In the past the Chinese government used to announce the dates of its public holidays just a few weeks in advance, but yesterday the schedule for the whole of 2009 was published already. Good for people who want to start making vacation plans ahead of time.

Next year there will be a Golden Week during Spring Festival (from Jan. 25-31), but people will have to work the weekend before that to compensate for the holiday. Labor day will be just a one-day holiday this year (officially 3 days, but 2 fall on Saturday and Sunday) on May 1. And the National Day Holiday will be combined with the mid-Autumn Festival giving people time off from Oct. 1-8 (of course also here people have to compensate by working during the weekend before the holiday). Other holidays are on Jan 1-2 (New Year), April 6 (Qingming Festival) and May 28 (Dragon Boat Festival). No Christmas holidays in China of course.

Yesterday I arrived back in Shanghai after a busy week in Holland, without even enough time to write some blog posts… Lots of business appointments at Spil Games, a visit to the Dutch university of arts (HKU), a couple of media interviews, and a weekend visit to my parents. For some more details see my Tweets from last week, although I did not put everything on Twitter.

I was in Holland with 3 Chinese colleagues, who seemed to have enjoyed the trip. Business-wise it was certainly good to have had them in our Hilversum office for a few days, so they understand more about what Spil Games is doing in Holland and for the Spil Games people to see what we are up to in China. Of course we also had lots of beers together, among others in Spil Games office bar in Hilversum. We should do this at least once a year, especially now that Spil Games is growing so fast worldwide.

Now I am back in my office in Shanghai (yesterday already actually, the best way to fight a jet lag is to start working right away) catching up on work. As usual there is quite a back log of work when you are away for a few days. And tomorrow night I am off to Beijing again for a 1.5-day business trip. If you want to meet me, Saturday afternoon I have no meetings yet between 12:30-4 PM, so feel free to get in touch (marcvanderchijs (at) gmail (dot) com). I will be staying close to Houhai.

There are still some good people in this world. Last night my colleague Guo Haibin left his MacBook Pro laptop in a taxi, but we did not have the name of the taxi company nor the license plate number (see my blog post from this morning). Today a Spil Games secretary called all taxi companies in and around Hilversum and after about 15 companies she found the one that drove my colleagues to their hotel. At first they did not realize they had the bag, but they called the company back an hour later that they found it! They even brought it to our office (of course we paid for the taxi fee, plus a nice tip). After last night I honestly did not expect we would still be able to trace the laptop, but I am very happy to see that the taxi driver was honest and returned the computer.

November 2008 was not really my month. It started with getting a cold early in the month and a few days after that my failure to finish the 100 km Trailwalker race. Then I got really sick for about two weeks, with a bad cold that turned into a double ear infection because I kept on working and even went running on Tianmashan before I was healthy again. I am still taking medicine for that actually, especially because flying is not the best thing to do while having an ear infection. Last Friday’s scare with my wife’s pregnancy was also not something that I would like to go through again. And last night when I arrived in Amsterdam it seemed the bad luck spree had not stopped yet.

The flight itself was delayed but uneventful. I had an interesting neighbor who had set up and run factories for Xerox in India and China for over 25 years, and now helped setting up factories for other Dutch firms. Because he just turned 65 he decided to focus on other things from now on and he was on his way back to Holland after his final project in China. He knew Shanghai from the old days (the 1980’s) and had some interesting stories to tell. When I told him who I was he recognized me from a Dutch TV talk show where I participated, I am always amazed how many people have seen that show.

Upon arrival in Amsterdam I went through the passport check with my Chinese colleagues, and the passport guys were quite unfriendly. I already observed how they treated the Chinese in front of us, talking to them like they are potential criminals, wanting to see their documents and double-checking them. I really wonder if that is necessary, people have already been scrutinized when they applied for their visa’s, right? That visa process is another story by the way (my neighbor on the plane also had some bad visa experiences with his Chinese colleagues at the Dutch consulate), but it seems the Dutch consulate in Shanghai is actively working to improve it. Anyway, we got the same treatment from the passport guy, asking my colleague all kinds of questions. When I stepped in the public servant looked at me as if I was a piece of dirt. I looked back at him in the same way, the only thing you can do in such a situation, and then he let us through. Welcome to Holland 🙁

At the luggage belt the suitcases of my 3 Chinese colleagues arrived quickly, but not mine. I did not worry about it at first, but when the belt stopped I realized my luggage probably got lost somewhere. Great… So I went to lost luggage where they told me my suitcase should be in Amsterdam. They called some people at the luggage department and told me to wait for another 15 minutes. If the suitcase would not be there I would have to file a missing luggage report. We were all tired, but there was nothing we could do but wait. And that paid off: after exactly 15 minutes the luggage belt started moving again and my suitcase came out!

