Archive for May, 2006

Chinese commercial with Dutch characteristics

I came across this funny Chinese TV commercial for some kind of board game. But look at what these people are wearing, that looks very Dutch to me! (Thanks to Thijs Bosma for the link)Update: the commercial is also available on YouTube, you can find it here...
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Finding senior staff is not easy

Spill Group Asia is looking for an experienced senior project manager, but we did not find a suitable person yet. Also the headhunting firms that I talked to did not come up with any good candidates so far. Junior staff is not too difficult to find, but senior staff is a different issue. Does anybody know of a good internet headhunting firm in Shanghai?I am looking for someone with at least 3-5 years experience in managing online game development projects, preferably at a major gaming company,...
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Fengxian day trip

On Saturday we (Gary, Lei, Qi and myself) decided to go to Fengxian to check out the beach there. Fengxian is located about one hour south of Shanghai, the easiest way to get there is to take the A4 toll road (RMB 20), that runs almost to the village.Fengxian itself turned out not to be too interesting. There is an artificial beach, but you cannot go into the water: it is so dirty that the government put a fence between the beach and the water! At low tide you can venture out over the sandy...
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Kathleen's 5

One of Shanghai's better restaurants is Kathleen's 5, located on the top floor of the Shanghai Art Museum on People's Square. The restaurant has a big terrace overlooking People's Park, and it's a good location for dinner or for a cigar after dinner.On Thursday night Qi and I had dinner here with a friend. The dinner was great, our friend is very knowledgable in many subjects and we discussed topics ranging from the German eduction system to catholicism and the pope, and from online gaming to...
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Barbarossa

On Wednesday night Volkskrant journalist Hans Moleman invited me for dinner at Barbarossa. This restaurant/lounge/bar is located in the park on People's Square, and it's a great place to relax and have some good food. Barbarossa serves North-African cuisine (among others lamb and couscous), one of the very few restaurants like this in Shanghai.We had dinner on the terrace at the lake, and talked for hours about life in China, politics, multinationals and entrepreneurship, and about Africa...
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Geledraak.nl

Gele Draak (Yellow Dragon) is the leading Dutch website with information about China. I check the site every now and then to see if there is any interesting new information available. I had not done so since my vacation, but now a friend told me that my weblog was chosen as Website of the Month. I took a look, and it's indeed the case. Thanks guys, I appreciate it. And if you should arrive at my site because of the link at Gele Draak: Welkom (welcome)! If you speak Dutch and are interested in...
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Fake orchestra

Everything can be fake in China, even an orchestra. That is what the audience in the Shanghai Grand Theater found out on Sunday night. The Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra was supposed to give a concert with the Liaoning Ballet. The show started at 7:15 but after two performances the curtain came down. The audience thought it was an intermission and waited for the break to end. But the waiting never stopped: the orchestra had left the theatre already!The theater blamed the Philharmonic...
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Anagram

Friday night we watched the Da Vinci Code in the cinema in Xintiandi (ticket price was 88 RMB per person, you can buy 11 or 12 DVD's for that on the street!). Although most reviews seem to be negative we loved the movie. But if you had not read the book, you would really have to pay close attention to what's happening, and you might miss out on a lot. Because part of the movie was in French (and some parts even in Latin), and subtitles were all in Chinese I had to concentrate hard to understand...
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Shanghaiist about Toodou

Shanghaiist is one of Shanghai's leading weblogs, with lots of information about everything that is happening in town. Shanghaiist writer Peijiin has now also discovered Toodou and wrote a funny piece about it today. You can find the post...
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Shanghai license plates

Yesterday I bought a new car, and in order to drive it in Shanghai you need to buy license plates for it. Because so many people are buying cars here nowadays, these are quite scarce. Each month the government allocates a certain quota of new plates, and then there is an auction once a month where you can bid on them.The auction was coincidentally also yesterday, and we participated in it. You have to submit a price between 9 AM and 3 AM by mobile phone, and the top bidders will get the plates....
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Summer in the City

