On Saturday Scott gave a party for his classmates from Soong Ching Ling and for a few from last year’s nursery class in our compound. He was very excited about it days in advance already, the fact that he could play with his friends with all his toys and that they would have cake together was a very big thing for him.

To make it even more special Grace had decorated the house with happy birthday signs and balloons. For the kids we had also organized a clown who made balloon animals, they loved his performance. He arrived a bit earlier and both Scott and Elaine got a lot of balloon animals made before the young guests and their parents arrived at 11 AM.

We also hired a face painter, who was really good. Problem was that at first the kids were so excited about the toys and the clown that nobody wanted to sit down to get a painting done. Only during the last 30 minutes or so the first child ‘dared’ to get a painting. On her hand, not on ther face, but that was fine as well. Then the others of course also wanted but there was not enough time anymore for all of them.

For food we arranged a catering service from the Green Apple, they did a great job. Among others they had 3 kinds of pasta, 3 kinds of pizza, several salads, small quiches, chicken wings, sausages, cold cuts and a lot of french fries. They even sent 2 people to man the catering station, but because we had our 3 ayis in the kitchen already that was not necessary.

Because the kids are so young most of their parents came to the party as well, so it was good to catch up with most of them. Many of them I see every day at Scott’s school (I bring Scott to school every day) and others I know from the pool or playground in our compound. Before Scott and Elaine I didn’t realize how many people you get to know well once you have kids. I put myself in charge of the coffee (our staff is still not able to make a decent espresso), don’t think I ever made so many coffees in one morning:)

The highlight for Scott was the Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake. Thomas is by far his favorite TV series right now (next to the movie Cars that he watched at least 15 times over the past couple of months), and he has all kind of Thomas toys as well. So when he saw the cake he was super happy.

After the cake most kids were getting tired from playing, running and screaming (and the copious amounts of food!), and all went home for their afternoon nap. Scott kept on talking about his party for the rest of the day, we are really happy that he liked it so much.

As some of you may know I use Google Latitude to record exactly where I am at any given moment (whenever my phone is on). And of course I also share it with a couple of people, so if you want to stalk me you can do that from your couch on a laptop. At least if I add you as a friend on Latitude, I am a bit more conservative there than with Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

Why do I do this? Not sure actually, I just turned on the feature when it became available to try it out and never really turned it off anymore. I don’t use Latitude a lot, but it’s sometimes fun to look at the places that you visited over the past couple of days. You can calculate exactly how long your daily commute was for example. My phone calculates my location 1-2 times per minute and Google Latitude stores that data in its history.

Generally Latitude’s data are quite accurate, but for some reason the data from Monday night are not: according to Google I was at Schiphol Airport at 4:32 PM and the next morning at 12:11 PM in Shanghai, but in between I made a stop in Mexico for just one minute! At that time I was probably somewhere above Siberia or Mongolia but certainly not in Mexico. My last trip to Mexico was an afternoon in Tijuana last March!

I can’t explain this. I once accidentally left my phone on during a flight and received a welcome message from a Russian mobile provider while flying over Russia, meaning it’s sometimes possible to connect to a base station when you are flying. But my phone was off this time and we were nowhere close to Latin America, so a Mexico location in Latitude is something I don’t understand.

Today my wife has her birthday and I decided to buy her a Kindle 3G (an e-book reader) as a present. For the past years she’s been too busy with her extremely demanding job plus our young kids so she had never had time to read a book (let alone buy an e-book reader). I figured this may be a good incentive for her to start reading books again.

This morning I arrived back in Shanghai after a long and tiring flight. Traveling with young kids is always a hassle, but this was worse than expected. It started in the afternoon when Scott was so excited that he did not want to sleep. So he was very tired before the flight already. In the KLM business lounge at Schiphol airport he did not want to listen (typical when he is tired) and kept on running around. Elaine copies a lot of his behavior these days, so she also started running. Luckily we arrived at the airport quite late, so we only had about 30 minutes in the lounge before the flight started boarding.

Boarding, and especially the security check, is also trouble with two young kids. Scott for example refused to go through the scanner and I eventually had to push him through. Then he ran away when he was on the other side, but I still had to go through the scanner myself. Anyway, long story short, we eventually managed to board and I was happy to sit down in the plane. I didn’t feel completely well (bit of a cold), so took a Tylenol, but that didn’t really help. Scott was telling me ‘ik ben een beetje moe’ several times (‘I am a bit tired’), so I told him to go to sleep. But he didn’t want to do that before we were in the air, so he was getting more and more tired and more and more bored. Try to explain to a boy who just turned 3 why he can’t use his iPad before departure, or why the TV screen in the seat only starts working after take-off. Impossible.

