Last weekend I spent in Beijing, and on Saturday we went skiing in Huaibei. The German Centre organized a trip there, and Qi and I decided to join. I knew several people on the trip already (among others Jeroen Berghuis from VOK DAMS and his staff, and Leif Goeritz who is a former colleague at DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart and now managing director of the German Centre Beijing), but most people had arrived in Beijing after I left the city in 2002 so they were new to me.

The trip to Huaibei took just over an hour, except for a small traffic jam close to Huairou there were no delays. Huaibei is located close to Miyun, if you travel by car you should drive to Huairou, then in the direction of Miyun and follow the signs from there. You cannot really miss it, because it’s the only snow covered area you will see from the main road. Look for the resort on the left the moment you pass the Great Wall.

Huaibei Resort is not very big. 5 lifts, of which two chair lifts, and only one somewhat interesting downhill run. I always like rides in chair lifts because you have a good view and it’s very quiet. But not here, every single pole where the lift passes has loudspeakers with music on it to entertain the guests… Also the lifts were very old and rusty, we assumed they were second hand from Eastern Europe. At the top of the chairlift the lift operator was sound asleep in the sunshine. I later talked to two guys who thought that this was only the middle station, and did not leave the lift. The operator did not notice anything and kept on sleeping.

It was not as crowded as I had expected, and on the longest run there was hardly anybody. Except for our group there were only Chinese, and most of them were beginners. It was fun to watch some of them show off by going downhill full speed without making any turns or braking (because they did not know how to brake), and then falling at the end in order to slow down.

If you plan to go here, you don’t have to bring anything except for gloves and socks. Everything else can be rented. But make sure to spend some additional money on renting good ski’s. Mine really sucked, they were too short, were not waxed and probably around 20 years old (second-hand from Japan). There is a bar/restaurant at the place where the lifts start, that sells reasonable quality food. You can sit outside on wooden benches, watching the skiers and the slopes. Minor disadvantage is that the music is horrible (synthesizer covers of old Western songs) and a bit too loud.

The nice thing about Huaibei is that you actually ski right below the Great Wall, because the resort was built at the place where the road passes through the wall. Although I have been to the Wall tens of times, it is still a nice sight. A nice day trip if you live in Beijing, but not a place you want to go to every weekend (except maybe when you are a beginner).

On Friday night I was in Beijing where I had dinner with Carlo Crosetto and his wife Susanne. Of course my wife also joined, she was on a project in Beijing anyway. Because Qi did not want to have Chinese food again (she had Chinese food the whole week already – and I always thought Chinese like Chinese food!) we opted for Assaggi in the Sanlitun diplomatic compound area.

I had not been here for several years, but it did not change too much. We had a table on the top floor at the window, but it was so dark there that we could not even read the menu. So we moved to the table in the middle. I ordered a Tsingtao beer because I was thirsty, and the rest went for a bottle of red wine. But because my Tsingtao beer did not arrive in time, I also started with wine. After10 minutes my beer was still not there, so I ordered it again. But also that did not help, I never got it (but it was also not on the bill).

It was not very busy, even though it was 8 PM on a Friday night. Later on it filled up a bit more, but it was never completely full. The food was OK, but not excellent. We started with a big plate of mixed appetizers, but (as Carlo put it) it was not made with love. Just some cold cuts on a big plate, nothing special actually. The polenta that we also ordered as an appetizer came after we finished the big plate. A little late…

As primi piatti I had a seafood risotto which I enjoyed. My secondi was sliced beef with parmesan cheese, but instead I got a beef tenderloin. I was quite surprised, but decided not to complain (this was my second choice, so it was not too bad). The ladies both had king prawns, that tasted great (I had to help Qi to finish her plate). After this I was quite full and could not even think about a dessert anymore! It was a nice dinner with interesting conversations about work at DaimlerChrysler and life in China. Too bad the service did not completely live up to our expectations, but I still enjoyed the evening.

Strange weather in Shanghai. After the warm weather on Tuesday (I read in the Shanghai Daily that it was 22.2 degrees Celcius, the warmest Valentines Day ever in Shanghai) it suddenly turned cold again. I just walked over to the Four Seasons Hotel and it was snowing outside!

