Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English -

Don't Forget about Zombies! (in Plain English)

leelefever — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:59:13 +0000

We made this video about a year ago to help make sure our fans protect their brains during the scary Halloween season. Enjoy!

You can help protect the brains of others by sharing this video using this code:

You've Spoken: Common Craft and Politics

leelefever — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:55:53 +0000

Through nearly 50 comments and 15-20 emails, you have spoken. You don't want to see politics on Common Craft. I agree that it is the right move - political discussions will not appear on the Common Craft web site. We may make videos about events that relate to government, but these will not reflect personal/partisan views. A couple of things:

1) First, wow. We are both so excited to see such amazing comments. The thoughtfulness is inspiring. Thank you so much for being involved - we are lucky to have people like you around us. My Mom even got involved via email (thanks Mom!)

2) I was surprised to see so many responses in email. One of my favorites simply said "Listen to Sachi." It's good advice. As I mentioned in a comment on the entry, it seemed as though people were more open to the idea of talking politics when they emailed me directly.

3) This discussion highlights the ways in which Sachi and work together. On our "About" page, Sachi is named (lovingly) as the "Chief Party Pooper." It fits well - Sachi is ultimately reasonable, rational and risk-averse. In this way, we are a team. It's my nature to dream and to take risks. Together, we create a sense of balance. When I mentioned our "ongoing discussion" in the last post, it doesn't just apply to politics. We have ongoing discussions about everything, all the time. It's through those discussions that we find middle ground and ultimately the ideas that help us be successful.

I've learned to never underestimate the value of having people in your life that disagree with you and are willing to talk about why. It has helped me keep my feet on the ground when that's where they needed to be.

Not Talking Politics is Hard

leelefever — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:23:51 +0000

Sachi and I have an ongoing discussion that I want to share with you, dear reader, because I want to hear your feedback.

When I was a consultant, people would ask me what subjects are appropriate for a blog. Inevitably I would say that it should reflect the person behind the blog and what is important to them. It should be multi-faceted and provide personality along with on-topic content. I would also say that context matters - company blogs deserve special care, for instance.

So here I am with the Common Craft blog and there are two things that are very important to me right now:

1. Making videos

2. The Presidential Elections

My instinct is to talk about both on this blog. I have a lot to say about the elections and I'm very passionate. However, I'm making a conscious effort to keep Common Craft on-topic and apolitical. A few reasons:

1. You didn't subscribe or visit to hear my thoughts on politics.

2. Common Craft is a brand and a business. It could be a risk to make political positions a part of a brand that hopes to appeal to as many people as possible.

3. Common Craft is both Sachi and me. While we agree on some things, I would never speak on Sachi's behalf regarding politics.

However, I am very passionate about this election and I feel that it's my duty to stand up for what I believe and to be a part of the discussion in places where I can have the most impact, including this blog. I have other ways to share my views, but nothing that compares to this blog's reach and potential.

We are living through an absolutely profound part of history that will impact us all. In my heart I know it could be a big mistake to suddenly share my politics on this blog, but it's so very hard not to take that step.

What do you think?

Interview with Principled Innovation

leelefever — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:13:12 +0000

Yesterday I had a great talk/interview with Jeff DeCagna of Principled Innovation for his P.I. Podcast. We talked about the Common Craft story, but also about "Being Lightweight", based on the recent series of posts. Big thanks to Jeff for the invitation.

Have a listen on Jeff's site.

Video: Web Search Strategies in Plain English

leelefever — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:32:29 +0000

Building a New Foundation for Common Craft

leelefever — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:10:23 +0000

For the last few months, we've been "foundation building." For us, this means taking the time to focus on the business behind Common Craft and how we communicate our business to you. Our goal is clarity - if we are clear about the exact business that we run, then we're more able to illustrate our value to potential customers. It's hard work and something we're excited to see come to fruition. Now that it's in place, we can really focus on videos.

