The Schengen agreement allows visitors to travel around continental Europe without requiring a separate visa for each country, although the UK has a separate protocol. This means Chinese visitors need to get a visa for the UK and a Schengen visa for the rest of Europe.

Our fears and worries were explored in my post from two weeks ago when the Spanish Visa Office refused to accept the legality of our notarised marriage certificate, but fortunately they still granted Jenny a tourist visa. Several things helped her.

• She already has a visa to go to the UK
• She has a passport full of stamps and visas to the UK, Japan, Thailand and France
• She proved she has funds to support herself during the 5 days we are in Barcelona

We saw other people in the visa office on The Bund who were not so lucky even though they had spent months planning their trips to Spain. The most unfortunate thing is that these folks will not get their visa fees of 630 RMB per person refunded. It’s going to cost a couple we saw this morning 1260 RMB just for the privilege of filling out the forms, queuing for ages and being served by surly Chinese bureaucrats on the lookout for errors and omissions in documentation. The visa fees to the UK are even steeper at 940 RMB per person, but at least they recognise wedding certificates when they see them.

Presumably, the rejected visa applicants are entitled to a refund on plane tickets and hotel bookings, but they may stand to lose a cancellation fee. Plus, they are branded as rejects unfit to visit Europe. When you fill out the Schengen visa application form to enter Europe you have to declare all your previous applications.

Such shoddy treatment looks rather similar to attempting to book a table in a restaurant and having to pay the bill even if you have not been allowed to walk through the door to eat any food. Of course consulates need to cover admin costs and pay the rent, but rejected applicants should be entitled to at least a partial refund to show some goodwill and humanity. After all Chinese tourist are lining up to spend money in European countries and they should not be derided as illegal immigrants or potential terrorists.

If your visa application has been rejected then don’t give up. A Welsh friend’s Chinese girlfriend is going to the UK next month even though her visa application was rejected last year. Bear in mind that the following things will help you.

• Show you have plenty of money
• Show you have lots of good reasons to come back to China including a job and a house
• Make sure you jump through all the hoops they provide for you, however absurd or humiliating
• Cultivate guanxi with consulate officials. Jenny’s visa application to France was fast tracked after we found out that a friend of a friend was working at the French Consulate.
• Getting sponsorship from your compnay to visit Europe on business is your best bet of getting a visa to go to Europe short of marrying a Euro citizen (for love not for scam!)

One day international travel will have fewer physical restraints like the Internet. Where is that flying pig?

End of rant.

This is still an issue or I would not choose to resurrect such a gloomy old blog post. The difference these days is that I am enjoying my summer holidays. Thirty degrees celsius, a daily bike ride, all the time in the summer and plenty of sleep equip me with forgotten reserves of patience and tolerance towards all sorts of challenges and bad news.

Still, a couple of incidents have reminded me that I still have trouble understanding and being understood whether I am speaking Chinese or English.

People in this city like to speak Shanghainese or Shanghaihua. It is the language of family and back room deals. I live in a working class Chinese neighbourhood near Nanpu Bridge where Shanghainese is spoken almost exclusively. Of course all locals can speak Mandarin, but it is in a slurred accent that is supposed to be the Chinese equivalent of Geordie or Scots.

It seems that Shanghainese people over the age of 50 have great difficulty understanding foreigners mispronounce Mandarin. My spoken Chinese is still proto pidgin, but I know more than a thousand words. I can even string together multi clause sentences such as ‘Yinwei wo meiyou ya, wo bu hui chi tiandian’. (I can’t eat dessert, because I have no teeth). My wife and colleagues have no trouble understanding my laughable attempts at speaking Chinese. Unfortunately, this basic repertoire does not cut it with aging locals who just don’t understand my poor grammar and tone deaf pronunciation.

Today I tried to tell my wife’s aunt that I wanted to get a new key cut. The only way I could get her to understand was to show her a bunch of keys and get her to call my wife to translate my instructions into authentic Chinese.

