cdrum

I was forwarded an email at work.  It’s pretty funny, but serious I think.  I urge everyone to take the survey.

Hi Mainland China living expat friends,

I’ve been asked by a friend of mine to help him out with taking a survey.

A  Mainland Chinese magazine ran survey results last month on whether Chinese people think foreigners regard them as well mannered or not and how that will effect the Olympics.
Now, they would like to run a survey on how well mannered expats feel the local Chinese people are.

It’s actually quite funny and you will have to pardon the unsmooth English, but if you have time, it would be a great help!   It’s actually quite funny and an interesting occasion to vent your feelings on how you feel Chinese people are mannered and how it will affect the Olympics?

The URL is

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=AeGUQRMNQp_2boQKBKHEnbrw_3d_3d

Thank you and pass it on please!

Remember a few weeks ago I posted about the crackdown on “illegal drugs” in the sanlitun area? (Was it really a crackdown on illegal drugs? Anyone’s guess…)  My follow-up post is here.
Well, I was at the same spot on Sunday and they put this banner out prominently for all to see.

Effective?

You be the judge.

I randomly checked my “Links for you” page on my del.icio.us account, and low and behold, I was given a beta account to the new preview.delicious.com.  Neato!

It sports a cleaner layout, a bit more web 2.0 friendly I think.  They also mentioned they got the delicious.com domain - I wonder how much of Yahoo!’s money they spent on that bad boy…

Click on the screenshot for a larger version.

Sometimes, something happens in China that really irks me. Ok, well, maybe a bit more often than “sometimes”…

3 days ago, the Ministry of Public Safety, via relevant news outlets and traffic management bureaus, announced an overhaul of the license plate system (specifically, enhancements to the 1992 standard that was running the risk of running out of available plates - at least here in Beijing).

Um, o.k… so?

Well, long story short, one of the new provisions is they are phasing out the black plates for foreign-owned vehicles. We will need to swap our plates for the “normal” ugly blue plates that is given to anyone.

Remember, Foreigners were lucky and had much sexier black license plates, instead of the boring blue plates that everyone else has!

Information is a bit hazy (as my Chinese character recognition isn’t the greatest)… Let’s keep an eye on the Wikipedia article for developments.

And here’s the Beijing Traffic Bureau announcement.

Now, officially, normal foreigners (i.e. not diplomats) aren’t given any special privileges on the road. Now, for the 4.5 years I’ve been driving, let’s just say I’ve had only one parking ticket (and that was 3 years 7 months ago - EVERY car on the road was ticketed, so I guess the cop was just being “fair”).

Seriously… Will having a blue plate change anything?

Man, I hope not! As my friend Tom pointed out, most likely the implementation of the new license plate policies won’t coincide with the police sporting a sudden proficiency in the English language.