The elements of the foundation:

Licenses - We've had a great experience reviewing our licenses. For the first time, a legal team worked with us over a matter of weeks and learned our business from top to bottom. They asked questions, they challenged us, they made suggestions. We came out of it with a new license agreement that:

1. Matches exactly with the business we want to run
2. Matches our plain English style (it fits on one page!)
3. Gives us confidence that our licenses are solid.

These are our snazzy license icons that appear at the end of each video:

Education - Coming out of the review process gave us new insight into the big ideas we must be able to communicate about our licenses. We updated our FAQ, created a Licensing Guide and a new video that describes how to share Common Craft videos responsibly. It's now on the front page and on the Store page - and below:

Click to play

Equipment - We've reinvented our studio to make video production more comfortable and efficient. You won't see big changes in the videos, but you might notice smiles on our faces thanks to having a studio set up that makes production a joy. The big change? We moved the whiteboard off the floor and onto a table, mounted the camera from the ceiling, added a connection to a TV and clamped on smaller lights with less heat. This is hopefully our foundation for years of videos to come.

New Commercial License - As a result of our review, we're now offering a new Commercial License. This license is for companies that would like to display Common Craft videos on their public-facing web site. We ask these customers to fill out a form to apply for a Commercial License.

New School Program - We want students to benefit from our videos. We're now offering a special deal for schools of all types. Entire school districts (K-12), independent, and post-secondary schools only need to purchase a single Site License to use licensed versions of our videos. Further, the Site License is offered to schools at a 50% discount. Apply for the discount here.

New Format: Kindle Books - We've started to adapt our videos into Kindle books that are availabe for purchase from Amazon's Kindle Store. More on this later.

So, we've been busy behind the scenes, but now we can focus once again on videos for you. We've been receiving some great suggestions for future videos. If you have one to add or have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Teachers Make Our Day

leelefever — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:16:35 +0000

Hi, I am a teacher at a middle school in Ohio, I just shared your electoral college video with my kids and thy got it!!!!! Your explanation is the best I have ever seen. Now my kids want more of your stuff. Just thought you'd like a big cheer from Ohio.

Here's to kids getting it! Yay! The video is here.

Why I Stopped Reading Blogs (for a while)

leelefever — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:36:32 +0000

1000+ items. That's what Google Reader told me I need to read to catch up with my RSS subscriptions. It's intimidating. My RSS feeds were mocking me. I could see them with sneaky voices "hee hee, you'll never read me, you don't have the time. ha ha." The sad part is, they were right.

I stopped opening my RSS reader months ago. It wasn't a concerted effort, I just didn't do it. What I found was that longer I stayed away, the easier it was to stay away. Returns diminished with each passing day and at some point I gave up on reading anything via Google Reader. Now, I'm happy to report that I'm back on the wagon (I think that's the right analogy). My time away gave me some perspective on what I want to read and where I want to read it.

Culprit #1: Twitter

I was trying to figure out a clever title for this post along the lines of "Twitter Killed the RSS Star", but it wouldn't work. The sentiment works in my case however. I have integrated Twitter into my life and I think that it became a surrogate for reading blogs. Lots of people I follow share their blog posts on Twitter, I have found the relationships that are created to be more personal and it's all so lightweight. Watching Twitter updates gave me the feeling of connection, awareness and discussion that I love about blogs in an efficient and manageable package. Before I knew it, Twitter had replaced reading RSS feeds.

Culprit #2 Subscribing to the Wrong People

Looking back, my RSS reader has been filled with people I felt I should be reading. Let me repeat that - should be reading. I think that's a problem. I felt like I needed to watch TechCrunch to stay on top of tech news. I felt like I needed to subscribe to experts in my field(s). Sure, these subscriptions were educating me and raising my awareness, but I seriously question the cost/benefit. Reading them felt like homework - and I don't like homework.

This all came to a head recently when our best friends (and former Seattle neighbors) came to town and stayed with us. Within a little while, blogging came up and it turned out they had both posted a few entries in the run-up to the trip to Seattle. I had no idea. I had to tell them that I stopped reading blogs and I felt bad for not keeping up. These people matter about a million times more than the people clogging up my RSS Reader and I had let the 1000+items-of-things-that-don't-matter scare me away.