It’s not just Chinese that is causing me trouble. I have started to use a phone transciption service called Jott . I tried using this service (in English) to create Google Calendar entries, E-mails to self, Remember The Milk tasks and new Evernote reminders. The Lifehacker set have been raving about this service for months, because it is free and makes use of Indian call centres to convert audio into text that is then used to update a plethora of aforementioned web services.

The idea is convenient and fascinating, although I am ethically ambivalent about a poor bugger from Bangalore transcribing my voicemail for $2 an hour. I have read the tutorials and followed the examples, but I can’t get Jott to understand my perfectly clear British English. When I tried to dictate ‘Introduction to Computer Systems’ Jott mistook my entry as ‘In seduction, that can take this.’ Maybe I need to improve my accuracy by dictating my Jott entries in the style of John Wayne.

Try it for yourself to see if you have more success with Jott than me. You need an American telephone number to start using the Jott service, but this is easy enough to setup if you become a Rebtel user, even if you are in China.

The nub of this post is that doesn’t matter if you speak good English or poor Mandarin. People will still struggle to understand so you may as well talk to your cat, which is a lot less trouble.

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

I left this comment on Dan Washburn’s post:

The new Iphone 3G is not much of a hardware upgrade apart from 3G and GPS.
The biggest change is the availability of downloadable apps from the Itunes store. This is available to Iphone 1 users who upgrade to Itunes 7.7 and Iphone 2.0 firmware.

There are some really promising apps such as Evernote and Modium, but there is no VOIP app at the Itunes store. You will need to jailbreak
It will be a little while before people like DVD Jon find a way to jailbreak the new Iphone firmware so it can be run freely in China, and the unofficial apps like Fring (for VOIP) can be run on the same handset as the Itunes apps.

It is also worth noting that 75 percent of downloadable Itunes apps have to be paid for. Given that a quarter of Iphone users are running jailbroken handsets in China, Apple is going to have find a way to bring the Middle Kingdom back into the fold. Otherwise, all those Chinese Iphone users are not going to be able to download official apps even if they want to pay for them.

Another commenter tripped me up for my confusion about unlocking and jailbreaking an Iphone. I lumped them together, but this point is moot for most Iphone users in China. They buy handsets that are already unlocked and jailbroken. That has been the experience among my students and colleagues.

Those who need further help on this issue should make regular visits to this website by Lawrence of Computer Solutions.

There was also some confusion about using paid for apps in China. Even if there is a software fix that allows Chinese Iphone users to run jailbroken and offiicial apps side by side, there is still a problem that there is no Chinese Itunes store. Chinese Iphone users cannot use a locally registered credit card to purchase apps from the Itunes store.

Apple needs to quickly setup a Chinese Itunes store and launch an offiicial handset on the mainland. Otherwise you get the absurd situation that everyone in its second biggest market where the handsets are manufactured is operating in a black market. This includes senior Apple employees based in China. (I’m keeping Mum!)

Further Reading
Iphone In China
iPhone Countdown for Mainland China?
Don’t Worry The Black Market Is Working Iphone In China Still Selling Like Hotcakes
Better Than Jailbreaking Except
What’s Good And Free In The Itunes App Store

This morning we went to the Spanish visa office on The Bund armed with all our documents expecting more of the same. There is an office staffed with Chinese administrators vetting all applications to make sure there are no mistakes or discrepancies. The woman we spoke to told us that our wedding certificate was not recognised by the Spanish visa office. I told her that it was good for the Brits and the French, but she was not having any of it. Given that the Spanish do not regard our marriage as being legally valid they were unwilling to consider the fact that I am paying for my wife’s visit to Spain. They sent her away, because her bank statement did not have enough funds to support her over four days in Barcelona. I was seething with anger at this point and became very abrupt with the visa clerk, because it felt like she was denying the voracity of our marriage.

