When the great Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi, also widely known in Japan as Haku Rakuten, first came to the then-capital of China Changan, now known as Xian, a friend made fun of his name-- which literally could mean "free living is easy," saying: "Everything is expensive in Changan; living here is not easy."

The relatively high living costs in a capital city are understandable, based on fundamental economics.

However, the Chinese government is intervening and making Beijing less expensive than it would otherwise. Take transport for example. A two-yuan (roughly US$0.30) metro/subway ticket can get you anywhere along Beijing's four existing lines (1, 2, 5, 13); whereas in Shanghai and Guangzhou, fare is calculated by distance, and two yuan is only good for a one-way trip of up to 4 kilometers.

Beijing also offers the most affordable taxi service, compared to Guangzhou and Shanghai. Among the three major cities, cabs in Guangzhou are the most expensive.

About seven years ago, when I lived in Beijing and commuted to work by subway every day, the train wasn't as crowned as it is nowadays, but it still had substantial traffic. In China, crowds of people mean juicy markets. Hence the existence of underground businesses on subway trains. Taking advantage of the one-ticket-for-any-distance-any-time rule of the Beijing subway, beggars and unlicensed newspaper and map sellers used to work on the trains all day.

And now, as Beijing anxiously tries to polish its image, I've heard that the city administration is minimizing the presence of beggars, homeless and unlicensed street vendors. On my visit a couple of weeks ago, I didn't see a single street vendor and only met one beggar during rush hour in the subway. And most passengers were just trying to stay out of his way, rather than give him money.

Beijng's metro lines 1 and 2 seem to have been around forever; lines 5 and 13 are relatively new. Still, the current system is not meeting the transport needs of the capital city's 17 million residents. I even met a cab driver who, instead of taking my 60-yuan-worth of business across town, took me to the nearby metro station for 11 yuan, rather than navigate the crowded roadway. "I don't want to get into the traffic jam on the main roads," he said, "even if you pay me to."

According to a subway map on the official Web site of the 2008 Olympic Games, the Beijing metro system will expand a few times and become a huge web that covers the entire city. Beijing metro blueprint

The purple line 10 on the map is expected to start running in June. It will accommodate locals and, in August, Olympics tourists. Other lines on the map are planned to be completed in different stages by 2015.

The blueprint reminds me of Tokyo's extensive metro webs. There are a number of metro companies in Tokyo, instead of one government-backed system. Metro tickets are not cheap, but with the heavy road tolls and expensive parking, people prefer public transportation to driving. Here is the map of just one of the metro companies operating in Tokyo.Photo taken by Chen Lin

I wonder how much the government is subsidizing the Beijing metro. Maybe lessons can be taken from the Tokyo metro industry, for a more diversed and faster-growing system based on market laws.

It didn't surprise me that at 4 p.m. Friday, the Yonghegong Lama Temple in midtown Beijing was still busy and at least half of the visitors were foreign.

When visiting religious venues in China, remember it's difficult to define Chinese people's religious beliefs, but one thing is for sure: They are very pragmatic and worship all those who can bring them wealth and fortune (or more specific things such as good grades, promotion, lottery...anything you can think of). In order to be blessed, some people generously donate to temples, and others leave coins and change at every possible "auspicious spot." And, foreigners are following suite. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, I'm sure.

Apparently, a stone animal in the West Pavilion of the Lama Temple is considered one of these auspicious places. People were feeding it with money. The animal is believed to be one of the nine sons of the dragon, from Chinese folklore, and considering the pavilion was surrounded in fencing, people really had to make an effort to place their money in range of the beast.Photo taken by Nina Ying Sun

The ancient incense burner was clearly the target of flying coins, in spite of a bilingual sign on the side asking visitors not to throw incense and coins. Westerners were just as excited as the Chinese to try their luck. Photo taken by Nina Ying Sun

Photo taken by Nina Ying Sun

I was thinking, hey, people are just having some fun in the garden. No big deal.