What I Did

Like I've done before, I started over. I opened up Google Reader, took a nice long look at the list and asked myself - does this matter to me? Do I even know this person? Will I be worse off without this content in my life? No. No. No. Nearly everything was wiped clean.

When I started adding feeds to fill the void, I did it with a filter. My RSS reader isn't for news, it isn't for niche analysis, it isn't because I "should". My RSS reader is now filled with subscriptions to sites that matter to me. These posts are written by people I know and care about. They make me feel like reading RSS is a treat - a few minutes spent being with an old friend.

It's only been a little while, but I think RSS may, once again, become a strong contender for my passive time. Now I can miss a day of RSS reading, open the reader and have Google Reader tell me I have 10 posts to read. That, I can do.

Independent Publishing on Amazon's Kindle (Two Stories)

leelefever — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:34:34 +0000

[Note: This is my second post in a row about Amazon. I can assure you that although I am a fan, I (or Common Craft) am not affiliated with Amazon in any way.]

I remember my first purchase from the Kindle Store. It was an article by an author named Stephen Windwalker called "How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Over 100 Pages of Other Cool Tips" (Now here, under a new name). It was $2.39 and was delivered to the Kindle in seconds. I remember thinking, "Hmm, $2.39. That's not too bad, I'll see what it's all about." It was easy - I've been giving Amazon digital money for years - doing it on the Kindle was a no-brainer.

Soon I found I was not alone. At the time, Stephen's article hovered in the top 10 of all purchases on the Kindle, right there with Oprah's favorites. This made me wonder about how the Kindle works - how can Stephen Windwalker be selling as many copies as NYT Bestsellers? What I found was that Stephen's success is a model for everyone who is tired of the traditional publishing world and wants to sell articles and books directly to consumers.

If you're new to Kindle, read my intro here.

Stephen and others like him are at the forefront of a publishing revolution made possible by Amazon's Digital Text Platform (DTP). The DTP is startlingly simple. Anyone can upload a Word file (saved as html) to the DTP, assign a price, and start selling it to Kindle users. Amazon is the only middleman and exerts very little editorial control. Of course, Amazon does make money on every purchase. Right now Amazon keeps about 65 cents of every dollar sold in the Kindle Store.

Two Stories

Stephen Windwalker (a pen name) has been an Amazon seller since the z-shops days. When the Kindle came around, he was fascinated thanks to the problems with what he calls the "Literary-Industrial Complex." Kindle appeared to be a viable alternative to working with publishing houses that dominate the industry.

So, as an experiment, he put some time into understanding Kindle's experimental features and wrote the article I purchased. Stephen made close to a dollar (US) on my purchase. Since his article was published in December of 2007, over 26,000 copies have been sold directly to Kindle users like me.

Stephen's success may be an anomaly, but it is an independent publishing success story nonetheless. Stephen names Amazon Search as one way his article become popular - it's current the #2 result for the search "Kindle." Further, having a web presence outside the Kindle Store helps.

Stephen has since written a number of other articles and blogs about the Independent Publishing and Kindle at Indiekindle.blogspot.com and kindlehomepage.blogspot.com. He's also published a book (in paperback & Kindle edition, of course) to lend a helping hand to other would-be Kindle authors.

Stephen introduced me to another person who is seeing similar success. His name is Manual "Manny" Burgos. Manny found that simple gray-tone graphics that work on the Kindle are difficult to produce. So, he's created a set of guides that help people design graphics that are optimized for the Kindle's screen. The first of what is now a 4-part series was "Graphics on the Kindle" which lays out how to format images for the best results.

Manny soon discovered demand for this kind of information from Kindle owners and those interesting is helping Kindle publishers with graphics. His second article, "Formatting Comics for the Kindle" reflects the opportunities he sees. Manny hasn't seen Stephen's level of success, but has been able to earn extra money by publishing on the DTP. Manny's work can be found at www.rarearts.com.