We went out into the arrivals hall where a taxi should be waiting to take us to Hilversum. We looked everywhere, but nobody with a Spil Games sign in sight. Sigh… I called someone at Spil Games and it turned out there had been a mix-up and there was no taxi for us. We then decided to take a train to Hilversum, which should be quite fast (too bad we ended up on the slow train, which took us another 45 minutes). Around 8:30 we arrived at the train station, where we took two taxis, because we were staying in two hotels (the hotel we all planned to stay in only had 2 rooms left). Ying Hao and me went to the other hotel, but when we checked in they could not find our reservations. Another call to Spil Games learned me that they reserved another hotel for us. So we had to call another taxi (waiting time 15 minutes) and finally managed to get to our hotel. By now it was 9 PM, we were jetlagged and we did not even have dinner yet. I jogged over to the hotel where Demi and Guo Haibin were staying to pick them up for a quick meal.

But upon arriving there I learned that Guo Haibin had left his laptop in the taxi. The taxi receipt did not have a number or name on it, so we decided to go back to the train station to see if we could find the taxi. To make a long story short, after spending 45 minutes in the rain at the cold train station we had seen about 20 taxi’s but not the one we were looking for. We then went over to the police station to inform them about the missing laptop, but they told us to come back during working hours. Jeez, what a good service in Holland.

We then went to a cafe to get a small meal, but were told the kitchen had closed already. Luckily there is a McDonalds in Hilversum, but when we arrived there it had also closed (it was past 10 PM already). We finally ended up in a Turkish snack bar where we ordered some pizza and cheese snack for me. The pizza arrived quickly, but my cheese snack did not. After 10 minutes I checked with them what was happening, and it turned out they had forgotten about it. By now it was completely burned so they had to make me a new one. It seems that everything that could go wrong did go wrong tonight, I hope the rest of the trip here will be better.

Late yesterday afternoon I was in my office having a meeting with our HR manager when my mobile rang. The caller was Gary’s assistant telling me that something was wrong with my wife and that I had to come over immediately. My office is just 10 minutes from Tudou, so I rushed over. Upon arrival I found my wife laying on a camping bed on the ground, surrounded by colleagues. Turns out that she had bad stomach pains, suddenly got dizzy and then sort of passed out. When I was there she was conscious but still had pain. She told me that she was quite sure that the stomach cramps were contractions. Because she is only in her 4th month of pregnancy that was not a good thing at all.

The Tudou colleagues had already talked to a doctor and an ambulance was on its way. We could hear the siren already in the distance and a few minutes later the ambulance staff were there. They did an immediate check and found that my wife’s blood pressure was extremely low, so she had to go to hospital right away. I went with her in the ambulance, which was an interesting experience in itself. Never realized how high-tech these vehicles are. Also the ride itself during rush hour on a Friday was quite an experience: going through red lights, over bike lanes and against traffic at certain stretches. We made it from Tudou to Xintiandi in less than 10 minutes, quite an achievement.

During the ride over I called the hospital, but at the OB department all doctors had already left for the weekend (it was after 6 PM), but they would send someone over right away. Upon arrival my wife was put into a nice hospital room and she was checked up completely. The first thing they checked was the fetal heart rate, which was luckily there and beating fast enough. But my wife was not doing very well. Her blood pressure was way too low and she was so dehydrated that her blood had become too thick to take a sample (I did not even know that was possible). She was put on an IV and soon started feeling a bit better. Also the contractions started to get less while she was laying down.

