The past 3 days I spent in Amsterdam and Hilversum, mainly for business meetings at Spil Games. It was a good trip, glad I took the time to fly back and forth from China. Spil Games is doing very well despite the recession, and with the addition of some new key people in the management this will only get better. Expect to hear a lot more about Spil’s successes soon, this is just the beginning!

The weather was not that great, quite cold with occasionally some rain, but today the weather was suddenly very nice. Early this morning it was still freezing, during a run at dawn with my dad the rain puddles in the woods were still covered with ice. But once the sun climbed higher the temperature went up as well and now the weather is gorgeous. And the flowers also seem to like it, because today suddenly the flowers in my parents garden started to bloom!

It’s not easy to explain to people outside China how quickly Chinese can do things. In Shanghai I have seen roads being built in a few days and buildings going up in a matter of months instead of years. Many people don’t believe it until they visit Shanghai and feel the vibe of this city and the work ethos of the people. Here things happen instead of that people just talk about them.

Today’s paper version of the Shanghai Daily had a great example of this. It published an article about a new tunnel that is currently being constructed under the Huangpu river, and they reported that the tunneling machines broke through to the other side this weekend. The Renmin Road tunnel will have two passages of each 2470 meters long and will be finished in the 4th quarter of this year. I have to admit that I don’t know a single thing about construction, let alone about tunnel construction, but building a 2.5 km tunnel (or actually 2 tunnels) within 9 months after drilling to the other side of the river seems awfully fast to me.

But that’s not all, because the article matter-of-factly ends with the sentence: “Currently 7 tunnels are under construction and they are all due to open before the World Expo 2010”. Seven new tunnels – and all to be finished in just over a year. That could only happen in China!

Last night I had dinner at Greek restaurant Mythos at the Cool Docks in Shanghai (???, Lao Ma Tou, literally “the old docks”). I had not been to the Cool Docks before and had actually not even heard about it before. Why? I guess they did a terrible job at marketing the place since it opened last year. If people don’t talk about it or don’t write about it on the Internet, others won’t know about it.

The place itself is great however, it reminds me very much of Xintiandi. It also consists of an area of renovated (or at least old style) shikumen buildings combined with some more modern structures, with lots of bars and restaurants. It looks quite nice, not as tacky as Xintiaindi and not as ugly-modern as Tongren Lu. I think the place can be better than Xintiandi: most of the restaurants are located around a big open square with fountains that gives the place a different, more open, feel than Xintiandi. And it has the advantage of nice views over the Huangpu river and Pudong from some of the bars and restaurants.

The location is about 2 km South of the Bund, too far to walk and not close to any metro stations. Next to that the place is surrounded by construction sites. Not the best way to get started for a new dining and entertainment location. When I walked around the place last night (a Friday night) around 8 PM there was hardly anybody in the bars and restaurants, even though that should be one of the busiest times of the week. The place deserves better and maybe this blog post can convince a few people to go there and have a coffee or a beer.

The dinner at Mythos was nice, but I found the menu a bit disappointing. I expected more Greek menu items, most of them were just standard international dishes (beef tenderloin, sirloin steak, salmon etc.). The starters were better in that respect, we ordered among others feta cheese and tzatziki. As a main course I ordered one of the few Greek dishes I could find, moussaka. The food itself was OK, but we did not find it very special. Watch out, the staff only speaks a few words of English which can lead to miscommunications, especially because they do not confirm whether they understood you or not. Instead of a (white) Sauvignon Blanc they gave me a (red) Cabernet Sauvignon for example, that I of course returned. I did not spot any Greek wines on the wine list, although I may have overlooked some, and the house wines were all from Chile and Argentina.

What makes the place special, however, is the 3rd floor lounge with white sofa chairs and a nice bar, and with views over the river. The 4th floor roof top terrace is even better, an excellent place to relax once the weather gets a little bit warmer in Shanghai. I am quite sure I will be back, probably for food but certainly for drinks. I can imagine sitting there with friends on a warm Friday night or Saturday afternoon drinking a bottle of chilled wine watching the ships sail by. I found a set of pictures of Mythos here on Flickr.

I did not try any other bars or restaurants last night, but will do so in the near future. As mentioned above, the Cool Docks deserve better and I hope the place will come to life soon. If you’re looking for some new restaurants to try out, give the Cool Docks a try. And even if you’re just looking for a (still quiet) place to have a coffee, this is a good place to go to. Among others there is a Starbucks, but there are many other places serving coffee as well. If you come by car, there are parking spaces on the back of the complex next to the river. Typical Chinese planning in my opinion, because that is normally prime real estate for an entertainment complex. Lots of taxi’s drive by on Zhongshan Lu, so if you come by taxi it won’t be too difficult to catch a cab back either.

The Cool Docks, 479 Zhongshan Nan Lu, close to Fuxing Lu.
Mythos restaurant, phone 021-61526755

After last year’s big success of the first Tudou Festival in Moganshan (see my blog post), there will be another one this year. The festival, that sets Tudou apart from its competitors, will be held on April 18 in Shanghai. For this year’s festival Tudou.com partners with the China Film Group Corporation, the most prestigious film production and trading organization in China. As Tudou’s press release from today says, this is a very significant milestone for Tudou: symbolically, the partnership is a marriage between a hundred-year old film industry and the only four-year old Internet video phenomena.

For five of the winners (out of a total of sixteen Award winners) there will be a chance to qualify for China Film’s Youth Director Project or for the New Media Production Project. This opens the door to China Film’s production facilities, funds, resources and channels – a gateway to the serious filming industry.