We're going to be seeing a lot more stories like these. Stephen and Manny are like you and me. We don't have connections to publishers. We don't have gatekeepers. We don't have the weight of the entire publishing industry on our shoulders. We are prepared to put our work into the consumer market and see what happens. We're prepared to fail and to try again because the cost of production is so low. The question is, what can we create that people would pay to download to the Kindle?

Updated: You can listen to an interview with Stephen Windwalker on Len Edgerly's Kindle Chronicles.

Amazon Fresh - Now Home Delivering Top Amazon.com Items

leelefever — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:42:49 +0000

Living in Seattle, a test-market for Amazon Fresh, we signed up and never looked back. Ordering groceries online and having them delivered within hours makes going to the grocery store seem like such a pain. With Amazon Fresh, Amazon proved to us they could replace the grocery store experience with home delivered goodness.

Just today, Sachi noticed something new and very interesting on the Amazon Fresh website - a new tab appeared pointing us to "Amazon Now."

On the same page is a small graphic that sums up the idea:

Amazon Now means that you can have the charming Amazon Fresh trucks deliver a Canon HD video camera and a bicycle seat along with your normal milk and eggs. No UPS, no FedEx - just an Amazon supply system that delivers electronics, books, toys, kitchen supplies, etc. along with your groceries.

We thought Amazon Fresh was amazing, but the idea of everything else arriving in those reusable boxes has my mind sufficiently blown. Once you get used to the idea that you don't have to go to the grocery store anymore, making the jump to other shopping experiences is an easy one.

By including non-grocery products of all sorts to Amazon Fresh customers, the company is testing a new system to deliver warehouses of products to the doorsteps of urban dwellers. Amazon Fresh is currently delivering to limited parts of Seattle, but I imagine the service will be expanded soon if it works here. We don't want to see another WebVan or Kozmo.

Read the Amazon Fresh FAQ for more info. I will report back soon on the Amazon Now experience.

Friday Funny: Demetri Martin's Flipcharts and Indexed

leelefever — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:47:39 +0000

Thanks to Mary for making me crack up at this flipchart-based comedy skit by Demetri Martin, a young New York comic that also appears on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Hope it makes your Friday a little funnier.

On a similar theme, you might also be interested in Jessica Hagy's Indexed - a blog that makes clever use of index cards.

Lastly, My ingenious friend Bre Pettis, a Seattle boy and school teacher who is now living in New York, has a pilot TV show coming on the History Channel called Hacking History. His first show is about Tesla. The pilot shows on September 26th at 9pm. If we all watch, maybe it will be picked up. Go Bre!

Making the Election Video: Behind the Scenes

leelefever — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:03:24 +0000

People often ask for a look at how we make the videos. When we were putting together the the "Electing a US President" video, I made a special point to take photos of the process. Here's how it works:

Every video starts with a script. If there is "secret sauce" it happens in writing the script because the script drives the video. We use Google Docs to collaborate until we feel like the script is close to finished. Then, we start looking at a thumbnail storyboard.

I draw the scenes for the thumbnail storyboard. It's our first attempt to represent the visuals.

After a couple of rounds of thumbnails and lots of talking between us, we make a list of all the elements that need to be drawn for the video. At this point, I start drawing and digitizing the images. Of course, with the maps in this video, I resorted to tracing.

Once the images are drawn and digitized, we set up a new storyboard using purely digital images. This way, we can manipulate sizes easily and see how everything fits together. Once we feel confident, we print out the materials and start cutting and coloring.

Sometimes, we leave things laying around and our dog decides to put them in his mouth.

Before shooting the video, we assemble all the materials and take them to the studio. We iterate at every point in the process. The script and visuals change every day.

Once production begins, we follow the storyboard and slowly lay out each scene. Often, scenes are revised on the fly. You can never really see how it will work until you see it on the screen.

Each video is different. Sometimes we go down a road, only to find a dead end. We are both prepared to throw away our work and start over if it doesn't feel right. It's painful, but necessary.

