Today my little girl Elaine turned 3 years old and yesterday we organized a party for her at home. 17 of her little friends came to visit, most with their parents and/or nannies, so it was pretty busy in our house.

Luckily the rain stopped on time, so the kids could play in the garden as well. The trampoline we bought for the kids was a huge success, some of them did not want to get off it anymore after they started bouncing up and down.

Because it was not so warm we decided to leave the kids pool empty. That was probably a good idea, the kids still loved to play in it. At a certain point I realized Scott had found the water hose and had even managed to turn it on, but I stopped him in time before he could start filling up the kids pool (full of kids at that time of course).

Inside the kids could play in the living room or in Scott and Elaine’s play room, and within minutes the house was a huge mess. But that didn’t matter, the kids had fun and that’s what counts.

Grace had arranged a clown who doubled as magician and who performed a magic show for the kids. He managed to keep their attention for the full 15 minutes of his show (not an easy feat with 3-year olds), so I guess he did a good job. He also made all kinds of things (animals, swords etc.) out of balloons for Elaine and her friends, so they all loved him.

We also hired an artist that made birds and other small animals out of brightly colored clay, he was really talented and I enjoyed watching him.

We had ordered a catering service for food, and they prepared among others french fries, shrimp pop corn, chicken nuggets, nachos and garlic bread. Of course the kids liked it, but the parents seemed to eat even more of it (including myself of course).

And then there were the birthday cakes of course – 2 cakes, because with so many people 1 cake is not enough. Elaine had chosen them herself, so of course both of them were pink. I had too many snack already so I did not eat a lot of cake anymore.

After the cake it was time for the Hello Kitty piñata, filled with tons of candy. It took the kids quite a while to break if, but with a bit of help of the clown eventually the piñata opened and all the candy fell onto the floor. Scott managed to get a lot of candy: being one year older than most of the others he put all the candy he collected immediately into his pockets instead of just trying to keep it in his hands.

After about 2 hours most of the kids were quite tired and the party was over. We took pictures of Elaine with all her guests and then it was time for a huge clean up at home. Elaine and Scott had a great time, and I also enjoyed talking to many of the kids fathers. Interesting is that one of them asked me what my background was, and when I told him he suddenly realized he had chosen the school (Soong Ching Ling) after among others reading about it on my blog (but he had no idea I was the one writing this blog). Always nice to meet people that read my blog, especially if I meet them for the first time.

More pictures of Elaine’s 3rd birthday party here in a set on Flickr.

China is never a boring country in terms of news. But I have the feeling that right now a lot more things are happening concurrently than ever before during the past 12+ years that I have lived here. It’s a bit scary to observe this trend, especially because some of it may also affect me and my family.

Maybe this trend is due to social media, so that a lot more news comes out that the government could still keep under cover a few years ago. For example, most of the recent food scandals would have never reached the general public in pre-Internet times. Things have gotten so bad that we hardly buy any Chinese food products anymore, and we now even started making our own yoghurt…

Politically times are very turbulent as well, not only internally (with the arrest of Bo Xilai and the party trying to keep the army loyal) but also externally (tensions between China and The Philippines). And last week, for the first time in 13 years, a foreign journalist was kicked out of China.

On top of that the anti-foreigner sentiment is on the rise once again. Over the years I have seen a few instances in which it was safer to avoid certain places for foreigners (the Hainan spy plane incident, anti-French tensions, the attacks on Japanese people and property (twice!)). But what’s happening now seems to target a much broader range of foreigners. Likely the government is just using it to direct attention away from the internal political problems and to make people more patriotic, but it’s scary to see what’s happening and how quickly social media can spread the moods of people.

Even big Chinese Internet companies like Baidu and Sina joined the party to crack down on ‘misbehaving foreigners’, according to an article in yesterday’s People’s Daily. And a well-known English speaking CCTV anchor put a tirade against foreigners on his Weibo, stirring up things even further.

A New York Times blog post gives a good overview of how the xenophobia started and about everything that happened over the past 10 days, give it a read if you want to understand what’s going on: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/sentiment-against-foreigners-flares-in-china/ Personally I am not too worried yet, but it’s important to keep an eye on what’s happening.

A couple of months ago I wrote an article on air pollution in Shanghai, and afterward I received quite some mails from people planning to move here who got worried about the air quality in Shanghai. At least one person told me he decided not to move to China, but I am sure that because of the air quality a lot more people already made that decision. And I personally know several people that left Shanghai because of the air quality – and like I said in the article, I will probably also not stay here for years anymore, especially because of the pollution.

When I wrote the post there were no official 2.5PM measurements available yet, but not the US Consulate started broadcasting them on Twitter (just like they already do this in Beijing). After last night’s rain and seemingly pretty clean air today (it even rains a bit right now), I was shocked to see that even on a day like this the air quality is unhealthy. The pictures with this post were taken just now on the roof of unitedstyles, often the view is much less clear.

