One of the things I like about Hong Kong is that on Hong Kong Island you can walk from one shopping mall or skyscraper to the other using elevated walkways. Very convenient, you don’t need to cross streets and because they are covered you don’t even need an umbrella when it rains.

Shanghai is now going to copy this in Pudong, the financial and business district where most of the skyscrapers are located. There will be a ring-shaped elevated walkway linking most of the skyscrapers in Lujiazui (the CBD area around the Oriental Pearl Tower, Jin Mao and IFC) and the metro stations. The plan is apparently already several years old, but only now it was approved.

The construction of the project will start in June already, but when the project will be finished was not reported so far. The first phase of the project will be a link between the Super Brand Mall on the Huangpu River and the almost finished International Financial Center.

I think it’s a great idea, because so far it has always been a hassle to walk around in the area. And I am sure it will be good for all the bars, restaurants and retail outlets if the tens of thousands of people living and working in the skyscrapers have easier access to them.

(Source: Shanghai Daily)

I am using Twitter more and more, it’s an excellent tool to keep in touch with people, get some quick information that is difficult to find on the internet, and also a source of entertainment.

For the entertainment part I came across a Twitter user today, Confession. You can see the page at http://twitter.com/confession. People can leave their confessions, without other people knowing who posted it. As can expected on the ‘anonymous’ internet most are sex-related, and it’s frankly amazing what people put up here.

Some examples that were posted earlier today to givey you an idea (I just randomly copy/paste a couple of them):

• I wish my wife would have an affair so she’d stop being such a frigid ice queen.
• I only make friends with women I might have a chance at screwing.
• I think I was scared of the pink floyd song ‘Run Like Hell’ when I was younger, though I don’t know why now.
• i just farted…excuse me
• I still masturbate to the thought of my ex, almost nightly.
• Occasionally, I rub one out at work.
• Xeni Jardin might look like a drag queen, but I still think she’s smokin’ hot.
• My cock hooks to the left. If anyone wants to get fucked around a corner, I’m your man.
• my husband gave me an STD last year from his cheating. weak men make excuses to themselves for hurting others

I decided not to subscribe to the Twitter user, but it is an ‘interesting’ form of entertainment. It shows the worst of what people do or think, and maybe for some it’s a real substitute for a confession. Or do people just make these things up? Enjoy – or not…

If you want to follow my regular updates on Twitter go to http://twitter.com/marcvanderchijs (Not many confessions though 🙂

Overhead in an upscale restaurant in Xintiandi, while having lunch there today on their terrace in the sun. At the table next to me a couple sits down, an old Italian man in a suit without tie wearing dark sunglasses, and his young Chinese girlfriend who, judging from the way she acts, seems to be here for the first time. He wants to order beer, but she is a bit reluctant. He does not care, under the motto “a day without alcohol is a day not lived”. The waiter arrives at their table.

Man (in a thick Italian accent): “Two Heineken please”
Waiter: “Large or small, sir?”
Man: “Ah, you have different sizes. Then give us a large one with two glasses”
Waiter: “OK, a large Heineken with two glasses”
Man: “Make sure it is ice cold”
Waiter: “OK, with ice” and immediately walks away
Man (screaming loudly at the waiter who is almost inside already): “No, no ice, I just want ice cold beer”
Waiter: “OK, cold beer”

2 minutes later the waiter comes back with a large glass of draft beer and two small empty glasses. The Italian almost goes ballistic: “I ordered a large bottle of beer” (he did not, by the way, he just assumed it would be a bottle – which is of course logical if you ask for two glasses with a beer). The inexperienced waiter has no idea what he did wrong and brings another large draft beer to cool the man down. But now the young girl is not happy, because she suddenly has to drink a whole large beer by herself.

I decide to leave the couple to themselves, ask for the bill and leave the scene.

I am a big Nokia fan, and for that reason I did not buy an iPhone, but stayed with my Nokia E61i. Probably a good idea, because an iPhone is nothing special anymore in China with a rumored 400,000 iPhone users (I actually do not believe that number, it must be much less, and it’s likely a part of China Mobile’s negotiation strategy with Apple). But when I saw that a Chinese company came up with the HiPhone, an iPod clone for about RMB 1000 (EUR 100) I decided to order one just for fun.

Today the phone was delivered and I took pictures during the unpacking process. They can be found here as a set on Flickr. My first impression is that the design is remarkably the same. Not only the phone itself, but even the box the phone comes in. The phone seems to be a bit thicker, but when it’s turned off it looks almost the same. Once you turn it on the opening screen is exactly the same as the iPhone (the picture of the earth was copied), but when you come to the main menu you immediately see this is a copy. The buttons just don’t look as sleek as the original iPhone ones.

The phone is a bit lighter than the iPhone, because it’s completely made out of plastic. It has a touchscreen like the iPod and that works well. If you change the direction of the phone, the picture will also change its direction. And you are even able to zoom in and out with two fingers. It’s not as smooth as the iPhone, but it works.

The phone has a dual sim card, which is quite useful for me when I am travelling. I did not try it out yet, but if it works its a great feature. The phone comes standard with two batteries, and it has an mini SD card slot (I bought an additional 2 GB card, the standard memory is only 512 MB). Furthermore it has a camera and video camera, quality is better than expected for such a cheap phone. MP3 audio also works fine, although the quality of the speaker could be better.

