Today my little girl Elaine turned 3 years old and yesterday we organized a party for her at home. 17 of her little friends came to visit, most with their parents and/or nannies, so it was pretty busy in our house.

Luckily the rain stopped on time, so the kids could play in the garden as well. The trampoline we bought for the kids was a huge success, some of them did not want to get off it anymore after they started bouncing up and down.

Because it was not so warm we decided to leave the kids pool empty. That was probably a good idea, the kids still loved to play in it. At a certain point I realized Scott had found the water hose and had even managed to turn it on, but I stopped him in time before he could start filling up the kids pool (full of kids at that time of course).

Inside the kids could play in the living room or in Scott and Elaine’s play room, and within minutes the house was a huge mess. But that didn’t matter, the kids had fun and that’s what counts.

Grace had arranged a clown who doubled as magician and who performed a magic show for the kids. He managed to keep their attention for the full 15 minutes of his show (not an easy feat with 3-year olds), so I guess he did a good job. He also made all kinds of things (animals, swords etc.) out of balloons for Elaine and her friends, so they all loved him.

We also hired an artist that made birds and other small animals out of brightly colored clay, he was really talented and I enjoyed watching him.

We had ordered a catering service for food, and they prepared among others french fries, shrimp pop corn, chicken nuggets, nachos and garlic bread. Of course the kids liked it, but the parents seemed to eat even more of it (including myself of course).

And then there were the birthday cakes of course – 2 cakes, because with so many people 1 cake is not enough. Elaine had chosen them herself, so of course both of them were pink. I had too many snack already so I did not eat a lot of cake anymore.

After the cake it was time for the Hello Kitty piñata, filled with tons of candy. It took the kids quite a while to break if, but with a bit of help of the clown eventually the piñata opened and all the candy fell onto the floor. Scott managed to get a lot of candy: being one year older than most of the others he put all the candy he collected immediately into his pockets instead of just trying to keep it in his hands.

After about 2 hours most of the kids were quite tired and the party was over. We took pictures of Elaine with all her guests and then it was time for a huge clean up at home. Elaine and Scott had a great time, and I also enjoyed talking to many of the kids fathers. Interesting is that one of them asked me what my background was, and when I told him he suddenly realized he had chosen the school (Soong Ching Ling) after among others reading about it on my blog (but he had no idea I was the one writing this blog). Always nice to meet people that read my blog, especially if I meet them for the first time.

More pictures of Elaine’s 3rd birthday party here in a set on Flickr.

China is never a boring country in terms of news. But I have the feeling that right now a lot more things are happening concurrently than ever before during the past 12+ years that I have lived here. It’s a bit scary to observe this trend, especially because some of it may also affect me and my family.

Maybe this trend is due to social media, so that a lot more news comes out that the government could still keep under cover a few years ago. For example, most of the recent food scandals would have never reached the general public in pre-Internet times. Things have gotten so bad that we hardly buy any Chinese food products anymore, and we now even started making our own yoghurt…

Politically times are very turbulent as well, not only internally (with the arrest of Bo Xilai and the party trying to keep the army loyal) but also externally (tensions between China and The Philippines). And last week, for the first time in 13 years, a foreign journalist was kicked out of China.

On top of that the anti-foreigner sentiment is on the rise once again. Over the years I have seen a few instances in which it was safer to avoid certain places for foreigners (the Hainan spy plane incident, anti-French tensions, the attacks on Japanese people and property (twice!)). But what’s happening now seems to target a much broader range of foreigners. Likely the government is just using it to direct attention away from the internal political problems and to make people more patriotic, but it’s scary to see what’s happening and how quickly social media can spread the moods of people.

Even big Chinese Internet companies like Baidu and Sina joined the party to crack down on ‘misbehaving foreigners’, according to an article in yesterday’s People’s Daily. And a well-known English speaking CCTV anchor put a tirade against foreigners on his Weibo, stirring up things even further.

A New York Times blog post gives a good overview of how the xenophobia started and about everything that happened over the past 10 days, give it a read if you want to understand what’s going on: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/sentiment-against-foreigners-flares-in-china/ Personally I am not too worried yet, but it’s important to keep an eye on what’s happening.

A couple of months ago I wrote an article on air pollution in Shanghai, and afterward I received quite some mails from people planning to move here who got worried about the air quality in Shanghai. At least one person told me he decided not to move to China, but I am sure that because of the air quality a lot more people already made that decision. And I personally know several people that left Shanghai because of the air quality – and like I said in the article, I will probably also not stay here for years anymore, especially because of the pollution.

When I wrote the post there were no official 2.5PM measurements available yet, but not the US Consulate started broadcasting them on Twitter (just like they already do this in Beijing). After last night’s rain and seemingly pretty clean air today (it even rains a bit right now), I was shocked to see that even on a day like this the air quality is unhealthy. The pictures with this post were taken just now on the roof of unitedstyles, often the view is much less clear.

The air quality measurement device is located on Huaihai Lu in downtown Shanghai, so the air there is likely more polluted than in the suburbs, but it’s scary anyway. Of course I immediately started following the pollution levels on Twitter, you can follow them here as well.

After our trip to Hong Kong Disneyland a few weeks ago, the kids keep on singing It’s A Small World. They have a video on their iPads that we shot inside the It’s A Small World ride, and they watch that video often while singing along to the tunes of the song. When they sing it I regularly muse about this world being really small – or that my network is really big? – because everywhere I go I meet people that I already know. Last night was a good example.

I organized a small bbq party and had among others invited Nicky Koopman to join. Nicky works for Dutch media company Talpa and is in town for the pre-production of TV program The Voice. I had not met her in person yet, but we had been in touch over email over the past weeks because of my experiences in the Chinese media industry. So we had a few glasses of good wine – among others an 18-year old Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon (thanks to serial fashion entrepreneur Jeff Clark!). and then we talked a bit about mutual friends. It turned out we indeed had a couple of them, not unusual if you are both Dutch and work in media.

She then asked me if I knew a certain person, and I told her yes, this person had even been to my wedding 7 years ago. She then looked at me and said: “But then I’ve likely been to your wedding as well!”. I had to think for a second and then I realized who she was. Friends of mine who were flying to my wedding had met her on the plane from Amsterdam to Beijing and told her they had a dinner party that night (for my wedding, which was to take place the next day) and had asked her to come along. So she sort of “wedding crashed” the party without really knowing who I was – and without me knowing anymore who she was. I only vaguely remembered that she was presenting a Dutch TV program at that time, and because there were probably about 150 other guests at the dinner I sort of forgot about it.