The air quality measurement device is located on Huaihai Lu in downtown Shanghai, so the air there is likely more polluted than in the suburbs, but it’s scary anyway. Of course I immediately started following the pollution levels on Twitter, you can follow them here as well.

After our trip to Hong Kong Disneyland a few weeks ago, the kids keep on singing It’s A Small World. They have a video on their iPads that we shot inside the It’s A Small World ride, and they watch that video often while singing along to the tunes of the song. When they sing it I regularly muse about this world being really small – or that my network is really big? – because everywhere I go I meet people that I already know. Last night was a good example.

I organized a small bbq party and had among others invited Nicky Koopman to join. Nicky works for Dutch media company Talpa and is in town for the pre-production of TV program The Voice. I had not met her in person yet, but we had been in touch over email over the past weeks because of my experiences in the Chinese media industry. So we had a few glasses of good wine – among others an 18-year old Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon (thanks to serial fashion entrepreneur Jeff Clark!). and then we talked a bit about mutual friends. It turned out we indeed had a couple of them, not unusual if you are both Dutch and work in media.

She then asked me if I knew a certain person, and I told her yes, this person had even been to my wedding 7 years ago. She then looked at me and said: “But then I’ve likely been to your wedding as well!”. I had to think for a second and then I realized who she was. Friends of mine who were flying to my wedding had met her on the plane from Amsterdam to Beijing and told her they had a dinner party that night (for my wedding, which was to take place the next day) and had asked her to come along. So she sort of “wedding crashed” the party without really knowing who I was – and without me knowing anymore who she was. I only vaguely remembered that she was presenting a Dutch TV program at that time, and because there were probably about 150 other guests at the dinner I sort of forgot about it.

It’s quite a coincidence that you meet a person almost 7 years later, when you are both in very different roles and without realizing that you met before. If she had not asked me about the mutual acquaintance we may have never found out. Often serendipities occur because of the social media, but this time it was totally unrelated. It’s a small world!

A few weeks ago Joe Constanty restarted the successful NextStep Tuesday events and I agreed to speak at tonight’s one at Kartel in Shanghai. Topic will mainly be online fashion start-up unitedstyles.com (last time I spoke at NextStep I already talked about Tudou and Spil Games), but feel free to ask any other questions after the event.

NextStep starts at 7 PM and I will give a short talk at 7:30 PM. Free entrance & drinks are 50% off, so no reason not to come. See you there!

See also: http://nschina.tumblr.com/post/21322587084/nschina-on-tuesday-may-8th-we-will-host

Location:KARTEL
5/F, 1 Xiangyang Bei Lu, near Julu Lu, Shanghai
襄阳北路1号5楼, 巨鹿路

I am spending a few days on Koh Samui with my family, one of my favorite tropical islands. The place has everything: from unspoiled beaches and endless coconut plantations, to high-end dining and a good night life. Although I was here mainly for business related reasons I had a great time.

This morning I drove from our villa to the French bakery to buy a baguette for breakfast and then wanted to get gas, when I realized I did not bring enough cash. So I stopped at an ATM (every 7-11 and Family Mart has an ATM here, meaning that you are never more than a few hundred meters away from one) to get some more Thai Baht. In Thailand you normally first get your receipt, then your money and only then your bank card. Not smart, because people may forget their cards after taking their money, but that’s a different story.

Anyway, I got my receipt and money and was waiting for my card to come out. After waiting for about 10 seconds the card still did not come out, and I got a bit worried that my card may have been lost. But that was not the case, because when I looked at the ATM screen I saw and ad with the question whether I liked the advertising or not. Only after clicking that I would get my card back!

I have seen a lot of ATMs all over the world, and many of them have advertising on it. Either before you start, during the transaction or you get your money. But this is the first time that I was asked to let the bank know whether I liked the ad before getting back my card! An innovative idea, but I hope China won’t start copying this.

Early this morning I was doing my emails in my study, when I suddenly heard my wife arguing with someone downstairs. The arguing got louder and louder and I heard one of the nannies scream at Grace. I had no idea what was going on, and because the kids were also downstairs I walked down to see what was happening.

It seemed that Grace was extremely angry, and I heard something about medicine but could not really figure out what the whole thing was about. The kids pretended they did not hear anything and talked to me as if nobody else was in the room (“Good morning daddy, shall we play?”), but I thought it was better for them to play in a different room because the situation looked like it would escalate.

So I put the kids in the play room and then Grace’s mother (who is visiting) came in to tell me that Scott’s nanny had given him 10 times too much medicine! I understood that that may be a life threatening mistake and that Grace had every right to be angry. Grace then fired the nanny on the spot, which I found a bit harsh, upon which the nanny threatened to call the police. When Grace said that was fine she (of course) did not call the cops and after some more arguing about how much money we owed her (and being paid) she left to pack her belongings.

