This week two Spill Group colleagues from Holland are visiting, causing a total lack of postings on this blog. But apart from not having time to blog, the trip is going well. We are having lots of discussions with other IT and gaming companies, and I have a ton of new ideas on how to further develop and monetize our Chinese websites and on gaming and game development in general. Some of these ideas will probably be turned into real businesses as part of Spill Group, in cooperation with other Chinese companies or with external investors. Sorry, no details yet, but I am sure over the next months I will blog about some of them here. And if you really want to know more you can always buy me a couple of beers!

Saturday night Grace and I held a party at our apartment, a combination of our one-year wedding anniversary and a long overdue housewarming party. In total over 60 guests showed up at the party, from all kinds of companies that we worked at or with over the past years in Shanghai (Spill Group, Tudou, SVP, Bertelsmann, Roland Berger) and of course lost of friends and business partners.

We had hired a catering service for finger food (Dragon Party), and they did a great job – good value for money and an excellent service. Among the snacks they prepared in our kitchen were small tuna sandwiches, salmon rolls, tart with duck breast, and even fresh brownies. Check them out if you plan to organize a party in Shanghai (andy@dragon-party.com, mobile: 13917016179).

We had lots of wines and beer, but the main drink during the night turned out to be champagne. The 20 bottles of Moet that we ordered were barely enough! Interesting is that during parties in China the Chinese guests normally are the first to arrive, and also the first to leave. Around 11 the first Chinese guests went home already, when some laowai were still arriving. Maybe we should start our parties a bit earlier next time, 9 PM is more the starting time for a European party than a Chinese one.

It was great to have so many of our friends together here, and also to intoduce many of them to eachother. A bit of networking is always part of parties of course, and I like to bring people together that have businesses with potential synergies. And of course singles looking for partners – there were a lot of them last night. But the main thing is of course relaxing and catching up with old friends, and that’s what we did as well. And when around 2 AM the last guests left we looked back on a fantastic night. A bit too fantastic maybe, because I had a pretty heavy hangover when I got up late this morning…

That did not matter too much though, because when I entered the living room everything had been cleaned up already. It turned out that our ayi had decided to come in around 7:30 AM on her day off to clean the whole house before we would wake up. She won’t read this (she is illiterate) but this was a great surprise!

This weekend BarCamp Shanghai takes place, the first time a BarCamp takes place in China. In case you are not familiar with the concept, the organizer’s website gives the following description:

BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

All attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall. Presenters are responsible for making sure that notes/slides/audio/video of their presentations are published on the web for the benefit of all and those who can’t be present. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.

It is good to see that this kind of events are now also organized in China, although I was a bit surprised that the majority of the attendees will be foreigners. Maybe Chinese are not too familiar yet with the concept of an unconference? Or was the publicity for this event mainly in the English blogosphere?

Tudou is among the sponsors of BarCamp and the 24-hour event will take place in our offices on 1305 South Suzhou Road. I will also join the event on Sunday. But not too early, because I am hosting a party at my home tonight!

Lots of bloggable things happened this week, but no time to blog so far… Some things I wanted to write about, but did not find the time for yet:
– Ho-Pin Tung’s Formula 3 championship (in a car with game.com.cn on it)
– Gary Wang (Tudou‘s CEO) who is sudddenly becoming a famous Chinese writer
– A cool big band jazz concert with Rolf Becker in the Grand Hyatt last night
– Several anecdotes about a large group of Dutch tourists (members of Dutch broadcasting station the Tros) who are on a so-called ‘members tour’ in China with Dutch singer Jantje Smit. This whole thrip will be broadcasted in December.

At lunch today (a 5-minute break for a hamburger at McDonalds – shame on me) I was sitting in front of the window of the fast-food outlet in Xujiahui, and noticed several men in front of a bakery store that were approached by people with pieces of paper and who then exchanged the paper for money. I found it a bit strange, so decided to check it out after finishing the greasy meal.

Turns out that the bakery is a mooncake outlet, and people can go there to exchange a coupon for mooncakes. Before the moon festival (in 2 weeks) companies often give these coupons to employees as a token of appreciation. The thing is, many people either do not like mooncakes (like me) or prefer to get some money instead. And because Chinese are all business people, a trade automatically developed. In front of these stores you can now exchange the coupons for hard Chinese renminbi’s, and the traders then re-sell the coupons to clients entering the store. This entrepreneurial spirit is why I love to live and work in the The Middle Kingdom.