Sachi takes over control once we get to the studio. She runs each scene, the camera, lights, etc. She manages the voice-over and all the post production work. Editing is a huge part of what makes the videos work and those decisions are Sachi's. While she's doing that, I start this process over for the next video.

All these elements come together to create this video (on Vimeo, YouTube and dotSUB):

Dear Subscribers, Sorry To Confuse You

leelefever — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:08:37 +0000

Subscribers to the Common Craft Blog may have seen a strange message today about licensing that included the line "Your application will be reviewed."

This is a mistake - you should not have received this message. We created a new page and for some reason, the introduction on that page got included in the messages that go to subscribers. We'll make sure it doens't happen again.

Sorry to confuse you - we'll be back to normal programming this week.

Commercial Licensing Application

leelefever — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:01:40 +0000

Commercial Licenses permit the use of Common Craft videos on public-facing, company web sites. All Commercial Licenses are subject to the fee schedule below:

Monthly Unique Visitors	Required Licenses
1 - 100,000	1
100,001 - 500,000	2
500,001 - 1m	3
1m - 5m	4
5m-10m	5
10m+	+1 for each 10m over

Price: $695 per year, per video for each commercial license.

Your application will be reviewed by Common Craft within one week. If approved, Common Craft will provide an agreement and invoice for your review.

Custom Video: Google Reader in Plain English

leelefever — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:12:45 +0000

The Google Reader team hired us to create this one minute introduction to Google Reader.

Share this video with this code:

Our other videos for Google include:

View all of our custom client productions.

Client Video: Google Reader in Plain English

leelefever — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:06:49 +0000

Designing Common Craft T-Shirts on Pixish.com

leelefever — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:57:47 +0000

As you may have seen, the Common Craft Store has a section for merchandise that is looking pretty minimal at the moment. At the same time, we often get requests for t-shirts. Hopefully, we're about to solve this problem.

We've created a new "assignment" on a website called Pixish. Using Pixish, we can describe an image we need and have a community of creative people submit their ideas. The creator of the winning images win "rewards" - often money, links, etc.

We're hoping to identify 2-3 images that we can put on t-shirts and other fun things that are offered in our store. If you're creative and want to participate, please do. The details are here.

We're offering $200US to the winners, plus some link-love from this blog. The assignment ends on September 15th.

What would you like to see on a Common Craft t-shirt?

Help Us Speak at SXSW

leelefever — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:21:36 +0000

It seems like a long way off, but South-by-Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) is just around the corner (March 2009). At the moment, the public is voting on what speaking panels should be accepted for the event. When the voting finishes (August 29, 2008) the SXSW staff will consider the results of the voting when deciding what panels will be picked.

I say all this because I hope you'll vote for our panel. :) Here are the details:

Shift Happens: Moving from Words to Pictures

Description: People are hardwired for visualization yet we rely significantly on text. Most games, graphic novels, magazines, interfaces, IKEA instructions, and many other forms of communication take advantage of people’s natural visual thinking ability. Panelists will discuss how to leverage visual techniques to improve your games, websites, movies, communications, or presentations.

My fellow panelists include Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin, Dave Grey, Founder and Chairman of Xplane and two Austin, Texas natives Sunni Brown and Marilyn Martin. I'm so honored to be a part of this group. Thanks to Tom Crawford as VizThink for getting the ball rolling.

We'd love to have your vote, pretty please?

The Demand for "Explainers" and The Giant Pool of Money

leelefever — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:25:00 +0000

Jay Rosen has written article that I could quote 1000 times. It's called National Explainer: A Job for Journalists on the Demand Side of News. It focuses on the huge success of an episode of "This American Life" called The Giant Pool of Money, which serves to explain the US mortgage crisis.

This episode has been downloaded 50,000 times more than any other episide. Why? Because the producers (Ira Glass and Alex Blumberg) focused on explanation instead of information.

