Archive for January, 2007

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth

Competition is China is much harder than competition in Europe, and often unethical methods are used. A market leader like Tudou.com is therefore likely to be the target of actions by competitors to make the site or company look bad. Normally people just spread rumours, but that is something we can live with. But sometimes more distasteful actions are used, and right now someone is trying to do this (I won't name them here). They are trying to make it look like Tudou is trying to increase its...
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Sportive weekend

This weekend Gary and I started our outside mountain bike training for Tibet. After we had bought some great bikes two weeks ago we had been too busy to go for a ride, but Saturday afternoon we gave it a try. We drove for about 3.5 hours, starting in Xujiahui, all through Puxi, crossing the river by ferry and then a loop through Pudong and back to Hongkou and Puxi by another small ferry. We did not drive fast, so it was not very tiring, but it was a nice distance for a first time. I feel that...
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China divorce statistics a bit too high

Chinese statistics are never very reliable, but what happened to China's divorce statistics really makes you wonder if anyone is thinking about the scientific methods used in the calculations. Fons Tuinstra's blog was the first place where I read about what had gone wrong in China's statistics bureau.A Chinese marriage expert Xu Anqi, was doing research when she noted in a United Nations yearbook that the divorce rate in China was the highest in the world. This intrigued her, especially because...
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No heating

Our apartment may have been new when we moved in last year, but it still had a lot of problems. I wrote about this once before, and also since then we have had a lot smaller issues. There seems to be something at least every other week! Typical of Chinese-quality apartments, I know that, but it is still a nuisance. Especially when you realize this is a high-end apartment, where you expect that these things would not happen all the time. Last night we once again had a problem.On Friday night my...
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Shanghai Daily no morning paper anymore?

It's lunch time now, but once again my daily newspaper has not arrived. I used to quickly scan the Shanghai Daily every morning when having my first cup of coffee. But lately the paper is arriving later and later, and it sort of has become an afternoon newspaper. We checked what was happening, and were told that they have a distribution problem. It will be at least another week before this will be solved (read: likely next month the paper will still be late). I am not sure if this is only a...
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Ho-Pin Tung @ Spill Group Asia

Yesterday Chinese race car driver Ho-Pin Tung visited Spill Group Asia's office, and of course we took the opportunity to take a picture with the game.com.cn team. Ho-Pin, who won the German Formula 3 series last year, was in town for an interview with Shanghai TV. He is now China's A1 driver, and had raced in New Zealand over the weekend (where he scored 2 points for China). Next week he will fly to Australia for the A1 race there on the weekend of 3-4 February. Ho-Pin Tung is doing PR work...
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Tudou TV on air

Yesterday around 6 PM I was having a MSN chat with my wife when she mentioned that her colleagues in the Tudou office were going to watch the first episode of Tudou TV together. I had totally forgotten that the first program would be on air, and had to run out of the Spill Group office to drive home in order to watch the program (there is no cable connection for our office TV). I made it just in time, and was even able to find the right channel before the program started.It was cool to see the...
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The Quarterdeck Club (Hong Kong Island)

By coincidence we ended up at this HK restaurant on Saturday night (all other fancy restaurants that we called were fully booked for a 8:30 PM dinner slot), but it turned out to be a gem. Directly on the harbour, located on Fenwick Pier. It was not very busy, and we managed to get a table right on the water! Great seafood, good wine and reasonable prices, what more do you want? Service was a bit too quick (getting the main course while still enjoying the appetizers), but the owner apologized...
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Trailwalking in Hong Kong

This weekend my wife and I went to Hong Kong, I had some business to take care of and it was a good opportunity to meet with friends and do some shopping (for Qi) and sports (for me). On Saturday I had planned to go for an off-road mountain bike ride with Marcel Ekkel on Lantau Island. But because I first had an appointment in Central in the morning there was not sufficient time to catch the 9:30 fast ferry, and the next one would be a slow one at 10:30. Therefore Marcel proposed to go for a...
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Wii!

Yesterday we bought a Nintendo Wii. Since working with Spill Group I could already argue that I need to play games as part of work, but now I can even say that I do it to loose...
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Scared? We'll put you in a mental hospital!