We left the gate with a 15 minute delay and taxied to the runway. Just when we arrived there the captain came onto the intercom and told us that they found a problem with an engine and had to go back to the gate. Scott was very disappointed because he was ready for take-off, but I had to explain him that the plane needed to be repaired first. Back at the gate technical people came on board and after 15 minutes they found the problem and the solution. It would take about 1.5 hours to repair, but at least we would not have to get off the plane. By that time Scott was so tired that he fell asleep in his seat.

After less than an hour the repairs were finished already, so we left the gate again. Scott woke up and was very excited, telling me many times that the plane had been fixed – in 3 languages! I was happy we would finally depart and luckily there were no other problems. But now Scott was awake and he refused to go to sleep again. For the next 3 hours he kept on trying to climb out to walk around the plane, and he managed to get away a few times. I was pretty tired and wanted to sleep, but he prevented that. Finally after the dinner had been served and the cabin lights went off he decided to go back to sleep. And then it was Elaine’s turn to keep us awake, she refused to sleep and only wanted to watch TV or walk around…

It was a long night and I didn’t get more than a few 5-minute intervals of sleep. So when we arrived around lunch time in Shanghai I was exhausted and I had a head ache. The driver picked us up and when we got home the only thing I wanted to do was to take a hot shower and go to bed. But that’s the worst thing you can do (the sleeping part, not the shower), because then you really get a jet lag. So I put myself behind my laptop and spent several hours on emails and RSS feeds. I dozed off a few times, but now I am finally feeling a bit more awake (it’s past 6 PM). I plan to go to bed early tonight (10 PM or so), and hopefully I will not have a real jet lag anymore tomorrow. Happy to be back in Shanghai, but the traveling makes you forget about the holiday very quickly.

My holiday in Holland is almost over, tomorrow we will fly back to China. But today I could still participate in the Dutch TV program Buitenhof to talk about doing business in China. This show is one of the best talk shows in The Netherlands (in terms of high quality guests and discussions), so of course I accepted the invitation.

The driver for the program picked up my dad and me (he joined me) at 9:30 at my parents place with a luxurious VW Phaeton to drive us to the studio in Amsterdam. Because Elaine had had a bad night with lots of crying I hadn’t slept much and I was happy to be able to close my eyes for an hour on the way to the studio. We arrived there at 11 and I realized it was the exact same studio as where I did the Pauw & Witteman show (the other high quality Dutch talk show) about 2 years ago. Just a different decor.

The other guests had already arrived. Bettine Vriesekoop, a former successful Dutch table tennis player and later journalist in China for Dutch paper NRC, Prof. Kristofer Schipper, a retired sinology professor now living in Fuzhou, and Jurjen Groot, lawywer for CMS in Shanghai. I had a chat with them and the show’s producers before going into the powder room to get some make-up. Then we filmed some shots in the bar for the (live) teaser of the program before the show started at 12:10 PM.

The show was live, which I prefer over a taped show (live shows can’t be edited). The program started with an interview with Prof. Schipper about his life as a Taoist master, a sinology professor and now as the founder of the first library in China specialized in Western art, literature and culture. To be honest, he had an interesting story but I could not really relate to him. The China he described in the show was not the China I live in, but the China of a long time ago. For me this part went too slow and lasted way too long, and when I later checked Twitter it turned out that many people felt the same.

After a 5 minute spoken column by Naema Tahir, the discussion part of the program between Bettine, Jurjen and me started. We only had about 20 minutes, way too short for a good discussion. The first question I got was about censorship, so the typical Western negative tone was set. After the pre-discussion with the producers of the program I had the feeling this program would have a more positive tone, with a focus on entrepreneurship and how to do business in or with China, but that was not really the case.

The length of the discussion was also not enough to go deeper into certain subjects. A pity, because now a lot of interesting aspects that were discussed with the producer were left out (e.g. about the the take-over of Dutch companies like Draka by Chinese companies, about why China is so successful, about the fact that China is probably one of the most capitalist countries in the world etc.). Would have loved to talk about these subjects for a while, but it was not possible.

