Archive for June, 2007

Bad driver

This afternoon I was driving on a quiet street in Pudong when I suddenly encountered a traffic jam. At the public library drivers in the opposite lanes were crossing the double yellow line (=not allowed to cross) to get into the parking lot of the library, and by doing that blocking the traffic in the lanes on my side. Because the parking space was full, there was hardly any movement. When cars finally started moving the drivers who illegally crossed did not let our lanes go first, which would...
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Modern Times

Chinese banks are still a bit backwards compared to their foreign competitors. For years they were protected by China's laws against competition, but that has changed quite a bit over the past 5 years. You would assume that competition would force the Chinese banks to quickly change their archaic systems and regulations, but that takes a bit more time.Today I came across an typical example of how modern Chinese banks are. I was talking to my HR manager tonight about the salaries that we will...
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European car producers conspiring against Chinese cars?

Last week the German ADAC and Dutch ANWB released a crash test with the new Chinese brand Brilliance, in which the car only received one out of five stars. German test results called the car extremely dangerous, and of course all the media jumped on this opportunity to show how bad the quality of Chinese cars is. I disagree with that, and was thinking about blogging about the test result. However, I did not have the time to do it at that moment, so I let it be.But just now I finally see a...
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I am not good at being sick

Since Sunday I am having a nasty cold, or maybe it's the flu. Feeling cold one moment and hot a minute later, all muscles in my body are hurting, and I have a headache. Problem is, I am really bad at being sick because I feel it's a waste of time. Sunday night I spent mainly on the couch in a half-asleep, half-awake state of mind so I decided to go to bed early, but when I was in bed my body was aching so much that I could not sleep anymore...Monday morning I did not feel much better, but I...
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I am going to be a father!

A picture says more than a thousand words: my wife is pregnant, and early January 2008 we expect to have our first baby! Today we did an ultrasound (basically a live video of the foetus), and the doctor printed some pictures for us. Amazing to see the foetus move inside my wife's belly, even the arms and legs already moved up and down. We are very...
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Highway to Mount Everest

Last month I struggled to ride my mountain bike over the terrible roads up Mount Everest. This is what I wrote about the ride:"My dad and I were not sure what to do, because this was hardly biking anymore. I am not sure how to describe it, but the road was in such a bad condition that even the Land Cruiser drivers complained about it. Walking was often the easiest or only way, and that's what we did for some parts. If anybody plans to ride up to the Mount Everest Base Camp I would advise them...
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Not many blogs left in China

Writing a blog from China is becoming more and more difficult, because the government seems to be blocking all of the major foreign blogging platforms. Wordpress has been blocked for a long time already. Blogger was blocked, unblocked, blocked, unblocked and is now blocked again. And today I found that Typepad blogs also stopped working. I first thought it was an office internet issue, but also at home I get error messages. A lot of Chinese bloggers will be unhappy...
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Do you really want to be an entrepreneur?

I sometimes get phone calls or emails from people asking me for advice about whether they should set up their own business or not. For me the first question is always "Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?". If people are not intrinsically motivated to build a new product/service/company, they will fail. Always. (well, except for a very few very lucky ones - don't count on being among them). Then I tell them about the risks involved, that they should keep in mind that most companies won't...
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Reward offered: Spill Group Asia / Zlong Games is looking for a CFO

Spill Group Asia and its game development company Zlong Games are looking for a CFO, based in Shanghai. This is a newly created position, because of the fast growth of our company (currently 62 people). The ideal candidate would be a native Chinese with at least 5 years experience as an auditor for one of the big international accounting firms in China, plus preferably several years experience for a company in a financial management position. M&A experience would be a plus. The CFO should be an...
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View from my living room

Bas took these pictures last week, and I stole them from his Flickr stream. If you're in China install this Firefox add-on in order to see the pictures (thanks to the Net Nanny, Flickr's photo servers are still blocked in...
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Check your suppliers!

It is not uncommon for Chinese companies to make themselves look bigger than they really are to attract potential foreign customers, by making a flashy site and pretend to have offices at a prestigious address. But yesterday I came across a US company that is trying to do the same. The story started last week when I was meeting with a European multinational to discuss about several serious gaming projects that they plan to develop (such as a virtual world or a Second Life presence). The person...
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Cutting costs the Chinese way

Oak Pacific Interactive is a Chinese company that runs several web 2.o sites, including mop.com and donews.com. After their 48 million USD VC round last year things have gone a bit downhill for them, especially after most of their revenue was cut off last August when China Mobile restructured the service provider industry. Since then they have been cutting costs heavily, among others by laying off lots of employees and moving to a cheaper office.Likely the VC's forced them to cut costs, but...
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Expensive shoes

This afternoon I was strolling around Xintiandi when I saw a nice pair of shoes in a new (?) shoe shop called Silvano Lattanzi. I went inside to take a look at the shoes, and was impressed by all the other models they had on display. I was told that all shoes are handmade in Italy, and I started to suspect that the price may be on the high side. But when I looked at the price of my favourite pair I was literally shocked: RMB 79,990 - more than USD 10,000 for a pair of shoes!I dont't mind paying...
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Flickr really blocked? I don't believe it

Since yesterday I am having problems accessing pictures on Flickr. I did not think too much about it, because internet connections in China are not always optimal. But when it still did not work this morning I suspected there might be a problem at Flickr. When I looked in my RSS reader I found that Shanghaiist wrote a post about it, saying that the Flickr image servers are blocked in China.That explains why I can still load the site and all the information on it, except for its main feature:...
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College entrance exams & drugs

The national college entrance exams have started again in China. This yearly ritual is one of the most important moments in the lives of Chinese students. Doing well during these few days can mean access to a top university and therefore a good job and career, temporarily underachieving means going to a lower ranked university (or not going to college at all) and therefore not being able to get a good job in later life. For this reason the GaoKao is hyped up in the media, and websites and...
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Beijing Olympics 2008 update

This evening I was interviewed by a Dutch radio station about whether people in Shanghai are already excited about the Beijing Olympics. In my opinion the Olympics are not a very hot topic yet among people in Shanghai. Many perceive it more as a Beijing event than as a Chinese one right now. I think that will change, there is still more than a year to go until the Olympics start on 08-08-08 at 08:08 PM. A year is a long time in a fast-paced business city like Shanghai, where people tend to be...
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Relaxed weekend

I have been traveling too much lately, and now I finally had a relaxed weekend in Shanghai. It's nice to be home and sleep in my own bed, especially after having been away for the the major part of the past 5-6 weeks. I even started to miss making my own breakfast...Friday around lunch time I arrived in Shanghai from Europe, and I went straight to the office. A couple of things had to be urgently straightened out, so it was good that I had returned before the weekend already. After work I had a...
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"Jip en Janneke" – Dutch children books now also in Chinese

Every Dutch child grows up with the Jip & Janneke books. These books are written in very simple Dutch, with short sentences and easy words, so kids can already read them when they are still young. The short stories are about two toddlers, the boy Jip and the girl Janneke that experience a lot of things together. Mainly events out of daily life that children can relate to, but many with a bit of an educational undertone. They were also nicely illustrated, and every Dutch kid will immediately...
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