Holy Evil Axis Batman! North Korea (or the DPRK as the lads of Chosun like to refer to themselves) is going to start a Special Administrative Region, modeled on the special status that Hong Kong and Macau have in China. And guess who's gonna run the thing? Nope, no Koreans. It will be a Hong Kong businessman of Dutch birth. A DBC (or HBC) if you will. So dude, you mean if I had a $900 million company, I could run a city in North Korea? Damn, we Chinese be running everything.

At Fudan, last semester, there were 4 students from North Korea. It definitely created an interesting dynamic. Our class consisted of:

4 North Koreans (all men)
3 South Koreans (all women)
2 Americans
4 Japanese
1 Thai
1 Indonesian
1 German

Considering how backward NK is, it's not surprising that Pyongyang only sent men over. I was told that the only NK women allowed to go abroad, were all studying in some university on Shandong Province (perhaps, not coincidentally, the birthplace of Confucius, father of East Asia's neuroses....) What is weird was that there weren't South Korean men in our class, even though there were a ton in the program. I think I heard that none of the classes with North Koreans had South Korean men. South Korean men are obligated to serve 2 years in the military, primarily to protect the country from the Communist threat. I don't know if it was a request from Pyongyang or Seoul to lessen the contact between these students. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a mutual feeling. Yet apparently, there's no threat from the women. (which may be true. i don't think any of my South Korean female classmates were fantasizing about hooking up with a mysterious North Korean.

But back to having an Overseas Chinese run the North Korean S.A.R. at Sinuiju. It seems that North Korea's relation to the PRC is much like how Korea traditionally served as a tributary state of China's. It seems that Kim Jong-Il's model is China. It struck me that whenever the North Korean kids were asked about their country: it's society, customs, attitudes, beliefs, etc. The answer was invariably, "It's much like China." Yet how about this story in the Times about forced abortions in NK prisons. These prisons mainly held people who were caught living illegally in China. The guards would say stuff like:

"The guards would scream at us: `You are carrying Chinese sperm, from foreign countries. We Koreans are one people, how dare you bring this foreign sperm here,' " Miss Lee, the vocational student, recalled. "Most of the fathers were Chinese." The New York Times (June 10, 2002).

Hmm...not that friendly anymore, huh...

This week's Travel section in the Sunday New York Times features another Shanghai article. Wow, two Shanghai features in a week, must be a new record. Funny how this was this week's "Frugal Traveler" article, yet they managed to squeeze in a stop at M on the Bund. I guess I'm just to poor right now, but I find nothing frugal about M. Can't wait to finally score a job. I'm not really a big fan of unemployment. People are buying me dinners and I feel like a big leech. Sheesh. By the way, the end of that Times piece mentions the Shanghai pajama phenomenon, which the Associated Press expounded on about a week ago. Hmm...it seems like I'm turning this into a blog of Shanghai media coverage. (And damn I think. I should've written that pajama piece!)

Looks like I might be scoring an apartment soon. I saw an older place that I liked off of Gao An Road in the French Concession. It's a short walk from the Shanghai Library and right by the subway station and a strip of restaurants and bars on Hengshan Lu. Got some issues to address with the landlord, but it's looking good. And even if it doesn't work out, it looks like there are similar units floating around in the neighborhood, which is so much more interesting than living on Siping Road (aka "The Boulevard of Death"). Never live in a place facing a 7-lane boulevard. Crossing the street to catch a cab was like playing Frogger.

It sucks that there are so many restrictions on the net in China. Almost every free webpage service is blocked. Somehow Blogspot and Netscape.com's webpage servers have gotten through (maybe cause AOL Time Warner has been pressing hard to invest in China).But I'd like to use a service with FTP access. Then it would be easier to do more cool things with the site. (For example, I wanted to install Blog Amp. Instead I have to manually tell you that I've got Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and Park Ji Yoon on repeat.)