It’s quite a coincidence that you meet a person almost 7 years later, when you are both in very different roles and without realizing that you met before. If she had not asked me about the mutual acquaintance we may have never found out. Often serendipities occur because of the social media, but this time it was totally unrelated. It’s a small world!

A few weeks ago Joe Constanty restarted the successful NextStep Tuesday events and I agreed to speak at tonight’s one at Kartel in Shanghai. Topic will mainly be online fashion start-up unitedstyles.com (last time I spoke at NextStep I already talked about Tudou and Spil Games), but feel free to ask any other questions after the event.

NextStep starts at 7 PM and I will give a short talk at 7:30 PM. Free entrance & drinks are 50% off, so no reason not to come. See you there!

See also: http://nschina.tumblr.com/post/21322587084/nschina-on-tuesday-may-8th-we-will-host

Location:KARTEL
5/F, 1 Xiangyang Bei Lu, near Julu Lu, Shanghai
襄阳北路1号5楼, 巨鹿路

I am spending a few days on Koh Samui with my family, one of my favorite tropical islands. The place has everything: from unspoiled beaches and endless coconut plantations, to high-end dining and a good night life. Although I was here mainly for business related reasons I had a great time.

This morning I drove from our villa to the French bakery to buy a baguette for breakfast and then wanted to get gas, when I realized I did not bring enough cash. So I stopped at an ATM (every 7-11 and Family Mart has an ATM here, meaning that you are never more than a few hundred meters away from one) to get some more Thai Baht. In Thailand you normally first get your receipt, then your money and only then your bank card. Not smart, because people may forget their cards after taking their money, but that’s a different story.

Anyway, I got my receipt and money and was waiting for my card to come out. After waiting for about 10 seconds the card still did not come out, and I got a bit worried that my card may have been lost. But that was not the case, because when I looked at the ATM screen I saw and ad with the question whether I liked the advertising or not. Only after clicking that I would get my card back!

I have seen a lot of ATMs all over the world, and many of them have advertising on it. Either before you start, during the transaction or you get your money. But this is the first time that I was asked to let the bank know whether I liked the ad before getting back my card! An innovative idea, but I hope China won’t start copying this.

Early this morning I was doing my emails in my study, when I suddenly heard my wife arguing with someone downstairs. The arguing got louder and louder and I heard one of the nannies scream at Grace. I had no idea what was going on, and because the kids were also downstairs I walked down to see what was happening.

It seemed that Grace was extremely angry, and I heard something about medicine but could not really figure out what the whole thing was about. The kids pretended they did not hear anything and talked to me as if nobody else was in the room (“Good morning daddy, shall we play?”), but I thought it was better for them to play in a different room because the situation looked like it would escalate.

So I put the kids in the play room and then Grace’s mother (who is visiting) came in to tell me that Scott’s nanny had given him 10 times too much medicine! I understood that that may be a life threatening mistake and that Grace had every right to be angry. Grace then fired the nanny on the spot, which I found a bit harsh, upon which the nanny threatened to call the police. When Grace said that was fine she (of course) did not call the cops and after some more arguing about how much money we owed her (and being paid) she left to pack her belongings.

Then I heard the whole story, which was even worse than I had expected. Scott had been sick with high fever over the past days, so he went to see a doctor on Monday. Turns out he had a throat infection. Nothing too bad, he had it a few months before as well (pollution related? I hope not) and we still had the medicine left at home for him in a bottle. He was supposed to get 4 ml once or twice a day. At night Grace noticed that the bottle was almost empty, which surprised her because she thought the bottle had still been half full.

So she asked the nanny whether she had given Scott too much medicine. She said that that was not the case and that she had given Scott the amount that Grace’ father had told her to give to Scott. Grace asked how much that was and she told Grace to ask her father. So she did and he confirmed 4 ml per time. Then the nanny said that she indeed had given Scott 4 ml but that she had given him twice 4 ml. Grace showed her how much 4 ml is and she said that that is how much Scott got. Strange of course, but it could be that there had been less medicine left in the bottle than we thought.

But this morning the nanny went to Grace’ parents and told them that she had not slept the whole night and confessed she had given Scott 40 ml instead of 4 ml. Grace parents then told this to Grace right away, and then she got really upset with the nanny. Not only because the nanny had made a huge mistake, but especially because she had tried to cover it up and put Scott in potentially serious danger. Had she told Grace right away she would not have been fired, but by trying to cover it up there was no other choice than to fire her. So she left, and as we found out a few minutes later, she had stolen a few hundred RMB as well right before she walked out of the house.

We then immediately got in touch with the doctor. She told us that it was too late to do anything, had we come to her yesterday they would have emptied Scott’s stomach, but now the medicine was in his system already. There is not much we can do except giving him as much to drink as possible so he can go to the toilet. He may have stomach ache and may have to vomit (which he did actually). For now Scott seems to be okay, he was laying on the couch playing a bit with the cushions and told me he had a headache, but there did not seem to be anything seriously wrong with him. Likely things will be fine as long as Scott keeps on drinking. If he does not he will have to get an IV drip in the hospital to stay hydrated.

What happened today was a major scare for us, and not the first one we had with nannies: I could write a book about all the things we have experienced so far with domestic staff. From now on we will give the kids their medicine ourselves, it seems you can’t trust nannies to do this anymore. We have to go to Singapore tonight but of course will only go if Scott is really fine over the next couple of hours.

I was in Beijing today for a few meetings and just like last time the weather in the capital city was awful. It was supposed to be sunny and warm, but instead a thick layer of smog covered the city and kept the temperature much lower than it should have been. I felt the smoky air in my throat as we crossed the city from meeting to meeting, and my colleagues had the same (one even bought a face mask). I still love Beijing, but there is no way anybody can get me to live there anymore. It’s just not healthy and I have the feeling it’s only getting worse each time I go there.

So I was glad I could leave the city at night again, this time by train. Yesterday I flew in because I could not catch the last train anymore, but today I decided to book a sleeper seat on the fast train back to Shanghai. It was a good choice, traveling by train is so much more relaxing than traveling by plane. First of all you can arrive at the train station until a few minutes before departure (try that at the airport!), but you also don’t have the hassle of checking in bags or the annoying security checks.