After some cold days (18-20 degrees) because of typhoon Chanchu, summer has now really arrived in Shanghai. This weekend the high will be around 30 degrees, and although next week will be a bit cooler (around 26 degrees) I don't think it should get below 20 again in the next couple of months.Tonight we were planning to go to the Louis Jadot dinner in Club Jin Mao (87th floor of Grand Hyatt), but I think we will change that for a light dinner and drinks in the garden of Sasha's or Cotton's. I...
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Billboards demolition at the Bund

Every year millions of people stroll along the Bund to enjoy the scenery of the river with the Pudong skyline in the background. And most take pictures there as well there, so it's a great location to put up some billboards. And that's what happened: judging from old pictures the first billboards went up in the mid-90's, and now they cover a large part of the riverside in both Pudong and on the New Bund area (in Hongkou, the area you see on your left when you stand at the Bund). But now the...
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More press at Toodou

Today several Dutch journalists came to Toodou's office to learn more about our company and website (from newspapers Trouw, De Volkskrant and Financieel Dagblad). I gave them a presentation about the companies' background, how it developed until now, and what we expect from the future. Of course also here the question of censorship came up, but this time only how Toodou makes sure that no 'prohibited' films end up on the site.Then Vega then gave an run-through of the site, showing some of the...
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Looking for a painting? How about a real Mao?

On Tiananmen Square one of the eyecatchers is Mao's portrait on the Tainanmen Gate on the north side of the square. According to the Shanghai Daily the original painting is now put up for sale by a Beijing auction house. It seems that this portrait hang on the gate in the 1950's and 60's, but was subsequently replaced by copies. The auction price is expected to be around USD 150,000.One thing is a bit strange though. The paper mentions that the size of the picture is 91 cm by 68 cm. I cannot...
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Dutch TV program about Toodou

This morning a team from Dutch broadcaster VPRO came to the Toodou office to make a program about the company. A journalist from Dutch magazine "De Groene Amsterdammer" also joined them. They did an interview with Gary about the company, and they talked with me about the contents of the site and my experiences in China in general. After having lunch with them in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant (lunch for 5 for RMB 25, about USD 3), they went to the house of one of our most famous podcasters for...
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Bee Gees concert in Shanghai

More and more artists are coming over to Shanghai to perform, it seems also for them China is opening up. In April the Rolling Stones played here, and last night I went to a concert of the Bee Gees (also in the Shanghai Grand Stage next door to my apartment). Actually it was only Robin Gibb, but he sang all famous Bee Gees songs, so it was not that much different.Because Qi suddenly had to go to Beijing for a meeting she could not join me, but Thijs Bosma was a willing taker for the ticket. We...
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Toodou.com raises 8.5 million USD

Toodou.com just closed its second round of funding. Granite, Jafco Asia and IDG will invest a total of 8.5 million USD in the company. We are of course very happy with this investment, that allows the company to keep on growing fast!The Chinese press release can be found here, an English release will be issued...
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China Eastern again

As mentioned several times on this blog in the past, China Eastern is not my favourite Chinese airline. Their aircrafts seem to be the least welll maintained, and their service (especially on international flights) is quite bad. The last plane crash in China was a China Eastern plane, and it seemed they almost had another one yesterday.On a flight from Seoul to Shanghai, an Airbus 340 burst 12 (!) of its tires upon landing at Pudong airport. The crew managed to safely stop the aircraft on the...
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Teaching English in China

"Some expats do not qualify to teach English" is the headline of the Shanghai Daily today. Is that really news? Almost every foreigner that wants to live in China and cannot find another job eventually ends up teaching, so surely there are (many) unqualified teachers among them. The problem is, as the article also mentions, that many schools assume that if someone has blond hair and blue eyes he/she will automatically be a good English teacher.Many people abuse this, because the schools have no...
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Flickr.com and China

Over the past days Flickr was (once again) amazingly slow in China. Am I the only one here who is experiencing this? It takes up to 15 minutes to upload one picture, and some pictures just seem to 'hang' and don't get uploaded at all. During my vacation I took hundreds of pictures, and I wanted to upload about 150 for Tuscany and about 30 for Monaco. But at that speed it takes days - which was indeed the case for me. One of my computers has been uploading day and night for a few days, but now...
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