Then, I stepped into the formal halls with the Buddha sculptures and service items from the Qing dynasty. Another sign advised not to use camera. You may think Chinese people are never good at abiding by rules, judging by how they drive. But they don't want to risk their fortune by disrespecting rules right underneath Buddha's nose. I watched a foreigner slip into the corner of the pretty dark room and quietly take a photo without flash. I'm not sure if the staffer lama not far away noticed that. But nothing was said. Chinese tourists who stood close to the foreign tourist just walked away as if nothing happened.

I could have told the lama on the prohibited use of the camera, but I was lost in my own thoughts at that moment. I was recalling a scene at the Shanghai Hongqiao Airport. At the jammed waiting hall for security check, a group of European tourists were pretty harsh with a Chinese woman who tried to cut in line. They spoke loud in English with thick accent, signaled the security and didn't want to listen to her explanation of being late for her flight. The security person let the woman go to the front of the line after checking her boarding pass, and then the group of Europeans booed him.

Nothing should be generalized or taken out of proportion here. All I can say is, Beijing is a melting pot and at the same time a clash of old and new, domestic and foreign, rich and poor, individualism and collectivism, values and rules, etc. There's never a dull moment.

Labor workers of Chinese exhibition companies certainly aren't contenders for an American spelling bee contest, but they should know the 26-letter modern Latin alphabet used in English, which constitutes the Chinese pinyin system, the very first lessons of 1st grade. Maybe workers mistook it for a language other than English, but the letter "l" in the word plastic is upside down.

Photo taken by Nina Ying Sun

I took the photo at the Chinaplas show, held April 17-20, 2008, in Shanghai. I jokingly told the company about the sign, and the manager said they didn't discover the error until the show opened, and since the sign was high up in the air, near the ceiling of the hall, it couldn't be easily fixed.

Plastics News had the same problem with our sign at last year's Chinaplas in Guangzhou. Our editor Bob Grace spotted the problem and had show service workers fix it right away.

Forget about the poor workers who make $100 a month, the question is if the exhibition company had any quality control or proof procedures. Or did they just skip it like some toy makers?

It seems like everyone on the planet is talking about plastic bags. But different cultures find different uses of them. For example, in the U.S., have you seen plastic bags being used like they are in the following photos?

1. Bicycle seat cover

Photo by Nina Ying Sun

Bikes are an important means of transport for many Chinese people. In a small town or village, a bike can get you all town. In big cities like Shanghai and Beijing, people ride bikes in their neighborhood but also from home to the subway and bus station They then leave the bikes nearby and take public transportation. It's their versions of "park and ride." Since bike seats can get wet outdoors, people cover them up with their free, used shopping bags. That's smart and eco-friendly (reuse), right? However, from the picture, you can see one bag appears loosely attached to the seat and looks like it could easily take off on the next gust of wind, becoming one more piece of infamous "while pollution"--a term coined to describe unsightly, littered plastic. Advice to Shanghai bike riders: Tie up the bag covering your seat! You'll save yourself from the wet seat, and avoid contributing to the growing litter problem!

2. Carryout sauce container

Photo by Nina Ying Sun

Let me admit that I got the food in the picture from a small restaurant in a Shanghai alley -- a "hole in the wall" as we say in the U.S. The waiter deftly used a porcelain spoon to drop just the right amount of vinegar into the ultralthin plastic bag and made a pretty tie with the upper part of the bag: "Here's your sauce!" Actually the styrene foam lunch box was also wrapped in an ultrathin bag. I wonder what these places will use after June 1, when ultrathin bags will be banned. It wouldn't be economical for them to switch to heavier-gauge bags unless they somehow pass the additional cost on to customers. Those were delicious spring rolls, by the way.

3. Over-packaged silverware

Photo by Nina Ying Sun

Well, silverware is the Western term. In China, it's simply wooden chopsticks (there are also stainless steel, silver and ivory ones). Since many folks eating out have hygienic concerns with restaurant-washed chopsticks, disposable chopsticks have become extremely popular. Many restaurants make you pay for their over-packaged silverware--a big bag with the restaurant's name, phone and address that contains a small bag of wet wipe and a pair of wrapped chopsticks. "You want sterilized chopsticks packages?" they ask you bluntly after you order, "Two yuan each!" Sure, bring them on. But the "disposable" chopsticks often are made of plastic--polished, nice and sturdy. It would be a huge waste to throw these away after one use. A local friend said restaurants actually collect the used chopsticks and have a third-party vendor clean and re-package them. While that may sound like a good idea, the news on Chinese TV was that authorities had busted underground cutlery clean-and-repackage workshops, which used low-quality laundry detergent and recycled water to wash them. No wonder the new trend, lead by Western expatriates in China, is to bring your own chopsticks to eat out.