When we talk about our videos, we often say things like "Our goal is to make people care about something. That's the hard part. If they care, they'll go learn the specifics. It's not about how it works, its about developing an interest." It was exciting to this same sentiment about The Giant Pool of Money.

Rosen writes:

I noticed something in the weeks after I first listened to “The Giant Pool of Money.” I became a customer for ongoing news about the mortgage mess and the credit crisis that developed from it... ‘Twas a successful act of explanation that put me in the market for information.

He continues with an example that I think frames exactly what's happening with Web 2.0:

For there are some stories—and the mortgage crisis is a great example—where until I grasp the whole I am unable to make sense of any part. Not only am I not a customer for news reports prior to that moment, but the very frequency of the updates alienates me from the providers of those updates because the news stream is adding daily to my feeling of being ill-informed, overwhelmed, out of the loop.

Sound familiar? People are feeling left behind everywhere and it's because we are assuming too much and not thinking about the masses that need what Rosen calls the "scaffold of understanding" - the big picture that gives people the context they need to be interested. This is our goal and one that I hope others adopt.

Thanks to Jay Fienberg for the pointer!

Going to Gnomedex and/or BlogWorld Expo?

leelefever — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:22:48 +0000

I'm heading to a couple of tech conferences this Fall and I'd love to meet you there.

Gnomedex - Seattle, August 21-23

Nerds of all types converge on Seattle for Chris Pirillo's annual conference. This will be my 3rd one and it rarely disappoints. If you're headed to Seattle, or in Seattle and going to the conference, let me know.

Blog World Expo - Las Vegas, September 20-21

This appears to be a big event. I'm fortunate to be particpating in a panel discussion called "Avoiding Disaster: How Not to Use Social Media" on Sunday, 3-4 PM. My fellow panelists will be Patrick O'Keefe (our faithful organizer who runs the iFroggy Network and author of "Managing Online Forums "), Problogger Darren Rowse and Jason Falls from Social Media Explorer. Here's the conference schedule.

If you're headed to either of these events, I'd love to meet you there.

Wow, Thanks So Much for the Feedback

leelefever — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:55:47 +0000

We are blown away with the response to the recent post "What Videos Should We Make?" Not just the quantity (over 50 comments and lots of email), but the quality. It's exciting to see suggestions that have opened up new ideas and ones that fit with a couple of the themes that have been top-of-mind.

As I've told Sachi recently, it feels a little like we're at the edge of a pool, preparing to jump in. We're confident that we're on the right track, but the content of our future videos will diverge from the social media focus that people have come to expect from Common Craft. That's why your suggestions have been so encouraging - they help us see that there is a need for the kinds of "back to basics" videos we'd like to make.

At the end of the day, change is not only good, but necessary and the shock of a cold pool quickly becomes refreshing. I think we'll dive-in head first.

What Videos Should We Make?

leelefever — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:16:42 +0000

Our big transition is almost complete and we need your help. The new Store is up, we're finishing up the last custom projects and now is the time to plan what videos we'll offer in the Store over the next year. We have lots of ideas, but we really want to know what you think.

We want to make videos that:

Help professionals and educators increase awareness and create change at work
Have a positive impact on the Web

A good example of this is our video "Wikis in Plain English", which is part of our our Social Media series. We've heard from schools, corporate training programs, individual professionals and bloggers that this video has helped them influence others. Ultimately, our goal is to make videos that have similar appeal.

Like our current videos in the Store, our future videos will be offered with these license types:

Individual (personal professional use)
Site (organizational use)
Free (non-commercial, online use)

So, what video subjects or themes would have a positive influence in your company or school?

Another way to think about it... "My company or school would be better-off if people had a quick and easy way to learn about ______."

If you prefer privacy, please contact us directly. Thanks in advance!

China Week: Pretty Pictures for 08-08-08

leelefever — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:40:01 +0000

To finish up China week, I'd like to share some of our favorite photos from China. Enjoy the Olympics!

Shanghai from the Pearl City Tower

A squished pig from a Nanjing market.

Summer Palace

Locks on Yellow Mountain. You might remember these from The Amazing Race.

