because EVERY PHOTOGRAPHER HAS HIS OWN STYLE.
3) His works speaks for him as a person.

So...in shanghai, there are many photographers who are doing photography JUST FOR THE SAKE OF MONEY. Of coz, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with that. What is wrong is they try to make you think they are professional WHEN THEY ARE NOT.

If you ever need to hire a photographer, watch out for the following tricks. Sometimes, you already be conditioned somehow to think the following indicates how good a photographer is. So remember, in shanghai, the following are not good indicators.

What lousy photographers in shanghai do

1) Before showing you his works, he shows you his expensive Hasselblad camera.

The correct way to assess how good a photographer is, is to look at his works. How he light, WHY he light this way, WHY he shoots in a certain way, etc etc. However, more often than not, the clients DO NOT KNOW such stuff but its ok! Please ask someone who knows to go with you to see his works...and please DONT ASK HIM WHAT CAMERA HE USES!!! SOME OF THE TOP PROFESSIONALS IN NEW YORK USES POINT AND SHOOT CAMERA FOR FASHION SPREAD!

2) He brings all his equipment to a small shoot and make sure you see them.

The same thing as above. Shanghainese likes to impress people, like ordering a table of dishes for 2 person so that you can't finish.

3) Plays with his equipment for no good reason.

a) use his light meter to check the reading for many many times, because having the flash going blink blink looks impressive. and for a non photographer like you, you will probably be impressed.

b) put up many lights but only one flash is flashing when the actual shooting starts.

its easy to check, just see how many flash are not flashing when he clicks. buying flashes are cheap, and it helps impress the client

I will add on once I see more examples, I am writing this because i saw clients paying big budgets for these tricks.

Don't be fooled!!!