Got my booster some time ago. They called me by phone six months after the second shot to remind me.
Probably thinks came to a standstill now because its Spring Festival.
As JanJal mentioned the Maintenance Company is often the same or linked to the Project Developer. Doing a proper job as Maintenance Company gives thus more shine to the developer and heightens the value of the projects they are developing right now and still have to sell.
Our Project Developer however went bankrupt leaving a total mess behind.
That included the 10,000 RMB per sold unit which they collected for future maintenance on every sale (In itself a normal and lawful practise). These millions have gone. Only recently the law is changed that these funds have to be in an account not connected to the Project Developer but for us this came too late.
Our situation is not unique. Many Project Developers went under. Other Project Developers (Like Vanke) see maintenance as a grow market and are willing to take over maintenance work. Seven companies bid for our contract and five out of them look quite good.
One other thing Fabey mentioned. WeChat groups. Be aware that maintenance companies run WeChat groups as well. In our case they infiltrated the group of the owners committee and crippled it with spam.
You have to differentiate between the owners association or residence committee and the management company. The latter is responsible for maintenance, cleaning, garbage handling, public spaces, gardening and security etc. These are commercial companies that are financed by the maintenance fee the residents have to pay. Like so many things there are the good, the bad and the ugly and everything in between.
The original project developer will have hired such a company and if you are lucky you have a good one. These companies are responsible to the residence committee. And as long as there is no Residence Committee they basically can do whatever they like. A residence committee is a legal body and quite a bit more that a WeChat group. Election of the residence committee goes under rules and regulations of the local Street Committee. Organising an official Residence Committee is not easy. It took us years to do so and our maintenance company that went from good too bad to ugly did everything in its power and way beyond that to stop this from happening. In the end the Major Office had to be involved to stop their obstruction and intimidation.
We are now in the ugly phase; the present maintenance company started collecting maintenance fees for next year while their contract runs out at the end of this month. There are signs of asset stripping and maintenance work hardly takes place at the moment.
All good staff left about three years ago when they were replaced because their work was given to a third part contractor who pays staff well below minimum wage.
Another way they made money was to rent out our public space as car parking and cars are now everywhere and parked in violation with the fire regulations which is something the maintenance company is itself responsible for.
This is a general recommendation that was done to cover possible supply problems that could be caused by Covid restrictions, flooding and other natural disasters and electricity supply brakes.
This after they noticed that the general public relies nowadays on a steady flow of products from shops and does not have any stock at home anymore like it used to be. And therefore any supply disruption straight away leads to a problem.
Warning: stocks in freezers and fridges are affected by electricity supply brakes as well.
There is now road information posted on the Xishan side of the dam across the lake to Haigeng Daba.
It states:
From November till March (During the Seagull season) and on public holidays the road will be one way traffic between 9:00 and 18:00. This applies to cars, not to bicycles.
To be clear: one can come across the dam by car from Haigeng Daba to Xishan but not back.
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China, Bangladesh to build overland trade route?
Posted bySorry two more points.
The article states that 600 Km in China has been finished. However 156 Km still has to be done. It took 12 years to build the 265 Km stretch from Dali to near Longling. This with plenty of money from the Go West development program. It would be another 1000 Km to Bangladesh.
At this moment there is not a single road between Myanmar and Bangladesh. One reason for this being the dispute between the two countries and the Rohringya ethnic group issue in the area.
China, Bangladesh to build overland trade route?
Posted byI is amazing that these stories keep popping up. The statements are pure political and have no relation to real life.
Any road or rail-link would have to go through Myanmar and anybody who has ever travelled through the north of Myanmar knows that the whole thing is utopic.
There are simply no proper roads in the north of Myanmar. The roads that are there are built more than half a century ago and in appalling condition. Elephants are used to pull vehicles through the worst spots. The reason why these roads are bad is because this is what the local powers that be want it. Better roads would facilitate the movement of the government army and the local 'rebel groups', for their own safety, don't want that.
The government of India don't want it either and well for three reasons: 1. Better roads, or roads at all, in Nagaland would make it possible for the Naga who are in opposition to the central government to easily flee into Myanmar (Nagaland is on both sides of the border.)(Be aware that all the border provinces in India in this area are so instable that foreigners are not even allowed to go there) 2. The road leads from the border through Assam through an area where local opposition groups close of the existing roads for more than a hundred days per year. To put pressure on the central government they declare "ban's" which are general strikes and anybody moving on these days is likely to get his vehicle burned down. More traffic on the road gives the opposition more power and the government of India would have to allocate more force to control the area. 3. A direct trade link with China would swarm India with Chinese products (Chinese products are cheap and high quality compared with Indian products). This thus leads to big opposition from the local industry and trade.
Optimist will make a point that there is a pipeline (Still under construction) from the Bay of Bengal in Myanmar to China so it is possible. Well indeed in this case but the main reason is that Myanmar exports it natural gas from their off-shore fields in the Bay of Bengal to China through this pipe. This forms the single highest export and source of income for the Myanmar government and therefore they are willing to put the extra security in place. What helps as well is that the pipeline is much further south and passes through less instable area.
In short "don't keep your breath".
Cycling Around Erhai Lake
Posted byI just cycled along the lake for a bit on the West side. There is a new road more or less hugging the lake side which is great for cycling. The road is reached from the road leading from Dali (Old town) to Caicun Warf. 3/4th of the way down you find the road there crossing the fields. The road is surprisingly well sign posted Erhai lake round road (also the cut off to Xizhou is not indicated). Where the road leads south I don't know but it would be nice if it started in XiaGuan.
Cycling from XiaGuan to Dali on Road#221 I stayed on the cycle part which is separated by the car part by a crash-barrier. This might save you from cars but on the other side there is a several meter straight drop into the paddy fields. Near Dali that track was suddenly blocked by two truck-loads of fresh dung blocking the way so a proper cycling track into Dali would be great.