Perfume

Sitting in a coffee shop in the basement of the Kerry Mall in Beijing where I found a free hotspot to check my mail. Nice and warm in here, outside it is freezing cold and it is expected to snow later.

Just now I had a long meeting with a client. I was a bit early, so I walked around a neighbourhood shopping mall before going to the meeting. Just before I planned to walk to the meeting I passed by a perfume store. One of the shop attendants was standing in front of me and wanted to give the air a nice fragrance by spraying some perfume in the air. Nice idea of course, but not if she puts her hand high above her head and sprays the fragrance behind her – right into my face and eyes! She apologized a thousand times, but that did not help me. My eyes were hurting and I smelled like a cheap ladies perfume. And that 5 minutes before the meeting started. I went to the washroom to try to wash off the smell with soap, but that did not really help. Nobody said anything about it during the meeting, but you can imagine that I felt quite awkward!

Off to Beijing

Off to Beijing today, for a meeting with a China Bay client there about Chinese taxation issues. That’s what I like most about what I am doing: every day is different. And another great thing is that I always tend to meet interesting people with interesting stories: be it clients, friends or reporters. The biggest problem is that there is just not enough time in a day to everything I want to do.

It is always nice to go back to Beijing. Tonight I plan to have a couple of beers with old friends. Flying back to Shanghai on Saturday, where I plan to have Belgian mussels for dinner at the Hilton Hotel (I was informed they flew them in from Europe). In Beijing I used to go to Morel’s quite often, enjoying a Belgian beer with mussels and french fries, but I have not found a place like that in Shanghai.

China internet report: The entertainment highway

I spent a couple of hours reading the latest internet report by Guo Liang. The main difference between his report and the half-yearly report from CNNIC, is that Mr. Guo only looks at 5 major cities in China. This gives in my opinion a much better view of relevant internet behaviour than by looking at the nation as a whole. Most internet users are city dwellers, and have the largest incomes. The report was especially interesting for me, as I am currently writing an article for a magazine related to online behaviour in China.

Some of the main findings:

– Only 8% of the total population uses internet, but in the big cities it approaches 50%.

– In the big cities 25% of the internet users purchase goods online.

– Only 70% uses email. The main reason are likely old people who don’t need it, and young people who mainly communicate by QQ (China’s major Instant Messenger client) or blogs. Especiallly the trend with young people using more and more IM instead of email intrigues me. Could this be the beginning of a general trend? I have more and more clients and friends that I have short chats with over IM than a year ago. It’s an easy and quick way to get some info right away or to check on something.

– 30% of the users use weblogs. This is probably higher than any other country in the world. The figure is confirmed by an IDG report earlier this week in which a figure of 33.4 million blogs in China was reported.

– Of all people under 24, 80% uses internet, and in the age group between 24-29 it is between 60-80%. But even of the retired people 12% has found the worldwide web.

– People still trust TV and radio more than internet, and the trust in domestic media is still higher than in international media. Especially this last part is something many people outside China might not expect.

– There is a heavy emphasis on entertainment online. The report therefore even calls the information highway the entertainment highway!

See for a more detailed analysis also the articles and links on Fons Tuinstra’s blog (see here for example, there were several other entries on that day).