Archive for January, 2008

Scott's Man Yue

Today Scott is one month old, and in China you then celebrate Man Yue. There is a tradition that the baby's hair gets shaved off at Man Yue (or after 100 days, or after 1 year).At first we were not sure if we should also follow the tradition, but eventually we decided to do it. We were curious what our son would look like without hair, and apparently it is good for the baby's hair when you shave his head completely. A special baby barber came to our apartment, and got rid of all our baby's...
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Snow in Shanghai

It does not happen very often in Shanghai, but every couple of years you can see some snow here. Today was one of those few occasions. Yesterday it snowed for several hours, but the snow did not stay on the ground because it was still too warm. But last night after midnight it cooled off enough for the snow to start covering the ground. Around 3 AM this morning I was driving in a taxi, and many roads downtown were completely white. The taxi driver had probably never seen snow before, because he...
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A new nanny

After our nanny left us earlier this week, my wife luckily managed to find a new one. I am quite relieved, because it saves us a lot of precious time. The new one started today already, and she is a pleasant person in her mid-forties. Very modest (unlike the first nanny) and also very experienced, I had a good feeling about her right away. She does not speak any English, which is good, so she won't teach Scott English with a Chinese accent.The nanny won't stay overnight like the first nanny,...
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The one-sided view of China in foreign media

I often get annoyed at the very one-sided way that China is portrayed in the media. It probably sell more papers when you call the government here a dictatorship, and do as if China is a country where people live in fear and are restricted in everything they do. Or it is because the journalist has never been here, or he/she lives here but still does not understand (or does not want to understand) China. Because of that most people who have never been to China have a completely wrong idea about...
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Nanny problems

For the past weeks we have had a nanny to take care of Scott. Quite convenient, as we could sleep a little bit more (no changing of diapers in the middle of the night) and she also did some of the special cooking for my wife (Chinese tradition is that women need to eat healthy and more nutritious food when they nurse the baby). The nanny was a Chinese lady in her late forties, and she was quite traditional in her views of how to care of the baby and the mother. If it had been up to her, my wife...
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Falling stock markets, even in China – some thoughts

Now that the stock markets worldwide are seeing a big correction, the Chinese stocks start following them. Finally. Over the past year I have watched in amazement what was happening in the market. Although not everybody agrees, I felt Chinese stocks were completely overvalued (mainly based on multiples). The main reason the prices kept going up, was because more and more people entered the market, blinded by the possibility of getting rich. People were putting their life savings in, without...
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Shanghai starts citywide Wi-Fi construction

China Tech News reports today that Shanghai (finally) started the construction of its city-wide Wi-Fi. It apparently took a bit longer than planned, because when it was announced 15 months ago I already blogged about it. The only problem is that they start in Jiading district, far from where I (and most other people) live and work. Why not start in the city center? I would assume more people would use it there. Probably a political reason, or they first want to test it in a low population...
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BestBuy getting better

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about a video camera that I bought at BestBuy in Shanghai. It was an out-of-the-box camera, meaning that the box had been opened, and therefore I got a small discount. However, that same evening I found that the camera was not new, but had been used for several months already. I went back to the store, and they offered me a new camera for the discounted out-of-the-box price. Things seemed to be settled, except for the fact that the camera was suddenly out of...
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Olympic Committee makes it difficult to get opening & closing ceremony tickets

I was one of the lucky ones who won a ticket for the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Because the Beijing Olympic Committee wants to make sure these ticket cannot be sold over the black market, the ticket will bear your name on it. Last week I already received a phone call to check my personal data for the tickets (if you changed your phone number in the past 9 months you probably have bad luck, because they cannot reach you). I thought it was a spam call, because the caller started...
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Spill Group Asia gets game.asia and games.asia

Good domain names are important when you are in the internet business. Especially names that are easy to remember and names that make sure that you end up high in search engine results. I was therefore very happy to get the confirmation that Spill Group Asia has managed to obtain among others the domain names game.asia and games.asia.The .Asia domain is a new top level domain, just like the .eu domains in Europe last year. In order to get these domain names we had to write a detailed proposal...
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Ho-Pin Tung in 2008 GP2 and his own racing game

Last week the Dutch-Chinese race car driver Ho-Pin Tung announced that he will race in both the Asian GP2 and the European GP2 for the Trident team. That means he will participate in a total of 31 races in 2008! Spill Group Asia would like to congratulate Ho-Pin Tung, and wish him lots of success during the 2008 season. We are also very happy to see our main Chinese website game.com.cn on his official 2008 helmet! Ho-Pin, we hope to see you in our office again the next time you are in...
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Coincidence: Buick Lacrosse recall

My current car is a Buick Lacrosse, less than 2 years old and of course Made in China (actually even Made in Shanghai). A great car, both to drive yourself and with a driver - with controls for everything on the middle console in the backseat. Never had any big problems with it, but that's probably logical with such a new car and if you drive less than 10.000 km per year.Until a week ago, that is. On New Year's Day I drove with my parents through the French Concession behind a taxi. We...
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Naughty Family hospital

Sometimes you see signs in China where you really wonder what is going on inside. Sometimes you don't even want to know. My dad snapped this picture the other day: The Naughty Family Veterinary...
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A baby changes your life!

Scott is 9 days old now, and in these 9 days my life has changed quite a bit. The most difficult thing right now is that he wakes up about 3 times per night. Just knowing that you will wake up 3 times already makes me sleep bad, and I don't think this is something I can get used to easily. Last night (on a Friday) I went to bed before 10 PM already! I don't think that has ever happened in the past 25 years, except when I was jetlagged or sick.During the week I even went home once for lunch to...
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