Then I heard the whole story, which was even worse than I had expected. Scott had been sick with high fever over the past days, so he went to see a doctor on Monday. Turns out he had a throat infection. Nothing too bad, he had it a few months before as well (pollution related? I hope not) and we still had the medicine left at home for him in a bottle. He was supposed to get 4 ml once or twice a day. At night Grace noticed that the bottle was almost empty, which surprised her because she thought the bottle had still been half full.

So she asked the nanny whether she had given Scott too much medicine. She said that that was not the case and that she had given Scott the amount that Grace’ father had told her to give to Scott. Grace asked how much that was and she told Grace to ask her father. So she did and he confirmed 4 ml per time. Then the nanny said that she indeed had given Scott 4 ml but that she had given him twice 4 ml. Grace showed her how much 4 ml is and she said that that is how much Scott got. Strange of course, but it could be that there had been less medicine left in the bottle than we thought.

But this morning the nanny went to Grace’ parents and told them that she had not slept the whole night and confessed she had given Scott 40 ml instead of 4 ml. Grace parents then told this to Grace right away, and then she got really upset with the nanny. Not only because the nanny had made a huge mistake, but especially because she had tried to cover it up and put Scott in potentially serious danger. Had she told Grace right away she would not have been fired, but by trying to cover it up there was no other choice than to fire her. So she left, and as we found out a few minutes later, she had stolen a few hundred RMB as well right before she walked out of the house.

We then immediately got in touch with the doctor. She told us that it was too late to do anything, had we come to her yesterday they would have emptied Scott’s stomach, but now the medicine was in his system already. There is not much we can do except giving him as much to drink as possible so he can go to the toilet. He may have stomach ache and may have to vomit (which he did actually). For now Scott seems to be okay, he was laying on the couch playing a bit with the cushions and told me he had a headache, but there did not seem to be anything seriously wrong with him. Likely things will be fine as long as Scott keeps on drinking. If he does not he will have to get an IV drip in the hospital to stay hydrated.

What happened today was a major scare for us, and not the first one we had with nannies: I could write a book about all the things we have experienced so far with domestic staff. From now on we will give the kids their medicine ourselves, it seems you can’t trust nannies to do this anymore. We have to go to Singapore tonight but of course will only go if Scott is really fine over the next couple of hours.

I was in Beijing today for a few meetings and just like last time the weather in the capital city was awful. It was supposed to be sunny and warm, but instead a thick layer of smog covered the city and kept the temperature much lower than it should have been. I felt the smoky air in my throat as we crossed the city from meeting to meeting, and my colleagues had the same (one even bought a face mask). I still love Beijing, but there is no way anybody can get me to live there anymore. It’s just not healthy and I have the feeling it’s only getting worse each time I go there.

So I was glad I could leave the city at night again, this time by train. Yesterday I flew in because I could not catch the last train anymore, but today I decided to book a sleeper seat on the fast train back to Shanghai. It was a good choice, traveling by train is so much more relaxing than traveling by plane. First of all you can arrive at the train station until a few minutes before departure (try that at the airport!), but you also don’t have the hassle of checking in bags or the annoying security checks.

The trip is much longer (5h22m for my train, it made quite some stops, there are faster trains on this route vs. about 2 hours for the BJ-SH flight), but you save at least 1-1.5 hours with all the airport formalities and the fact that Beijing airport is farther away from the city (of course depending on where your meetings are at). But the best thing is that you can keep on working on the train, during most of the ride there is a great 3G signal (much better than a few months ago, when half the trip I could not go online) and also your phone works during the whole trip.

The seats are superior to the seats on most airplanes and much cheaper than first or even biz class seats on an airplane (RMB 1750 for a one-way trip on sleeper seats). The air on board is obviously much better than on an airplane because cabins aren’t pressurized, and because the train stops every 45 minutes you can step out several times during the trip if you would like to. Just don’t step out too long, normally the train seems to stop for less than a minute!

Food is just as bad as on a plane, but the good thing is that it’s easier to bring your own food and drinks. This time I bought some snacks from Burger King at the train station and only ate a small part of the dinner that the staff served me. I didn’t bring drinks but had a beer: a Tibetan beer called “Green Barley”. I had never heard of this beer before. It was drinkable, but next time I’ll bring my own Tsingtao.

Interesting is that during most of the ride I was the only passenger in the sleeper compartment, only during the first hour (between Beijing and Jinan) there were a few other passengers. After that silence. Except for the 4-5 times when passenger that booked tickets in other classes sneaked in and sat down, only to be kicked out again within a few minutes by the well-trained female train attendants. Some tried to bribe them (didn’t work), one got angry (a foreign business man that thought he had booked the most expensive seats but ended up in first class seats instead), and 3 guys who were just plain drunk and walked out the moment the attendant told them to go.

I enjoyed the train ride and although the trip is longer than the flight I feel like it was a much shorter trip. I highly recommend taking a train to anybody traveling in China, especially during day time when  you can see a bit of the China’s countryside as well.