The national college entrance exams have started again in China. This yearly ritual is one of the most important moments in the lives of Chinese students. Doing well during these few days can mean access to a top university and therefore a good job and career, temporarily underachieving means going to a lower ranked university (or not going to college at all) and therefore not being able to get a good job in later life. For this reason the GaoKao is hyped up in the media, and websites and newspapers all report about it today.

Not far from my office is a high school where parents were all waiting outside until their kids would come out for a break between exams. It was very crowded and police were making sure the traffic would not be disrupted, and that nobody would dare to blow the horn. The interesting thing was that all parents were all very quiet, afraid that their talking would disturb the kids inside. The parents mean well, but if I would be an exam-taking student it would probably freak me out.

In past years the Shanghai Daily used to run stories about hotels being fully booked by parents that wanted to ensure that their kids would get a good night’s sleep before the exams, so they would have an advantage over their classmates. But this year it seems parents have become even more desperate: the Shanghai Daily’s feature story about the exams reports about parents trying to buy drugs so that their only child would perform better during the exams!

The drug they are turning to is Ritalin, a so-called psychomotor stimulant that is normally used for children that are hyperactive. Parents assume this will help their children to perform better. The drug is not available over-the-counter, and parents tried in vain to get hold of the product at local hospitals. When that did not work they used other strategies, for example asking friends or colleagues with a hyperactive child to buy supplies for them. One mother took her son, who had already recovered from the disease, four times to the hospital to buy the medicine in order to resell it.

Of course also websites sell the product here, claiming that the drug is useful and not harmful at all. A quick internet search disagrees with this though: not only is it dangerous and addictive, but it also can cause fainting, a bad headache, insomnia and nervousness. Drugs.com warns not to take it if you are severely anxious or tense – symptons that are not unlikely to occur during exam time. Parents do not seem to care, however. One mother was quoted in the newspaper saying: “I don’t want to see my child lag behind others even though it is a bit risky. Getting a high score is the top priority.”

This evening I was interviewed by a Dutch radio station about whether people in Shanghai are already excited about the Beijing Olympics. In my opinion the Olympics are not a very hot topic yet among people in Shanghai. Many perceive it more as a Beijing event than as a Chinese one right now. I think that will change, there is still more than a year to go until the Olympics start on 08-08-08 at 08:08 PM. A year is a long time in a fast-paced business city like Shanghai, where people tend to be more short-term oriented. Once the Olympics come closer people will get more excited, and I am sure they will all be proud of ‘their’ Olympics, which likely will be the biggest and best ever.

On TV you see quite some programs about the Olympics already. Showing events from past Olympic Games, or giving updates on how far ahead schedule the construction of all the stadiums is. But these are mainly on CCTV (airing from Beijing) and local Beijing TV stations.

I think that in the last months before the Olympics all Chinese consumer brands will embrace the Olympic theme. Maybe not by using the Olympic logo, but at least by airing TV commercials that are linked to top sports. Some have already started doing this, and also some websites see this as a good way to increase traffic. I just read for example that internet companies Ourgame and Gamlaxy are being investigated for trademark infringement. They were selling in-game virtual items with the Beijing Olympics name and logo on it in one of their multiplayer online games, which is not allowed.

Normally intellectual property (IP) is very difficult to protect in China, and especially so when it is virtual IP, but the Beijing Olympics seem to be sacred. The two companies started their illegal activity less than a week ago, and now they are already under investigation – probably a record.

I have been traveling too much lately, and now I finally had a relaxed weekend in Shanghai. It’s nice to be home and sleep in my own bed, especially after having been away for the the major part of the past 5-6 weeks. I even started to miss making my own breakfast…

Friday around lunch time I arrived in Shanghai from Europe, and I went straight to the office. A couple of things had to be urgently straightened out, so it was good that I had returned before the weekend already. After work I had a burger and some beers with Joeri Gianotten. He used to be the director of Red Herring Asia-Pacific several years ago, and then moved on to Singapore where he worked for RBS/Worldpay. In that position we had contact every now and then about payment solutions in Asia for websites, and he helped me with some research as well. I never met him in person though, we only had contact through phone and email. He now quit corporate life and is doing business development for a social networking start-up (Ammado.com, still in alpha). He was in Shanghai for business and that was a good opportunity to finally meet up. We had some interesting talks, and as usual in the internet business in Asia it turned out we have several mutual friends. I did not stay too late, because I had hardly slept on the plane and was in serious need of some horizontal time.