I feel less isolated today. Was on IM with my bro, Vic, and Nelson today. I also spoke on the phone with my mother's friend, who is helping me look for an apartment here in Shanghai. I saw Joe, a friend of my cousin Tracy's husband, Jeff. Joe is an awesome guy. Really friendly. Him and his wife, Harriet, are the epitome of the new Shanghainese yuppie. They are very...modern. I hate to say "Westernized" cuz that's so overused, and I also don't feel that that's what they are. They are firmly Chinese, but have a very cosmopolitan attitude about them. They're not really that into tradition for tradition's sake. They're in their 30s and don't plan to have kids. For them, they have what they want. Steady careers, a car, a nice apartment, they get lots of exercise, and they have access to most things that they like. They seem genuinely happy. Good for them.

Tonight I'm also having dinner with a bunch of Fudan kids. My classmate from last term, Yoshiuke, is celebrating his 25th. Man, did he change in just a few months. He used to have hella curly hair that looked like Junichiro Koizumi's (the Prime Minister of Japan). But he got his hair cut back in Nagano last month. Now he looks a lot like Ichiro except with way more facial hair.

I understand the desire to deal with barbers in your home turf. My first-ever haircut in Shanghai resulted in me unknowingly agreeing to a cheap perm. I took no photos of myself during that period...it is too painful to recall...

Hmm...yet another New York Times article on Shanghai. Some editor at the times really likes this city. Haven't had the chance to run a LEXIS search, but I would bet that there's been a spike in Shanghai articles in the times over the past 12 months. Maybe I am here at the right time. Maybe I should try to score some writing gigs of my own.

Anyway the article itself describes a phenomenon that I've been seeing around me. Everything is coming down. Take for instance, the view from my old apartment, facing south. You can see the high rises going up all around. See those old two-story houses in the middle? It's pretty clear that they're all going down in the next year or two. An extension to the subway line is being built just south of the neighborhood, with a station immediately adjacent. So this is hot property for developers. By the way, this is just a 10 minute cab ride from the Bund.

Now I could cry for the lost architectural heritage, but it makes me wonder sometime. Those old houses look cute on the outside, but on the inside most are really disgusting. Even the residents don't like it. No matter how hard you clean, dust seems to always get in to dirty up the homes. Many lack natural gas which results in a lot of people cooking with coal, which contributes to the mess both there and in the air all around Shanghai. Most residents are happy to upgrade, the main issue is that they usually don't get to stay in the same neighborhood. The poor are shipped out to inconvenient suburban developments while yuppies (like me I guess) swarm in to fill up overpriced downtown locales (even though this neighborhood isn't really downtown, but you get the point.) Hmm...I guess they haven't heard of mixed income housing around here.

The point is, it does make sense to upgrade the housing stock around here. The population really requires it. I think you need to preserve some areas, as housing (not like the ultra-touristy Xintiandi, which has its charms, but is ultimately Shanghai's version of NY's South Street Seaport or SF's Pier 39. But the conditions of a lot of these neighborhoods are so bad, that the economic incentive is to tear down and start all over. The only hope is to designate a few small neighborhoods in very central areas for preservation, allowing people to gut interiors while preserving the exteriors. It'll be expensive, so such remodeling jobs will be of interest to a limited class of people. But convenient locations in historic areas should hopefully lure some nouveau-riche. It worked in SoHo.

Alright, I've finally gotten around to starting one of these. I've been a blog lurker for almost a year now. Inspired primarily by favorite Spam-loving friend. I wanted to do a full website (haven't had one since I lost my old university account after graduation 2 years ago), but I'm broke and it seems that every free webpage provider is blocked from the Net in Mainland China. One of the many sacrifices I'm making by being here in Shanghai. Oh well. At least the food is cheap. Also, I've discovered that NPR has been "unblocked." Woohoo!

I've been back in Shanghai for a week and things are going well. I've got the two writing assignments, an English-language instructional tape recording session on Thursday, and a possible job offer. Not bad. A week ago, I was wondering what the hell I was doing back here. Hopefully coming here is the right decision. We'll see.