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Weekend trip to Putuoshan

Thousand step beach was totally deserted when I was there

Last weekend I went to Putuoshan island with some colleagues of Spil Games Asia and Zlong Games. Putuoshan is an island about 3-4 hours (driving) south of Shanghai, and is famous for its many temples and beautiful nature.

We left Shanghai about 8 AM by bus and arrived around 12 in the port from where the ferries to the island leave. But because we were all a bit hungry we started with a nice seafood lunch on the terrace overlooking a lake. The food was great, especially the many different shellfishes that we got. Once lunch was finished we took the boat to the island, just a 15 trip from the mainland (boats go constantly, and we did not have to wait).

Departure to Putuoshan by boat

Cars are not allowed on the island (except a few local ones), so you have to leave your car or bus behind in the port. On the island itself all transport is by bus, small buses loop around the island and stop at the major temples and monasteries. Because the island is quite small (6 km from north to south I was told) you can also walk. If I would be an entrepreneurial Chinese living on the island I would start a bike rental company, I am sure that would be a good business.

Grace at Puji Temple, Putuoshan

We sent our luggage to the hotel and immediately started with a visit to one of the many temples. The first one was the Puji temple, which was located next to one of the beaches but strangely had no view of the sea. Most of the team wanted to pray for the different buddhas, so we started by buying incense sticks and candles. Or buying is actually not the right word, officially you get these things for free but you have to pay a fixed donation for them. Very pragmatic.

Puji Temple, Putuoshan

I watched some of my colleagues (and many other tourists) during their prayers and walked around a bit while they were busy. The temple is very beautiful and reminded me a bit of the temples in Kyoto (Japan). I like the atmosphere in the temple but didn’t pray myself, as an atheist I am happy if others do it but it does not bring me anything. I prefer Buddhism over Christianity and Islam, Buddhism is so much more relaxed and less pushy for non-believers. If I would ever choose a religion I would probably choose Buddhism.

Side note: I have been reading :”The Monk and The Philosospher” on and off for the past 2 months (while reading many other books), a great book for people like me who have difficulty understanding how intelligent people can believe in religion. I respect people who can do it, and assume there is more between heaven and earth than we can see, but believing in something goes against my rational mind. The book opened my eyes a bit, especially for a friendly religion like Buddhism. Not an easy book but recommended, even though I did not finish it yet.

Self portrait at Putuoshan

The next temple was directly on the sea and I enjoyed watching the waves hitting the shore while the others were praying. The location was fantastic, on the rocks a couple of meters above the water. A great place to build a house, but in this case I guess that won’t be possible.

Nice place to build a house (not allowed, I checked)

While we were there it started to rain a little bit, just a few drops. But the rain made the stairs to the temple wet and one lady slipped on them. She was clearly hurt but everybody laughed when it happened (which is a typical reaction in China, but does not mean that people laugh at her for being hurt). She got up, took one more ste, slipped again and fell down the remaining steps. At that point I also laughed, it was like a slapstick movie. I felt bad for her though, maybe she didn’t pray hard enough.

Walking from temple to temple

We then walked to a temple at the southern end of the island, from where I could observe fishingboats sailing from nearby islands to the sea. We walked quite a bit already and mainly at a very slow pace, so my legs and feet were getting a bit tired. I don’t mind running 15 kilometers and it won’t really make me tired, but slowly walking 5 kilometers is something that I really feel in my legs. Not sure why actually, I guess I am just not used to it. But walking is a good way to talk to people and catch up with some of the others on the trip, so I did not mind it too much.

Guanyin, Putuoshan

From there we walked to the huge Guanyin statue that towers above the coastline on the south side of the island. It’s an impressive statue, one of the nicer ones I have seen in China. Also here lots of people praying and a group of people were chanting Buddhist texts in front of the statue. A very special atmosphere, especially because it was around sunset. Too bad that it was cloudy, otherwise Guanyin must have looked even nicer (I think it’s facing into the direction where the sun sets).

Big seafood dinner

At night we had another fantastic seafood meal. I ordered a beer with it, but that was not recommended according to the waitress and some of my colleagues. The combination of seafood and beer is dangerous according to them. It’s not the first time I combine beer with seafood and I was thirsty, so I ordered one anyway (and I survived without any problems). After the dinner we went to our hotel, which was not bad. A spacious room with a balcony overlooking the town and the sea in the distance (but most of the view was blocked by trees in the hotel garden). I did some emails and then went into town to buy a drink (the hotel had no mini bar nor a normal bar) and spent the rest of the evening reading The Secret Race (great book, maybe I should put a review here in the coming days).

