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Letters and Blogs
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-16 07:50 For better 2010 Shanghai Expo I just returned home after a month in China, including a week in Shanghai. If Shanghai really expects to host 70 million visitors next year, it has to make a few changes. Buses. The Shanghai bus system is useless for anyone who can't read Chinese. The bus stops have not a word in any foreign language. The bus system needs to emulate the metro system, which includes maps, schedules and information in English as well as Chinese. Exchange. When I went to a bank to change $100, I was surprised to discover that the transaction took 20 minutes. I tried to change more, but the banker informed me that it would take extra time to check my passport information on the Internet. If you want that people should spend money in places other than the Expo, you'd better make it easier for them to obtain RMB outside of the Expo site. I was only able to use an ATM when a Chinese friend helped me, because in the middle of the transaction a menu came up in Chinese only. Credit cards. I brought an unlocked phone to China with me, and bought a sim card from China Telecom. When the minutes ran out, I called China Telecom, which informed me, to my great surprise, that I could only top up with a Chinese credit card. I spent a lot of time in various cities in China trying to find the correct card to top up the phone so that it would have roaming (work in every city in China). The only cities where I found these special cards were Chongqing, Beijing and Shanghai. I ate in several restaurants where I was told that I could only use a Chinese credit card. I wouldn't have minded using cash, if cash wasn't so hard to get (as mentioned above). In one case I suggested to the manager that he try my foreign credit card just to see what would happen, and it worked. So the solution is educating business owners, not changing the entire banking system. English. In many four-star hotels in China I encountered hotel staff who couldn't speak a single word of any language except Chinese. In most tourist-oriented countries, if you can't speak a foreign language, you can't work in a hotel. I noticed that the problem was greater at night, when most tourist groups check in. Toilets. You might as well take down the signs that claim that certain toilets are four-star tourist toilets. There is no such a thing. Clean them, make them smell better, and put in seats before you claim that tourists will be comfortable using them. I saw a one-star tourist toilet that I couldn't possibly describe in a family-oriented newspaper. Traffic lights. Even in huge intersections where the cars do obey the traffic lights, such as on Wuning Road outside the Cao Yang subway station in Shanghai, the pedestrian lights change to red so quickly that one can never run across the street fast enough. A few dead or injured tourists are going to be rather bad publicity for Expo. I am not going to mention other things in China that make tourists uncomfortable, such as sales people who grab tourists physically, because they are things that can't be changed overnight. I believe that the above is a list of things that can be attended in time for Expo. I enjoyed my visit to China, met many wonderful people there, and wish China all the best with Expo 2010. Daveed Shachar, Dimona, Israel via email Readers' comments are welcome. Please send mail to Letters to the Editor, China Daily, 15 Huixin Dongjie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029 China. Send faxes to (86-10) 6491-8377. Send e-mail to opinion@chinadaily.com.cn or letters@chinadaily.com.cn or to the individual columnists. China Daily reserves the right to edit all letters. Thank you. (China Daily 07/16/2009 page8) |