The trip is much longer (5h22m for my train, it made quite some stops, there are faster trains on this route vs. about 2 hours for the BJ-SH flight), but you save at least 1-1.5 hours with all the airport formalities and the fact that Beijing airport is farther away from the city (of course depending on where your meetings are at). But the best thing is that you can keep on working on the train, during most of the ride there is a great 3G signal (much better than a few months ago, when half the trip I could not go online) and also your phone works during the whole trip.

The seats are superior to the seats on most airplanes and much cheaper than first or even biz class seats on an airplane (RMB 1750 for a one-way trip on sleeper seats). The air on board is obviously much better than on an airplane because cabins aren’t pressurized, and because the train stops every 45 minutes you can step out several times during the trip if you would like to. Just don’t step out too long, normally the train seems to stop for less than a minute!

Food is just as bad as on a plane, but the good thing is that it’s easier to bring your own food and drinks. This time I bought some snacks from Burger King at the train station and only ate a small part of the dinner that the staff served me. I didn’t bring drinks but had a beer: a Tibetan beer called “Green Barley”. I had never heard of this beer before. It was drinkable, but next time I’ll bring my own Tsingtao.

Interesting is that during most of the ride I was the only passenger in the sleeper compartment, only during the first hour (between Beijing and Jinan) there were a few other passengers. After that silence. Except for the 4-5 times when passenger that booked tickets in other classes sneaked in and sat down, only to be kicked out again within a few minutes by the well-trained female train attendants. Some tried to bribe them (didn’t work), one got angry (a foreign business man that thought he had booked the most expensive seats but ended up in first class seats instead), and 3 guys who were just plain drunk and walked out the moment the attendant told them to go.

I enjoyed the train ride and although the trip is longer than the flight I feel like it was a much shorter trip. I highly recommend taking a train to anybody traveling in China, especially during day time when  you can see a bit of the China’s countryside as well.

Unitedstyles is still a very lean organization (14 full-time employees), but we now decided that we need to hire an additional senior IT person in our Shanghai office. We put the profile on a few career sites today, so of course I also put it on my blog. Please forward to anybody that would be a fit for this position!

IT operations and development manager

About us

Unitedstyles has developed a fashion customization platform on unitedstyles.com and also in an iframe on other websites. Users can design, share and buy their own creations, soon they should be able to sell using our affiliate system. Unitedstyles is based in Shanghai and was a finalist at Techcrunch Beijing 2011.

Job description

You should have experience managing servers with over 50,000 visitors both in and outside china. Proficiency in CSS and Javascript is a plus. You should appreciate the details that make a front-end user experience memorable, and demonstrate enthusiasm for efficient server implementation. Besides that, enthusiasm to use technology to improve our backend processes.

Fundamentals
• Experienced with Linux/Unix/BSD in CDN. Database management in MySQL.
• Architecting MySQL databases a plus.
• Stability of website and scaling of website.
•  Security of webshops is a plus.
•  PHP and javascript expert.
• Ability to work proactively.
•  A desire to improve yourself as an engineer.
• Should be able to speak both Chinese and English

Salary
Depending on experience, up to RMB 15,000/month (gross salary)

Education
BA/BS degree in Math or Computer Science a plus.

Contact
Email: joop@unitedstyles.com

This morning I went through my email and saw a mail from Chinese social network P1.cn. I decided a long time ago not to become a member of the site, so I almost deleted the mail. But then the title ‘your recommendation letter’ intrigued me, so I took a quick peek at the spam they were mailing. Turns out that the site is sending out recommendation letters to prospective members, probably to convince these people to sign up. Fine, except for the fact that this was a recommendation that was supposed to come from me!!!

I don’t know what happened, but I know I am not a member of P1 and I certainly don’t recommend the site to others. It looks like they are just using my name and send out a mass mail with my name on it, so people may think I recommend the site? But then they made the mistake to also send it to me… Not very smart guys!

I assume P1.cn is not doing very well that they need to use this kind of tactics. I will check with P1 about what they are doing and why they are using my name for this. I have at least 2 of their board members in my network, Net Jacobsson and Curt Shi, I hope they can tell me in the comments or in an email what’s going on and why P1 is using this kind of spam mail?

Every year Carrefour organizes 2 wine fairs at its Shanghai stores, and right now the Spring 2012 wine fair is going on. I missed the opening night (with special discounts), but tonight both nannies are back so Grace and I could drive over to taste and buy some wines.

As regular readers may know I buy the majority of my day-to-day wines at Carrefour and normally most of them at their wine fairs (the high end wines I normally buy overseas, I always bring wine back with me when traveling). Wine is China is quite expensive and at these bi-annual events you at least pay a bit more reasonable price for decent wines. And you can taste them!

Tonight I drove myself, so I could not taste many wines (you can’t spit out the wine like at a normal wine tasting), but I bought quite a few. Well, that’s probably an understatement. It was not very busy at the store at 10 PM on a Sunday night and I was by far the best customer. One of the sales persons walked with us and even offered to push the shopping cart that was completely filled with bottles within 30 minutes (I decided to push it myself). He was a good sales man and we bought tons of nice wines, among others a case of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough and some very nice Cabernet Sauvignons.

But he made one mistake. The guy was French and he had no idea that I spoke French as well. He had told me about a Gewurztraminer Grand Cru that he wanted me to try. Gewurztraminer used to be my favorite wine (which he did not know) and I still like to drink a nice bottle of the Alsace white wine. So he took us to the seller of the wine, but they had no open bottles. Instead of convincing him to open one for me, he talked to him in French and told him not to open one! Maybe he thought I would buy anyway, or maybe he wanted me to buy other more expensive wines, but the result was that I could not try the Grand Cru AND (worse for him!) that I had overheard and understood most of their conversation.

So after he told me that they could not open a bottle I told him “C’est dommage” (“That’s a pity” in French), because I could have bought a case. He realized I had understood what they said, so he immediately apologized and said he would talk to him again. But now it was too late for me of course, so I told him I didn’t want to try the wine anymore and wanted to pay for the wines I had already bought.

At the check-out he tried again to convince me try the Grand Cru and he even said he would pay for the bottle himself (!). I have my principles, so I thanked him for his help and shook his hand. He then continued telling me that the wine fair would last until Wednesday and that I could come back at any time and try the Grand Cru. He said: “You will regret it if you don’t try it”, to which I almost wanted to reply that he was probably the one who should regret something. Two of my main sales business rules were both broken: “Your customer is always number 1″ and “Never underestimate your customer”.

