This afternoon my secretary booked two tickets from Shanghai to Hong Kong, one for me (a foreigner) and one for a Chinese national. When I looked at the prices I noticed that they were different: I pay more for the same ticket on Dragon Air than a Chinese! I could not believe it, this reminds me of China in the 1990’s when foreigners could officially be overcharged. But this law changed years ago, and now there should be one price no matter where you are from. Is Dragon Air breaking this law in China?

During the past week I exchanged a few mails with Sam Flemming about podcasters on Toodou that got famous because of their video’s, because he planned to write about it on his blog. Today I found an article from the China Daily on my RSS reader about the same subject. I felt it was quite similar to Sam’s article, and when I checked it, it tunrned out that Sam was the author. I did not know that he also writes for this paper, but did not think further about it. But just now I looked at his blog, and found that the China Daily had just copied his blog post without informing or paying him for this. The only thing they did is to put his name on there. Sam doesn’t get too upset about it, but merely says that he had hoped they would have mentioned his company CIC Data or that he could have rewritten the article.

This is not the first time this happens, the China Daily is well-know for copy/pasting articles. I guess that’s the risk of blogging, others can use the material without asking. But it also happens to other media. From an interview with the South China Morning Post that I did early May some clips were taken by other newspapers, and I suddenly found interviews with me in newspapers from such places as Jordan and North Korea. None of them even mentioned the source!

I suppose this has always happened in the past, but because of RSS tools it is now much easier to find out. All articles that mention among others Toodou or Spill Group end up automatically in my mailbox every day. So cheaters are caught easily.

And for the China Daily, they make other mistakes as well. This week for example several people contacted me to ask about a 100 million USD investment in Toodou. I wondered where that (incorrect) information came from, and my RSS feed showed the original source: the China Daily had written an article about new media in which the investment in RMB was put as USD. A simple check by an editor through Google or Baidu could have prevented this error.

I came across this funny Chinese TV commercial for some kind of board game. But look at what these people are wearing, that looks very Dutch to me! (Thanks to Thijs Bosma for the link)
Update: the commercial is also available on YouTube, you can find it here

Spill Group Asia is looking for an experienced senior project manager, but we did not find a suitable person yet. Also the headhunting firms that I talked to did not come up with any good candidates so far. Junior staff is not too difficult to find, but senior staff is a different issue. Does anybody know of a good internet headhunting firm in Shanghai?

I am looking for someone with at least 3-5 years experience in managing online game development projects, preferably at a major gaming company, and who speaks fluently English. This person will manage both outsourced projects and in-house projects. More details see also here. Spill Group offers an excellent package for the right candidate.

I am offering RMB 15,000 to the person who introduces the right candidate to me, payable if the candidate meets our demands and has not left Spill Group within the first three months. Spread the word!

On Saturday we (Gary, Lei, Qi and myself) decided to go to Fengxian to check out the beach there. Fengxian is located about one hour south of Shanghai, the easiest way to get there is to take the A4 toll road (RMB 20), that runs almost to the village.

Fengxian itself turned out not to be too interesting. There is an artificial beach, but you cannot go into the water: it is so dirty that the government put a fence between the beach and the water! At low tide you can venture out over the sandy grounds by horse, but that’s about the only way to get close to the sea. The weather was nice, it was about 30 degrees but a strong wind (force 8) made the heat quite comfortable.

There is a small amusement park built in the middle of the sandy beach, but because of the strong wind not many people were using it. Luckily there was lots of fresh seafood available, and we had big lunch at one of the sea food places. Four different kinds of shell fish, small lobsters and octopus, vegetables, several beers for Gary and me, and Coca-Cola for the ladies. All together for only RMB 160. I just hoped they did not collect the shell fish right on the sandbanks at low tide (at least I did not get sick).

Afterwards we drove through the countryside to Shanghai’s new deep sea port, which is located about 20 kilometers into the sea (connected by a long bridge of course). But we were not allowed onto the bridge by a police guy, so decided to forget about it and drive back to Shanghai. On the way back the highway was almost empty, so I could test my car a bit. I managed to get up to about 180-190 km/h, and the car drove excellent at that speed. It could still go faster, but I felt it’s just too dangerous. It’s not unusual to suddenly encounter a bike rider on the highway or a farmer who decided to cross the road on foot, and that’s a situation you want to avoid at extremely high speeds.

One of Shanghai’s better restaurants is Kathleen’s 5, located on the top floor of the Shanghai Art Museum on People’s Square. The restaurant has a big terrace overlooking People’s Park, and it’s a good location for dinner or for a cigar after dinner.

On Thursday night Qi and I had dinner here with a friend. The dinner was great, our friend is very knowledgable in many subjects and we discussed topics ranging from the German eduction system to catholicism and the pope, and from online gaming to data mining. I even developed a new business idea (and gave him a potential new idea as well), but I won’t implement it. My plate is full already, and I love what I am doing now. I get new ideas all the time, and if I meet the right people who could implement them I will tell them about it.

One strange thing happened on Thursday night: my car remote control system did not work at the Art Museum parking place. I thought that the battery key might be empty, but when I got home it worked fine again. Qi asked the dealer, and he told her that there are a few locations in Shanghai where this happens, among others at the Oriental Pearl Tower and Century Park. Did anybody ever encounter this? And what causes it?

On Wednesday night Volkskrant journalist Hans Moleman invited me for dinner at Barbarossa. This restaurant/lounge/bar is located in the park on People’s Square, and it’s a great place to relax and have some good food. Barbarossa serves North-African cuisine (among others lamb and couscous), one of the very few restaurants like this in Shanghai.

We had dinner on the terrace at the lake, and talked for hours about life in China, politics, multinationals and entrepreneurship, and about Africa (where Hans used to live). After dinner we had some very good old rum and a few coffees to accompany the rum at the rooftop bar. The evening ended memorable as well: Hans has a ChangJiang (I think) motorcycle with sidecar (a pre-world war 2 model), and he drove me back to my car with this vehicle.

Gele Draak (Yellow Dragon) is the leading Dutch website with information about China. I check the site every now and then to see if there is any interesting new information available. I had not done so since my vacation, but now a friend told me that my weblog was chosen as Website of the Month. I took a look, and it’s indeed the case. Thanks guys, I appreciate it. And if you should arrive at my site because of the link at Gele Draak: Welkom (welcome)!

If you speak Dutch and are interested in China, check out Gele Draak. It has among others information on travel, culture, business, and of course news on China. There is also a forum where you can post and answer questions.

One article that’s currently on the front page I would like to point to. It’s a diary of a (group) trip to China in 1978. I did not read the whole article yet (but plan to do that this weekend if I have a bit more time available), but it’s a very different world from the China I am living in now!