Village on Putuoshan, every house turns into a seafood restaurant at night

The next morning we had to get up early because our first temple visit was planned for 8 AM. I had a quick breakfast in my hotel room (I am still not a big fan of Chinese breakfasts, so normally just bring some instant coffee and muffins or croissants on short trips) and went down to the lobby. It turned out that it was raining very hard, so we changed our original plan of walking up to the Huiding monastery on Fodingshan (mountain). Our tour guide had good local connections and arranged that the car of the monastery picked us up (‘grey channel’ of course). That was a smart move because it kept on raining hard for the next hour and we would have gotten completely soaked otherwise.

Heavy rain while visiting Huiji Monastery on top of the Fodingshan (mountain)

The monastery was beautiful and the rain gave it a special feeling. But the downside was that you could not see much, so we did not stay too long. The car of the monks also rode us down the mountain, and while we descended the rain finally stopped. The car stopped at the Fayu Temple, another nice temple complex in the woods. But by now I had seen enough temples and I decided to walk to the beach, which turned out to be just 2 minutes from the temple.

Thousand step beach was totally deserted when I was there

To my big surprise the beach was totally deserted. At the temple it was quite busy, but here there was nobody. And the beach was very nice, I walked from one end to the other which took me about 12 minutes (partly jogging with my backpack), so probably 1-1.5 km one way. Being alone on a beach is always a magical experience. Seeing the waves, looking at the mountains behind the beach and just staring into the ocean. I loved it and this was probably the highlight of my trip, especially because there was nobody else.

Entrance to Fayu Temple, Putuoshan

I then went back to the Fayu temple but could not find the group, so waited outside until they came out. Because it had started raining a bit again we agreed that we had seen enough and we all went back to the port to take the ferry back to the mainland. There the bus was waiting for us already. Instead of another seafood meal we stopped at a KFC and ate the chicken wings, burgers and nuggets in the bus.

Walking to the boat with a monk ahead of me

The bus driver seemed to be in a bad mood and drove like a maniac on the highway. He drove the bus at absolute top speed, the sides and bottom of the bus were vibrating because of the speed. At a certain point a car was standing still in the left lane of the highway (where we were driving), and he could just swerve around it. It turned out that he was angry at one of our managers, because she had told him to park somewhere where he did not want to park and this guy could not take that. He then tried to take revenge by refusing to let some people out in the suburbs of Shanghai (which would save them at least an hour of additional travel time), and when we called his boss he refused to talk to him (“I am driving and so I can’t take a call”). Typical behavior of someone who finally has a little bit of power over others and immediatley wants to abuse it. Eventually he gave in (luckily for him and his job), but it was not a nice end of the trip. Anyway, you have this kind of people all over the world I guess.

Puji Temple, Putuoshan

The trip itself was a big success in my opinion, despite the lousy weather on the 2nd day and despite the strange driver. I had never been to Putuoshan and am glad that I have now seen it. Because the island is not very close to Shanghai it’s not extremely busy (as long as you avoid Buddhist holidays), but you could just do it in one day if you would not want to stay overnight. In a car it will be about 3.5 hours to get to the port, so if you leave Shanghai at 7 AM you can be on the island by 11 AM. Most temples close between 5 and 6, so you can spend 6-7 hours sightseeing before driving back. Staying at the island is no problem either, there are a lot of decent hotel options available, but book in advance. There is no real entertainment (it’s a Buddhist island), so bring a book for the evening.

As usual I took a lot of pictures and put a couple of them online, you can see them here

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Seraph Group business plan competition

Some of my early stage investments I do through Seraph Group, a super angel fund where I am a limited partner. Seraph is now organizing a business plan competition with an investment for the winner of between USD 100K-250K. If you are interested, please see the announcement below for more details.

Seraph Group is hosting a business plan competition on October 17th at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Each founder will have five minutes to present his/her company in front of Seraph Investors and the investors will collective choose the winner to receive between $100,000 to $250,000 investment.