Anyway, I have enough stock for the next couple of months again. If you live in Shanghai and like wines, make sure you check out the wine fair in the basement of the Gubei Carrefour, it’s open until Wednesday midnight. If you just want to taste wines that’s fine as well, there were a few very red faced people sitting at the tasting counters tonight. Cheers!

Yesterday morning we decided to drive to the Shanghai Circuit to check out the first free practice sessions of the Formula One and of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia. Scott loves Formula One and he went to the circuit with us last year as well, but Elaine had never been here (she is just 2 years old), so we decided to take her as well. Joop Dorresteijn and Suna also joined us, especially to watch our unitedstyles colleague Alexandre Imperatori and our friend Ho-Pin Tung race in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia.

We left by 9:15 AM and arrived at the circuit at 10 AM. Our driver is a good friend of the driver of F1 driver Felipe Massa, so he arranged for us to be picked up and be driven to the entrance of the circuit in Massa’s Maserati Quattroporte. A beautiful car! In China I don’t want to have a fancy car, but should I ever live outside China I could imagine buying this car. Scott also loves the Maserati, and of course his input is also important for car buying decisions these days!

At the circuit we found some seats on the Grand Stand right at the start and finish line, so we had a good view of the pit lane and all the activity going on there. I love the sound of the F1 cars, and even during the free practice it’s important to wear ear protection. Elaine was less impressed and even Scott found it quite loud (despite wearing ear plugs and noise canceling Bose headphones).

At a certain point Elaine even wanted to go home because of all the loud noise, so we walked out to the backside of the Grand Stand where the noise level was a lot less. Elaine also kept on asking where Alexandre and Ho-Pin were, she knows both drivers well and she doesn’t know the difference between F1 and Porsche yet.

After the free practice of F1 was over the Porsche cars got ready for their free training session. Ho-Pin had told my wife through Weibo that they would put their cars at the Red Bull pit box, so after grabbing a cup of coffee at Costa Coffee (without the Costa because of the strict F1 regulations on advertising…) we moved to a place in front of Red Bull F1 where they would put there cars.

It’s a real coincidence that Ho-Pin and Alex both race for the same team in the same class now. I have known Ho-Pin for 9 years now (since I produced a TV program in the UK in which he featured) and have followed his career closely over the years. I have only known Alex for about 2 years, but I see him much more often because he lives down the road from me and he has been working for unitedstyles.com for the past couple of months (he studied Computer Science and among others programmed our iPad app).

The kids were very excited to see Alex and Ho-Pin, especially when they waved at us before the the practice started. I had shown Scott pictures of their cars in advance, so he knew exactly which car was Alex’s and which belonged to Ho-Pin. At the start oft he practice Ho-Pin started quite soon, but Alex waited a bit to save his tires. Once he started he picked up the pace quite quickly and managed to drive a 3rd time in the first practice and a 1st one (and therefore pole position) in the second practice. Ho-Pin was new to this class and was a bit slower, bit still managed to set a good time. He spinned once, which was a bit scary, but he managed to avoid the wall and could continue the practice.

Foto: G. Kremer / Twitter: @mgk54 – all rights reserved

Scott and Elaine later told me that they liked the Porsche Carrera Cup much better because it was less loud. Of course the cars are a bit slower, but they don’t really realize that. For them the whole experience of fast cars, big screens and lots of cheering people is what counts.

Foto: G. Kremer / Twitter: @mgk54 – all rights reserved

After the practice was over we looked at some Mercedes-Benz cars (Scott loved the red SLS!) and at the Porsches (Scott liked the Carrera better than the Boxster because it has back seats, but would prefer met to buy a Panamera or a Cayenne – who knows…). After that we met up with Ho-Pin Tung and Alexandre Imperatori for a quick chat. The kids were very happy and we took some pictures with them. Interesting is that one of Ho-Pins fans was there and she came to me and gave me a picture of Scott and me. It took me a few seconds to realize that she took it last year at the race track, and that she had decided to bring it to this race because she thought she might see me here!

After wishing the 2 drivers good luck we decided to go back to Shanghai to do some work. Elaine fell asleep straight away in the car, but Scott was so excited that he stayed awake the whole ride and did not even take a nap later in the afternoon. At night he wanted to watch the movie Cars again because he liked the racing cars so much. I had a great time and my family as well!

It’s Friday night and I am sitting in my favorite seat (1st row on the upper deck) of a KLM B747 flying back to Shanghai after a short trip to The Netherlands. I am trying to keep my trips as short as possible these days because I want to spend more time in the office and with my family, but that makes the trips a bit harder than when I would add in another day or 2. But at least the trip was quite successful and I got tons of stuff done. The only real downside (next to not getting enough sleep): there are 827 mails waiting to be read, and hopefully not to be replied, in my inbox.

I arrived in Holland on Tuesday night after a good flight. Also on that flight I had the same seat (72K) on the upper deck, and the person next to me (who turned out to be a friend of a friend, small world) moved to a different seat after take off because the business class was less than half full. So I had tons of space to work, among others on email and on a presentation. My parents were on the same plane from Shanghai, so I went to talk to them a couple of times during the 12 hour flight.

We had a bit of a delay (30 minutes) upon arrival so I said goodbye to my parents in the arrivals hall (I only had hand luggage) and went off to my first meeting of the evening. I drank a lot of coffee on the plane in the 2 hours before arrival, so felt quite awake despite the long flight and minor jet lag. After an interesting second meeting I was in bed by 10:30 PM and asleep within a minute. I put my alarm at 4 AM to work and felt refreshed and ready for a new day when the alarm went off.

