After our nanny left us earlier this week, my wife luckily managed to find a new one. I am quite relieved, because it saves us a lot of precious time. The new one started today already, and she is a pleasant person in her mid-forties. Very modest (unlike the first nanny) and also very experienced, I had a good feeling about her right away. She does not speak any English, which is good, so she won’t teach Scott English with a Chinese accent.

The nanny won’t stay overnight like the first nanny, because she is Shanghainese and has her own place to stay. But she will work here 6 days a week from 9 AM to 9 PM, so it will make our life a lot easier. Happy that this worked out before Chinese New Year!

Update: I cheered too early. Two hours after writing this post the phone rang (waking us up), and our nanny told us she would not come back. Not unusual in China, domestic staff comes and goes, especially in the beginning of the employment. The reasons: She was too tired today because Scott is so heavy (??) and she lives in Hongkou which is quite a long trip by public transportation. Anyway, we are back to square one. I am afraid I will have to help a bit more in the household over the next days, the chances of finding another nanny in the week before Chinese New Year are almost zero.

Update 2: Two days later the second nanny called again. She missed Scott and would still like to work with him for a few more days. She will now help us out until Chinese New Year, then my wife’s older sister will take care of Scott for 2 weeks and after that it should be easier to find a new nanny.

I often get annoyed at the very one-sided way that China is portrayed in the media. It probably sell more papers when you call the government here a dictatorship, and do as if China is a country where people live in fear and are restricted in everything they do. Or it is because the journalist has never been here, or he/she lives here but still does not understand (or does not want to understand) China. Because of that most people who have never been to China have a completely wrong idea about the situation here.

Therefore I was happy to see a blogpost today on Danwei, referrring to an interview with Dr. Susan Brownell. She is an American anthropologist with more China experience than most foreigners in China: she came to China in 1985 already. A quote from the article describes exactly the way I see the real political situation in China:

The stereotype Americans have is that China is a dictatorship – that Chinese leaders don’t have a lot of popular support and are therefore using the Olympic Games to legitimize themselves. None of that is true. It’s not a dictatorship – it’s a pretty well-run, open society. In some ways, the Chinese are more open than we are in the West. China’s government has a lot of popular support. I think that Chinese people believe in government more than we do in the U.S. The government’s primary goal here is not to legitimize itself. I think it is trying to shape the next generation of Chinese people to be international – which will benefit China economically and politically.

The whole interview can be read on the blog of a Seattle Times reporter. I read the article, it’s well worth the time if you want to understand a little bit more about the Beijing Olympics, and what it really means to China. Just like Danwei says, I hope all foreign journalists that plan to cover the Olympics will read it as well, to get a better understanding of China.

For the past weeks we have had a nanny to take care of Scott. Quite convenient, as we could sleep a little bit more (no changing of diapers in the middle of the night) and she also did some of the special cooking for my wife (Chinese tradition is that women need to eat healthy and more nutritious food when they nurse the baby). The nanny was a Chinese lady in her late forties, and she was quite traditional in her views of how to care of the baby and the mother. If it had been up to her, my wife would have not been allowed to drink juice or normal water, and she could have taken a shower only once per week. She did not even allow my wife to use a laptop! Luckily my wife has more Western views, and already took a shower the day after the delivery. Of course she also went online not long after Scott was born. Some minor ‘fights’ erupted because of this, but in the end the nanny always gave in. Reluctantly, I have to say, but from experience I know that fighting with my wife and winning is not easy 🙂

Then nanny walked around in her pajamas since the day she arrived in our apartment, and even went out in her pajamas to buy food. Now I am used to seeing Shanghainese running around the city in pajamas, but if someone lives in your house and does not wear anything but a sleeping suit, it gets on your nerves. Both my wife and I decided not to say too much about it, because it turned out the nanny did not have any other clothes. She carried all her belongings in a plastic bag, and moved from family to family. She did not even have her own apartment, but lived at the premises of the nanny company in between jobs. A strange way of living for me, but she seems to enjoy taking care of kids so much, that she did not care.

Scott was her 52nd baby already, and she seemed just as happy with him as with all the others. Or actually a bit too happy, because after a couple of days she started to call him ‘my son’. Also, it seemed that she became more unwilling to let me hold my own baby, as if she was jealous. Honestly, at that point my wife and I both started wondering if employing a nanny was really such a good idea. Eventually, however, we were convinced that she just really loved kids, and she took very good care of our son. Life as new parents was a lot easier with such a nanny around.