The winning company will join a portfolio that includes IMVU, SilverTail Systems, Fundly, Life360, IronKey, and ICON Aircraft, and will gain access to our unparalleled network of LP’s. Seraph will provide support in the form of operational guidance, customer acquisition, and introductions to strategic partners and potential acquirers.

Seraph Group is a seed stage venture investment fund. With offices in Atlanta and San Francisco, we are the only fund in the US with a limited partner network of 170 accomplished business leaders and technology entrepreneurs that spans 23 cities across the US, China, and Europe.

Please reach out to Ty Moddelmog (ty@seraphgroup.net) for an application. It is due September 30th at 8 PM PDT. Successful applicants will be notified on October 8th. The competition is restricted to seed-stage tech startups that have not raised a round of equity financing.

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Cover photo

I am on the cover of Sprout Magazine this month

Today Sprout magazine, a Dutch magazine for entrepreneurs, came out with its new edition for which they interviewed me – and they put me on the cover! I’m very honored that they did this of course.

The full article (in Dutch) including some more pictures is here. It’s mainly about my career so far, my current activities & plans for the future, and how doing business in China for foreigners is changing.

I still remember the photo shoot with photographer Mick Ryan quite well. My last shoot with him (for the China Business Daily, see one of the pictures from that article here) was in my office, but this time he opted for Nanjing Road. No big deal, except when the shoot is in the middle of Shanghai summer when it’s way too hot to be outside. I normally like photo shoots, but I was happy that this one was over and that I could go back to my airconditioned office.

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The daily life of a US president

Great article about Obama in Vanity Fair

This weekend I read a great piece in Vanity Fair about Barack Obama, describing his daily life in the White House and showing what it is like to be President of the United States. The article was published in the October 2012 issue of Vanity Fair magazine and also available online (for free!).

Michael Lewis, who happens to be the author of one of my favorite books of all time ‘Liar’s Poker‘, spent half a year with Barack Obama and had almost unrestricted access to him during that time. The result is an interesting (but quite long) read, that gives a good insight into what life is like for a US president. Obama has a crazy schedule and is constantly making important decisions about things for which he often only has limited information. It’s not just physically a hard job but also emotionally. You can’t think too long about the impact of things you say or do, that would probably drive you crazy.

The article is not really about politics, although there is a lot of background on some of the decisions the president has to make. It’s more about who Obama really is and what he stands for. He is extremely disciplined (despite an overloaded schedule he works out every morning for 1 hour) and very competitive (even in sports: he does not play basketball to relax but mainly to win).

The Vanity Fair piece also gives a lot of fun or interesting facts about the Obama and his family. Want to know what book he was reading in bed (this book), how many hours he sleeps per night, who his best friend is, what TV channel he prefers to watch, and who his Nobel Prize Winner speech wrote? It’s all in the article with tens of other facts about life as POTUS.

To be honest, my feeling about Obama was not too positive anymore after his 4 years in office, but I now understand much better why he was not able to fulfill many of his visions and promises. This piece changed the way I think about him. Obama is not only a very smart person, but he is also very down to earth. He comes across as a normal, nice guy. Not somebody who wants to be admired, but somebody who wants to be ‘one of us’.

If the article had one effect on me, I would say it is that I now truly respect Obama and the way he does his job. Whether you are American or not, or whether you like or dislike him, this is a piece I would recommend everyone to read.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, the article is available for free online, which is a smart move of Vanity Fair. Because of articles like this on their website I started buying Vanity Fair magazine regularly over the past 2 years (both in the paper and in the iPad version). Had they put all their content behind a paywall they would have missed out on the money I spent on their print publication. I hope this piece will bring them a lot more new potential readers.

 

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Trip to Cyprus

View from my room in the Crowne Plaza Limassol (Cyprus)

View from my hotel room (Crowne Plaza Limassol, Cyprus)

Earlier this week I was in Cyprus for business meetings, and this time I also managed to do some sightseeing (unlike my last trip there). I rented a car so I could see a bit more of the island than just my hotel room and the beach, and that was a good decision.

On the plane to Larnaca I had a talk with the flight attendant (there was hardly anybody in biz class, so she was quite talkative) and when she heard that I like wines she let me taste some local Cyprus wines. They were not bad, but it’s always a bit hard to tell how good a wine really is at 35,000 feet. Because I still had to drive an hour from the airport to my hotel (in the dark with a slight jet lag) I could not drink too much, but the tasting piqued my interest for Cyprian wines.

