It seems the tobacco lobby is quite powerful. Just a couple of months ago a homegrown Chinese innovation, the electronic fake cigaret Ruyan, still received an innovation award. But now the Chinese State Food and Drugs Administration says that after testing they found that the product is dangerous. Of course the Chinese government receives about 20 billion USD in taxes from smoking, so that might give an incentive to make the results look worse than they really are. And the Western media likes this kind of negative stories, and the news is spreading quickly through the foreign press.

The Ruyan is meant to help people to quit smoking. It is an electronic cigaret that does not produce smoke, and that you do not have to light. You can therefore “smoke” it everywhere, I even noted someone using it on a plane to Europe a few weeks ago. The product is becoming popular quite fast in China, where it is sold in drugstores for about RMB 800 (EUR 80). A steep price for this country, where most people do not even realize that smoking can be dangerous.

What happened is that the FDA released a statement saying that one cigaret contains the same amount of nicotine as a whole pack of cigarets. Now that may be true or not (I assume it is correct), but what they do not mention is that the Ruyan comes with capsules in different strenghts. You can get a very lowe dosage, or a very high one. The highest may indeed be equivalent to a whole pack, for someone who is used to smoking a pack a day. You also don’t need to smoke a whole cigaret at once, because you don’t light it, and therefore the comparison is already flawed.

But think about it, what is the most dangerous thing about smoking? The nicotine? Of course not, it is the smoke and the tar that ends up in your lungs. And that is of course missing in the study and in the negative articles in the press. If this product gets banned in European countries (or even China) it will be worse for public health, and the tobacco industry will have another win.

The Shanghai police has found a new way to reduce traffic jams: just close the exits where they occur. They already used to close entrances (among others the Nanjing Road entrance to the North-South elevated road), which causes a lot of extra jams on the normal roads. Of course people will use the elevated roads less, but it will only move the traffic jams to other locations.

According to a police spokesman in today’s Shanghai Daily the major reason for the problems is the increasing number of vehicles. That is certainly true an important reason, but the biggest reason is in my opinion the fact that most people just cannot drive. The Shanghai Daily mentions today that 5115 accidents took place in Shanghai on the elevated roads. And that is not the figure for one year, but the figure just for November. That is almost 200 accidents per day, just on the highways in Shanghai!

I have said it here before, but driving schools in China are causing this. They do not teach the people how to drive in real conditions (students learn to drive in a “driving park”), and even teach them the wrong things. A friend told me that her teacher taught her to drive in the left lane on an expressway because that is safest… That’s probably the reason why the right and middle lanes on Chinese highways normally move much faster. If people would just learn to drive before hitting the road, learn the correct traffic rules, and if the police would enforce them, there would be a lot less traffic jams. Wishful thinking on a Friday afternoon before hitting the weekend rush hour.

I was just reading Fons Tuinstra’s Dutch weblog, where he mentions that Dutch broadcasting station TROS is having a China week this week. Suddenly I remembered that Francisco van Jole (from radio program Radio Online) interviewed me in September for this China week. A quick check on their website confirmed that this program will be broadcasted tonight. I don’t recall what we discussed anymore, but if I mention any figures about website traffic, be ensured that they are much higher now. If you understand Dutch you can listen to it tonight on Dutch Radio 1 from 20:00-21:00.

Interesting is also the comment that Francisco wrote after talking to me, he says (in Dutch) that I might in a few years become the world’s biggest media magnate 🙂 Nice to read, but that’s a bit too much praise. Right now I prefer to run companies that are a bit smaller (but grow them of course).

By the way, Tudou.com also provided the producers some of the most played Chinese clips at that time. You can view them here on the TROS website.

On Friday afternoon the flight from Shanghai to Macau boarded on time, but right after boarding the captain came on the intercom. His message: air traffic control had taken away our start slot and we would have to wait at least one hour. Bad luck, but I had sort of expected it already (Air Macau is always delayed on this route in my experience). Because I had only slept 3 hours the night before I just closed my eyes and went to sleep. I woke up about 90 minutes later, and found that the plane was still at the gate. The captain came on the intercom again and told us he did not know how long the delay would be. According to him it was all the fault of Chinese air traffic control, and that Chinese air traffic control did not care about the passengers (with the emphasis on ‘Chinese’ – the foreign pilot seemed to be very unhappy with Shanghai airport). Soon the message spread on the plane that the reason was that there were military exercises going on, and that no flights were arriving or leaving. Looking out of the window, I realized that all the planes that were next to us before were still there, and that I did not see any plane taking off or landing. Strange, and that on a busy Friday afternoon.