This is a classic case of outsourcing, except it seems a little weird when a Chinese petty officer tells you that your wife can or cannot go to Spain. It’s a lot like me going to the UK and telling the English wife of a Chinese man that she cannot go to China. The visa soup nazi succeeded in sending us out in the rain on a pointless exercise to transfer funds into my wife’s account. We raced back to the visa office to present our evidence before it shut for the day. Now it’s a case of waiting and hoping.

We have already paid for the flights and hotel. You have to show this as part of the visa application. If Jenny’s application is rejected then we stand to lose 5000 RMB for no good reason.

In the afternoon I paid a visit to the UK Consulate in Nanjing Xi Lu to answer a few questions about our wedding certificate. It unsettles you when a soup nazi tells you that you are not legally married. I was reassured that we made no mistake. The British Consulate officer told me that the Spanish and French offices frequently refuse to accept such marriage certificates, although it is recognised by the Brits. Nobody was able to tell me how you can satisfy the Spanish is legally valid. Maybe they are trying to settle an old score for Gibraltar or Catherine of Aragon.

The helpful British Consulate officer also told me that Jenny is eligible to apply for a five year visa to travel to the UK, which means I only have to write two letters of invitation on behalf of my wife every ten years. As absurd as this seems, the British visa bureaucracy is starting to appear almost reasonable and humane. I wish I had known about this a month ago before we applied for Jenny’s visa.

I’m starting to feel less embarassed about being from the UK.

Jola took some pictures of the occasion, which she assembled on a collage. You can come to Projection 216 to see Jola’s exhibition for the next few weeks. Look out later this week for pictures and video of Jenny’s latest collection.

Projection 216 Room 216, Building 3, Lane 210
Taikang Road, Shanghai, PRC
泰康 路210弄 3 号楼216 室 Tel: 021-54656616

The inclusion of Chinese handwriting recognition suggests they have their eyes on the Middle Kingdom. If you ever go to downtown Shanghai you will already see imported Iphones everywhere. An official launch is long overdue except that mainland China is not on the list of countries where the 3G Iphone will be launched. The other problem is that the new phone needs in-store activation. This makes it more difficult to get hold of unlocked handsets from the US to export to China. I expect local suppliers will need to source the Iphone from Hong Kong.

Iphone 2.0 is slimmer than its predecessor. It has better battery life, gps tracking and third party apps will be available to all lphone users from the Itunes store, which is not accessible to Chinese credit card holders. Those using jail broken handsets have been able to install software such as messaging and drawing programs since DVD John first cracked the device soon after it was launched last summer.

The biggest upgrade in the new Iphone is the inclusion of a 3g Chip to access HSDPA data networks for high speed mobile data networks. This will make it possible for Iphone users to stream audio and video using their handsets wherever they may roam even if it is not in range of a wifi hotspot. There is a catch for 3g Iphone users in China. HSDPA is not supported on the nascent 3G network that is being trialled in Chinese cities. China Mobile has just launched its own homegrown 3G standard called td-scdma. It looks like the Chinese Iphone will need to have its own td-scdma chip or find a way to make the handset play nicely with China’s high speed network.

Price is another mystery. The original Iphone went on sale in the US for $600, but the price soon tumbled to $399 for a 16 gb model. The new version appears to be even cheaper at $199 and $299 for the 8 gb and 16 gb models. The new handset is more expensive than it appears, because US data plans have risen to $30 a month so the cost of the phone increases over a two year contract by $40. It is not so easy to predict the cost of the 3G Iphone in China, because handsets are always unlocked so users tend not to be locked into expensive tariffs. Therefore, handsets are not subsidised by the networks trying to dupe customers into accepting long term contracts. Unlocked Iphones have recently been traded in China for less than 4000 RMB, but the price of the new handsets is less certain for the time being.