Wine festival Limassol

Limassol Wine Festival

Because of this introduction to local wines on the plane I decided to visit the Limassol Wine Festival. After checking in to the hotel I saw on a map that the wine festival was just 2 km away, so I left my car at the hotel and walked over. I had read that the annual wine festival was supposed to showcase some of Cyprus better wines, but it turned out to be more of a food and drink event where (mainly young) people try to get drunk. Many people had plastic wine bottles with them that they could fill up with cheap wines, and they were sipping it directly from the bottle. Not really the kind of wines I am looking for when visiting a wine festival. I had some local food, tried a few wines (not too impressed) and then walked along the beach front boulevard back to my hotel to catch up on some sleep.

Crowne Plaza Limassol beach

Beach at Crowne Plaza Hotel, Limassol

After my meetings the next day I went for a run before dinner on the beach and along the boulevard. It was very busy on the beach, despite the fact that it was dark already at 7:30 PM. Families were chatting and some people were still swimming in the dark. At several places people were fishing from the beach and others were watching them. A very lively atmosphere that I liked to be part of. However, it’s not ideal for jogging, as I had to watch out not to run into anybody. Also the temperature (about 28 degrees in the early evening) was still a bit high for a run, but despite that I enjoyed it very much. On the way back to the hotel I ran over the bike lane next to the boulevard. There I really sped up in order to try to overtake some slow bike riders. I managed, but I was pretty much spent after I finished.

Back at the hotel I went for a swim in the sea, then took a shower and went for dinner. I was quite thirsty so started with a beer, but then I asked for the wine list and saw that the hotel had several local wines on sale per glass. So during dinner I tried several different wines, all much better than I had tasted during the wine festival. The ones I liked best were produced by Tsiakkas, and the next day I bought a few bottles at a wine shop to take home. Retail they were all over EUR 10 per bottle, not cheap for a local Cyprus wine.

Limassol (Cyprus)

Old mosque with minaret in Limassol

The next morning I worked until 11 AM and then went for a walk through the center of Limassol. The old town is quite nice, with small alleys full of shops and restaurants. There was even an old mosque with a minaret. When I wanted to walk to the old port I realized that a project developer bought all land around it and was building luxury villas there. The design looked very nice (the artist impressions on the billboards show big yachts in front of modern villas), but this kind of buildings don’t fit to an old harbour. Well, I’ll judge when they are finished next year or so, but it’s hard to believe that this adds to the nice atmospher of old Limassol.

Self portrain in Lofou (Cyprus)

Self portrait in a totally deserted Lofou

After a quick lunch (a tasty Greek salad with feta cheese, olives etc.) I took the car and drove to Lofou, which is a traditional village in the hills above Limassol. I was there around 2 PM and the place was totally deserted, I walked around the whole village and did not see any other person! Even the local taverna was closed. It felt a bit spooky, especially when I realized that there were no animals either. Not sure where everybody was, so I continued my ride up into the hills.

Lofou (Cyprus)

Lofou from a hill opposite the village

Cyprus is extremely dry, not much grows on the mountains. But when I was in Lofou I could see dark clouds in the hills far above the village, and it looked like it was raining there. A business friend had written down some suggestions so I had no idea where I would end up (which was part of the fun). I just put the name of the next place into my GPS and followed the route. My next stop was the village of Platres and the computer led me straight into the dark clouds. Soon it was raining hard. Strange, the rest of the island was dry, sunny and very hot and here I was in the middle of a rain storm.

When I arrived in Platres it turned out to be in a forest area that looked like a place where it rains a lot. Very different from the rest of the island, and actually more beautiful than the barren hills that you see on most of Cyprus. I did not stay long in Platres, but decided to drive higher into the mountains, up to Mount Olympus. A nice drive and hardly any other cars.

Woods around Platres (Cyprus)

Forests outside Platres

From there I took part of the wine route back to the coast, but I did not stop at any wineries (I still had to drive and that does not fit with tasting lots of wine). Most wineries seemed to be quite small anyway, and I was not sure which vineyards were worth a visit and which not. I’ll probably do a bit of research before my next trip there and then visit the best 2 or 3 wineries.