Trash bins in China come in pairs now. One is for recyclables and the other for stuff that can't be recycled. That's a good step forward, compared to what it used to be -- one trash bin for all.

Beijing airport. Photo by Nina Ying Sun

But does the public know what is recyclable and what isn't? Not really. In Shanghai, I saw people throw things in without looking at what is what, and I also watched bottle collectors dig out PET bottles from both bins.

I thought I knew more about recycling and plastic than the average person. But when I had a plastic bag to dump, I couldn't decide which bin.

The Japanese system, in comparison, is much more user-friendly. A park in suburban Tokyo. Photo by Chen Lin

In the photo, from left to right, the first three bins with pink signs are for trash that can be incinerated; the next three in the middle with blue signs are for PET bottles; the next two ones with orange signs are for metal cans; and the one on the very right is for all other types of trash.

But don't always expect a fleet of nine trash bins in Japan. This sign in downtown Tokyo actually asks people to take their trash home. And there were no trash bins on that street. Tokyo downtown. Photo by Chen Lin

What's more impressive than the system itself is how well people abide by the rules and keep the world's second most densely populated country clean and efficient.

Words can't describe my feelings about the May 12 earthquake that has killed at least 15,000 so far, erased some Sichuan localities from the map and affected another dozen provinces across China.

Early Monday morning, EST, China's Xinhua News Agency reported 107 casualties in the quake. I called as many people in China as possible until 8:15 a.m., when I had to leave home for work. Everybody I spoke with was fine.

I was in a meeting from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. When I came out, colleagues asked me about the quake and I said about 100 people died. But then on the Internet, the death toll exploded to 9,000 by around noon. I was appalled, to say the least. I sent a group e-mail to all my Chinese friends outside of China--in North America, Europe, Australia, and the rest of Asia, asking if any of their friends or families were in the affected areas. I received a dozen brief replies from friends saying that their relatives were in the region, but, thank God, they survived in one piece.

Chinese who are living overseas are raising money for the quake. Houston Rockets' basketball center Yao Ming, alone, has donated 2 million yuan from the U.S. In the Cleveland-Akron area, where I am, Chinese student and scholar associations at area colleges and universities are taking the lead, followed by other regional organizations.

Among Western media, Wall Street Journal has presented in-depth coverage, especially in this article: China Earthquake Exposes a Widening Wealth Gap.

A friend of mine who works in the financial district in Pudong, Shanghai said she rushed out of the shaking building where she was working and saw, on the nicely mowed lawns between the new, well-built high-rises, a group of white collar workers filling out their life insurance forms -- right there on the lawn. But how many of the 15,000 (incomplete stat) small town residents and farmers who have died in the quake had life insurance? How many of the 64,000 injured (incomplete stat) have health insurance and disability insurance?

I also blame the poor quality of buildings in rural areas and small cities for the horrific damages. But according to an architect friend who has worked in China, Australia, France, Canada and the United States, even Shanghai and Beijing have plenty of sub-par buildings. "They build fast and cheap, not so strict with shock-resistance performance," she said.

Rumor has it the Water Cube Aquatics Center in Beijing already has a few leaking points ... I hope it's just rumor.

Most Westerners probably know Sichuan only for its world-renowned spicy cuisine. But Sichuan people are also known in the Chinese community for being optimistic, strong, hard working and ready to help others. Just hang in there. With help from all over the world--starting with an 800 million yuan relief fund raised in the first two days after the quake, I hope Sichuan recovers soon!

Pray for China. Pray for Sichuan.