It is not a good time to buy an Iphone in China, because the new 3G version will go on sale after July 11th. On the other hand, it may be an excellent time to pick up a bargain first generation handset as suppliers get rid of their old stock or early adopters trade them up for new models. If you are not in the market for gps and are not bothered about waiting to see if 3G will be supported then you may be very happy using an Iphone 1.0. Don’t make the mistake of buying a first generation handset expecting second generation features. I’m sure some naive shoppers will fall into this trap.

The Iphone has sold 6 million handsets world wide. In spite of the hype, it continues to be a minority niche product compared with better featured phones from RIM (Blackberry), Nokia and HTC. Even though the Iphone has still not been officially launched in China, it has still managed to etch itself onto the minds of aspirational Chinese as an icon of style and status. The Iphone will continue to be ostentatiously displayed at Starbucks and restaurants in big Chinese cities for months and years to come.

Click to download UK Visa Rant

The shoes I bought remind me of the Dunlop Greenflash that I used to wear for PE lessons when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. He had others with toes cut out like Roman sandles. I’m not sure that I could get away with wearing those radical designs without looking like a fay eunuch.

Why on earth would you want to buy fake knockoffs at a tourist market when you can get DK’s shoes that are designed and made in Shanghai? We liked them so much that Jenny started selling them at her studio (Projection 216). If you like them you should go to DK’s studio called The Gloss on the second floor of the Loft in Jiashan Lu. The shoes I bought cost 500 RMB. We’ll be modelling some of them at the opening party for Jola Kudela next Sunday (June 15th).

The Gloss 上海市兴业路123弄6号1楼05单元
tel：86 21 6384 1066

Jola Kudela is a photographic artist based in Paris. This is her first exhibition in Shanghai. This is her bio:

“if loneliness has its God, Jola Kudela must be one of His high priests”

Jola Kudela, an international artist born in Poland, has been living and working in Paris, which became the main focal point for her works and international projects coming from India, Luxembourg, Canada or Tunisia. The precursor of neo-photography, active graphic and motion-designer, animated film director, book-illustrator, special visual effects creator for the needs of film and television. She joins the techniques not a long time ago considered as classical with the latest achievements of technology and digital image processing.

The areas to which one can categorize her know no boundaries, what she offers to the contemporary public falls outside any explicit categorization or trends. Her works never stop astonishing the public and with her artistic ideas being an inherent part of ultra-modern image of art she can truly amaze.

Loneliness in a behemoth city as well as confusion characteristic of the relationship between man and woman, the everlasting desire to experience closeness, becoming a unity, which seems to be impossible as we are limited by anxiety seem to be the main subject themes of her works. The present oscillates between constant pain and temporary refuge sought in amusement. This is the world her heroes live in – exposed to us, scared, helpless and yet, invariably heroic. Jola Kudela reminds us of a contemporary shaman leading both the characters she creates and us – the public – sneaking up into some “paper” world, the magic moments where between the sunrise and the sunset of art, every day, at some point, we may perceive both painful beauty and the everlasting truth about human existence. Petrifying and tempting , she can never be indifferent to us.

Her commitment to various dimensions and genres (from the well-known high-budget commercial productions (Tim Burton - NINE), and global projects creating new photography trends (NEO-PHOTO, IDN - Hong Kong), individual graphic art exhibitions (METROPOLIS, Paris), awarded digital cycles , panoramic photo collages (THIS IS MY HOME NOW), to street art dealing with the icons of modern pop culture ( ART MAKES YOU FREE).

Jenny will also be showcasing her new collection and designs from Eva, DK and Emma. We’re looking forward to another great party at Projection 216. Get in touch with Jenny if you want to get an invitation. Jenny has printed some great invitations, which you can see at the top of the post.

Venue: Projection 216, Room 216, Building 3, Lane 210, Taikang Road, Shanghai, PRC
泰康 路210弄 3, 号楼216 室
Tel: 021-54656616

Date and time: Sunday 15th June, 7 pm