Merry Christmas! A few days ago I was interviewed on a Dutch radio station about how people celebrate Christmas in China. When the producer of the program called me before the show, she seemed surprised that Christmas is not a regular holiday in China.

Basically, most Chinese do not celebrate Christmas. People do not get days off from work, and most people probably don’t even know it is Christmas. Only in the big cities you see Christmas decorations in stores and restaurants, but in Chinese houses you won’t see Christmas trees. We actually had a hard time buying a good tree this year, mainly because only foreigners in China buy trees. In Beijing a few years ago it was a lot easier, maybe because there are woods closer to the city?

In most Western countries Christmas is a family affair, with big meals with the whole family and spending time together. In China the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) has this function. In cities like Shanghai most Western bars and restaurants organize Christmas dinners and Christmas parties, and quite a lot of young Chinese participate. But probably more because they just like a good party than because it is Christmas. So it’s more a commercial affair than a religious or family event.

Last year when I was in Shanghai during Christmas, I did not like it at all, and it was one of the reasons why I decided to travel to Europe this year. Working on Christmas day just doesn’t feel right. At least not working in the office, I am sure I will check my email tomorrow from my parents home. The weather in Shanghai also does not help of course, I don’t think there has ever been a white Christmas there. Beijing is better in that respect, during Christmas 2002 I remember we had huge snowstorms. I had just started my first business at that time, and had to travel to the middle of nowhere in Hebei province on Christmas day over roads that were completely covered in ice!

But this year Holland won’t have a white Christmas either. More likely a grey Christmas, with temperatures above zero both during daytime and at night. But I’ll enjoy it anyway: It is dark outside already, and I am now sitting with my laptop in front of my parents fireplace, Christmas music in the background and drinking an excellent glass of wine. Life could be worse!

While checking in for my KLM flight yesterday there were long lines as usual, both for economy class and for business class. They seem not to be able to reduce these lines, even in the business class line you normally have to wait for half an hour. But there was one very short line, in front of a single computer terminal. I had not seen this before, so I checked with one of the KLM staff. This person said that it was the self check-in for people with an e-ticket who already checked in at home. I did not know they now also offer online check-in for Shanghai (in Amsterdam I often check in online), and made a mental note to do this next time. Because our line was so long I decided to take a look at the computer. To my surprise it was a normal laptop with a slow (probably CDMA) connection to the KLM website where people could check in. So the information of the staff was not right, because the passengers in this line did not check in at home yet, but were doing it here.

Because I also had an e-ticket (unusual in China, most people still have printed tickets) I decided to check-in here as well. But as this line seemed to move very slowly, my wife stayed in the other line. That was a good idea, because the laptop check-in was a total disaster. Not only did most people who were checking in not have any clue about the online procedure, but the staff who were trying to help were not much more knowledgeable either. My hands were itching to help, but I decided to stay out of it, because most people were quite stressed already and probably did not want to be helped. In top of that they had an extremely slow connection, likely due to either the CDMA card and/or the fact that KLM’s servers are conveniently located outside China’s Great Firewall. Loading one page cost around one minute, and you had to load several pages. But the worst thing was that they did not connect a printer to the laptop…. So after checking in you still had to go to the check-in counter to get your boarding pass and drop off your suitcase. This was of course extremely stupid, and makes no sense at all.

The result: very unhappy passengers, staff who had no clue and who were therefore being harassed, and in the end even a delay of the flight (not everybody could be checked in on time, according to the captain). KLM, if you are reading this a short advice: Set up a server in China for checking in (less than EUR 2000), and program the laptop so that you only have to type in your eticket number, choose your seat and click OK (programming cost in China less than EUR 1000), put a wifi connection on the laptop (very cheap) and connect a printer (EUR 200). Then get at least 3 of these computers and put them next to check in. Train 2 staff members (takes one hour). And of course ask all passengers to check-in at home already. Total cost less than EUR 10,000, implementation time maximum 2 weeks. Result: happy passengers, shorter lines and planes that depart on time.

In a few hours I will be flying to Europe for Christmas. Because there is not much snow in the Alps I likely will take it easy, and just have a relaxed couple of days in Holland. A bit of running and bike riding, good food and wine, catching up on reading books and magazines, and spending some quality time with my family. If any of my friends wants to meet up, I’ll be in Ommen most of the time, so give me a ring or send me an email.

Micah Sittig notes that the Chinese government has suddenly decided to ask people to work on the weekend of December 30-31. But they will get days off on January 2-3 to compensate for this (New Year’s Day is already an official holiday). This is causing travel agencies a big headache, because they planned for people to have Dec. 30-Jan. 1 off…

I think that many companies (including Spill Group Asia) will give the staff the weekend of Dec. 30-31 off anyway, and ask the staff to report back to work on Jan. 2. But I am actually not sure if this is allowed. Is the government vacation schedule something every company has to implement, or is it only for government employees and state-owned enterprises?

