Whenever you buy something in China, you should get a tax receipt (发票, fa piao). These receipts are used by the tax authorities to calculate and collect sales taxes, and also by government agencies to track their expenses. Consumers are strongly encouraged to get fa piao with all their purchases, but since that would prevent the vendor from not paying sales tax, the shops are making this as difficult as they possibly can. First of all, the fa piao is not integrated into the regular sales receipt, you are not given it automatically, you have to ask for it separately, sometimes not at the cashier, but at a special service counter. Even if you ask for a fa piao, you will sometimes be offered some handwritten papers without official stamps instead. Or you will be asked to come back later because they are out of forms at the moment, or the manager who has to do it has gone out for lunch (we have had all of this happen).

There is also a vibrant market for second-hand (or outright fake) fa piao, which can be used to draw money from expense accounts or tax returns. This seems to be risky business, at least if you overstep the unspoken limits that seem to socially accepted: six people in Guangdong have been sentenced to death for multi-billion dollar tax fraud in 2002. But use of this kind of fa piao in moderation (even though it must definitely constitute tax fraud) is terribly wide-spread and hard to avoid. Cissy's massage parlor gives her receipts for food, dated last year. Since I doubt that massages are tax deductible anyway, this is probably not a problem for us. But our monthly rent entitles us to a significant tax rebate. Of course, our land lord does not want to pay income tax on the rent and will not issue fa piao. There is not much we can do about that (and I doubt that other land lords would be any different), other than accepting the food and transportation receipts he gives us instead.

There are other grey zones. The girls at Walmart always write "food" on the receipt, no matter what I really bought. I'd look like a complete fool (no problem with that), and waste everyone's time if I tried to ask them to separate out the non-food items. My modus operandi now is to only get fa piao for purchases that include at least some food, and discard the totally-non-food receipts.

Having spent all my life in Germany and Japan, I am much more comfortable with following the law to the letter, rather than navigating unwritten grey areas of interpretation, but these are compromises that I think you have to work out in order to not lose your mind/cool/temper in China.

Excerpt from Wikipedia's list of statistically superlative countries:

China	Largest rice producer, output of 182,042,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest wheat producer, output of 109.9 million metric tons	Agriculture	2007
China	Largest fruit and vegetable producer, output of 506,634,000 tons	Agriculture	2004
China	Largest apple producer, output of 26,065,500 tons	Agriculture	2006
China	Largest garlic producer, output of 12,088,000 tons	Agriculture	2008
China	Largest pear and quince producer, output of 11,537,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest tangerine producer, output of 14,152,000 tons	Agriculture	2007
China	Largest peach and nectarine producer, output of 6,030,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest plum and sloe producer, output of 4,635,500 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest persimmon producer, output of 1,987,000 tons	Agriculture	2006
China	Largest tomato producer, output of 32,540,040 tons	Agriculture	2006
China	Largest watermelon producer, output of 69,315,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest chestnut producer, output of 825,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest walnut producer, output of 499,070 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest peanut producer, output of 13,090,000 tons	Agriculture	2008
China	Largest eggplant producer, output of 18,033,000 tons	Agriculture	2008
China	Largest carrot and turnip producer, output of 8,395,500 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest potato producer, output of 70 million metric tons	Agriculture	2006
China	Largest cabbage producer, output of 36,335,000 tons	Agriculture	2008
China	Largest cauliflowers and broccoli producer, output of 8,585,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest spinach producer, output of 11,011,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest lettuce and chicory producer, output of 11,005,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest asparagus producer, output of 5,906,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest onion and shallot producer, output of 17,793,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest cucumber and gherkin producer, output of 26,000,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest fish producer, output of 49,467,275 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest aquatic plants producer, output of 11,163,675 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest honey producer, output of 298,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest mushroom and truffle producer, output of 1,410,540 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest cotton producer, output of 11,400,000 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest silk producer, output of 290,003 tons	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest rapeseed producer, output of 10.3 million metric tons	Agriculture	2007
China	Largest tea producer, output of 1,183,502 million tons	Agriculture	2007
China	Largest tobacco producer, output of 2,298,800 tons	Agriculture	2000
China	Largest livestock of domestic sheep, 157,900,000 heads	Agriculture	2004
China	Largest livestock of domestic pig, 488,800,000 heads	Agriculture	2005
China	Largest livestock of mules, 4,194,000 heads	Agriculture	2003
China	Largest livestock of donkeys, 8,499,000 heads	Agriculture	2003
China	Largest livestock of horses, 8,088,000 heads	Agriculture	2003
China	Largest rice consumer, 135 million metric tons per year	Consumption	2004
China	Largest car market, 13.64 million vehicles	Consumption Transport	2009
China	Largest population, 1,315,844,000	Demographics	2006
China	Largest labour force, 807,700,000	Demographics Economy	2008
China	Largest renewable energy producer, 576.1 TW·h per year	Energy	2006
China	Largest hydroelectricity producer, 585.2 TW·h per year	Energy	2007
China	Largest coal producer, 2,536.7 million tons	Energy Industry	2007
China	Largest wind turbine producer	Energy Industry	2009
China	Largest solar panel producer	Energy Industry	2009
China	Most carbon dioxide emissions, 6,103,493,000 metric tons	Environment	2006
China	Largest forex reserves, $2,273,000,000,000	Finance	2009
China	Largest exporter, $1,200,000,000,000	Finance	2009
China	Highest current account balance, $371,833,000,000	Finance	2007
China	Highest elevation above the sea level, 8,848 m (29,029 ft) at Mount Everest (shared with Nepal)	Geography	2009
China	Longest land border length, 22,117 km (22,147 km if Hong Kong and Macao, the two special administrative regions are counted)	Geography	2009
China	Most countries bordered, 14 (16 if Hong Kong and Macao, the two special administrative regions are counted), the same number as with Russia	Geography	2009
China	Largest gold producer, 276 tonnes	Industry	2007
China	Largest aluminium producer, 5,896,000 tons	Industry	2006
China	Largest antimony producer, 126,000 tons	Industry	2005
China	Largest arsenic producer	Industry	2006
China	Largest bismuth producer, 1,900 tons	Industry	2006
China	Largest cadmium producer, 3,000 tons	Industry	2005
China	Largest cement producer, 1,038,000,000 tons	Industry	2005
China	Largest fluorite producer, 3,000,000 tons	Industry	2006
China	Largest iron producer, 588,000,000 tons	Industry	2006
China	Largest manganese producer, 6,000,000 tons	Industry	2006
China	Largest mercury producer, 1,150 tons	Industry	2005
China	Largest mica producer, 89,000 tons	Industry	2005
China	Largest steel producer, 500,500,000 tons	Industry	2008
China	Largest strontium producer, 700,000 tons	Industry	2005
China	Largest tin producer, 120,000 tons	Industry	2005
China	Largest tin reserves, 1,700,000 tons	Industry	2006
China	Largest tungsten producer, 46,900 tons	Industry	2005
China	Largest zinc producer, 2,600,000 tons	Industry	2006
China	Largest motor vehicle producer, 13,790,000 vehicles	Industry Transport	2009
China	Largest army by number of active troops, 2.25 million troops	Military	2005
China	Largest police force, 1,780,000 officers	Military	2010
China	Most frigates in operation, 49	Military
China	Best performance at women's badminton Uber Cup, 11 times winner	Sports	2009
China	Best performance at World Badminton Championships, 43 gold medals won	Sports	2009
China	Best performance at World Amateur Go Championship, 18 wins	Sports	2009
China	Best performance at World Table Tennis Championships, 35 team wins	Sports	2009
China	Best performance at World Weightlifting Championships (women), 314 gold medals, 423 total medals	Sports	2007
China	Leading surveillance society (Endemic surveillance society)	Surveillance	2007
China	Most internet users, 298,000,000	Technology	2009
China	Most main line phones, 368,000,000	Technology	2006
China	Most mobile cellular phones, 703,000,000	Technology	2009
China	Largest total length of waterways, 110,000 km	Transport	2008
China	Largest total length of high-speed railways, 6,003 km	Transport	2009

