Assorted Links: Tech in Southeast Asia, Car Pollution, Borders, and a Homemade Dialysis Machine

There is an ever growing list of pieces that I want to comment on here. So that they all don't get stuck in a bottomless pit due to waiting for time to write the more extensive posts they deserve, I will share a few of them together along with some brief comments.

1. As recent posts here make clear, I have spent the past several weeks in Malaysia. I won't deny that its weather, food, and scenery were a draw. But I was also curious to take a closer look at a key country in a diverse region becoming increasingly relevant for tech companies--somewhat symbolized by an airport in Thailand being the most photographed location on Instagram.

Jon Russell shared his optimism for Southeast Asia in his article "Why Southeast Asia is the world’s most exciting region for startups and tech in 2013" on The Next Web. One of the challenges he mentioned for local startups particularly caught my eye:

Society in many Southeast Asian countries values working for big companies (‘getting the lanyard’), not to mention that few startups can compete against the salary and compensation packages that multinationals and other large businesses can offer.

This reminded me of some of the advantages multinational tech companies with foreign headquarters once enjoyed over local companies in China. It is remarkable how much the landscape has changed in recent years. To keep things brief, for now I will just say that what companies offer and what people seek will continue to evolve. In both respects, a growing variety can be found in China.

2. Michael Dunne, president of Dunne & Company, a Hong Kong-based consultancy specializing in Asian car markets, wrote a post for the China Real Time Report about the growing contribution of cars to China's pollution and the challenges faced in reducing their impact. It raises several key issues, such as why electrical vehicles in China may be best considered as "coal-burning cars". He also addresses why a seemingly simple tactic--reducing pollution by improving the quality of fuel used by vehicles--is not so simple:

Fuel prices are set by the state ostensibly to protect the economy – and especially the rural areas – from affordability shocks.

State-owned oil companies China National Petroleum Corp and Sinopec have been reluctant to invest in world-class refineries that produce high quality fuel because doing so would increase costs that they cannot pass on to the consumer

As I've written before, although the pollution related to China's rapid growth is shared by many, the growth of wealth it represents has not been as equally distributed. "The wealthy" subsidizing (in one way or another) the costs of producing high quality fuel could be one way to acknowledge and partially address this problem. Not only would it help people who truly could not afford an increase in fuel prices, but it would help everyone breathe a little bit better. But like other potential solutions, despite some outside impressions of how China operates it is not a change that could be made with the flip of a switch.

3. In FT Magazine Simon Kuper shares and comments on Valerio Vincenzo's photo essays about borders. Much of the article is about the lack of barriers today at the borders between many European countries. Kuper contrasts these open borders with the past and with today's more restrictive borders elsewhere in the world.

As I read Kuper's article and paged through Vincenzo's thought-provoking photos, I considered some borders not mentioned in the article that I have mentioned before: the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and the border between Macau and Zhuhai. Both of these borders are remarkable because they restrict the travel of mainland Chinese within their own country. Anyone in Switzerland or Germany can dine at a table straddling the countries' border without needing to show a passport, but mainland Chinese cannot even enter Hong Kong or Macau with only their passport and typically need a special permit (or proof of an onward flight and entry visa to another country). And I can only wish you good luck if you wish to try having a meal which spreads across the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

4. In the category of "Chinese resourcefulness" is a story first reported by Chai Huiqun in China's newspaper Southern Weekly. You can read it in Chinese here. Or you can read Xinhua's English article by Hou Qiang "Homemade dialysis machine sustains uremia sufferer for 13 years":

A sufferer of uremia for 20 years, Hu [Songwen] built his own hemodialysis machine with medical equipment, such as a blood pump and plastic tubing, that he purchased from a local market. The crude device has sustained his life since he stopped going to the hospital 13 years ago. Hu was a junior in college when he was diagnosed with uremia in 1993. After six years of medical treatment, hefty hospital bills completely depleted his family's savings.

See Caixing Online here (H/T Malcolm Moore) for photos of Hu and his machine.

The story reminds me of research conducted by former colleagues. I'll just say designers of medical technology can learn much from cases such as Hu, both in terms of the challenges some people face in China and how people sometimes overcome those challenges.

And that's all for this edition of assorted links.

Selling Sliced Fruit on Styrofoam Boxes in Shenzhen

Inexpensive and easily portable cardboard or styrofoam boxes are not only useful for selling cucumber slicers at the Dongmen shopping area in Shenzhen. For example, they are useful for selling sliced fruit as well:

It would not seem to be a particularly sanitary way to serve fruit, but it helps keeps overhead costs low.

For about 15 or 30 cents US would you buy a slice?



Added note: The "sanitary" comment was inspired by the visible dirt on the styrofoam box lid. The lid appeared to have been previously used for non-food-serving purposes and/or stored in less-than-clean conditions. Of course, styrofoam has the potential to be sanitary for food-serving purposes.

The Pragmatic Cucumber Slicer Displays at Dongmen in Shenzhen

I am exhausted after a cross border/estuary trip became a bit more adventurous than I had expected. So I will keep today's post simple and share something that earlier caught my eye at Shenzhen's Dongmen shopping area.

On several occasions when I recently visited there, people selling cucumber slicers were a common sight. I am not sure if the slicers are also effective for other vegetables, but at the very least cucumbers were the preferred vegetable for demonstrations. Here is one of the cucumber slicer sellers hard at work:

You may have noticed that he has some cucumber slices stuck on his face -- possibly a great way to catch people's attention and show the slicer's capabilities. I suppose it is also possible that they are targeting people who would like cucumber facials.