We ordered some food (ceasar salad and sandwiches) while watching TV in her room and around 10 PM after several tests the hospital staff told my wife it would be OK for her to go home. They just wanted to measure the fetal heartbeat once more before we left. And that was when the trouble really started: they could not find a heartbeat anymore… It can always take a few minutes to find the fetus, so at first I did not worry too much. But after 10 minutes I realized something may be wrong. The staff changed to a new heart rate monitor but also that did not help, we heard all sorts of sounds but not a fast fetal heart beat. You can imagine we were very scared at that point, and after 30 minutes of fruitless listening I demanded that the OB doctor should come right away (she had not shown up so far, but left the tests to a mid-wife). When the staff was unwilling to call her I went outside to put a bit of pressure on the nurses, and they finally called the doctor.

She was there about 25 minutes later and she immediately took us to the ultrasound room. The machine had to be started first and because it runs on Windows (I closely followed the start-up procedure because I was so anxious for the ultrasound result) that took quite some time. Finally the machine was ready and the doctor could start doing the ultrasound. Within a few seconds we saw the fetus and it seemed to be moving, and a few seconds later we saw the heartbeat on the monitor. We were so relieved! Then I realized that the doctor was using the ultrasound device at a different position than the mid-wife had done. Because the fetus is only around the beginning of the 15th week, he or she is still much lower than fetuses that are older. The mid-wife did not realize this…. (it was another mid-wife than the one who had measured the heartbeat when we just arrived at the hospital). We were too happy to be angry, but thinking back about this it was a HUGE mistake from the hospital.

While looking at the ultrasound the doctor noticed that my wife still had contractions, even though the staff had not realized this earlier (they said there were no contractions anymore because my wife’s tummy was not hard. Mistake number 2!). When looking at the ultrasound the doctor noticed some shades around the placenta, which could mean that there was bleeding or that the placenta was not attached well anymore. This was a reason for concern and she told my wife that she would have to stay in the hospital overnight for observation. Hmm, so first they almost sent us home and now it turns out that would have been dangerous. I decided not to say anything, but I did not feel very happy with the care we had gotten so far.

Anyway, I decided to stay with my wife overnight in the hospital and made a quick trip home around midnight to pick up some clothes. We had a nice room in the hospital (with jacuzzi, plasma TV, DVD player etc.), but the bed I got was pretty crappy (too small and very hard), so I did not get much sleep. During the night my wife luckily got a good sleep and in the morning the ultrasound revealed that things looked a lot better than the night before. Around 10:30 we were allowed to leave after paying almost USD 1800 for the room and tests. In comparison, the ambulance that belonged to a local hospital was only about USD 20!

My wife slept most of the day today and is feeling OK. She will need to rest a lot over the next days and make sure she drinks lots of fluids. We had a scary experience, but I am glad both my wife and the fetus seem to be OK so far.

Today our little boy Scott turned 11 months old and exactly today he started to walk without help. My wife shot a few video’s to prove it to me. Scott has already been walking for a while (he sort of skipped crawling actually), but so far he had been afraid to walk if nobody would hold his hand. I look forward to going home tonight so Scott can show off his walking skills to me as well!

Some more video’s of Scott taken over the past few weeks you can find here on Tudou: http://www.tudou.com/home/user_programs.php?userID=1098

This afternoon I walked from the AdTech conference to the SuperBrand Mall for a quick lunch, when I noticed the construction of the elevated walkways (see here for an earlier blog post about the walkways). The construction probably already started a couple of months ago, but I hardly ever go to Pudong, let alone walk around there, so I did not see the structure before.

Getting around on foot in the Pudong Lujiazui area is difficult and dangerous (because of the traffic), so these walkways will be a big plus for people working here or for hotel guests at the Park Hyatt and the Grand Hyatt in China’s two tallest skyscrapers. The elevated walkways should be finished next year, well on time for the Expo 2010.

Exactly one week ago Dunkin’ Donuts opened its first shop in Shanghai on Fuzhou Lu, and I have since had their donuts three times already. From now on I will take it a bit easier, but after years without good donuts I felt I deserved it 🙂

It will not be easy to stay away from Dunkin’ though, because their second shop seems to be ready to open: this afternoon I drove on Xizang Nan Lu (Tibet South Road), where I noticed another outlet of Dunkin’ Donuts. The location: on Xizang Lu/Huaihai Lu on the ground floor of the Lan Sheng building, next to the Bank of China.

Decoration seems to be almost finished, so I think it will open in the next couple of days. The store seems to be bigger than the one on Fuzhou Lu, so hopefully their donut selection will also be a bit bigger than that of their first store.