P.S.: The Taiwanese government is donating 2 billion Taiwanese new dollars (452 million yuan or US$65 million) for the quake areas. This marks the first time ever that the Taiwanese government has made a donation for the mainland. In the plastic industry, Taiwan's Formosa Group is donating 100 million yuan and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. 60 million yuan.

China's first beverage bottle collecting machine has proven a hit on Shanghai's popular pedestrian shopping street Nanjing Road. According to the English language Shanghai Daily ( with photo), the machine accepts plastic and aluminum beverage containers with readable bar codes and releases a 0.10 yuan coin for each accepted bottle.

The machine, designed by a Beijing-based company, swallowed more than 1,700 bottles during the May 1-3 holiday. The street management office, according to Shanghai Daily, said the goal is to help reduce the number of waste collectors on the street and raise people's awareness of environmental protection.

Check out this photo: right by the brand new reclaim machine, a trash collector is reaching into a conventional trash bin for bottles.

Are these trash collectors feeling threatened? I bet so, especially as the government is hinting plans to place more automatic reclaim machines in Shanghai.

But until such machines stand on every street corner, waste collectors should still have some job security. At a street corner in Shanghai, I took this picture of two women warmly chatting on the sidewalk. The one in the vest is a government-employed street cleaning staffer, and the other, in a leather jacket, is a self-employed trash collector--collecting everything from aluminum to paper to plastic bottles. I don't know how they got to know each other. But it wouldn't be a surprise if the cleaning lady sells the bottles she collects to the recycler.

Waste collecting isn't an easy job. There seems to be a lot of competition on the street. Sometimes the collectors follow or beg people for bottles. But most of them are used to that and aren't shy. Their faces look indifferent. After all, it's a legitimate way to make a living. The collectors don't add glamor to the city, but they do no harm. They only help the society recycle.

I remember seeing aluminum pop can reclaim machines in New York City. It looked like some users were professional collectors that lived on the street. But Chinese collectors won't go to the automatic machine for bottle redemption, because they get a higher price from recycling dealers than from the machine --so far, I should add. If one day, the machines pay the same as the dealers, then dealers and other middlemen may lose their jobs too. In that case, China's recycling system may have a transformation ahead and will only become more efficient. But isn't employment and social stability a big concern of the government?

"More than half of factories in southern China are falsifying payroll documents!"

"Many even create Potemkin factories.... Around the corner is a 'shadow factory' that produces the same goods under much less wholesome conditions."

"There is even a cottage industry of 'falsification engineers' in China--consultants who specialize in doctoring payroll records and coaching workers to create a fiction of compliance with a Western buyer's code of conduct."

The above statements are from Alexandra Harney's latest viewpoint for Plastics News' sister publication AdAgeChina, How to work with Chinese factories without getting burned(registration required). She is a China-based journalist and author.

What's more sensational than the bold statements about unethical business practices in China, is her suggestion that, instead of waiting for Beijing to improve law enforcement, Western multinationals can be a large part of the solution to the problems--whose consequences include costly product recalls, falsified documents and worsening pollution.

Here are the steps Harney suggested taking:

1. Acknowledge that understanding what's happening in the company's supply chain is not simply a matter of risk management or good corporate citizenship; it is a core business issue and a valuable competitive advantage.
2. Build frank, long-term partnerships with Chinese factories, rather than moving orders quickly from one plant to another.
3. Take a field trip at least once or twice a year.

But the most interesting advice was:

Schedule a visit to one of your suppliers, but arrive quietly the night before your appointment, perhaps with a Chinese colleague. Instead of having dinner at the hotel restaurant, eat near your factory and spend time with the locals. Ask them: What's the average monthly wage in this area? Are wages going up or down? What time do most people get off work? What is considered the best factory to work for, and why? Have there been any problems in any of the factories recently, fights or disagreements?

Ask motorcycle drivers that work near your supplier about the hours your factory keeps its lights on, and whether they see a lot of traffic between your supplier and others in the neighborhood.
When you meet the factory manager the next day, ask him the same questions and compare his answers to what you learned the night before.