Yesterday morning the nanny suddenly announced that she had had a fight with her boss (the owner of the nanny company) and that she was resigning. She would therefore leave us as well, and by lunchtime she was gone. It is a bit of an adjustment, I have to say, but we are coping well. We are now thinking about whether we should get a new nanny or not. The timing is not optimal, because in two weeks the Chinese New Year will start, and most people want to spend the first 15 days of the New Year with their families in their hometowns. We’ll see. My wife’s parents will help us out a bit the coming time, but if it is too difficult we might resort to paying a bit more for a new nanny. For sure it will be a less traditional one!

Now that the stock markets worldwide are seeing a big correction, the Chinese stocks start following them. Finally. Over the past year I have watched in amazement what was happening in the market. Although not everybody agrees, I felt Chinese stocks were completely overvalued (mainly based on multiples). The main reason the prices kept going up, was because more and more people entered the market, blinded by the possibility of getting rich. People were putting their life savings in, without being aware of the fact that what goes up can also go down. As an economist with a major in corporate finance, I felt a bid sad watching the ignorant crowds on People’s Square on weekends, listening to investment experts with laptops showing off their profitable investment strategies. None of them ever heard of efficient markets, let alone the world bubble.

Shanghainese have the reputation of being very thrifty, but when it comes to the stock market they seemed to jump in without thinking twice. Once my driver started to invest in the market, I knew the bubble had to burst soon. I heard stories about retirees putting all their money in the market, and just last week I came across an article about Chinese students investing their university fees, instead of paying their tuition. How many more signs are needed to show that the market is overheated? But people kept investing.

I hope for the small Chinese investors that the markets will stabilize, although fundamentally there is still a big downward potential. Imagine what would happen if all these people would lose most of their savings, that could be a threat to China’s stability. For that reason I believed that the government might step in if prices would fall too quickly, in order to stabilize the economy. But now that the markets are following the markets outside China, I am not so sure anymore.

The main reason that China’s stock market went up so much over the past 2.5 years (about +450% right now, +600% early November at the top) is that Chinese can only invest in companies listed in China. Once the index started to climb in mid-2005 it was basically a self-fulfilling prophecy: people made money, bragged about it and others started to follow. There was no other place to invest in stock anyway, even Hong Kong shares are not available to mainland Chinese investors. Therefore valuations of companies in Hong Kong are very different from valuations of the same companies listed on a China exchange. And that’s also the risk: once investors start to pull out their money, others will follow. And then the ride can go downhill fast, because fundamentally the Shanghai stock exchange is still far overvalued.

I hope for the Chinese investors that there will be a bottom in the market soon, either based on perceived fundamentals or on people starting to buy back shares at lower prices. At that point the market could even start rising again, because most investors do not understand why markets move as they do. If people start to make profits, others might follow again. Maybe the Chinese government should start slowly open up investment opportunities outside China, to avoid a second China-only bubble.

China Tech News reports today that Shanghai (finally) started the construction of its city-wide Wi-Fi. It apparently took a bit longer than planned, because when it was announced 15 months ago I already blogged about it. The only problem is that they start in Jiading district, far from where I (and most other people) live and work. Why not start in the city center? I would assume more people would use it there. Probably a political reason, or they first want to test it in a low population density area.

Another thing that puzzles me, is that they will cover the area with just 200 to 300 base stations. Jiading District has a size of about 450 square km with half a million inhabitants. I am not an expert in this field, but for such a large area a few hundred base stations does not seem to be enough. Or are they using WiMAX technology, but calling it Wi-Fi? Whatever it is, it is good news, and at least we will have wireless internet during this year’s Formula One race (which is in Jiading District).

By the way, Shanghai is not the only city in China that is planning wireless internet. Next to Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Shenzhen have also set up their own plans for city-wide Wi-Fi construction.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about a video camera that I bought at BestBuy in Shanghai. It was an out-of-the-box camera, meaning that the box had been opened, and therefore I got a small discount. However, that same evening I found that the camera was not new, but had been used for several months already. I went back to the store, and they offered me a new camera for the discounted out-of-the-box price. Things seemed to be settled, except for the fact that the camera was suddenly out of stock. They would check when new stock would come in and call me in a few days.

