Craigslist Enters the Shenzhen Online Community

While browsing online yesterday, I noticed something new to the Shenzhen online landscape.

For people who don't live here, most people go to Shenzhenparty.com for just about everything including applying for jobs, parties, classifieds and apartment hunting. It is the most dominant site in the area. While there are some issues with its graphics, interface and user-friendliness, it is a useful platform that just about everyone embrases.

In recent months, Shenzhenstuff.com has developed a nice, more interactive site in the Shenzhen online community with it's Ning platform for social networking. This site has personal profiles, fictures, blogs, news and message boards. It has become a hit for both expats and English-loving local Chinese. While sometimes it is more of a place for weird white guys to hit on random Chinese girls, it does create a interesting interactive community.

Recently in response to this more interactive community, Shenzhen Party has started its own Ning-created network to comepete with Shenzhen Stuff.

The newest addition has been the addition to Craigslist. Originally started in NYC, it has now spread to China to 6 cities - Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Although Craigslist: Shenzhen has very posts and relatively few users currently (it's only been online for a few months max), it creates an interesting new addition to the Shenzhen's expat market. I wonder if Craigslist has or will be opening up a Chinese language version of its services soon. That would be a much better investment with a possibly much greater pool of potential users.

Shenzhen Opens Office in NYC to Promote Trade & Relations

In a recent press release published online by Marketwatch, on Oct. 27, 2008, Shenzhen will officially opened a office in New York City.

The City of Shenzhen, China announced today that it will be hosting a luncheon ceremony on October 27 at the Marriott Marquis in New York, to celebrate the opening of the New York Representative Office of Shenzhen and to discuss key economic developments as well as business opportunities between Shenzhen and the U.S.

The opening ceremony will not only include government officials and representatives of Shenzhen and the Chinese consulate in NYC, but it will also include prominent leaders of major electronics and financial firms based in Shenzhen.

What seems most likely is the continued expansion of ties in the financial and high tech industries. Shenzhen has already planned a NASDAQ exchange for small and medium sized companies that can supplement the already existing Shenzhen Exchange. It is also focused on decreasing the number of value-added companies (that produce toys for example) and promote the high tech industry. This would push it away from just a factory town to a city of innovation, design and creatvity.

Great move by Shenzhen. Silicon Valley anyone?

Chinese Health is Trending Towards Obesity

China is getting fat and less healthy. It's true.

I first wrote about this problem more than a year ago with my analysis of McDonald's in China. Others have also ventured into this realm.

A USA Today article written more than a year ago, Obesity of China's kids stuns officials, described the shocking changes in Chinese children.

New figures from the Health Ministry show that urban Chinese boys age 6 are 2.5 inches taller and 6.6 pounds heavier on average than Chinese city boys 30 years ago.

The average 6-year-old in Beijing or Shanghai weighs nearly 47 pounds and is 3 feet, 10.5 inches tall, ministry figures show. The average American of the same age weighs just over 50 pounds and also is 3 feet 10.5 inches tall, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Chinese children have a lot of factors working against them in the battle against bad health and obesity:

• Children are traditionally considered more healthy (and better) if they are fatter.
• Due to the 1 child policy, Chinese children are often spoiled by parents and grandparents - meaning more trips to fat-happy places like McD's.
• The demands on a child's academics is such that some kids start going to after school classes when they are as young as the 3rd grade. More classes = No playing outdoors after school.
• When students do have time on their hands, its often spent online playing games like CounterStrike, WoW or chatting on QQ. This not only results in muscle atrophy but also a decreased people-skills ability.
  
• There are very few, if any, outdoor clubs and organizations to join. In the US there are basketball, soccer, football teams, little league, boy & girl scouts. In China ... I've never heard of any.
• When kids get into high school, academics is still the end all be all preparation for the College Entrance Examination (高考）. School sport systems are very rare and active lifestyles really disappear.

Even after kids grow up, there are many other things working against them.

• More meat and dairy products are available due to increased economic development. Many Chinese enjoy strictly eating meat almost exclusively. This is even worse when meat is usually prepared with a solid layer of oil/grease.
• When graduates enter the workforce they usually find white collar jobs. Instead of physical labor, people sit next to their computer day in and day out.
• With more and more cars on the road, people are travel less by foot or bike and more by car.
• It is very difficult to eat healthy.

Due to all of these factors (and others), it is not surprising that Chinese people are getting less healthy and more obese.

I can state from personal experience that this is occurring. My cousin in Harbin is 18 and is starting college next year. He grew up as the "little emperor" and was a cute, chubby kid. My extended family obsessively fed him while focusing stringently on his future academic prospects. He was decent at school, but he was aided with constant help and review classes beginning at age 10.