Sounds like some good advice from a real China expert. However, don't assume the locals and motorcycle drivers -- if there are any -- really know the answers to your questions, even if they provide you with information. Be aware that Chinese Culture 101 dictates that, out of politeness, Chinese people won't tell you no. If the motorcycle driver isn't sure about the hours of the factory, he will probably give you an answer anyway, just to complete the conversation nicely.

So, like any due diligence work, talk to multiple sources with different backgrounds and interests.

by Plastics News editor Robert Grace

The Beijing Olympic torch protests appear to have triggered some fallout that is negatively impacting foreigners trying to travel into China for business or pleasure. One would expect that China would be lowering the barriers to entry and trying to put on a happy face for those wishing to enter the Middle Kingdom.

But various sources suggest that ever since the torch protests in Europe and elsewhere gained a lot of Western media attention, Chinese authorities have implemented much stricter visa regulations, to include demanding new layers of documentation and pretty much shutting down the issuance of the popular one-year, multiple-entry visas that used to be relatively easy to secure. We hear that even Hong Kong residents are being put through extra paces to go to the mainland.

Some of the new rules (though it is difficult to ascertain how widely or evenly they are being enforced):

All travelers need to provide a copy of a bank statement with their name on it, apparently to prove they have enough money to avoid becoming destitute and assuming permanent residency in the slums of Shenzhen;

Confirmation of a hotel booking for your entire stay in China, and that confirmation must include the names of all occupants of a given hotel room (e.g. your spouse or partner, in addition to yours, if you are not traveling alone);

For a business visa, not only does one need a letter (on letterhead, or else it's not valid) from the organization making the invitation, but now that organization also must go secure for their own purposes -- and in person, we understand -- a "special visa notice" for that invitee from a local entity such as an office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an Economic Affairs office, or the appropriate municipal entity.

If you are simply going on vacation, on a tourist visa, one now needs a letter from your employer stating that you will, indeed, be on vacation in China on the dates in question.

This is all in addition to the usual stuff, i.e. a valid passport and appropriate photo, a signed China visa application form, a copy of your travel itinerary that shows the flight has been paid for, etc. Multiple-entry visas cost no more than single-entry visas, but now seem virtually impossible to get. As a result, someone wanting to travel more than once into mainland China in a certain period of time gets to go through this lovely process each time (for a fee, of course).

Let's hope this all dies down once the Olympics pass. So much for rolling out the welcome mat!

As China's export markets down and domestic buying power up, demand for packaging is rising rapidly. Western companies are going after the growing market, including the Austrian packaging firm Alpla Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG.

According to Hefei Evening News, Alpla broke ground for its second factory in China on May 16. The new plant, located in Hefei, Anhui province, will supply packging to Unilever and L'Oreal. With an initial investment of US$20 million, the factory will start with annual capacity of 300 million plastic bottles. Alpla has a packaging plant in Tianjin as well.

The sudden change in China's visa policies -- more complicated procedures and stricter approval process -- is certainly frustrating Western business travelers.

Just as the U.S. tightened its borders after 9-11, it appears that the Chinese government is trying to strengthen national security for the Olympics. Usually, such precautions are deemed a legitimate course by the international community. Who wants to see what happened in Tibet repeat in other regions on China's territory? Who wants to see the tragedy during the 1972 Olympics in Munich -- where eleven Israeli athletes were taken hostage and killed -- to repeat?

What really has caused the grudge is the disruption of easy, convenient Chinese visas. And the changes weren't communicated effectively in advance.

But, on the flip side, do you know the procedures a Chinese person must go through to get into the U.S.?

For starters, the U.S. embassies in China change their rules often. That's why Chinese travelers check with the U.S. embassy and State Department Web sites before they board a plane to America.

And did you know that Chinese citizens can't even get tourist visas to the U.S.? The situation is changing somewhat this summer as the U.S. starts accepting Chinese tour groups -- but still not individuals. Why loosen the control? Because the estimated per-person, per-visit consumption of a Chinese tourist is $6,000. That's good tourism revenue.

