This week two articles published in BusinessWeek discuss Toodou.com. The first is an interview by Frederik Balfour with Gary Wang about the company, censorship and the future of Toodou.com. The second is an article by Bruce Einhorn about online self-censorship in China, in which he talks with Gary and with Jack Gu from Podlook. Too bad I won’t get the print version anymore, since BW decided to cancel its Asian edition two weeks ago.
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Fireworks ban in Beijing ends
On December 31 I missed out on fireworks in Shanghai, because the government had banned it. But it seems I will be more lucky this coming Saturday, when I will spend Chinese New Year in Beijing. The government has decided to lift the ban on fireworks in Beijing. The maximum is now 30 kilograms (!!!) per person, should be enough for me.
From the Shanghai Daily:
“BANG!”Firecrackers will explode once again in Beijing, frightening away evil spirits on the New Year — and this time the fireworks are legal.
After a 12-year ban because of safety concerns, the Chinese capital yesterday resumed the legal sale of traditional firecrackers before the lunar New Year and Spring Festival beginning January 29.
This year 177 out of China’s major 660 cities lifted the fireworks ban.
Over the weekend, 585 of the 2,116 Beijing stores that obtained licenses to sell firecrackers opened for business. Others will follow.
“To me, no fireworks, no New Year. So it’s a good thing for the government to lift the ban,” said Liu Jianguo, a Beijing resident.
Last September, Beijing lifted a 12-year ban on firecrackers in response to people’s love for a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation.
Despite the prohibition, illegal firecracker sales continued. But the public clamored for legalization of a tradition that has come down through the generations.
The Beijing government has organized the sale of 600,000 boxes of firecrackers valued at more than 100 million yuan (US$12.5 million).
Officials will monitor sales to ensure there is no shortage.
To enforce safety, people are forbidden to buy more than 30 kilograms of fireworks between January 22 and February 12.
Regulations specify that residents may set off firecrackers in areas within the Fifth Ring Road on lunar New Year’s Eve and all day of the first day of the new year.
They also can set off crackers from 7am to zero-hour every day from the second to the 15th day of the new year, a major festival and traditional time of family reunions.
This year, 177 Chinese cities, including Chongqing and Beijing, out of the country’s total of 660, have decided to lift the ban that has been practiced for years.
Beijing banned setting off fireworks in 1994 over fears of increasing accidents that endangered people’s safety.
Hundreds of people suffered eye injuries in setting off firecrackers since1982, said Song Weixian, an ophthalmologist at Tongren Hospital.
“We hope citizens pay great attention to their safety, especially to their eyes, while setting off firecrackers,” said Song.
Shanghai Jazz Orchestra
Friday night Qi and I went to the first public performance ever of the Shanghai Jazz Orchestra, a big band in Shanghai’s 30’s and 40’s style, in the Shanghai Art Theatre. Since 1949 China did not have any big bands, so this was the first time in almost 60 years that a big jazz band played in Shanghai. In the 1940’s Shanghai was China’s New Orleans, and the best performances took place at the Paramount (still an entertainment venue, next to Jing’an Temple). The Shanghai Jazz Orchestra is trying to recreate the old atmosphere, by wearing the exact same white suits as their predecessors.
The performance was excellent. The evening started with a jazz combo that played several tunes, and after a short break the big band made its entree. Although some of the players seemed a bit nervous to play for a big audience, they did very well. Conductor/director Rolf Becker had a great performance, leading the band, announcing the songs, and playing himself as well. He was the only foreigner in the band, all others are Chinese.
The band played lots of famous songs from among others Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller (In The Mood!). Also there was a magnificent swing dance performance by two couples from Shanghai Swings. My wife was so inspired that she plans to sign up for courses! It was a great evening, and the best news is that they plan to do this once a month. So if you like jazz, big bands and swing you now have the opportunity to see top performances again in Shanghai.
On-board wifi
Air China has announced that it will start offering wifi on its international flights starting tomorrow. Not for free, but USD 26.95 is not too bad if you can work for a couple of hours while flying to Europe, Australia or the US. KLM is still not offering it, the only thing they currently offer is sending emails and SMS through your personal video screen (for a few dollars per mail). Not being able to offer wifi soon might cost them potential business customers.
Several airlines flying from Shanghai to Europe are offering it now (among others Lufthansa and SAS), although I have to admit that I often hear stories that it does not work flawlessly. Furthermore it is annoying to hear your co-passengers constantly call their friends or family for free through Skype. Airlines need to find a solution for this soon before it gets out of hand.
Kidnapping Mercedes-Benz taxi's
The Non-Violent Resistance blog had a great post last week about Mercedes cabbies in Hangzhou. They were not allowed to raise taxi fares (just like Mercedes taxi’s in Shanghai), so they loose money. So what do you do then? Here is the story:
Hangzhou, the scenic capital city of Zhejiang Province, introduced more than 100 luxury Mercedes cabs starting in February 2005. Along with many other amenities, city government treats the Mercedes cabs as part of the city’s glorious “face”, and forbids cab companies from raising prices.