Cyprus

Beach between Limassol and Paphos

I partly took the small road from Limassol to Paphos along the coast (also spelled as Pafos). This road has some amazing views over the sea and its beaches, highly recommended.

Paphos (Pafos) boulevard

Paphos (Pafos) main boulevard

Paphos has some beautiful ruins, but it seems there are only cheap package tourists here, mainly interested in getting extremely sun burned and in drinking copious amounts of beer. I was a bit disappointed by the place. It certainly looks nice, but the English and Russian tourists ruined (no pun intended) it for me.

Sunrise in Limassol (Cyprus)

Sunrise over the Mediterranean, taken from my hotel room balcony

After Paphos I drove back to Limassol for a run on the beach and dinner overlooking the sea. I was thirsty so just had a few Keo beers (local Cyprus beer) during a simple seafood dinner. Then I went to bed early because I had to get up very early (before sunrise!) to catch my plane. Sunrise was beautiful, so getting up so early was totally worth it. It was a short trip, but it was productive and I had a good time sightseeing as well.

All my Cyprus pictures can be found in this set on Flickr

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Sports and politics don’t go together in China

Marc before the start of the 2009 Shanghai Marathon

As many blog readers know I am an avid runner and over the past years I participated a few times in the Shanghai marathon. Not the healthiest run to join (air pollution!), but because it’s close to my home it’s an easy one to sign up for. The marathon has a lot of Japanese runners, because the main sponsor is a Japanese chemical brand called Toray. They name the marathon (Toray Cup), they provide the shirts (all have Toray in big letters printed on them), and you see their name everywhere around the course.

For 16 years Toray has been the title sponsor and this year they would again sponsor the race. On Monday organizers held a press conference with Toray management and some Shanghai government officials present. The event just started when suddenly other government told the organizers to stop the press conference.

What happened? Because of the new tensions about the Diaoyu islands (or the Senkakus in Japanese) the government felt that it could not allow Japanese sponsorship for the Shanghai marathon. So in the middle of a press conference they decided to tell Toray that they could not continue their sponsorship! Even for me, after all these years in China, this is quite unbelievable. What will now happen to this year’s Shanghai Marathon I don’t know, the website is currently down.

The Shanghai Marathon has had a Japanese sponsor for years, but now they seem to kick them out

If you wanted to run Shanghai but are not sure whether it will take place this year, you could of course also switch to the Beijing marathon. At least, in theory that would be possible, because that marathon is also facing political problems. Originally the race was planned for October 14, but a few days ago the organization heard that they would not get the necessary permits. The reason is that the National Congress of the Communist Party will likely take place during that time (the official dates have not been announced yet).

What will happen to the Beijing marathon this year is anyone’s guess. The website stopped its (Japanese!) countdown clock and gives no further information about the race. A marathon is a race that you need to prepare for months in advance, you can’t just suddenly run it 2 or 3 weeks later without a big problem with your training schedule. Many top athletes will have a serious problem now, let alone the issues they will face with their flight tickets and China visa.

Beijing marathon 2012 postponed because of Communist Party National Congress

And the Beijing marathon already had some trouble earlier this summer, when they found out that an entrepreneurial Chinese made a fake Beijing marathon website and got people to sign up and pay for participation in the race.

Beijing marathon fake site

I wonder if this will be the end for the Beijing marathon, I don’t think big athletes will come back again next year (if it even takes place), nor will foreign tour operators who now have a big problem to solve for the people who booked a trip to Beijing for this year’s marathon.

Shanghai will likely get government sponsorship to make up for the lost revenue from Toray, but will likely lose a lot of its participants. Tons of them were Japanese, and not only will these runners cancel this year’s participation, they also won’t return next year. Sports and politics don’t go together…

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Two days in Amsterdam

View over Amsterdam

This week I was in Amsterdam for 2 days for business meetings and to give 2 speeches. It was a bit unexpected, I had not planned to be in Holland this month, but it turned out to be a good trip so I was glad I took the time to do this.

On Wednesday morning I started with some meetings at Spil Games HQ in Hilversum. I am not there very often anymore, so I always try to make a trip to Spil when I am in Holland. Spil Games is still going strong with a good strategy and excellent management, happy to see that!

