Are you a foreigner coming to China? Here already? Here are some tips for survival that might make your experience better. Today we start with basic issue #1, the passport.

Passport basics:

1. Your passport is life. Protect it. Keep it in a safe place unless you need it. Never leave it with someone you don’t trust. If a hotel wants to hold it, give them a copy but check out before you leave it with them. A friend of mine had their passport stolen while it was in the safe keeping of a hotel. Street value of a US passport is around $5,000-$15,000, I’ve heard. It may be the most tempting and valuable thing you possess. Chinese people are typically very honest, but it just takes that 1 in 10,000 to change your life quickly. 
2. Know when you will need to bring your passport.  You will need to have it with you for hotels, trains (rarely checked, but it does happen, and will be needed to buy a ticket or make changes), and planes. You will need to do anything with people at a bank, or even registering for, say, a customer loyalty card at a grocery store). Also may need it for checking into a hospital, but check to see if a photocopy will do. In any case, always have a photocopy or two of your passport with you. Carry one in your wallet or purse, and perhaps somewhere else also. 
3. If your passport is lost, don’t waste time waiting for it to be returned to a lost and found area. Chances are it was stolen or quickly will be. Start on the path of getting a replacement for your passport and Chinese visa. The replacement passport can be done fairly quickly, but the visa takes extra time. This will take about 3 business days typically, if things go well, so change your travel arrangements as needed. Immediately contact the US Consulate in your area. They can get you started on this process. It’s also going to involve several hundred dollars and you will need to leave the country (Hong Kong is a good choice) and come back in to get your new temporary passport stamped and validated. I’ll explain more later.

One of the most common American complaints about food in Shanghai is the lack of good Mexican food. It is not very popular here and only a few places offer it, sometimes with disappointing results. But you can find good Mexican food. One surprising choice is Judy’s on Tongren near the intersection with West Nanjing. After we went there, we learned that this quiet, calm place becomes a lively bar with sometimes questionable content late at night, so I’m not sure I want to recommend this place, but if you go before 8:30 pm, you’ll find a tame, quiet place with very good, basic Mexican food like flavorful fajitas, burritos, and quesadillas. They also have a Chinese menu and I was impressed with the coconut chicken curry. Very tender. You can just walk in and eat without fighting the normal Friday night crowds. Again, go there before 8:30. I don’t know what happens later, but based on a review I read, I don’t think I want to be around there late at night.

For avant-garde high-end Mexican, try Mi Tierra in the French Concession. Some of their dishes are surprising and unlike the typical Mexican fare Americans might know. Delicious, creative, a bit expensive, but worth it. The ceviche, for example, was startlingly good. The staff is warm and friendly. The boss and main assistant were extremely kind and gave us a tour of the beautiful 3-storied building. An excellent place for a corporate event, also.

A book I’ve been working on since late 2006 has come to fruition. With co-authors Cheryl Perkins (the CEO of Innovationedge where I work) and Mukund Karanjikar, I’m happy to announce that John Wiley & Sons will soon publish Conquering Innovation Fatigue, a book that explores the personal side of innovation and the “innovation fatigue factors” from multiple levels that would-be innovators face. It can be ordered now at Amazon.com and will be in press by early July. Easy URL: http://tinyurl.com/nofatigue. The blog to support the book is http://InnovationFatigue.com.

Want to pay way too much for some silver? Looking for a quick fleecing? Then look no further than First Federal Coin, a.k.a. GovMint.com [site down as of 2017; URL was http://www.govmint.com/countrylistings/northamerica/usa/bagsofslvr.aspx] where I took the above screenshot. I ran into them in this month’s Scientific American, with a full-page color add similar to the Web ad. Folks, the coins they are selling are bulk silver coins, which you can purchase at many places for close to the spot price of silver. OK, there’s a slight premium for half dollars, but the prices they charge are ridiculous. One pound of silver coins has about 14.5 ounces of silver, worth about $170. You can buy a pound of silver coins, including nice half dollars, for under $200 on Ebay. At Northwest Territorial Mint, you can buy a 72 ounce bag of 90% silver coins – that’s 4.5 pounds – for $746 ($756 if you cant it all in half dollars), which is what you would pay to get 2 pounds of coins at First Federal. In other words, they are charging twice as much as they should. It’s like paying over $20 an ounce for silver when it’s current price is $11. Don’t fall for that.

I think you can get silver coins in bulk even cheaper at Monex.com.

Buy low, sell high. Don’t give away your money.

Shake well before serving – that’s a message the world needs, I figure. Shaking well means preparing before you rush out and do something stupid. It means stirring things up and creating a healthy mix in life. This little blog is meant to be an attempt to shake things up in the quest for knowledge that can help you be more effective in life and better able to serve.

And perhaps I’ll try to have a little fun as well.

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