But of course for EUR 100 you don’t get a 100% copy of an iPhone. I tried to get the internet to work, but am only able to get onto WAP sites. It seems that the phone does not support internet… Not a good thing for an iPhone copy! Also there is no wifi or 3G as far as I can tell, only GPRS. Fine for China as long as there is no 3G anyway. The font used in the HiPhone is plain ugly, and I don’t think you can change it.

All in all a nice gimmick. For EUR 100 you get a camera, MP3 player and a good phone in one, in a nicely copied design. I will use it occasionally for business trips, but my main phone will surely stay the Nokia. The best thing about the phone is the text on the box and on the back side of the phone: “HiPhone – Innovation changes the future”. It seems the manufacturer is not only good at copying, but also has humor!

It was a relatively clear day today, and I decided to take some pictures from my balcony and out of my windows. The top picture is a picture of the almost-finished Tibet Hotel. Construction companies have been working on this building for years, but each time they had to stop because of (I assume) financial problems. The hotel is as good as ready now, but I do not see much activity on the site. In the background you see the 262 meter tall Grand Gateway towers.

This picture is the outdoor swimming pool and little park with ponds in our compound. The pool is only open 3 months a year. Next to the pool is a high-end Balinese Spa, with private rooms with jacuzzi’s and sauna’s. Open to the public, and well worth a visit (but much more expensive than regular massage places like Dragon Fly).

The World Financial Tower, China’s tallest builing for now, is almost finished. It towers above the Jinmao Tower. To the right the Oriental Pearl Tower can just be seen.

The Xujiahui Cathedral, the largest church in Shanghai, built between 1905 and 1910, partly destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and now being restored.

Innovative advertising: a company erected a huge bottle in front of Grand Gateway during Chinese New Year. The bottle consists of LCD screens that show advertising or TV shows.

Some more pictures taken from my apartment this morning can be found here.

Last night I was invited to speak for MBA students at CEIBS, the China Europe International Business School. I heard a lot about the school over the years, but I had never actually visited the campus in Pudong.

The school started in 1994 and has grown quite a lot over the years: in 2007 a total of 542 EMBA students and 164 MBA students graduated here. Even though the education is in English, I expected that there would not be too many non-Chinese studying here. But it turns out that actually 30% of the MBA class are foreigners. The school is not only the number one MBA in China, but also the number one in Asia, according to the Financial Times.

Before my talk I had dinner with Maria Fleuren, who is a Dutch MBA student here. She interviewed me a few years ago for a study about user-generated content, while in her previous job at Dutch TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), and it was interesting that she now landed here. She showed me around campus, and we talked a bit about her experiences during the MBA program so far.

The talk I gave was about entrepreneurship in China and success factors to grow a business here. I also talked about the differences between setting up and running a business in China versus doing this outside China. Nothing theoretical, but based on my own experiences over the past years with lots of real life examples. The session was interactive, so people could make remarks or ask questions during the presentation. The students had some good questions, and a few of them also seemed to think about setting up their own business in China (next to or after their MBA).

I enjoy giving this kind of talks to either students, scholars, entrepreneurs or other business people. I like to interact with smart people, and their questions force me to think about things that I often did not really think about.

I am not sure if I ever blogged about this, but one of the things I still hope to achieve is to teach at a university in the future. For me the ideal situation would be teaching part-time to motivated students, while at the same time writing a book. Giving a talk to MBA students like last night, reminds me once again of the fact that discussing interesting topics in front of a group is something I really enjoy.

Picture above: CEIBS Campus in Shanghai, from CEIBS website

The almost-finished finished World Financial Center (that I can see from my study while writing blog entries) is currently the tallest building in China, at 492 meters. Right next to it is the long-time number one, the Jinmao Tower, the one with the Grand Hyatt Hotel in it. But it looks both of them will get an even taller neighbor.

A new project, the Shanghai Center, will start construction before the end of this year. The tower will be 112 stories tall, and at 580 meters will be 72 meters higher than the current number one in Asia, Taipei 101. However, it is not as high as the beautiful Burj Dubai (still under construction), which estimated height may be over 800 meter (it’s height is still kept secret). The Shanghai Center will be built on the former driving range on the south side of the Jinmao Tower. The final design has not been decided upon yet. In typical Chinese fashion the building will be built in record time: in 2010 it should be finished already!

Update: This post was originally called “Shanghai get tallest skyscraper in the world”, but as commenter Remco points out below, the Burj Dubai is much higher. I assumed China’s official news agency Xinhua would gets its facts right (see this link), but that is not the case. Therefore I adjusted the title and content of this post.

All national and provincial comprehensive museums in China stopped charging visitors entry fees this year. But the measure has some unwanted consequences according to the Shanghai Daily. Suddenly huge crowds appear in the museums, making it difficult to appreciate the art. The museum in Jiading district attracted about 20,000 visitors during Chinese New Year, although normally just 100-200 people would visit.

Big crowds is one thing, but another is there behavior. According to a quote in the article, the Shanghai Art Museum “was just like a wet market during the Spring Festival”. Kids were playing and running in the halls, and other people were shouting loudly. Indeed not the best way to appreciate art masterpieces. But I would not be surprised if the uneducated security guards are much happier in such a merry environment, and do not do anything to stop the nuisance caused by the crowds.

Because the free entry to museums was announced in a state government notice, it is not something museums can change themselves (The Shanghai Art Museum is an exception and will start charging again after the Spring Festival). From now on most museums are only able to charge for special exhibitions, and it will be hard to call the normal collection a special exhibition. Therefore a recommendation, do not visit a museum during weekends or national holidays anymore, but try to stick to working days where there won’t be much of a change.