Passengers on the plane started to become unruly, and some got permission to smoke in the gate to the plane. The captain asked the passengers to stay calm, and treat his staff with respect. It was not their fault, but that of Chinese air traffic control. He said the delay would be at least one more hour. Great, we should have been in Macau already by now, and now we were still in Shanghai. I had a good sleep on the plane, but preferred to be in the air of course. Finally after 3 hours the plane next to us left and half an hour after that we got permission to leave the gate as well. There were no delays at the runway, so less than 4 hours after the planned departure time we were in the air.

We did not know why we had this delay, but military exercises sounded like a good reason. This was confirmed the next day when The Standard (HK newspaper) headline was that Shanghai Pudong had been closed for several hours due to military activity. I quickly scanned the article at a news stand, but it did not have many more details, except that the exercises were a state secret. I did not think about it anymore until when on Sunday night I finally had internet access again (my Nokia was not able to connect to the net in Macau, don’t know why) and I was reading several blogs. There it turned out that the real reason of the airport closure might be a fight between Chinese civil avation authority (CAAC) and the military. The armed forces want the CAAC to pay them money, and they are now starting to cause delays for civil aircrafts to force CAAC to pay up. Well that’s really great, blackmailing the others by causing trouble for passengers and airlines. Not good for Shanghai airport’s reputation, or China’s air space in general, that’s for sure. I hope they will sort out this mess very soon.

Yesterday’s Macau marathon was a very difficult one, as I mentioned in my last post. I knew in advance that it would not be easy, because I hardly trained for the event. But I did not expect it would be this hard. The combination of warm weather, a lot of wind, hills and bridges, and not enough sport drink and food along the road can be killing. And that the marathon course was not an easy one, as can also be seen from the winning time: the number one runner ‘only’ finished in 2:18. This afternoon I heard that in an article in today’s South China Morning Post the winner said that he trained in the mountains because he knew it would be a hilly course. I wish someone had told me in advance (or maybe not, I might have backed out :-).

The race started off pretty good. My dad and I managed to get into the first row at the start, right behind the invited athletes (mainly from Kenya, China and the DPRK). At the start they literally sprinted away, but we had decided not to burn a lot of energy right away and started at a pace just over 12 km/h. This worked well, and the first 5km we ran in 23:54. At the 10 km mark the clock was at 49:10, so we managed to keep a very steady pace (even though the inclines can slow you down a lot). The first hour we ran 12.2 km, and it all went quite easy. At the half marathon point (21.1 km) we clocked 1:44:44 and we both still felt quite energetic.

A few kilometers later the long bridge from Taipa to Macau suddenly seemed a lot higher than during the first round, but I managed to recover on the way down. I was very glad to get some water (the organization did not provide energy drinks, which is not smart in my opinion) at the 25 km point, but not far after that I suddenly felt very weak, all energy seemed to be gone. I did not know what hit me, but I had to walk a bit. After getting a sponge dipped in cold water my strength came back and I continued running, but not long after that the problem returned. I felt sick but did not want to give up of course. Luckily at 30 km there was another water post, where I drank about 1 liter of water. I then walked up the bridge (fast walking, not much slower than the runners) and on top I felt good again.

At that point I realized that I was probably dehydrated, but I still had 12 km to go, and it was only getting warmer in the full sun (not much shade on the route). But I never give up and so tried to continue running. At 33 km my wife was standing at the road side with a bottle of sport drink and a banana. That was the fuel I needed and within 2 minutes after drinking the bottle I felt much better and continued running. At the next water post (35 km) I had another liter of water and continued to run to the turning point at Macau airport. From there it was only 5 km to the finish line, and I knew I could do it. My dad kept on pushing me, which is what I needed. At that point your body is screaming to stop, everything hurts so much – your muscles, your feet, even your lungs – but you should focus on something else and try to forget about it. It is basically a test of will power, your mind should be stronger than your body.