Did you know that Chinese citizens must attend a personal interview session at one of the five U.S. embassy/consulate locations in China to get a visa? But first they have to make an appointment for the interview weeks, or even months, in advance, by phone. Not only does the phone call costs nearly 5 yuan a minute (a normal long distance call in China cost about 0.30 yuan per minute), but often, it's unpredictable when the appointment center will release time slots on which days. So one needs to call again and again to get an appointment on a particular day.

Once visa applicants arrive at the U.S. embassy/consulates in China for their pre-arranged appointment, they must still wait at least two hours in the waiting hall -- sometimes standing in line outside the building in 100 degree weather.

Do you want to know how many documents it takes a Chinese citizen to get a U.S. business visa? Bank statement, real estate document, business license, pay stub, tax document, personal resume, employment letter, marriage certificate, wedding photo ...

Do you even want to know how many Chinese students with full-scholarship packages from prestigious U.S. schools are turned down U.S. visas every summer?

Visa policies are supposed to be reciprocal. But the Chinese rules have been bent to welcome visitors from the West, probably with heavy consideration for tourism revenue and foreign investment.

In spite of the current policy change, I do believe things will return to "normal" after the Olympics. After all, money talks, in both ways.

I never believed that the plastic ban caused bag giant Huaqiang Plastics Co. Ltd.'s closing. I thought the company was an attractive deal for potential buyers. It had a lot to offer: good market, established customers, and all-ready production.

I was right.

Huaqiang had two production bases: Suiping and Luohe. Suiping's former management, together with some previous customers, bought the Suiping operation and renamed it Huiqiang.

The new company's opening ceremony was April 18, according to China's Economic Focus. Huiqiang is currently running 100 machines and making 30 metric tons of bags a month. It also plans to expand the current workforce of 1,000 in the near future.

Government officials at Suiping played an important role in facilitating the deal, out of interest in creating and retaining local employment as well as benefits in other aspects of the local economy. Most management has stayed with the company, as well as many workers.

But many former employees of Huaqiang are unhappy with their layoff packages. Since Huiqiang doesn't inherit Huaqiang's labor relations problems, the workers will have a long and hard battle to fight with the former owner.

China's new labor contract law is supposed to protect long-term employees with open-ended contracts. Many think that's reintroducing permanent positions, which existed in state-owned enterprises during China's era of planned economy. But no positions are permanent anymore, as businesses today are market-oriented and not guaranteed to last forever. An open-ended contract -- as a format -- only protects the opportunity to work in the same postition within the same organization. The specific terms are vital. But the Huaqiang workers are not being protected by the new law anyway, as the company timed its closure before the law came into effect.

Now, is the change of ownership a convenient way to get around the labor laws?

Cheers! The local governments in China have become a great news source for industrial expansions and other business information for me.

No, I didn't bribe them. Nor did I hack into their databases.

All I do is monitor their public information Web sites like nobody else.

It has taken a decade for Chinese local governments to not only have vendor-built neat Web sites but also to regularly update them with useful information, from construction approvals to training for unemployed residents.

The fact that you can now submit a request, check on its status and receive approval all online makes the government much more open, efficient and transparent.

Government-backed local media are just as helpful to me. They are eager to write about the government's achievements: foreign investment, construction, exchange programs, etc.

Take this report, first published by Tianjin Daily.

It reported that on May 19, two dozen local officials visited Columbus, Ohio-based Ashland Inc.'s new polyester project in Tianjin and provided on-site consultation and approval. "The on-site services laid the groundwork for Ashland's 30,000-metric-ton unsaturated polyester plant," the news said.

The story also gave details about the project that even Plastics News' latest update on Ashland's China expansion didn't include: The factory is 65,422 square meters, total investment is US$40 million and the project is scheduled to go on stream in July 2009.

Isn't this nice?

A local government-owned newspaper also reported that China's pipe giant Liansu of Foshan, Guangdong providence, has inked a 400 million yuan deal on a plastic pipe production base in Changchun, Jilin province. Liansu refused to talk about it when I checked with the company at Chinaplas last month. But industry insiders told me that the expansion makes perfect sense: As transportation costs rise, a factory in the northeast of China will greatly supplement its headquarters in Southeast China.

So far, I haven't seen coverage on Liansu's new project anywhere else. I'm waiting to see how it plays out.