It seems like every young urban Chinese has a camera phone, and is taking pictures everywhere. Where will this lead? Well, Japan is normally one step ahead of China, and there the latest trend is to take a final picture of the deceased at a funeral. The Sydney Morning Herald reported this morning:

Japan’s obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased.

(…) At one ceremony several people gathered round the coffin and took out their phones to photograph the corpse as preparations were made to begin a cremation, she was quoted as saying.

(..) “Some can’t grasp ‘reality’ unless they take a photo and share it with others … It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased,” social commentator Toru Takeda told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

On Wednesday a new law came into effect in Shanghai, allowing only cars that comply to EURO-1 emission standards to drive on the elevated highways. Many cars that are 5 years or older might not fulfill these standards. Cars that fulfill the requirement get a sticker that they should stick on the windshield, which enables them to enter the highway. So what do you do if your car does not meet the standard?

Chinese see money in everything, so the moment this measure was announced businessmen started to produce fake stickers. The Shanghai Daily did some investigative reporting (that’s already news in itself) and contacted a seller of these stickers. The product cost RMB 380, quite pricey, because as the seller said: “We spent a lot of money making the printing plate for the fake stickers”. The paper finds that the copy is excellent, but that it won’t be able to pass a laser pen examination.

However, the chances of being caught are small: because the government failed to tell people to put the sticker in a designated place on the windshield, the police has already difficulties enough just to determine whether a car has a sticker or not. Of all the people they stopped on the first day because they did not have a sticker, half actually turned out to have the sticker on the windshield but not in a clearly visible place!

A new state regulation that goes into effect on May 1 states that all cars produced in China should put their brand name in Chinese characters on the car. Volkswagen has already been doing that in China, but Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz (who all produce some of their models locally now) don’t have this. It is a bit strange, if you consider that a Mercedes-Benz only puts the model name (C220, E280 etc.) on its cars, not the full name ‘Mercedes-Benz’. Now they will suddenly need to do this in China and on top of that in Chinese characters.

I predict that the car companies will obey the rule, but that the dealers will offer clients the service to take off the Chinese characters at delivery. Especially for high-end cars the customers might not like to show that they drive a locally-produced car, so most clients will likely use this service. A typical Chinese solution in which both the government and the customers are happy. Nobody looses face, and in the end nothing really changes.

Last night Sierk Vojacek invited me for dinner at the Shintori restaurant in Julu Lu. Susanne Viguurs, SVP’s financial advisor/accountant from Holland, was visiting Shanghai and she also joined the dinner. Shintori is one of the better Japanese restaurants in Shanghai. Most of the Japanese places are either teppanyaki style or buffet style, but Shintori is different. No RMB 150 all you can eat and drink deal, but a hypermodern environment (only concrete on the inside, but very beautiful – forgot to take pictures of that…_) with very special menu items.

The Rock and Roll salad is a regular for me when I go here: they shake the salad ingredients in a glass cocktail tumbler. Also the codfish dishes are fantastic, and as appetizer you should order the cheese and shrimp rolls. The beef sukiyaki is something I can also advise, excellent taste and a reasonable portion. Of course you can also order sushi and sashimi here, and their quality is definitively better than in most other Shanghainese Japanese restaurants.

Pricewise you should count on about RMB 500 per person, including drinks. 3 times the price of the all-you-can-eat places, but the atmosphere and great food compensate for that. Shintori has several outlets in Shanghai, but this is the nicest one in my opinion.

The Spring Festival is over, and suddenly the weather turns spring-like! Today it is 17 degrees and sunny in Shanghai, very nice after 3 months of colder weather. On the street most people still wear their winterwear (three sweaters and double pants) because inside the unheated Shanghai houses it is still very chilly, but walking in the sun it is already too warm to wear my winter coat.

But of course this is only temporarily, by the end of the week the mercury will drop to 5 degrees again (and around zero degrees at night). And this weekend I am flying to Beijing where it still freezes 7 degrees at night… I am actually planning to go skiing in a resort close to Beijing on Saturday, so I hope it will stay cold there for a few more days.