I worked for a few hours in my room and then checked out at 7:30 AM, grabbed a sandwich in a coffee bar and took a train to the Mediapark in Hilversum for an interview and photo session with Quote magazine. The photo session was in a bar on the Mediapark (Bar Boon), and because the photographer set up a complete set several people who walked by stopped to take a look. The interview went well, among others we talked about marathon running (interviewer Jordy Hubers also plans to run the New York Marathon) and how to avoid injuries. I explained my theory that many injuries are caused by sports shoes, and that running barefoot -or at least in Vibram FiveFingers- is a good way to avoid them. People ran without shoes for tens of thousands of years without any problems, and then suddenly Nike came up 40 years ago with special running shoes with more rubber to ‘protect’ you feet and legs. IMHO the effect is the opposite, because your body now gets the wrong signals and that’s how for some people injuries start. But I digress…

After the interview I went to visit broadcaster RTL to talk about my vision for the future of TV and what a company like RTL could do to be prepared for these changes. I enjoyed to exchange my thoughts with this group of RTL executives and to hear what they are doing and planning to do. After the session I had a quick lunch with my niece Ingrid, who is in charge of the RTL 365 iPad app, at the RTL restaurant before taking a taxi to Spil Games.

I had not been to Spil Games in a few months and the company keeps on growing. The company keeps on expanding its office but growth in staff seems to outpace the office size. Spil Games will therefore now set up its own campus in Hilversum, and Peter Driessen showed me the area and buildings that will be transformed first. A pretty cool plan, and something quite unique for Holland: the campus will not only have offices, but also a restaurant, sports and recreation areas and even apartments for some of the staff. This really sets Spil Games (now already by far the biggest Dutch Internet company) apart and will make it an even more preferred employer for Dutch and foreign staff.

After a couple of meetings at Spil Games I walked to the train station to take the train to Den Bosch. At the station I literally missed the train by 10 seconds because I had not set my watch correctly on the plane to Amsterdam (I think that the time on the in-flight system was a few minutes off…). So I just sat down with my laptop and worked on mails for 30 minutes until the next train would come. The ride to Den Bosch was fine and a taxi picked me up from the station to drive me to a hotel in downtown Den Bosch. I quickly freshened up and then went to the hotel bar for a drink with some of the speakers of the IMAGINE 2012 conference that would take place the next day.

After drinks we had dinner in a nice Italian restaurant in the city center together with some of the board members of Ricoh (Ricoh organized the conference). I sat opposite the person in charge of social media at KLM, which was interesting because I had my share of issues (both good and bad) with KLM and its social media staff over the past couple of years. He told me that his staff had prepared him, and among others had sent him a link to an interview that I did with a Dutch newspaper several years ago when KLM social media policy was still in its infancy (it turned out that KLM did not even own its Twitter name at that time!). It also turned out that we both studied in Maastricht and that we have several mutual friends. Small world once again.

After a short sleep (I set my alarm for 4 AM again to go for a pre-dawn run and to work) we left for the conference venue at 7:15 AM for breakfast and a sound check. The IMAGINE2012 conference started at 9 AM and after the opening by the Ricoh CEO I was the first speaker. My topic was “Creative and Sustainable Entrepreneurship” where I among others discussed how we implement this with unitedstyles: always putting the customer central, using green production technologies and having a very efficient piece-by-piece production system. After me EU commissioner Neelie Kroes was supposed to give a speech, but she could not make it to Den Bosch so she did it through a video. Next up was Nalden, who is a relatively famous blogger and who also founded wetransfer.com. During dinner the night before we discussed whether he was not afraid to have the same fate as MegaUpload’s Kim Dot Com, but he was pretty relaxed about it. He is a pretty cool guy with a good vision on technology and future trends.

I watched a couple of other talks as well, but also had some interviews to do and had set up meetings at the conference venue, so could not see all of the presentations. (For a compilation video of the event, see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO6fMakls78&feature=youtu.be – I’m also in the video). Late afternoon I went back to my hotel to do some work and grab a quick dinner. After another short sleep I left the hotel Friday morning at 7 AM to take a train to Amsterdam for an 8:15 AM meeting with the team of Dutch start-up PeerReach (I am an advisor to the company). They will officially launch over the next couple of weeks, it’s a cool concept and I expect a lot from them.

At 9:15 I was at BNR Nieuws Radio for a live radio interview. At 45 minutes probably the longest live interview I did so far. It was fun to do, the interview started off by discussing the main news of the day (among others the new amnesty law in Surinam, Dutch politics and soccer related news) before talking about business career so far, my investment strategy and a part about unitedstyles and its business model.

After the interview I had to go straight away into a meeting with an investor in unitedstyles, who I so far had not met in real life. We sat on the terrace of Cafe Dauphine, next to BNR, having a coffee. The weather was very nice, sunny and not too warm. As usual I saw a couple of other people there that I know, it still seems to be the place to be for people involved in start-ups in Amsterdam. My next meeting was with the CEO of Dutch media company (that I won’t name here) to discuss a potential cooperation with unitedstyles. And then it was off to the Hilton for a drink and (very) late lunch with a private banking/family office friend of mine. We enjoyed a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc and a nice Salmon Club Sandwich while discussing the latest in business and private life.

An hour later I was at the airport and not long after that on board the flight back home. I met a business friend on board, he was sitting 2 rows behind me. On almost every flight to and from Holland I now meet people that I know – or sometimes who I don’t know, but who come to me saying they read this blog! It was a great trip with good results, but it was quite exhausting so I am happy it is over.

Last weekend we took the kids to Hong Kong to visit Disneyland. I had not been to HK Disney in almost 7 years, we visited the park at the end of our Honeymoon trip back in Sept/Oct. 2005. Since then HK Disney has gotten a bit bigger, but it is still small compared to for example Disney World in Orlando.

We left Shanghai on Friday morning and took China Eastern for the 2 hour flight. Despite just flying economy on this trip they treated us well (Grace and I both have platinum cards for Skyteam): we could go into the first class lounge with the whole family and a small bus took us from there directly to the plane. The airplane itself was quite old (no video entertainment in the seat for example), but Scott did not mind: he has a theory that older planes are better, because they shake less during the flight! For some reason he remembers a lot of his flights and he can still tell me during which flights we had turbulence. Well, he was lucky because there was hardly any turbulence both on the way to and from HK this time, so according to him his theory was correct.

In Hong Kong we took 2 taxis to the Disneyland Resort (my parents also joined us on this trip), just a 20 minute drive from HK airport. We had a quick meal in the hotel and then took a taxi to HK Island. We could have taken the metro, but the taxi is at least as fast and much more comfortable with kids. We then took the Peak Tram to the Peak, the top of the mountain high above Central Hong Kong. It’s one of my favorite places to go for a run, but this time we just did some sightseeing with the family. We enjoyed the view, had some ice cream and walked the road around the Peak itself (about 3 km).