During the 2009 Tudou Video Festival there will not only be the finals of the Video Awards, but also the first Video Financing Forum. Gary Wang (CEO of Tudou.com) today said about this: “Based on the experience of our first Tudou Video Festival last year, our 2009 campaign aims for a bigger goal to build up the value chain for Internet video creative talents, who are getting insufficient attention and financing at this point. Our goal is to expand development and extend opportunities for amazing talents and vitality that we have seen on Tudou.com, hopefully in real terms such as cash financing and broadcasting opportunities.”

During the video financing forum fifty selected proposals in the categories drama, non-fiction/documentary, music/entertainment, animation, and reality show will do an elevator pitch of their ideas in front of potential content buyers and investors from TV channels, production companies, mobile/new media channels and brand advertisers, simulating a content trading platform. “Bold, indie and fresh are the creative qualities we are looking for,” Gary emphasized. “We hope by increasing exposure of this community that grew with Tudou, more people will get the chance to know and invest the young and uprising community as Tudou is committed to.”

If you have an idea for a video production or have a video that you want to submit for the Tudou Video Festival, you can still do that online until the end of March. The official Tudou Video Festival website you can find here: http://www.tudou.com/events/tudou/videofestival09/index.php

This week Christine Lu of the China Business Network is in town again and every time she is here she manages to organize a great party. This time it’s no different: on Saturday February 28 there will be a pre-SXSW cocktail at M1NT Shanghai.

Never heard about SXSW before? It’s the abbreviation for South by Southwest, a huge film, music and interactive festival in Austin, Texas (website). This year China’s tech sector will also be present at the interactive festival, and one of the aims of this party is to hightlight that. Expect a combination of networking, good food and drinks (free Moet & Chandon from 9-10 PM for example), great music and the opportunity to join a private Dom Perignon event at M1NT after 11:30 PM. So far an impressive list of high-tech & internet executives, as well as VC’s, bloggers and journalists have confirmed their attendance (see here for the current list, scroll down to end of page).

Entry fee is RMB 200 and part of the proceeds go to the Jet Li Foundation. RSVP is necessary at http://sxswshanghai.eventbrite.com/. Maximum number of participants is 150. Start: 9 PM.
Hope to see you there! If you cannot be there follow the party on Twitter, hashtag: #sxswshanghai

On Thursday I attended the book launch of “China Entrepreneur” by CEIBS professor Juan Antonio Fernandez and Laurie Underwood. This is their second book together after publishing China CEO in 2006. For this book they interviewed 40 international entrepreneurs in China (among others myself, hence the invitation), capturing their insights and experiences about how to successfully set up and run a business in China. I am quite impressed with the result and spent several hours today reading the book.

The 40 entrepreneurs that the authors talked to for the book come from 25 countries, so the book offers a truly international perspective on entrepreneurship in China. It is not a book with 40 separate interviews, which would have been boring, but the experiences of the entrepreneurs are neatly woven into the structure of the book, which makes for an interesting and highly entertaining read. As the book says, every single entrepreneur has met trouble somewhere during their China experiences and many of these problems, including how they solved them, are in the book. Some in the form of short case studies, others in the text itself.

Although the book is well-researched scientific book, it is quite easy to read. For me it was even a fun read, not because I am also featured in it but because of all the real-life examples that are in the book, many of which I recognize from my own experiences. Next to that many pages contain useful short quotes by the entrepreneurs in the left and right margins and the most valuable tips for potential future China entrepreneurs are highlighted there as well.

The book is divided into several chapters, each describing a particular aspect of doing business here. Among the subjects covered in the book are:
– Getting started: understanding the business environment and dealing with the Chinese government
– Obtaining a business license and choosing the right legal form
– Choosing the right Chinese business partner
– Getting paid by customers
– Human Resource Challenges
– Ethics and Corruption
– Business negotiations

The book also has a chapter on living in China (hardships, hurdles and work-life balance) and a chapter to find out what traits are necessary in order to set up a business in China. It’s a book about blood, sweat and tears, but also how these can lead to big successes. Nothing is easy in China but everything is possible.

I found it a great read so far (I did not finish it yet), and I highly recommend it to anybody who plans to do business in China. If you plan to be, or already are, an entrepreneur or if you are working as an expat in this country, this is a book you will learn a lot from. Not everything may be applicable, but it prepares you for the worst and also shows you that there are almost always solutions for everything in China.

China Entrepreneur – Voices of Experience from 40 international business pioneers, Juan Antonio Fernandez and Laurie Underwood, published by John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0-470-82321-7

The book is available from Amazon here, and I assume it will also be available at Chaterhouse and other foreign-language bookstores in China.
http://www.china-entrepreneur.org

Monday afternoon it suddenly started, I received a call from a construction company telling me they heard that our company would move and that they were interested in designing and constructing the new office. I told them they had the wrong information, but they insisted their source was very well-informed. An hour later the boss of the company called me with the same story, seemingly trying to pressure me to admit that we would move our company in the near future. He even said he knew how many square meters we rented. I stayed polite and told him he was wrong.

Tuesday two other construction companies called me with the same question, all telling me that their sources told them that we would move and that they are interested and qualified to work with us. This continued the whole week and it’s driving me nuts. If I get a call now and hear the word ‘construction company’ I immediately say “we are not moving” and hang up on them.

I think I know where the rumor comes from, another company that I am involved in is likely going to move to a much bigger office (no name, otherwise they will get all the calls). For some reason the well-informed source mixed up my name with the person in charge of the other company and has given all construction companies that he has connections with my name and mobile phone number. Hopefully some of them will first Google my name and find this blog post before calling me.

Update: Right after posting this I received my first call from a moving company, telling me that ‘their friend’ told them we are relocating to a new office. I hope the call is not the beginning of another trend.