This morning, Dan and I decided to simply present ourselves at the Shanghai Gongshang Xingzheng Guanliju, who deal with the content for outdoor advertising on screens such as those at Wujiaochang, and see what happens. We weren’t expecting too much, given how they’d responded to our requests so far. But sometimes it is a good strategy to play dumb foreigner and just walk straight past all the “no entry” signs etc and see what happens. And I am amazed to say that this time it worked.

When we arrived at the building, armed with our passports and identity documents just in case we needed those to even get into the building, we asked to two rather gruff men in uniforms for the media office (who Dan had dealt with on the phone before). They sent us up some stairs to the 3^rd floor. This was a mistake, but one that I think worked for us. Once up there, we couldn’t find any sign of the office. So, we asked some people, and soon a rather flustered young woman showed us into a “VIP room” and asked us to wait there while she got someone from the media office. The VIP room was a bit like the sort of space you see Chinese leaders welcome foreign leaders in. It was all golden yellow (the colour exclusively used by Emperors in China before), with 6 very large armchairs organized in a sort of U shape. It was for me as primary guest to sit in one of in the base of the U, and for any host who materialized to sit in the other one. Both of those chairs have their backs to the wall, to protect us from attack from behind (!)

A couple of women in uniform appeared. Once they realized who we were, they were not very impressed, as they clearly had thought it was someone important. One of them was the person Dan had been dealing with on the phone, and who had always been in a hurry to put the phone down on her. Throughout what happened next, she kept asking why Dan hadn’t phoned to say we were coming. Of course, the implication was that if we had done so, she would have told us no one was available. Anyway, we made various excuses (my departure so soon after the public holiday etc), and in the end they got us Mr. Ying Jun (应钧),a vice-Section Head, to come and meet us. We only had a few fairly straightforward questions, which he gave official answers to, all of them quite hard for me to understand because he used specialized bureaucratic language, and also because I was a bit nervous. We recorded the interview (and I noticed that he appeared to be using his mobile phone to do the same thing!), so I hope that Dan’s transcription will help me to understand more.

Basically, I understood him to tell us that most of the people they deal with arrive quite well-briefed and knowing what to do, because they have already dealt with the Urban Beautification Offices at the local council level before they arrive at this City-level office. In other words, they are stage 2 in the process for an applicant. (Dan comments: I think he pretended not to understand your question purposely. Not because your expression isn’t clear enough. He played dumb too. I don’t know why he refused to tell us if all applicants are well-briefed. According to my experience of dealing with other bureaucracy, they’re indifferent and gruff. You have to come again and again to understand their rules of game. They should have got tons of complaints on their complicated procedures.)

I asked about the levels of compliance with regulations and undertaking processes of application, especially for small shops and so on, who might simply have a “walking word” screen, the content of which changes daily. I’m not 100% confident that I understood his reply. But I think he said that if those “walking word” screens were simply informing people of the nature of the business, then it was not really necessary for his office to deal with them, but that in theory any commercial content intended to promote sales did come under their remit. (Dan explains further: He meant that if you use the screen itself to make profit, like rent the screen out to a media company to broadcast other information than promote your own business. You need to apply to their department.) They had not done any actual research into levels of compliance, but they were aware that obviously not everyone gets permission right away. Inspections and checking out what is happening in the field is delegated down to local level offices, and is not something his office deals with directly.

We also had a bit of a discussion about non-advertising content. For example, what if you intended to use a screen to put up an artwork? In principle, all non-advertising content would need to go to be approved by the local level Cultural Bureau. Certainly, you can’t just go putting things up in public without permission. (In reality, people do stick phone numbers for various dubious services all over the place, and the local city government tears them down, but obviously, an LED screen would be harder to use without the city government noticing!). (Dan adds: He says that Zhongguo Guangdian Ju (broadcast and TV and Movie administration) is in charge of non-commercial art-works. Actually my friend told me, usually if your work is not ad, you just need to talk to the owner of the Screen to get their permission. My friend in Beijing Film Academy is doing research on installation art-works in public space. He might know more about that. I’ll check with him later.)

Dan asked about ads that were nationally produced. Before those are shown on a local LED screen, do they need local level approval? My understanding is that just so long as they are nationally approved already, then there is no need for that. (Dan adds: He says that all TV or Movie ads are no need to get approved before they were shown. If anything goes wrong, Gongshang Ju might punish them. Only ad in public space, especially two dimensional ads, need to be approved before put it on. That’s my understanding.)

After this huge achievement, we had lunch and then went book shopping, and also made some progress there. The heat was ghastly. There were huge crowds on Fuzhou Road, where the bookstores are, because there is also a famous producer of the hockey-puck-sized “mooncakes” everyone is supposed to give on Mid-Autumn festival tomorrow. In the evening, met with Tani Barlow of the journal Positions, who would like me to submit an article on the Shanghai side of our project. Given that they are one of the most prestigious Asian Cultural Studies journals, this is a good opportunity I must try to take up.

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