One of my friends recently moved to the Peak, so I looked at some of the real estate prices. They are totally nuts, there are apartments for tens of millions of dollars listed here (big apartments, but nothing that justifies such a price IMHO) and one listing had a price of over USD 100 million… I guess the latter one just wants to rent out the place or the listing was a mistake, because I can’t imagine anybody paying such a huge amount of money for an apartment.

Anyway, after the Peak my parents took the kids back to the hotel and Grace and I walked to the Mandarin Oriental for a casual business meeting. After the meeting we took a taxi back to the hotel around 10 PM. I had a glass of wine with my parents on their balcony overlooking the South China Sea and then ordered a late night Chef Salad while almost falling asleep over my plate. I realized I was exhausted and was in bed before midnight.

The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel and then took the shuttle bus to Disneyland (later I found out you can also walk, it’s less than 15 min). The kids were very excited, especially after having seen some of the Disney characters during breakfast already. Although it was a Saturday it was relatively quiet in the park, the main reason being that it was a working weekend in China, so there were not a lot of “Mainlanders” (as they are called in HK) visiting.

We first walked to the castle where Elaine took pictures with a few princesses – for some reason she knew exactly who they were, but I had no clue. I wonder where she picked up that information. Then Scott wanted to go into the Merry-Go-Round, so I stood in line with him (less than 10 min). He loved it so much, I really believe simple attractions are just as fun for kids as more elaborate ones.

The next stop was a Jungle Cruise, which I loved but which was too scary for Elaine. She was almost crying because she was so afraid during the boat ride. You can really see that Scott is a bit older now, he was also a bit afraid but still enjoyed the ride.

Next up was Toy Story Land where the kids took some pictures with the Toy Story figures and where we looked at some of the atractions. It was quite warm (about 25 Celsius), so we went for a drink and some food afterward.

The kids were not very hungry and during lunch Scott announced that he wanted to go into the Merry-Go-Round again. My dad quickly finished his food and took Scott there. I took some pictures, Scott was extremely happy to be going round and round on a horse again. After that Scott saw the Dumbo flying elephant attraction and he asked me to go with him. Here the line was a bit longer and we had to wait about 20 minutes before we got in. Once again Scott loved it, he literally had the time of his life. Too bad it was quite busy, otherwise we could have gone again.

Grace then mentioned that to me that the park could potentially make a lot more money if they would sell tickets that would allow you to go into attractions without waiting. I told her that it was unlikely that a US company like Disney would do this. This might be accepted in Asia, but not by Americans. But I was wrong: after doing a bit of research I found out that you can buy tickets for about USD 500-600 per day that let you board all attractions without waiting, and which is valid for a small group. It was not very busy in the park, so it was no big deal, but this may be something to buy when we should come back in the future. Now we did not do certain rides because the lines were 30-60 minutes and to get a fast track pass is a hassle (you have to come back at the right time).

We did a few more rides, incl. Space Mountain (just my dad and I – a great roller coaster ride in the dark), and then watched the daily parade. When that was finished we went back to the hotel for a drink and to relax in the pool before dinner. The hotel has a great slide in the outdoor pool, Scott loved riding it but Elaine was still too small to enjoy it.

Then we went for dinner, the hotel provides a very good buffet dinner. Really good quality (from lobster to mussels and from Indian curries to Japanese sashimi, plus of course tons of other foods) and with the entertainment of Mickey Mouse and his friends walking from table to table. Scott and Elaine were so happy and we took a lot of pictures of them with the characters.

After dinner I was very tired again and went to bed quite early. When I relax I need a lot more sleep than when I am working… On Sunday we again had a big breakfast, then packed our suitcases and went off to the park one more time. This time it was much more busy and we mainly walked around with the kids. Coincidentally we met Josie and her husband + 2 daughers (Josie is a good friend and a former INSEAD classmate of Grace) in the park as well, we had not seen them in a while.

Around 1 PM we walked back to the hotel and took taxis to the airport. We had lunch after check-in and immigration, and then walked to the gate, just in time to board the flight back. Again an old China Eastern plane, so again Scott was happy – and again no turbulence! We arrived in Shanghai around 6 PM where the driver was waiting to pick us up. We had a great weekend in Hong Kong, glad I took the time out of my schedule to do this.

Busy days are here again. That’s the main reason that I didn’t post anything here over the past 10 days or so. My day to day life is now mainly on Facebook, but even there I mainly post late at night or on weekends (my Twitter presence is getting less as well). I had forgotten how busy start-up life can be, especially when you are also talking to investors and still have some other obligations: investments in other companies/projects/real estate, mentor/advisor to several start-ups, media interviews etc. – plus a family… Even my runs are down to 1-2 per week right now, not good at all and something that will have to change very soon.

Last week Xander and I spent a few days in Silicon Valley again, mainly for talks with potential partners. Unitedstyles is actively partnering with fashion sites and communities and we were also selected by Silicon Valley Bank to present to a group of VCs at their SVB Showcase 2012 event.

A good trip, but flying half way around the world for 3 days is not the most healthy thing. For unitedstyles I normally fly cattle class again, meaning that I can’t really sleep (and hardly work because there are no power outlets in economy) on the long transpacific flights. So the 15-hour jet lag hits double hard. I only sleep about 4 hours per night on this kind of trips, which is enough to function normally for me but not enough to push myself to go for an early morning run. Luckily caffeine is readily available at every corner in the US!

I normally fly United from/to California, because that is the only airline with a direct connection from Shanghai to San Francisco. They have the daily UA858 PVG-SFO and UA857 SFO-PVG. Normally uneventful flights that seem to be on time most of the time. Airline staff is pretty strict and not overly friendly (they for example force you to watch the safety video if you sit in the first row, which I where I normally try to sit, even though I see these kind of airline videos about 100 times/year), but I have gotten used to that. I normally bring my own food (and from the US also my own drinks, in China you can’t board with liquids but in the US you still can…) and mostly avoid interaction with staff and other passengers. Flying is a necessity, not something you do for fun.