My cousin never really played any sports nor did he even go out to hang out with friends. (I honestly dont know if he has any friends). The only things he does is stay home, go online, study and eat. The expectations on him by his parents and grandparents are to study. I dont know if he even does chores around the house.

What began as a promising kid is now a rather fat, unmotivated, friendless and people-skills-less person who grew up like many other kids in China. I honestly dont know how he's going to survive in modern society.

Of course, China isn't standing still waiting for this problem to expand. There has been not only government initiatives to step obesity but also private sector developments. Re-examinations of the educational system and parental responsibilites are also occuring.

• Fat camps have popped up all over the country for obese children. TV programs similar to the US "The Biggest Loser" are also appearing on TV.
• Chinese people, while getting more lazy and less active are still relatively more active than counterparts in other countries. The use of public transportation and walking in China helps this cause.
• Chinese people for some reason enjoy climbing up and down mountains as weekend functions of fun. That definitely helps.
• Some more affluent Chinese families are promoting a more healthy and active lifestyle for their kids. This includes more traveling, more exercize and joining clubs
• Basketball is increasingly popular meaning more people are excercizing everyday.
  
• Preventative health is big in China. People often eat vitamins and stay away from pain killers and antibiotics.
• In my opinion, however, the biggest development has been the huge expansion of exercise in cities among the urban population.

Hopefully all of these factors can help the Chinese people develop in a healthy and sustainable way.

China Mostly Immune to Global Financial Crisis

For the past few weeks, I've been engrossed with the current US election. As a person who has volunteered for campaigns, canvassed in low income neighborhoods and helped register people to vote in the US, it has been an interesting election season so far.

The main issue this year has been the economy and the current financial crisis affecting the world. As a friend who works for McKinsey Consulting told me more than a year ago... "it'll be really really bad. Just wait, Mike." I guess he was right. Another one of my friends who used to work for Lehman in Hong Kong is looking for a new job.

(Yep, the Dow Jones just went under 10,000. This is getting even more crazy.)

What's great news in China is that the main Chinese banks are largely unaffected by the crisis plaguing the rest of the world. It seems that Chinese leaders didn't really understand financial derivatives back a few years ago. Since they didn't understand them, they didn't invest in them. This act of conservative and cautious investing has greatly benefited the Chinese economy. Even though the Chinese stock market has taken a hit - as have just about everyone, the "robust" Chinese economy is said to be able to muscle through while the rest of the world struggles. - CNN.

I guess I'll just have to put my Bschool plans on hold and stay in China for a little longer. It's really the only place where there are jobs.

Expat Exodux = Easy to find a Job in Shenzhen

In the past few months, there has been a huge exodus of foreigners from Guangdong province. Due to the Olympics, China employed a lot of regulations that could help control the flow of foreigners into China. Not only was it much more difficult to obtain a visa but it was almost impossible to get a visa in Hong Kong.

Also, foreigners who were living in China and working on Tourist visas were shooed away. This usually stemmed from police approaching expats on the street to see adaquate identification. For people who were employed, he/she faced increased scrutiny in applying for a work visa. While most of these regulations were a surprise to expats, they were all on the books but werent really enforced until recently.

All of these efforts led to a huge decline in the expat community in Guangdong. As a friend of mine described to me, supposedly as much as 90% of the foreigners in Guangdong had left before the Olmypics started. That's just crazy.

Just walk around the Shekou area and you can see the effects. Once filled with foreigners from all over the world, Shekou is now mostly empty. Business is down for both restaurants and bars. I went there on a night out with friends this past Wednesday and there were barley anyone there. Woah.

Another side effect of this exodus deals with jobs. Many foreigners working in Guangdong were employed as project managers for various trading or manufacturing companies - usually under tourist visas. Since most of these people have left China, it has created a vaccum of talent for people seeking jobs. It is now incredibly easy to find a project management job in Shenzhen that pays a very attractive salary. I would assume this is the case as well in other cities like Beijing and Shanghai. It was always easy to find English teaching jobs in Shenzhen, but it's definitely even easier now.

As the US economy tanks and the world economy goes into a recession of sorts, I see China becoming an increasingly attractive place for young people to come to. Recently, another 100+ newly college-grad English teachers have deceded on Shenzhen through the CLTC Program's deal with the Shenzhen Government Education Bureau. Students are arriving every semester to study Chinese at different universities all over the country from places like the USA, Europe, South America, Mexico, Korea and Japan. Even people who have gone back to the USA are returning to China for round 2.

If you want that job, get over here early.