Google ads

I don't know about you, but I am really skeptical towards GoogleAdWords (and other ads that are tailored for you because of your surfing habits). Both as a as a marketing tool in my job, but also as a normal netizen and consumer.

As a consumer I don't like that my internet behaviour is being tracked (I realize this statement gives room for obvious jokes, so come on, fire away) and stored and used against me.

As a marketing manager I am skeptical because 1) I know that smart people like myself don't like these ads and 2) They aren't very accurate now, are they?

The other day Facebook suggested that I join the "Russian gas and oil association", and today Google thought this ad was relevant to me:

Translation: "Cutting with ultra sound. Slice food with ultrasound, we showcase at your place"

Really, Google, really? Happy about that?

M

Photo interference

Had dinner at Salute with Blaire yesterday and four German people were sitting next to us. They asked the waiter to take a photo of them and he did. They were not satisfied with the pic so he took another one, and then another one and then another one and somewhere there I got tired of the flash and realized I had to do something. So I did, and when the waiter showed them the pic they had a moment of complete quietness and then they fell off their chairs laughing. They turned around and me and Blaire fired off our most lovely smiles.

The pic? Below.

M

About a chair

Yesterday I had a lovely lunch with Marie and walking back to the office we spotted a tiny chair on the sidewalk. Marie stopped instantly and yelled "I need that chair!" I asked politely and non judgmentally why and she explained that she is collecting mini chairs for her son Vidar (who btw is one of the freaking coolest kids I have ever met, even though he is only nine months. We have kind of a special thing going, him and I) so he can have tea parties when he gets a bit older.

A reason as good as any, I must say, but we couldn't just take the chair, so we went into the compund to look for a bao'an to ask.

Kind of a rugged yet beautiful entrance.

We found this man who said there was no bao'an and Marie explained "the tiny chair, who's is it?" He said "that doesn't matter, take it, we are happy if you clean up our sidewalk for us". Gotta love the pragmatism in this country.

We ran out again, as you can see Marie is very determined.

Beautiful Marie with a beauti... um, with a chair.

M

Ps. Marie now has four mini chairs at home to her husband's great delight.

Was censored...

Got a comment on Facebook today that a friend could not find my post about the pressure on laowais on my blog anymore. Curious, I thought, I haven't deleted it so it should definitely be there. But he was right, as I tried to access it, the page could not be found...

Went into the blog backend where it had been stored and republished it. Will be interesting to see how long it stays for this time.

Weird to be censored! Not like it was any particular criticism or sensitive wording in the post... Bring it CCP!

M

The name thing

In the series "Chinese people with weird foreign names" I found two new ones this weekend. Went to H&M to to a bit of shopping and the cashier guy's name tag said "BRAIN".

Brain seemed to be confused about something and called for his colleague to come and help straighten things out. "Crystal, lai le!" he yelled and if I was expecting a girl because of the name I was wrong.

So the two guys Brain and Crystal are at H&M at Huaihai if you wanna go name tag spotting.

M

Weekend report

This weekend was truly smashing for us Shanghaiers. Sunny, warm, happy and just brilliant.

Torun, Alex and Erik had a goodbye party on Sat night starting at the Pudi Boutique Hotel terrace with a lavish dinner.

Erik calls for everyone to join in Helan går...

Dresscode was more is more + mask. Completely normal.

Me and Alex, who also will be my male co-host for the midsummer party of the year that we are hosting at Geisha!

The party was so much fun that Aline actually managed to fall backwards into the pool on the terrace. Here she is re-enacting it and I am still laughing so hard when I think about how retarded that was. As you can see she was still happy even though soaking wet.

After that we took a cab to the nowadays legendary Lawson's Creek Party. For non China residents, Lawson is a convenience store, like 7 eleven, and the party concept is to meet up at Lawson, buy lots of beer and Bacardi Breezer inside and then just stand outside and hang. More fun than it sounds, and the turn up was amazing, think we must have been over 100 people there and the poor Lawson staff didn't know what hit them.

After that we took the tour Geisha (Hed Kandi was playing) - Bar Rouge - Hollywood. One of the most fun nights out in a long time I must say!

Sunday day was spent by the pool...

...and Sunday evening at Cantina, where Blaire robbed a poor Sherpa of his helmet.

Now, Monday (and you know how much I ADORE Mondays) and waaay too much work.

M

It's heating up for the laowais...

There is a wave of nationalism and anti-foreigners propaganda sweeping over China at the moment. Some incidents have occured in the past weeks where laowais have acted badly, and this has spread like fire over social media. The Chinese are a very proud people, and they interpret this as 'all the foreigners are ass holes and they think they can do whatever they want in China'. Which of course isn't true, but it seems they kinda like being able to blame foreigners for stuff.

In parallel to this, the Beijing police has initiated a 100 day crack-down on illegal foreigners. You are recommended to carry your passport, house registration and work permit with you at all times. The campaign also encourages Chinese people to report if they know of any laowais that might not have all their papers in order.

I kinda thought about this with like a "yea ok, they are just trying to scare us" attitude but Noureddine got a call just now from a friend who was stopped by the police on the street this morning. They took all her details and will now follow up to see if she is eligible to stay in the country. Sort of scared me a bit but I talked to my colleagues and since I am in the process of getting my permit, I should be fine in a control...

This image comes from China Photo Press, which also supplies Chinese newspapers with cartoons. It is called Sweeping up the dirty foreigners and in the picture, three foreigners who are "illegal immigrants", "illegal overstayers", and "illegal workers" are swept into a dustpan labelled "fines", "detentions" and "deportation".

Feels a bit weird the whole thing to be honest.

M