On November 25, a farmer in Jiangxi province was carrying RMB 10,000 (a huge sum of money for a farmer in this remote area) with him while waiting for a train in Guixi. Suddenly he noticed that several men were following him, and he thought they might be planning to rob him. So he ran away to avoid them. While running a police car drove by and stopped it to ask the police men for help. They took him to the police station, where the farmer was still so afraid that he did not want to let go of...
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Bluetooth advertising

I was reading an article in the Dutch press just now about a new form of advertising through bluetooth, where people can receive a short video about a product (in this case the product was a TV program) when they are within 15 meters of a billboard. This was seen as a new idea, but this is kind of advertising has been around for at least a year in China. The Shanghai based company Pioco is doing this, and is even taking it to a much higher level.Last week Thursday I was invited to the opening...
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Baby boom?

The new Chinese New Year that starts on February 18 will be the Year of the Pig. And this year will be a special one, the Year of the Golden Pig, that only happens every 60 years (there are 12 animal signs and 5 different cycles of these signs). According to Chinese tradition, babies born in the Year of the Golden Pig will have an especially happy and fortunate life. Therefore a baby boom is expected this year, and related to that also a maternity leave boom.One of China's biggest job hunting...
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Podcast interview

A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by Shanghaiexpat, the podcast site with the interesting tag line 'the foolish chatter while the wise listen. U'd better start listening!'. In the podcast I talk about my career and my life in China. I noticed that the podcast is up now, and the direct link can be found here.The website has a lot of interesting podcasts with (mainly) foreigners working in Shanghai. Right now the site is very slow in China, but that's likely still because of the earthquake,...
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Couch Potatoes Take TV

Shanghai, China – Jan. 15, 2007 - Tudou.com, the leading video sharing web site in China, announced that it has reached a content partnership agreement with Southeast Satellite Television, a leading entertainment-oriented national TV channel in China.Tudou.com and Southeast Satellite Television will co-create a daily segment of user-generated video content on the national Southeast Channel’s most popular prime-time show, Yu Le Le Fan Tian (Entertainment Roll-Over). The cooperation between a...
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Buying bikes for Tibet

This weekend Gary and I went to La Bici, the bike shop on Wanping Lu (close to Jianguo Lu), to decide on which bikes to buy for our upcoming ride through the Himalaya. After looking at several model we went for two Sunn mountain bikes. Not very cheap, but it's better to spend a bit more on good bikes, than to end up with a broken bike in a snowstorm at 5000 meters altitude. The bikes will be delivered later today, and I am looking forward to taking my first ride on them!We need to start doing...
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Tudou TV

The other major announcement that was made during the party, is that starting on January 22 Tudou.com will have its own daily TV program on Chinese TV. In partnership with the leading entertainment oriented TV station Southeast Satellite Television, Tudou will get a 5 minute segment in the most popular prime time program Yu Le Le Fan Tian. Tudou is the first leading video website in China to cooperate with a major TV station.An English press release will be sent out tomorrow, and I will put a...
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Tudou New Year Party 2007: 10 million video's per day

Friday night the Tudou New Year Party was held at The Melting Pot, one of the better bars on Taikang Lu (Shanghai's art street). The staff from Spill Group Asia had rented a small bus to drive there, but I decided to take a cab from my apartment because I had to wait for my wife to come home first. Of course we then could not find a cab (rain on a friday night equals no taxis), so I drove there myself. So we were a bit too late, but just in time for the announcements. Yang Lei was the presenter...
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Don't say you feel sick on an Emirates plane

A Chinese couple is sueing Emirates, because they were kicked off their flight from Shanghai to Dubai prior to departure. According to today's Shanghai Daily the problem started when the husband was feeling a bit nauseous, and asked a flight attendant for some medicine. Instead of getting that, the flight attendant informed the captain, who asked the husband to get off the plan.He refused this, because he did not feel that bad. But the captain insisted, and a 30 minute quarrel followed. During...
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Tomorrow night…

... is the Tudou New Year Party. Invitation only, but if you are in town and would like to join give me a call. As you can see on the flyer the party starts at Taikang Lu 288 (so not the Tudou office!) at 7:30...
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