My dad had calculated we could still finish within 4 hours and although I told him I did not want to think about that, in my mind I decided to go for that. So I blocked out the pain, and on the final kilometers we even managed to pass several other people. The final kilometer of the race was the longest of the whole marathon, but when we entered the stadium and I saw 3:57 on the clock I knew we had done it. One minute later we crossed the finish line together! I left the track almost immediately to cool off inside, while drinking another liter of water. But then the world suddenly started to turn and I had to hold on to the wall in order not to collapse. Because my dad and wife were still outside I decided to try to walk back to them, so that they could catch me in case I collapsed. I still managed to get onto a seat, where I ate a banana and drank a lot more water. That helped, and 20 minutes later I was feeling fine again. Well, fine is maybe not the right word, because my muscles were completely cramped and I could not even get up from my seat anymore. Today is even worse, without help I cannot get off the couch at home and in the office today I only climbed the stairs to the second floor twice (I only get can downstairs walking backwards very slowly).

But I am glad that I finished the race in a reasonable time, and even more happy that I could do this together with my dad. Thanks dad, it was a painful and tiring but nevertheless great experience!

Today my dad and I ran the Macau marathon. It was extremely difficult, especially for me. My dad is in a much better shape than me it seems, although he is 26 years older than me. Not only was the course quite diffucult (several steep inclines, including four times a high bridge plus a lot of wind), but I also had dehyrdation problems (I guess it was too warm for me, about 23 degrees), which was a a bit scary. But my dad managed to pull me through, and we both finished in 3:58:16. A new PR for me (last year in Shanghai I was one minute slower). My dad could have probably run it in 3:30 (his PR is below 3:30), but he stayed with me and pep-talked me into a below 4 hour-time. Right now the only thing I want to do is rest, so I keep the blog entry short and add some pictures to give an impression of the race.

Last weekend I was in Holland, and had lunch with my parents close to Amsterdam. During lunch we discussed about running a marathon, and about the fact that I could not participate in the Shanghai marathon (which was last Sunday, while I was not in Shanghai). My dad is also a runner, and we had planned to run a marathon together for a long time, but it never materialized.

Because I knew this weekend the Macau marathon would be organized, we tallked about this and decided right there to both fly to Macau (he from Amsterdam, myself from Shanghai) to run the full marathon there. Not sure if it’s a smart idea, because I have not trained enough (nor has my dad). But it was my goal to run one marathon a year, and if I have a goal I to stick to it.

So I am off to Macau later today. The marathon will start Sunday morning at 7 AM. Wish me luck !

The value of a marriage in the suburbs of Shanghai seems not to be worth more than USD 7000. At least, that is my conclusion after a funny story in today’s Shanghai Daily. In Luchao Harbour (in Shanghai’s Nanhui District) the authorities noted that in 2006 already more than 400 people had gotten divorced, although in 2005 the total was only about 100.

After some investigations they found that most people got married to someone from outside Shanghai right after their divorce. And these marriages in turn also did not last long. After divorcing again the original partners would get back together again and remarry. A very strange behaviour. But it turned out economic incentives were behind it.

It all started when a new town was planned to be built, and people had to relocate for that. However, if they did not have a local housing certificate they would not get an allowance to move. Because most people from outside Shanghai did not have this, the government decided that all non-Shanghainese would automatically get an allowance. So smart villagers figured out that if they divorced and married a non-Shanghainese they could earn some extra cash (about USD 7000, to be shared with the new spouse). And that’s what happened. Everybody participated, even a senile 91 year old whose family married her off to get an extra allowance. As the Shanghai Daily reported “she’s not even aware of her new husband’s last name”.

But the fun did not last long, because the government closed the loophole. Now marriages have to last at least 2 years before qualifiying for an allowance. One village lady had really bad luck. First she divorced her husband, married a non-local and divorced him again. But now she does not get the allowance anymore. And to make matters worse, her ex-husband now refuses to re-marry her!