You may have also noticed his choice of materials for his display. Most cucumber-slicer sellers use styrofoam or cardboard boxes. Their portability is important when you regularly need to change your location. After all, these sellers are not licensed to be operating on the sidewalk in Dongmen and will shift locations to avoid any concerned authorities.

But sometimes a seller is caught or needs to abandon their display to avoid such a fate. Here is the result of one such case:

Fortunately for any cucumber-slicer sellers, not only are their displays portable but they are also easily replaced -- a very important feature if you are hoping to quickly get back to work and take advantage of the demand for cucumber slicers. 

Cigarettes, Noodles, and Diapers: Profiting from China's Internal Borders

At Zhuhai's Gongbei Port (拱北口岸) in China's Guangdong province one can see a steady stream of people exiting immigration at the border between Macau and mainland China.

Numerous people pass through the border for a variety of purposes. One of those purposes is very pragmatic.

Sometimes it is apparent that many people are openly carrying at least one of several items. For example, these three women were each carrying a box of instant noodles and a box of cigarettes:

While some people may be bringing these items from Macau for themselves or to give away as gifts, it is clear many have another goal in mind -- selling them as part of a large grey market in mainland China.

For example, some people will sell their box of cigarettes to buyers on the other side of the street from Gongbei Port:

People with larger colored bags are just some of the buyers that can be found in this area.

Though at other times, people can sell their cigarettes immediately upon exiting the Gongbei Port building:

Buyers (in this case all have plaid-patterned bags) quickly clear out if people with the appropriate uniforms arrive.

Especially for selling other items, some walk a little further and head down an alley with a warehouse-like building including many individual "stores". The sales patterns can vary from day to day. On one day there was a store where people could sell a brand of Japanese instant noodles (出前一丁) without waiting in line. However, people carrying another item had to stand in a long line:

In Chinese I asked one of the men apparently working in the area, "What is this?"

He replied, "This is nothing."

I did not feel the need to continue the discussion since it was already clear that this "nothing" was in fact people selling a highly desired item in mainland China: Merries diapers from Japan.

Why do these items need to be brought from Macau? Due to their status as special administrative regions, both Macau and Hong Kong sell goods that for a variety of reasons are not available (or as easily available) through official channels in mainland China. However, in some cases a grey market sales network in mainland China exists as I previously described for the iPhone 4S. The border at Macau and Zhuhai is particularly convenient for transporting some of these goods since both cities have urban areas immediately adjacent to the border. Not surprisingly, many of the stores in Macau near the border sell the very items that are most desired by mainland Chinese.

There can be a variety of reasons as to why these goods are in particular demand. For some, such as the diapers, it is due to the perceived safety and quality of equivalent products made in mainland China. The article "What Chinese Shoppers are Buying Online" on Forbes discussed this issue:

Recalling the terrible fall 2008 mass poisoning incident when six Chinese babies died and hundreds of thousands of children were sickened by melamine-tainted milk, it is no surprise that Japanese-made infant powdered milk is among the top-selling products. Some Chinese believe that direct Internet sales and home deliveries of powdered milk products would ensure that the contents had not been altered...

Also in the “baby” category are best-selling Japanese diapers, including the Kao “Merry” or Unicharm “Moony” brands (128 yuan/US$19)–again, priced higher compared to local brands. Chinese parents believe that the diapers contain no harmful chemicals that cause allergies or rash, and the materials are top-notch, preventing spillage.

And it is not just Chinese who are concerned. Some foreigners residing in mainland China have also turned to the Internet to purchase baby supplies produced elsewhere (see here for one perspective).

Based on what I saw, it appears that due to customs' restrictions people are very limited in the number of items they can bring to Zhuhai (I rarely saw people carrying more than one package of the above-mentioned items). However, last August Dan Harris on the China Law Blog commented that the situation was far more flexible at another border at that time:

An interesting thing is happening on the "border" between Hong Kong and China.

Nothing.

Let me explain.

Like virtually all countries, China has various limits and duties relating to what can be brought into the country. China is generally quite good at enforcing these limits and duties.

Except for quite some time now it has been looking the other way when it comes to food imports from Hong Kong. If you go to the border between Hong Kong and China, you will see what I mean. There you will see many, many people bringing back into China massive quantities of baby formula and the customs people are doing nothing. Nothing. The same is true for all sorts of other packaged foods being brought into China.

It is not uncommon for the various border "policies" to change (sometimes without official notice) so this difference comes as no great surprise.

There appear to be several other fascinating aspects of how the various grey markets seen at the Zhuhai-Macau border operate such as people being typically paid in Macanese currency, sellers reportedly making multiple trips in a day across the border, and variations on which items are "popular" from day to day. I will refrain from commenting on them, since I am still fuzzy on a number of issues. Regardless, it is striking that a grey market can apparently thrive for items such as instant noodles that need to be carried one by one across two immigration checkpoints.

So, like the Shanghainese reader who expressed an understanding for Macau's and Hong Kong's borders due to concerns over protecting cities' cultures, there are other mainland Chinese who may have their own reasons to appreciate the borders. While some mainland Chinese are not supportive of the policies which restrict their travel within China, for others the borders combined with special rules for Hong Kong and Macau provide an opportunity for profit.

"Street Farming" in Luoyang, Henan

One day while I was walking down a street in Luoyang, Henan I saw an example of what I'll call "street farming".

First, I noticed a man on the street holding a very long pole:

I looked closer and saw he was trying to snag some fruit:

Once he was able to pick off a fruit his street farming partner helped take it out of the net:

And then she added it to their fruit collection:

From my experience this is not at all typical.  But maybe it isn't very different from going to the woods to collect blackberries.  Regardless, I'm happy to see the fruit isn't going to waste.  Nothing deep here other than some people in China can be very resourceful -- no matter the environment.