Today is the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar, and that makes it a major holiday, the Duanwu Festival, also known as the Dragon Boat Festival.

Duanwu commemorates Qu Yuan, a famous Chinese scholar, who was expelled from the royal court after conspiracy charges made up by jealous officials, and later drowned himself in the Milo River. To deter the fish from eating his body, the townsfolk decided to make zongzi rice dumplings and throw them into the water.

To make a Wednesday holiday into a long weekend, Monday and Tuesday have also been declared holidays. While many countries have such a rule, the Chinese are doing it wrong, though: To compensate for the two extra holidays, Saturday and Sunday were turned into working days instead.

After two weeks in Shanghai, here is what works and what does not:

Backblaze

Works. My online offsite backup solution.

Blogspot.com

Blocked.

Dropbox

Blocked. I was using Dropbox to exchange design documents with business partners, but there are other ways.

Drop.io

Works. I use drop.io to share pictures of Kai. Since it allows anonymous content uploads, it seems to be a candidate for blocking, though.

Facebook

Blocked. I am not on Facebook, but Cissy is.

Google App Engine

Mostly works. The apps themselves work, as do the administration tools. But the name server responsible for custom domain names (instead of x.appspot.com) is inaccessible.

Google Groups

Blocked. But works in SSL mode. HTTP packet inspection?

Google Mail

Works.

Google Search

Works. A bit unexpected after the recent developments. Is served out of Hong Kong.

Hotspotshield.com

Blocked. A commercial VPN service to protect your connections when using public WiFi networks (and to watch Hulu outside of the US).

iTunes Store

Works.

Mac Software Update

Works.

Podcasts

Partially blocked. I have not been able to get to the latest episodes of Filmspotting, and Chaos Radio Express. This is probably collateral damage due to hosting providers. Others (such as the TWiT network, NPR, or Tagesschau) work fine.

Skype

Works. Conference calls are essential for my freelance work. We knew it would work because Cissy has been making video calls to her parents from Tokyo and Singapore.

Steam

Works. I was able to install Steam, create an account, download and play Portal. Great game.

Tor

Severely blocked. As a tool to thwart Internet censorship and traffic tracking, this is obviously not wanted here. The project site is blocked (I could install off a mirror), as are most (all?) the publicly listed router nodes. It should be possible to still access the network using unlisted bridge nodes, but I could make that work just once (long enough to tweet).

Twitter

Blocked. Identi.ca as well.

Wenxue City

Blocked. A popular Chinese-language news and forum site (and Cissy's start page in Firefox).

Wikipedia

Works.

Youtube

Blocked.

Oh my. State-owned. Has Hello Kitty and Doraemon, too.