After a 10-hour sleep I got up at 9 AM on Saturday, feeling fresh and relaxed. I had a quick breakfast and checked and answered most of my Friday night mails. Then Qi and I went to the 100-day birthday party for Xu Huan’s baby. We had a nice seafood lunch with lots of family and several colleagues. After the meal we went home around 2:30, and I decided to have a 15-minute sleep to compensate the couple of beers we had at lunch. A short sleep always does wonders for me, and it also worked this time. Then I drove to Pioco‘s office where I had a meeting with Steve (the CEO) and two friends from the US (Markus and Michele). We talked until 6, when they had to leave for a dinner. I joined my wife for dinner at home and worked a bit until 9 PM when I went out for a beer with Gary. We went to Abbey Road, a nice new bar on Yueyang Lu / Dongping Lu, in the location of the former Cotton’s. It is a nice place and we sat outside in the secluded garden under the umbrellas (the rainy season has started in Shanghai), brainstorming among others about a new business idea we developed in Nepal. When I got home I read ‘The Ascent of Rum Doodle’ that I had bought in Kathmandu – actually a pirated version of the book, like most of the books on sale there. A very funny novel, although a bit dated. I was not very tired but when I finished the book I noticed it was 4 AM already!

This morning I got up around 10, answered my emails and did some research for a blog post on Marketingfacts. I had lunch with my wife and talked with her for a while, while listening to CD from Aaron Neville that I bought. After that I finished the blog post and went to the gym. I still have a knee injury, but decided to try to run a little bit anyway. That went much better than I thought, and I ended up running for 30 minutes at over 12 km/h. Hardly any pain in my knees, and I did not feel tired at all (still in good shape from Tibet). That made me very happy, because I was quite worried about my knees, and I really missed running. Last weekend I did a 45-minute run with my dad over the Lemelerberg and Archemerberg (2 hills in the woods close to my parents house in Holland) and that still caused me a lot of pain. But now things are really improving. I will take it easy for the next few days and really start training again. It was great to be back in the gym, listening to my iPod while overlooking the swimming pool in our compound. I realize I cannot live without endurance sports anymore, it motivates me in my daily life and it gives me so many new ideas.

Every Dutch child grows up with the Jip & Janneke books. These books are written in very simple Dutch, with short sentences and easy words, so kids can already read them when they are still young. The short stories are about two toddlers, the boy Jip and the girl Janneke that experience a lot of things together. Mainly events out of daily life that children can relate to, but many with a bit of an educational undertone. They were also nicely illustrated, and every Dutch kid will immediately recognize the Jip and Janneke drawing style. As a kid I liked the books a lot, and although I have not seen my Jip & Janneke book in probably 25 years, I still know exactly what it looked like.

Today the “Yipu he Yaneke” books were also officially introduced in China, this afternoon the Dutch ambassador presented them in Beijing’s Wangfujing bookstore. They are translated into Chinese, and the book contain both the Chinese characters and the matching pinyin (the romanization of the characters) – of course together with the original illustrations.

I wonder, however, whether Chinese kids can relate to the stories. In contrast to Dutch youngsters, they do not play on the streets or have adventures outside of the house with their friends. From a very young age onwards they need to study to become the best in their class, so they can get further in life (something most Dutch kids would never be able to understand). The concept of learning about life by playing is very foreign to most Chinese parents, and only for that reason already they might not even buy the books. The first edition was printed only 10,000 times, a very low figure for Chinese publishing houses, so it seems they are also not too sure that the books will become a success.

Summer has started in Shanghai, with daily temperatures around 30 degrees. A nice way to cool off is to sit next to a public fountain, at least that’s what two South Korean students in Shanghai thought this weekend. However, the wiring of the electric lights in the fountain in Baoshan district turned out to be not very safe. The result: a female student got electrocuted while putting her hand in the fountain. Because of that she fell into the water. Her male companion tried to pull her out, which is not smart when the water is still under high voltage. Both were killed instantly…
(Source: today’s paper version of the Shanghai Daily)

One ‘present’ I received during the bike ride was a knee injury that seems to be worse than I initially thought. My knees had been hurting from day 1 and it got progressively worse. The pain was especially bad in the morning, but normally would get better while riding for a while. But climbing mountains (which is what we did about 50% of the time) was still very painful. However, no reason to give up of course.

I thought the pain (mainly on top of my right knee cap, but also below my left one), would go away after a few days. That’s not the case: when I walked up the stairs to my 7th floor office every step hurt, and I now consider taking the elevator from tomorrow onwards. Yesterday I went for a run, but had to give up after about 30 minutes because my knee was interfering. I think I will take it slow for a few days, I don’t want to make it worse. Right now I can hardly get out of a chair without pushing myself up. If anybody has suggestions what to do, let me know.

Last night I uploaded a lot of the pictures that I took during the bike ride and put them on my Flickr account. I organized them into 4 sets, so they are easier to view.

Set 1: Pictures of our acclimatization days in Lhasa (mainly sightseeing)
Set 2: The first riding days – from Lhasa via Yamdrok-Tso and Gyantse to Shigatse, plus the two days in the high mountains after that
Set 3: Mount Everest Base Camp and the ride to the Nepalese border
Set 4: Nepal (Kodari, The Last Resort, Bhaktapur and Kathmandu)