The only thing I notice is that the lavatories get extremely dirty towards the end of the flight. I had planned to write a post about this, because it seems to be much worse on this route than on other routes that I fly regularly. It probably has to do with the fact that there are only 4 or 5 toilets for the whole economy class, that the flight is normally almost fully booked and that it is quite long (up to 14 hours non-stop from San Francisco). On KLM flights I sometimes see that flight attendants clean the toilets during a long flight, on United I have never seen this (but maybe they do, I just didn’t notice it). Waste bins are so full that the paper is all over the ground, the toilet floor is often completely wet, there are marks from dirty shoes on the toilet seat etc. You probably catch my drift. On Friday the light in at least one the toilets did not work, so the others were even dirtier than usual. For this reason I try to avoid the toilets during the last part of the flight.

Well, so far I did not write about it, but the reason that I am doing this now is because of this article about a major UA857 delay that someone tweeted to me. It seems that the Shanghai bound UA857 had to land in Anchorage because of malfunctioning toilets. From there things got from bad to worse with planes breaking down and with most people being stranded for 2 days in Alaska before flying on to China (or before deciding to just fly back). These things happen, and although it’s horrible to be in the middle of it, it’s better to be on the ground (even if in Alaska) when there are problems than somewhere 33,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean.

But the ironic thing is that the lavatories were blamed in the article. The exact same lavatories that I try to avoid during the last part of all of these flights. Coincidence? Probably. But I would not be surprised if this same thing happens on more of their direct flights to and from China. Maybe simple instructions on how to use the toilet in Chinese may help (more than once I have seen people that could not figure how to open the lavatory doors!), or a quick clean up by flight attendants every 2 hours or so.

My next trip from Shanghai to San Francisco is in about 4 weeks. I don’t expect it, but I hope they will implement a few changes until then. Happy flying…

The price increase was literally off the chart on my iPhone Bloomberg app

Much has been written about the Tudou and Youku merger over the past 24 hours and I don’t want to add too much to that – but I of course want to record this on my blog!

Pre-trading the price was up over 200%

Personally I think the merger between the two giants of China online video is the best solution for both companies. The combination of Tudou and Youku will create a huge company that will dominate the market and that will likely have a lot of synergies. Markets also saw it that way, as my Tudou net worth tripled in pre-trading (later gains were down to ‘just’ 150%). Thanks to Gary and the board for negotiating this deal!

And if you want to have a laugh, read this Motley Fool post that told its readers to sell Tudou less than 2 weeks ago, perfect timing!

Price development during the first day, with a huge trading volume, and a price increase of 156%

Toasting a glass of champagne with my dad 

Just now I was checking my messages on Facebook and noticed that 2 “Marc van der Chijs” profiles popped up: My regular one and one for me as a ‘public figure’. I was surprised, not only because I don’t really think that I qualify as a public figure (not sure what definition Facebook uses for this?), but also because I was not aware of the page and of the fact that someone else can set this up for you.

Basically I now have 2 profiles on Facebook, one that’s my own and the new one that I don’t have have access to. I don’t understand how this works, therefore this post, maybe someone can help. Does this mean that the person who set it up (I wonder who did this?) is the only one that can add content to this page? If I can’t add or delete content I would rather not have this page. Or can I just link it to my main profile? I did a quick check online but could not find much about this. If you have any info please leave a comment or send me an email at marcvanderchijs (at) gmail (dot) com. Thanks!

For at least a couple of weeks (or maybe even months?) you would get an error message when leaving a comment on this blog. The comment would still be posted, but that was not clear to the person who wrote it. I did not know what the reason was and had planned to reinstall WordPress in order to solve it. But today unitedstyles CTO Joop Dorresteijn took a look at it and figured out (within 1 minute!) that it was caused by a malfunctioning WordPress plug-in. After deactivating it (30 seconds) the comments worked fine again. Sorry for the inconvenience if you left a comment and were wondering whether it had been lost in cyberspace.

I am writing this on Friday night while on a plane somewhere above the South China Sea, enjoying a double espresso and a Jack Daniel’s on my way back home after 2 excellent days at the inaugural DEMO Asia conference in Shanghai. To be honest, when I was invited I was not sure if I should accept the invitation. Work at unitedstyles.com is incredibly busy in the start-up phase and often conferences are a lot of fun but not very useful. But this conference exceeded all my expectations.

It was my second DEMO conference, after attending one in Silicon Valley last year (where I was invited through Seraph Group, the angel fund that I am part of). I wrote a blog post about that one, comparing the start-up conference to TechCrunch Disrupt. What I did not know at that time was that unitedstyles would go on to be one of the finalists at the next TC Disrupt (in Beijing) and that I would be invited to speak at the first DEMO conference in Singapore.

The Singapore conference was held in Biopolis, a new office/research area in Singapore close to the INSEAD campus. I knew the area from when Grace did the last 3 months of her MBA there back in 2003 (time flies…), but the place had changed completely. I had actually been in Fusionopolis (next to INSEAD) during my last trip to Singapore a few weeks ago, but I did not realize that there are more buildings like that around INSEAD. At Biopolis DEMO had 3 floors and an auditorium to its disposal, just enough to fit in all the 76 (!) start-ups from 14 countries (incl. Mongolia and Brunei – and probably some other exotic ones, but these two presented in a session that I commented on).

I flew into Singapore on Wednesday afternoon and was picked up by a Mercedes-Benz. Having a nice car to pick you up is a small thing, but to me it shows the organization pays attention to details, so I appreciate it. I stayed at the brand new Park Avenue Rochester, a good hotel in walking distance from Biopolis. I had a suite with a view of Biopolis on the hill opposite the hotel. More important, the wifi was very fast so I spent the first hour doing emails, chatting on Skype with unitedstyles colleagues and downloading some software. Then I went for a quick swim in the rooftop pool before taking a shuttle to Biopolis (I didn’t know walking would have been faster).

I shared the shuttle with Matt Marshall (the executive producer of DEMO and chief editor of Venturebeat, one of my daily must-read blogs) and Jeff Clavier (founder of SoftTechVC, a well-know and very successful Silicon Valley early stage VC). At DEMO we were welcomed by the the staff and got our badges and then had a drink at the welcome reception. I met a lot of investors and government people that I had seen during my last trip to Singapore, and they introduced me to many other people. Within 2 hours I had given out 30 of my 100 business cards, and I started to worry if my stack would last the whole conference. I also had 3 short meetings (2 to prepare for panel discussions I was on and one with a potential partner for unitedstyles) before we went for dinner.