Well, I waited a few days, but no phone call. After a week I decided to go to the store again to check myself. The camera was still on display, so I checked with one of the sales man. He had no idea what I was talking about, but he helped me to track down the guy who had helped me the first time. This guy was talking on his mobile phone with his back to the waiting customers (he seems to be always on the phone when I go to BestBuy), but hung up quickly when his fellow sales man acknowledged him of my presence. I asked him when the model would be restocked, and he told me the model was out of production and would not be sold anymore…

So I asked him why he had not called me. His answer was that he ‘just found out’. Right, that sounds very believable. So I asked him what would happen now. He had no idea of course, but I can’t blame him for that as he is probably not in a decision-making position. Another sales man then came over (who spoke good English), and he was a bit more helpful. At first he offered me to buy a more expensive model at a discounted price, but I told him that after this experience I did not want to spend any additional money, because this was not my fault. He then offered to talk to his manager to resolve the issue, and get back to me soon.

I have to admit that at this point I told him that I am a blogger and also involved with Tudou, and that I would not hesitate to put a video about my negative experience online. I don’t like to use this kind of ‘power’, but I got so sick and tired of the way Best Buy had treated me, that I felt this might be a way to get a solution. The sales people knew Tudou very well of course, and my strategy seemed to help. Already few hours later I got a phone call from BestBuy, giving me the option of a) returning my camera and getting not only my money back but an additional payment for what had happened, or b) they would try to find my model camera somewhere else in China, and if that would not work give me a better camera without additional payment.

Because I wanted to have a camera and not money, I went for option b), and a couple of days ago BestBuy called again. They told me they did not find the same model, and they would give me a better Sony handycam. I went back to the store this week, where of course the staff had no idea what I was talking about. The sales person told me nobody can return a camera after 2 weeks, and certainly not swap it for a more expensive one. I told him to look in his computer, but he told me the information would not be in there. Sigh… Luckily after a few minutes one of the other staff recognized me, and he explained the situation to the others. Of course the information was in the computer, but the sales guy was probably too lazy to look in there. Anyway, I now have a good (and new) camera. It’s a bit bigger than the original one, but the specs are a lot better. Thanks BestBuy, it took some time, which is something I have grown used to in China, but in the end the problem has been solved.

I was one of the lucky ones who won a ticket for the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Because the Beijing Olympic Committee wants to make sure these ticket cannot be sold over the black market, the ticket will bear your name on it. Last week I already received a phone call to check my personal data for the tickets (if you changed your phone number in the past 9 months you probably have bad luck, because they cannot reach you). I thought it was a spam call, because the caller started asking right away what my passport number is in very bad English. I almost hung up on the lady!

Today I received an email with instructions on what to do to get these tickets. Luckily it did not end up in my spam filter, because then I might not have seen it on time. The procedure is almost ridiculous. You first have to fill out a form with all your personal details (they already have all these details online, but OK). Then you have to put a picture on it that has been taken after August 2006 (No kidding, how do they plan to check this? Why not just say a recent picture?). You have to make a ‘duplicated copy’ of your passport (I assume this means two copies). Then you have to go a branch of the Bank of China in person between January 15 and 31 with these forms and your original ID. You can name a trustee to go in your place, but then you have to sign a letter of trust first.

Now what if you are on vacation or on a business trip for the next two weeks, or just see the email too late? Bad luck, the mail says that in that case ‘the organizers are entitled to deprive the buyer of his tickets’. Is nobody thinking before sending out such a mass email? Wouldn’t it be normal to give ticket buyers at least a couple of weeks notice? It reminds me a bit of the disaster with the ticket sales in October where nobody seemed to be thinking ahead either.

I certainly hope the Organizing Committee is better at organizing the actual Olympic Games than at organizing the ticket sales.

Update (Jan. 22): My assistant went to the Bank of China to hand in my application today, but it was rejected! Two reason: I had to fill it in with an ink pen, not a ballpoint… (no mention of that of course in the application form, so I suppose more people will have that problem). Furthermore, I made a mistake in one letter and crossed it out, that was also not allowed. Typical Chinese bureaucracy, I hate it. But what can you do?

Good domain names are important when you are in the internet business. Especially names that are easy to remember and names that make sure that you end up high in search engine results. I was therefore very happy to get the confirmation that Spill Group Asia has managed to obtain among others the domain names game.asia and games.asia.

The .Asia domain is a new top level domain, just like the .eu domains in Europe last year. In order to get these domain names we had to write a detailed proposal about what we will do with these domains (as part of the Pioneer Domains Program), and it turns out that ours was the best. We will now start developing sites specifically for these domains. A good start of the new year for Spill Group Asia!