As I mentioned before on this blog, I do not like it very much when people use personalized “ringtones”. This means that you are forced to listen to the favourite song of the person you are calling, instead of the traditional beeps. More and more people are using this service, because China Mobile is actively pushing the product.

But things seem to be getting worse according to Pacific Epoch. According to them, a Chinese WAP site recently launched a service that allows users to select a tone or song that will play in the background of their mobile phone conversations. This means that when you call this person, both the subscriber to the service and the person they are talking to will hear the song… I have not experienced this yet, but I can only imagine that it is extremely annoying to have a song playing when you are trying to have a serious conversation. It may become popular among high school students, but I hope that the general population will stay away from it. Does such a service exist outside China already?

One thing I did not understand about Yangshuo, is that there is no decent map of the city and (especially) the countryside around it. There is a map that is widely sold, which shows the main attractions around the city, but that map only has a few roads on it and the scale is not correct. Because there are hundreds or maybe even thousands of tourists every day in Yangshuo I immediately saw a small business opportunity.

If I would have had time I would base myself in Yangshuo for a few weeks, buy a bike, a gps receiver and all currently available maps and come up with a new, good one myself. The only thing you need for this is time, not money. And who have time and no money? The backpackers in Yangshuo. Many of them stay here for weeks, not doing too much, except for hiking or biking in the countryside and enjoying a cold beer at night. This could easily be combined with making a good map in my opinion.

And how can you make money with it? Simple. First approach all of the hotels, restaurants and bars with a good proposal, and ask if they want to put an ad on the back of your map for a small amount of money. Get some cash upfront from them for this to get started. After the map is ready, don’t only sell it through outlets in Yangshuo, but get someone to sell it to the tour groups before they arrive in Yangshuo (so either on the bus or on the boat), nobody is doing that yet. Also sell it though hotels and retail outlets in Guilin. Say that you price your map at RMB 5 (which is lower than the current map), you will need 1-2 RMB to print the map. Give another 1-2 RMB to the person that sells the map (you could even get hawkers to do this), and keep the remaining 1-3 RMB. It’s not a multi-million dollar business, but it’s a nice way to earn some extra cash while travelling around China. And you would make a lot of tourists happy: tourists that now get lost on their bikes in the rice fields around Yangshuo.

In case you are interested, I put some of the pictures we took last week in Guilin and Yangshuo online. I created a set that can be viewed here. If you have never been to these places, take a look and you’ll understand why I think this is one of the nicest areas in China.

Yangshuo is great for outdoor sports, and running is one of them. Except for the karst mountains the landscape is nearly flat, so you can do some great long distance runs here. Because the locals are used to foreigners this was the first time I did an outside run in China without hearing anyone scream “Laowai” (foreigner) at me. Quite nice for a change. But used to runners they are not yet here: this morning I was running along the Ju Long river, about 7 km outside Yangshuo, when a farmer on a motorbike passed me. He looked over his shoulder, and asked me whether my bike broke down. Why would you otherwise run? I told him I am just running for fun, something he did not understand, because he offered me a ride on the back of his motorbike back to town. I kindly refused.

But two days ago I actually did take a motorbike back to Yangshuo. I had been running for about 45 minutes, looking for a bridge over the river to get back to Yangshuo, but could not find one. I realized my plan to be back in the hotel after about one hour would not be possible, even if I would run back over the same path. Then I met some men playing cards on the river bank. I asked them if there was a taxi around, and then one of them offered me a ride back on his motorbike for 30 RMB. That was a bit steep, but after some negotiations we ended at 10 RMB. Still a bit high, but I realized my bargaining position was not optimal. A nice way to see the country side, by the way. But a bit cold right after running, and not having anything else to wear for the ride on the back of the bike.

If you are a long-distance runner and visit Yangshuo I have one run you should try. Start is in the center of town, on Xi Jie (West Street). At the end of Xi Jie go south (direction of Banyan Tree and Moon Hill). Continue the main road until you get to a bridge over the Ju Long river (about 6 km). Just before the bridge there is a dirt road on the right side. Take this road, it follows the river and has great views to the mountains on both sides. At a certain point the track hits a paved road (after about 6 km, at Jima village). Take a right here and run the approximately 3 km back to Yangshuo. Early in the morning is the best time for this run, because then it’s still quiet. Around 8:30 you will start to see more and more bike riders, especially on weekends when it almost gets crowded with bike riding tour groups. And if you are not a runner, just rent a bike and ride the route – that’s fun as well, and probably less tiring.