Anyway, I enjoyed being part of the show, but it could have been a lot better. After the show we had a good lunch with the presenter, the guests and the production staff, where I also raised some of these points with the people of the Buitenhof production. Some of the guests also agreed that the discussions were not deep enough and that there was not enough time for all topics. A missed chance to explain what China is really about and why Europe should watch out for what’s happening in China.

Interesting is that when I got home people and I went through the back channel on Twitter most people seemed to have the same impressions as I had. I am not sure if Buitenhof checks the tweets about its weekly

It’s New Year’s Eve and I am sitting next to the fire place at my parents’ home. This year we decided to spend the Christmas holidays in Europe, after spending the last 3 Christmases in China. Not leaving China during the Christmas season means no holiday feeling at all, because there are no Christmas holidays and I normally just keep on working. At least being away from Shanghai for 2 weeks or so gives you a partial holiday feeling: because work continues I still spent too much time on my mail or on the phone (my wife as well). I also spent some time at the Spil Games office in Hilversum, but most of the time I was at my parents’ place with my family. We did a lot of things over the past 2 weeks, and because of the nice winter weather we were even able to enjoy some outdoor winter sports.

The weekend we arrived I had a big Christmas dinner in Maastricht with a student club that I belonged to (or actually belong to: once you manage to get in membership is for life). Good to catch up with my friends, some of whom I had not seen for years. During the dinner it started snowing heavily and we were lucky to catch a taxi back around 1 AM. The party itself continued much longer but I was too jetlagged to really enjoy it (the night before we had spent on a plane with the kids, meaning hardly any sleep…).

The good thing was that we got up quite early the next morning (7 AM), despite many drinks and so could leave Maastricht before new snow storms would hit the south of Holland. The roads were pretty bad though (even the highways were often covered in snow), but we still managed to get back to Ommen in a reasonable time.

On Monday I had meetings in Amsterdam and Hilversum and spent half the day in traffic jams because of the snow. Not the nicest thing in the world, but it gave me time to think through a lot of things and listen to Dutch radio for hours.

The day after, we left early for a trip to the Sauerland region in Germany to do some skiing and sledging. This is only a 3 hour drive from my parents’ place (despite the snow), so you could drive over for just one day, but because of the kids we decided to stay overnight.

We had a lot of fun, the snow was excellent and it was not too cold. My dad and I went skiing and the kids mainly played in the snow. Scott loved to ride a sledge downhill, but Elaine was still a bit too young to enjoy it. The nice thing was that there were hardly any people, it looks like that in the days before Christmas people don’t really go on holidays or on an outing there.

The day after skiing I bought some new skates (my skates are still in China, where I used them sometimes on Houhai in Beijing) and tried them out right away at the ice skating track in the woods in Ommen. It’s a 400 meter oval surrounded by trees, not far from my parents’ place. The ice was great and also here there were hardly any people! I skated for the first time in years, but luckily I was still able to get around the track without too much trouble. But the muscle and back ache afterward was quite bad, I realized that while skating you use some muscles that you otherwise never use… But a glass of champagne at home after the skating trip compensated the pain of course.

Christmas Eve we spent at my uncle Victor’s place in Joure. He cooked an excellent meal for us, and our kids played with his kids most of the afternoon and early evening. Interesting thing is that their favorite toys were the iPad and the iPhone, at one point they were playing Angry Birds simultaneously on 3 devices! One thing we noticed in Joure is that there was not much snow there, and that the ice looked much better than the snow covered lakes around my parents place.

So the next morning we decided to drive in a northerly direction again to go skating there. We ended up on the Belterwijde close to Giethoorn where we (= my dad, my sister and me) skated for about 15 kilometers over the lakes and canals.

The ice was very nice with hardly any snow on it and because of Christmas Day not many other skaters. Entrepreneurial people put up stands with hot chocolate, tea and soup at some places around the main lake, so we could warm up after a bit of skating. A very enjoyable afternoon!

Christmas Day we drove to my sister’s house, a very nicely renovated old farm house. We had coffee there and talked a bit before taking the car to Oud-Zevenaar for a big Christmas lunch at Vlees en Vis.

I had not been to this restaurant yet and was pleasantly surprised. An excellent 5 course lunch with a bottle of champagne to get started and different wines with every course. Luckily my mom offered not to join every course’s wine and drive back home afterward.