Li River, near Yangshou, China

Li River Karsts, via Guilin, China.

It was a sunny day in Shanghai. The umbrellas (parasoles?) were to block the sun.

Yangtze River - Three Gorges

Grand Hyatt Atrium, JinMao Tower, Shanghai.

No, she was not chopping off my head with a giant knife. I was getting a haircut and, much to my surprise, I got a massage too. They even cleaned my ears with a Q-tip. I think I'll be the only person sticking anything in my ears in the future.

Sachi at the Great Wall. But you probably figured that out yourself. You might enjoy reading about our Mutiny on the way to the Great Wall.

OK, now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

China Week: Lessons in Line Breaking (A Story)

leelefever — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:04:59 +0000

Below is a short story that was posted to our travel blog from Shanghai. Almost any visitor to China is likely to experience a higher-than-expected level of competiion while standing in line for something like a subway ticket. In the case below, I had made up my mind to be a competitor. Unfortunately things didn't work out as planned.

From the post: Lessons in Line Breaking

I had made a decision and I was going to act on it. Gone were the days of standing passively in line while Chinese people wedge themselves in front of me and place an order before I could react. I was going stand up for myself and try to be a little more Chinese.

This is not the kind of thing you can plan – it just has to happen and just last night, I had my chance. We were in the Shanghai subway terminal in line for our first subway card at a vending machine, as we’ve done so many times before in other cities. Just as the couple in front of me at the machine received their card and turned away, a young Chinese guy stepped directly in front of me. So, with great determination, I stepped in front of him enough to place my right shoulder at about his eye level and in a single motion stepped directly in front of the vending machine. It was mine! HAHA! I’ll show you line breaker! I’m no push-over tourist softy!

So there I was, with this foreign and unfamiliar machine staring me in the face. It was mine, yes, but I realized all too quickly that I had no idea how to use it. The instructions were in English and the #1 read “Select Fare”. Scratching my head with waves of embarrassment pending, I searched the machine for anything that said “Fare”. Nothing. I inquisitively pressed a couple of random buttons in the hopes that something would happen. Nothing. My pride was on the line here and I was blowing it! Thoughts of fleeing in shame entered my mind when I heard a voice over my shoulder, “Where do you need to go?” It was the line breaker politely asking a simple question that I couldn’t answer completely. All we knew was that we needed to go two stops on Line 2. He ended up doing the whole transaction for me and after many “thank yous” I left with our subway cards in hand and my pride more than a little crushed.

The moral here is that if you’re going to try to act like a local, be prepared for the entire event. Going off half-cocked is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot.

China Week: Strange Translations

leelefever — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:28:37 +0000

If making signs in Chinese characters was my job, I would be very, very bad at it. However, I might hire someone who knows the language well before erecting a permanent sign at a major tourist destination. For a long time, this didn't happen in China and we snapped the photos below before they invested in changing the signs for the Olympics.

The guy in this photo is one of the most interesting people I've ever met. He's the blind adventurer Miles Hilton-Barber.(notice the broken cane, his favorite schtick) Photo is from the Three Gorges Dam. He did not turn over.

I never could figure out why they wanted to protect the railings. This was at the Summer Palace, where I felt compelled to write a rant about tourism and tour groups.

An earnest request at Yellow Mountain. Most tourist travel in China (outside the cities) is controlled. Most people are herded onto busses and kept in a group, led by a flag-bearing guide who speaks English and may use a megaphone. We are very independent travelers and grew quite tired of these guides.

At the Three Gorges Dam.

I didn't take it as a compliment.

I think they meant "crab"

4 Stars!

And finally, not a sign, but an illustration of a difference in culture. I present to you, on the busy streets of Beijing - a car-to-car turtle salesman.

Reading back through this, it may appear that we didn't like China. I would say that the tourist experience in China, compared to other places, was not as enjoyable. We were only there a month, which is far too short of a time to know if we really like it or not. We left the country wondering what would change before the Olympics and what Westerners would say upon returning.