The Daily News

We subscribe to the local English newspaper here in Shanghai. Despite being filtered, it provides the basic going ons around China and the world. However, after being here a year now we’ve noticed one very significant difference in the paper service here versus the U.S. (in addition to the ads for “Happy Ending Massages”) … collections.

Just like in the U.S. you prepay for a given subscription length - 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. However, not like in the U.S., when your subscription runs out … no more paper. No pre-warning, no friendly note from the delivery man, no pre-emptive phone call … no more paper. This is bad in that it takes at least a week and 3 phone calls to the “sales office,” which apparently only has sales people that speak Chinese (funny, for an English newspaper), before the paper gets delivered again.

However, this can be a good thing because you can actually stop the paper service whenever your subscription runs out. This is certainly better than the U.S. where you can decide you don’t what the paper anymore yet it still gets delivered for the next three years … at which point you receive a bill for $7,000.