Last weekend I bought a small gadget, the latest iPod Shuffle. Literally small, becacause it’s about the size of a stamp – see the picture of the mp3 player next to my pen. I lost my black iPod video (probably left it on a plane, very stupid of course), and I cannot really live without an iPod anymore.

I still have an ancient white iPod bought in 2002, but its battery has long given up. If connected to a power outlet I can still use it, but that’s a bit inconvenient when going for a run. And my wife’s pink iPod nano is a bit too shiny for me. So I got myself the Generation 2 Shuffle.

It’s a great toy: very small and light so you don’t notice it while running, and with enough memory (1 GB) for hours of listening to music and podcasts. True, you cannot watch video’s on it (I use my PSP for that now), and you have to create your playlists before going on a run because you don’t have a screen. But the battery is exceptionally good: I turned the music on last night to run the battery down for a reload. And I was very surprised that the iPod was still playing this morning. Even after lunch there was still music coming through my earphones. Only after more than 16 hours the battery run out, much better than the 4-5 hours I got on my iPod video.

If you want to buy one, you can get it in most electronics shopping malls in Shanghai (I prefer Hong Kong Plaza, on Huaihai Lu / Huangpi Nan Lu). The price is similar to the rest of the world, about RMB 700. The official Apple shop charges RMB 788, and then you can be sure the product is not fake. Of course you can also buy one of the Chinese brands, I saw one similar-sized 2GB model with mini-screen for just RMB 200! But those products don’t look as good (they are actually plain ugly), and no guarantees for sound quality nor life span of course.

I am getting so many spambot comments lately, that I have decided to turn on word verification. If you want to leave a comment you will have to type in the letters and numbers below the comment box before it will be published. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I hope this will stop the spammers from using this blog as a free tool to promote their sites and products.

Last week several blogs asked the question what happens with the RMB 30 deposit that you pay for your Shanghai transportation cards (these cards that you can use to pay for the metro, bus and taxi). The argumentation was that this money (@ 15 millon cards this is RMB 450 million) should generate a lot of interest, and people wanted to know what that money is used for. Even the Shanghai Commission on Consumer Rights and Interest Protection got involved, and argued for “the right to know”. Suggestions for the usage like ‘for mistresses’ or ‘for karaoke’ were made.

As a business person I did not really take the posts or comments too serious, because even every business student should know that this kind of cash is normally used for business operations (it reduces your cost of capital for investments, and it makes is possible to lower operational costs). And strangely nobody even thought of a much bigger chunk of money: the money people store on their cards. That’s on average much higher than RMB 30, probably more around RMB 100, meaning that an additional 1.5 billion in cash is available to the metro company.

But it seems the blogs had some effect. This Sunday I wanted to take the metro and realized I forgot my card, so I bought a new one. And to my big surprise they suddenly reduced the price of the cards, I only had to pay RMB 20 for a new card! And a much nicer one than the old one, a red card commemorating the Long March 70 years ago.

Since a couple of weeks the JZ Club in Shanghai has a Big Band playing on Saturday night, the JZ All Star Big Band. And it’s a huge success, despite the fact you have to pay to get in (30 RMB), which is still quite unusual in China.

The band is led by Rolf Becker, a very talented band leader who also arranges a lot of the music himself. Over the past year Rolf and his wife have become good friends of us, and we try to watch his performances in the JZ Club and other venues at least twice a month. I actually met Rolf through this weblog: I once wrote about the first performance of the Shanghai Jazz Orchestra (also set up by Rolf) and he read that post and contacted me by email.

Before watching the show Qi and I had dinner at Latina in Xintiandi. Latina is one of the many Brazilian BBQ places in town, and in my opinion one of the better ones. Xintiandi is a very upscale and therefore pricy location, but the all-you-can-eat buffet is still only 128 RMB per person. They compensate that with the drink prices, a Tsingtao is over 40 RMB for a small bottle! The meat is excellent here. The waiters keep coming to your table with freshly grilled steaks, pork, sausages, chicken wings, and all other kinds of meat. So you have to seriously watch out that you don’t eat too much.

Around 11 PM we then arrived at JZ, just before the performance started. We managed to sit quite close to the stage (thanks Amira!), but soon afterwards the jazz club was so crowded that new arrivals had to go upstairs to be able to see the band. The big band played two sets, with mainly famous songs. During the second set they even put the club into Christmas mood by performing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”, the first time I heard a big band play that! The whole performance was great, and the audience even asked for (and got) an encore.

Although the JZ club is getting too small now already, I would absolutely recommend you to watch one of the big band’s performances at this club, located on Fuxing Lu, close to Ulumuqi Lu. It’s fantastic. They start every Saturday around 11 PM, but that can be a bit later as well. But come early if you want a seat. I was told that JZ made a live recording last night, so soon the JZ Big Band will be available on CD as well.