If you are in the Arnhem/Zevenaar area the Vlees en Vis restaurant is an excellent choice, with a cuisine that matches some of the best restaurants in Holland and an excellent wine menu. A very friendly waiter/sommelier as well, and a cook who even created a special 5-course menu for our kids. I’ll be back!

Monday I went back to Spil Games in Hilversum for a couple of meetings, but left the office before 5 PM to be back in time at home for Scott’s birthday. He turned 3 years old that day, and got lots of presents once again (during Christmas he also got a ton of presents already). My sister also dropped by for the festivities, because she has her birthday on the same day as Scott. So we had some nice drinks and dinner together to celebrate.

Tuesday I had to follow up on my promise to my wife to go shopping with her. We decided to go to Hardenberg, the city where I spent part of my high school years. I hadn’t been there in years and it had changed completely. A bit like Shanghai, you don’t go there for a few years and you can hardly recognize it anymore. After shopping we had lunch in a small brasserie and then drove back to Ommen for some additional shopping. When we got home I decided to go skating with my dad, walking around shopping streets made me tired and I felt I needed to do something more active. We went to the outdoor track in Ommen for a few kilometers of skating. Because the track closes at 5 pm to clean the ice and we arrived at 4:15 we had the track for ourselves as most people went home early.

After the ice skating my dad and I still went for a snow bike ride through the woods. It was extremely tiring, but it’s the best way to see the beauty of nature in the middle of winter. Back at home we decided to have dinner in an Italian restaurant. My favorite in this region (Bacco in Marle) turned out to be closed, so we ended up at another one in Ommen. Not bad either, but certainly not as good as Bacco.

Wednesday most of the snow on the roads and bike paths had disappeared, so for the first time this holiday I went running with my dad. It felt great to be running in the cold air again, but we had to watch out not to slip. It wasn’t very easy, but I felt good after I did the 5.5 km run in about 25 minutes. At home an uncle of mine came by to visit and it was good to catch up. Race car driver Ho-Pin Tung also called to see if he could come by, so we had a full house in afternoon. Of course we opened some nice bottles of wine again (I lost count how much I drank this holiday, and that’s probably better. Luckily my dad’s wine cellar is big enough!).

Thursday we drove to Antwerp to meet with some friends who just moved into an amazing house in the city center for a kind of housewarming visit. We started with coffee and a very nice raspberry cake followed by

After 5 years it’s time for a change. I am not talking about my 5-year marriage, but about my business activities. 5 years ago I set up Spil Games Asia (at that time called Spill Group Asia), starting out as a 1-person company in January 2006 and now in December 2010 with over 100 employees in our Shanghai office.

Today it was announced to the Spil Games crew worldwide that I decided to step down as CEO on February 1 next year. I took that decision already a long time ago, but it took quite some time to find a good successor and to work on the transition. But I am happy to announce that Chen Qi, our current COO, will take over my functions in just over 6 weeks from now. I will stay with Spil Games in a global advisory role, but will have more time for my family and for other business activities that I am involved in.

I had a great time at Spil Games Asia over the years, but like every start-up it’s been a roller coaster from time to time. Quickly adopting to fierce competition, encountering sudden regulatory changes and managing staff that may have different objectives than the company was sometimes challenging, but these things also make running a business in China one of the

Our game studio makes a lot of flash games and I try to play most of them. So when I came across “The most difficult flash game in the world” on Twitter today I could not resist to try it out. I have to admit that I can’t finish many of the games that we make at Spil Games, so I didn’t expect a good result.

The game starts with a screen telling you that “You are QWOP, our small nation’s sole representative at the Olympic Games. Ideally you will run 100 meters but our training program was underfunded”. Well, that’s an understatement, because at first it’s almost impossible to get QWOP to even walk a meter. I tried a couple of times but each time I fell down. So I tried to figure out a strategy by trying a combination of keys – and eventually managed to figure out the best order to let QWOP ‘”run”.

It’s actually not that hard, and I managed to finish the 100 meters (in about 8 minutes though…), including a hurdle at the 50 meter mark and a jump right before the end. A cool game if you want to waste 10 minutes of your life. But the most difficult flash game in the world? Not really.

Play the free game here: http://foddy.net/Athletics.html
Or just one of the many FAIL QWOP videos here: http://thehairpin.com/2010/12/the-qwop-viral-video/