Tales of City

The traditional Chinese Middle Autumn Festival is approaching (Sep. 12), and mooncake becomes a hot topic, again. Different with the past, more negative voices come out toward the mooncake and the newly known so-called mooncake tax.

A box of mooncake is usually presented as corporate welfare in the Mid-Autumn Festival. A few company may post a box of mooncake to their employee’s family, which is recognized as a better way. Many companies send mooncake to their customers for better relationship. Anyway, it is very common to receive more than one box of mooncake in a family.

However, as people care about their health and eat much healthier more than before, they don’t eat many mooncakes. One or two piece(s) of mooncake is enough for the taste in this traditional day. Many families left a lot of mooncake after the holiday and it becomes a big waste. The negative voice says that they don’t want to receive mooncake anymore, and they recommend not to send mooncake to employees and customers in the Mid-Autumn Festival. You can buy some yourself if you want.

Mooncake tax is another story. The tax authorities indicate that it should pay tax when company sends mooncake to employees. People feel incredible and dub it a ‘Mooncake Tax’, but actually, such tax has been paid for 17 years already.

Last week, I came to know an interesting website What I Wore Today. The author Poppy posts a photo of what she has wore each day since the first day of 2010, and she is continuing the post.

This Monday, another English learning program OMG attracts me. An American girl records 2 minutes video every Monday to Friday to teach English on the website, one small topic each time.  It has lasted more than a month.

Poppy’s website succeeds to attract people’s visiting everyday, and it even starts hiring. The OMG program on Youku video has over 2 millions hits in a month more time.

Poppy’s performance art is somewhat easy for any girl, while only she starts and persists in posting everyday. There are many schools in China teaching English, but only OMG employs such a different method and makes English learning funny.

Both stories tell me that, do one thing and do it well, others will follow.

I have been working for 7 years since 2004. It is not a short, but not too long time. During the past 7 years, I have worked for 3 different companies, the traditional manufacturer, startup company and the current so-called high-tech foreign company.

The experience in the first company helped me to learn the working process and how to co-work with others. I met most friends in Shanghai  in that company.

In the startup company, I experienced a lot about how to construct a company, how to communicate with customers, how to recruit and interview, how to interact with other departments and some sale knowledge. All of these make me mature.

In the foreign company, there are many chances to work with colleagues from different countries. The communication and English skill is very important, and you have to encounter different cultures.

What’s next? I don’t know.

As promised in my previous blog 2010 Average Monthly Wage in Shanghai is 3896 RMB, I will describe and demo here how the social security fund calculated in Shanghai. Be noticed that the methodology may be the same in other cities, but the proportion may be different.

In Shanghai, the social security funds are divided to 5 items, including pension, medicare, unemployment insurance, maternity insurance and employment injury insurance. Besides, housing fund is also mandatory. All of these is called Insurance and Housing Fund in China (五险一金, five insurance and one fund). Read full story…

Just noticed that Shanghai average monthly wage in the year 2010 is 3896 RMB (about $605), 9.3% increase over last year. The data was published by Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau at the beginning of March.

In Shanghai and most other cities of China, employer has the duty to settle social security funds for its employees by law. The fund base is subjected to be adjusted according to the average monthly wage in previous year, and the fund proportion is usually fixed for many years. I will detailed describe how the social security fund calculated in my following blog.