Dinner took place at an upscale Chinese restaurant at Rochester Park (this was literally next door to where Grace used to live, but at that time the area had not been developed yet), a small treelined street with good bars and restaurants in renovated colonial villas. The Singapore Media Development Authority had invited some of the speakers (next to Matt, Jeff and myself also Adeo Ressi (Founders Institute and TheFunded.com) and Chris Shipley (Guidwire Group)) with Michael Yap of the MDA to discuss among othe entrepreneurial climate in Shanghai and the latest trends in technology.

We had some nice wines (including a Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir – we flew over the winery in our helicopter during the January trip to New Zealand) and an Australian Chardonnay, and the food was excellent. When I heard we would have Chinese food I was not too thrilled at first (I get that almost every day if I at home), but the atmosphere of the restaurant and the quality of the food was outstanding. The dishes consisted of a mix of Beijing, Shanghai and Cantonese cuisine, that could compete with the best restaurants in Shanghai. Discussions were great as well, especially Adeo gave some good feedback on the Singapore system of attracting entrepreneurs and he compared it to Chili. The way he delivered his (not always positive) feedback was pretty good: not in a direct, offending, way (as Westerners often tend to do) but in a way that showed respect for the way Singapore is trying to grow its economy and understanding that it’s not easy to do this from scratch. I learned a lot during the night, among others that I want to check out Chili: the country has very favorable policies for entrepreneurs with a climate similar to California, and with high snow-covered mountains on one side plus beaches on the other, it sounds like a great place to live.

The next morning I had breakfast with Adeo in the hotel before walking over to Biopolis. I was a panelist in the first session, so I wanted to make sure I would be there on time. The conference started about 20 minutes too late because of a traffic jam (something that is apparently not normal in Singapore), so I had some time to do my emails and check Facebook and Twitter on my iPad. After the opening speeches I was on a panel about investing in Asia, discussing the pros and cons of doing business here. I decided to talk about the problems unitedstyles is facing in China (difficulties to get enough visas for our foreign employees, problems to reach our servers outside the Great Firewall etc.) and how that makes life for start-ups in China more difficult.

I like to be a bit outspoken, and this time it had the added effect of several additional media interviews related to this topic. Today Singapore’s largest newspaper even carried an article with the title “Web start-ups face tough time in China”! I really feel that for companies like unitedstyles that mainly focus on the market outside China, the mainland is not the best place to run a business anymore. After the panel I did a few press interviews, had lunch with some people of Infocomm and then watched a one-on-one between Jeff Clavier and Matt Marshall. Jeff made some good points about how investors see start-ups from Asia (“You should move to the US yourself and arrange your visas and company formation, we don’t fund moving over your company”) that gave me some food for thought.

After that I was on a panel with among others Jeff to discuss some of the social media start-ups that had presented on stage. Generally I was impressed by the ideas that they had and by the ways they found to monetize them. But one thing I noticed while watching the presentations, is that many of them were focused only on a small market like Singapore. I liked their innovative ideas , but I probably would not invest in any of them (except for a new company called Trade Hero, but they are still in the idea phase) because of the lack of vision. Jeff saw that different though, in the Valley there are better ways to exit companies (or founder teams) like this, adding them on top of sites like Facebook or Foursquare. It gave me an interesting insight in how different US investors think from Asian investors.

After the panel I did a couple of other media interviews before going back to my hotel to do a few calls and change into jeans and a more casual shirt. Then I went back to the conference for a reception. There I met Virginia Cha, who is among other teaching entrepreneurship at INSEAD. Virginia and I go back a long time, because coincidentally she used to be my landlord (and neighbor) in Shanghai in the time that we started Tudou. At that time she was still an entrepreneur in Shanghai, but after that she got her PhD in Singapore and started a teaching career (while still investing in start-ups of course). She introduced me to a ton of people and then I had couple of drinks with her and her husband in their amazing Sentosa home. Their place is fantastic, probably the nicest place I have seen in Singapore so far. Directly on the ocean with a view over some of the islands in the distance and a marina on the backside. I told her that if I should ever more to Singapore she can become my landlord again if she can rent me this place!

Virginia drove me back to the hotel where I worked until 1 AM before getting a few hours of sleep. My plan was to go for a run at 6:30 AM, but it was still completely dark outside, so I decided to be lazy and sleep an hour longer. Then I had a big breakfast and went off to the conference. Originally my Friday schedule was quite empty, but overnight the organization had gotten a few more media interview requests. The result was an overfilled schedule (2 interviews or meetings per hour!), but I did not mind. During or in between the meetings I did some photo shoots as well and got a new business idea (if 3 photographers take pictures of you in one day there should be a more efficient way to handle this, right?). It was busy and a bit stressful (reporters kept on asking me about Tudou and I kept on telling them I am not part of the company anymore and can’t (and don’t want) to comment on the company), but I prefer to run from meeting to meeting instead of not having much to do. The downside was that I did not see any of the start-up presentations on Friday. And by 12 noon I had given out all 100 of my business cards. I among others still had meetings with 2 CEOs of government agencies, but could not give them my name card anymore. Not good, next time I’ll bring 2 packs of card.

Looking back I am happy that I joined this conference. I got to know many new interesting people and I got to tell a lot of people about unitedstyles (visits from Singapore to the site were up big time today), so it was the right decision to go here. I really feel Singapore’s entrepreneurial climate has developed a lot over the past years and it’s slowly becoming the Silicon Valley of South-East Asia. It’s great to experience that first hand and I hope to be back soon. Thanks team DEMO Asia for inviting me!

If you live in China there is a big chance that you buy a lot of things in Taobao.com. In my family we buy at least 3 times a week items on the site because it’s so convenient and service is generally very good. Taobao started off as the Ebay of China, but it has evolved as something much more advanced and is now the biggest online market place in the country.

Everybody can set up a shop there and almost everything you can imagine is for sale on the site. Also goods that you can’t buy in regular shops in China. For example, I ordered my first pair of Vibram Fivefingers there before the running shoe brand started selling in China. And when new Apple gadgets come out that are not for sale in China yet I normally order them on Taobao.

One of the very few things that I miss in China is a Dutch chocolate milk brand called Chocomel. It’s hard to find outside Holland, and it’s certainly not for sale in China. But guess what, on Taobao you can now buy the hot chocolate version! You will need a Senseo coffee machine for this and instead of coffee pads you can put the chocomel pads in. You get the original Dutch packaging  and it’s delivered right away. We tried it out this weekend and the taste is quite good. One more reason to love Taobao!