After lunch at the Spil Games restaurant I went over to the Media Park for a radio interview on Dutch Radio 1. At first I did not want to do it because of time constraints, but it turned out that I could just fit it into my program. The live program lasted one hour, and there were 2 other guests, the mayor of Rotterdam Mr. Aboutaleb and Dutch pop singer Bennie Jolink. Mr. Aboutaleb could not join the full program because he had to catch a plane to Shanghai (which was a coincidence!), but he asked me in the program to meet up next time I’m in The Netherlands.

Bennie Jolink is well-known in Holland as lead singer and composer of the Dutch band Normaal. I knew his music but never met him, despite the fact that as a kid I lived several years in the village of Wehl, which is very close to where he lives (he told me afterward that he lives just 4 kilometers from there).

"Dit Is De Dag" Radio 1 interview

The interview was mainly about my career so far and about doing business in China, similar to most media interviews I did in Holland over the past years. I actually did not know that there was a live video stream as well (broadcast through the Internet), you can see about 10 minutes of it here – of course the audio is in Dutch.

After the interview I took a train to Amsterdam for the LOEY Awards 2012. These awards are given to the Leading Online Entrepreneur of the Year and I had been asked to give the keynote at the ceremony. The event took place at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, one of the top museums in Holland. The museum has been closed for several years for a complete renovation/reconstruction and will be opened officially later this month. So we were able to see the new museum before anyone else (even Queen Beatrix), which was a nice perk.

Loey Awards 2012 (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam)

After a short meeting with the jury and organizers the managing director of the museum gave us some background information of the place and showed us several of its the architectural features. Then we did a sound check and rehearsal on stage, during which I found out that most of the slides of my presentation had been automatically modified (I used Powerpoint on a Mac and the organization used Windows, and that combined with the font I used caused the trouble…). Just in time we managed to change it!

Several hundred people attended the evening, mainly online entrepreneurs but also investors and leading business people in bigger companies. The title of my story was “The Art of Doing Business in China”, which fit well with the art museum location. The 3 topics I touched upon were the state of the Internet in China (trends etc.), challenges of doing business in China, and opportunities for Dutch entrepreneurs on the Chinese market. I really enjoyed giving the keynote speech, especially for an audience like this.

Loey Awards 2012 (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam)

After the awards ceremony, won by Pieter Zwart of CoolBlue, there was a dinner in the halls of the museum, and after a couple of beers and wines I went back to my hotel room to get some sleep. When I’m working I don’t really feel my jet lag, but after a busy day and some alcohol it suddenly hit me, so I was in bed by midnight.

The next morning I had some more meetings, among others with the entrepreneurs at PeerReach (in which I am an investor). After that I had a lunch and then I had to go to the Opening of the Academic Year of Nyenrode New Business School. I had been asked to give a keynote and because I was in Holland anyway I agreed to do so.

Opening Academic Year 2012-13 Nyenrode New Business School

It was the second time for me to open the Academic Year in The Netherlands, the first time was in 2009 when I gave the keynote at my alma mater Maastricht University (see this video of my speech). This year’s opening was a lot less formal, especially because this is a relatively new business school and because it’s focused on entrepreneurship. I was wearing a tie for the first time in several months, but many of the people in the audience (incl. some of the board members) did not wear one. Very different from the official ceremony at Maastricht University, where all professors wear their traditional robes and the opening is a very formal affair.

Nyenrode New Business School is very different from traditional universities in Holland, it is much more practical and focused on entrepreneurship. During the afternoon I learned that the school is actually called the Amsterdam School of Entrepreneurship, and indeed most of the students that I talked to had a very entrepreneurial mind. Before I gave my talk I had to randomly draw the names of 15 students who had to pitch themselves on stage for one minute. Most of them were quite nervous (several of them even started their pitch by saying this!), but all of them did a pretty decent talk in front of several hundred people and a couple really managed to sell themselves and their entrepreneurial ideas.

Opening Academic Year 2012-13 Nyenrode New Business School

I had decided to use the same title for my kenote as for the LOEY Awards presentation, but I changed the content a bit for the students. I focused more on what they can do to become successful entrepreneurs and of course I encouraged them to do part of their studies in China (I was told that Nyenrode is setting up a campus in Chengdu).

After the Opening of the Academic Year I had a chat with some of Nyenrode’s board members and students, and I left with a very positive feeling about this business school. Even though it’s a relatively young business education I feel they achieved a lot already and they managed to recruit some very entrepreneurial students.