Attracted by the government promises of high profits, many farmers from Henan Province came to Hangzhou, put down a 80,000 (US$ 10,000) as a safety deposit, signed a contract to pay the company 400 yuan a day as rent, and became some of the city’s first Mercedes cabbies. But reality slaps them hard in that leather-upholstered seat. The cars turn out to be no black Mercedes, but fat white elephants! On top of the 400-yuan rent, these pretty babes guzzle 200 yuan worth of gas a day, not to mention maintenance and parts that cost dozens of times more than ordinary cabs. The poor drivers work 18, 19 hours a day but still have no way of making ends meet, not to mention turn a profit. Finally, they want out: give the company back the cars and get 87.5%, or 70,000, of their deposits back. No way, says the company. The Hangzhou government, still happy with its sleek “face” but reluctant to raise prices, surely won’t uphold the out-of-town drivers’ cause.
So what do they do? They run — with the cars! Seven Henan drivers fled back home to Xihua, Henan with their cars on January 9, turn themselves and the cars in to local police, and asked the home government to help them negotiate with Hangzhou. That’s a real daring, yet smart move. Well knowing that they are too small to fight either the Hangzhou cab company or the Hangzhou government, who tricked them into this tight hole in the first place and refused to relieve them of their losses, they’ve learned to enlist the power of their home government — and the media as well. Not surprisingly, media reports have been overwhelmingly supportive of the cabbies. Indeed, many Hangzhou natives have noticed the cabbies’ woes in past months and rallied to their cause.
The cabbies win. Apparently after some powwow between the two governments, the Hangzhou cab company agrees to pay the drivers back their deposits — in full, and get back their cars.
Local media noted as early as September 2005 that the Merdedes are bleeding money, both for the company and the drivers. But Hangzhou government remains adamantly blind to the fact, refusing company requests to take back the cars orginally leased to the companies through competitve bidding. All media coverage point to the “face” factor. For a city with natural and cultural endowments as rich as Hangzhou, you would think they should be cool on the vanity front.
I wonder when this problem will spread to Shanghai. Although Mercedes-Benz taxi’s are difficult to book here because everyone would like to ride them instead of a Santana or Passat, they face the same low-rate taxi fee and high maintenance cost problem. The 45 min. commute from my home to my office in the morning (one big traffic jam) costs also in a M-B cab less than 30 RMB (3 EUR).
Busy week
For the first time in a very long time I did not post anything for a week on this blog. The reason? I was very busy and just did not find some quiet time to write down some thoughts, even though I came accross several interesting articles (I might post some of them later).
I was in Holland for a couple of days earlier this week. Had some good meetings in Hilversum and Amsterdam, and also went to the IPAN new years drink in Amsterdam where I met lots of interesting people fromt the Dutch internet scene. I flew back on Wednesday, arriving in Shanghai on Thursday morning. Straight from the plane back to the office, due to the many things happening. Only two more weeks until Chinese New Year, and still many things that have to be finalized. Volkskrant article Toodou.com
Dutch newspaper ‘De Volkskrant’ has an article about Toodou.com on page 4. I did the interview with foreign correspondent Hans Moleman before Christmas already, but did not know when it would be published. By coincidence it is printed on the day that I flew back to Hollland. I could not find the article online, but if you want to search for it the title is ‘Nieuwe Chinese hit: videopodcasting’.
Wifi on board of KLM?
I am writing this blog entry while on a KLM flight from
While working on my laptop I suddenly got a message that a wireless network was available. I was surprised, because I thought KLM was a bit behind other airlines in this respect. I connected to the network (I planned to give my parents a call over Skype), but was not able to get onto the internet. I suspected I might need a password, so I asked a stewardess. She told me there is no wifi on board, so I showed it to her. She looked at the screen, then at me and then immediately called the cockpit. She took my laptop to the flight deck (I was not allowed to go) and discussed it with the captain. He had no idea what it was, and said he had never seen this before. Well, I don’t know either, but the signal was quite strong, so there must be something on board. The stewardess asked me a couple of more questions (Were you trying to connect? Yes, of course. What else did you do? Nothing, just clicked on the available network), but then left it at that. The signal was still there when she left, but a few minutes later it was gone. Anybody any idea what might have caused this?
Toodou.com NY Party
Friday night we organized the Toodou NY party in our offices in the Si Hang warehouse on Suzhou Creek. Lots of people showed up to toast with us to the new year. We had prepared 30 liters of Gluehwein (hot red wine with cloves, cinnamon, orange and lots of sugar), and most guests seemed to like it a lot.
Next to that we also had set up several PC’s for gaming and we had an Xbox 360. 
Several bloggers came to the party, among them Asiapundit and Thijs from Heyworldhereiam. It’s always interesting to meet people who you read online and whose views you already know, in real life. But there were even some people who did not know what blogging is yet. Interesting to see how big the knowledge gap is, and to find out that some people still only use newspapers and TV to get their daily news. We tried to convince Floris, a Dutch lawyers studying Chinese, to also set up a blog. I promised that if he would I would link to it from here.
At the end of the party the Dutch guests were suddenly in the majority, so we decided to put on some ‘typical’ Dutch music: Andre Hazes and Marco Borsato. Singing along with the music while drinking a couple of beers reminded me of my student days. A great way to end the party!