At night I had dinner and drinks with some friends and then the short trip was over already. It was pretty busy, but I am glad I took the time to fly over. I met a lot of people, learned a lot and of course had a lot of fun as well!

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Dutch election debates – serious fun…

Dutch elections 2012 debate

Next week Holland will have general elections for the 5th time in 10 years. Government cabinets generally don’t last long here because there are too many parties and they can’t cooperate to solve the countries problems. Even worse, some of the populist parties seem to have no aim other than to criticize and attack others without having real solutions themselves.

This is called democracy, and it leads to slow (or no) decision making, and short term thinking instead of solving long term problems. I still like being in Holland, but when I see the mess the politicians are making I don’t mind not living here myself.

I have been away from Holland for 17 years but I normally don’t realize how much the country has changed over the years. Yesterday I had one of those moments that I saw changes I did not see before. I returned to my Amsterdam hotel room after giving a speech and turned on the TV to watch the news. After the news an election debate between the leaders of the leading parties was scheduled. I was working on some emails and did not really pay attention to it until I heard all of the politicians laughing.

I looked up, because I thought an election debate is supposed to be a serious program where parties discuss ‘important’ topics. But no, one of the party leaders, the most controversial and (probably) most hated one, Geert Wilders of the populist anti-foreigner/Islam/Europe party PVV had his birthday. So the presenter decided to ask the other party heads to sing a birthday song. Of course nobody dared to refuse (one tried by saying “let’s do this afterward”, but was conveniently ignored by the presenter) and the whole singing was ridiculous. Even the guy who had his birthday looked uncomfortable, and I was wondering how anyone could take the rest of the program serious when you start off like this.

Dutch elections 2012 debate

But it got worse, after the singing the party leaders had to give a funny one liner about a picture of one of their opponents. They had turned the debate into an enterainment program! It seems elections in Holland are not about the ideas and solutions of politicians anymore, but about how good they are at giving witty remarks in what is supposed to be an important debate. Is this what Dutch viewers want to see nowadays? Don’t they understand the significance of electing smart politicians who can execute in the middle of a European crisis, instead of ones that are funny and can sing well? I turned off the TV.

This morning while having a quick coffee in my hotel room before checking out I turned on the TV again, and coincidentally a new debate was announced: a debate in today’s “Jeugdjournaal”, the daily news program for kindergarten and primary school kids…. The Jeugdjournaal interviewed Geert Wilders in advance of the debate and he was passionately talking about the toys he used to have as a kid. I picked up the remote control and pushed the off button. Holland changed a lot.

Source of the pictures of the debate:
Economische Faculteitsvereniging Rotterdam (EFR),
https://www.facebook.com/efrnl

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Ultraviolet voted best new restaurant in Shanghai

Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet - an amazing dining experience!

In early June I was very lucky to be one of the first guests to experience Paul Pairet’s cooking skills at his new restaurant Ultraviolet. I wrote a blog post about the dinner in which I said that it was an incredible food experience for me. And it seems I am not the only one, because this week Ultraviolet was voted “Best New Restaurant in Shanghai” at the Shanghai Food and Drink Awards. Quite a feat considering that so far only about 650 people have been able to participate in this feast of the senses. Next to that Paul Pairet was voted “Best Chef” as well, and I fully agree with that.

Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet - an amazing dining experience!

I had been able to make reservations for my parents at Ultraviolet last Wednesday and I expected they would enjoy it as much as I did. My dad has had lunches and dinners in the best restaurants in the world during his career (my parents took me and my sister to top restaurants from a young age onward, for which I am very grateful), so I was looking forward to hearing his opinion. My parents thought it was amazing, they never had such a dinner before in their whole lives. I talked to them for at least half an hour after they came back (which was long after midnight!), they had a fantastic night and could not stop talking about it.

Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet - an amazing dining experience!

It was already hard to get seats at Ultraviolet, but now that the restaurant starts to get awards it will be impossible to make reservations. I just looked at their site, they open up reservations 90 days in advance, but there is only 1 seat available over the next 3 months. All other days are fully booked. That’s the downside: I would love to go back and experience the fantastic food once again, but it will be very hard to get seats. But I am very happy for Paul,Fabien and the rest of the team with this early success: Ultraviolet is a winner!