On Christmas Day I also went to the Longhua Cemetery of Revolutionary Martyrs. It’s a nice place for a walk, because it is one of the very few places in Shanghai where it is actually quiet. You don’t hear the noise of cars, and there are hardly any people. In summer you are even allowed to walk and sit on the grass (very unusual for China). The place is a museum for Revolutionary Martyrs, and some of them are supposed to be buried here as well.

The museum is located in a glass pyramid, and is actually quite interesting. And not unimportant for tourists, most exhibits and pictures have English descriptions. It gives a (very one-sided) view of life in China in the time before the Communists took over power, and it has photos of all the ‘martyrs’ that were executed during that time. I think we were the only visitors in the museum, so the subject does not seem to be very popular among Chinese. If you want to take a look, the entrance to the cemetary is on Longhua Xi Lu next to the Longhua Temple.

I did a radio interview with CRI about two weeks ago, but was informed that there was no mp3 of the program available (something went wrong in the studio). But someone just told me that the program is actually online, and can be found here. Click on the “listen” link on that page, the segment with the interview (about Toodou and the influence of podcasting on radio) starts at 18min22sec.

My Gmail account suddenly started working again 2 hours ago (I did not get a reply from Google to the email in which I had to give them all the details about what happened). I feel relieved!

I missed 38 emails over the past 24 hours, luckily most people are on vacation, otherwise it would have been a much bigger problem. I am not sure if I should start downloading my mails again right now. I am a bit afraid it will close down automatically again, I’ll probably wait a few days first.

One thing I did not realize until today is how much my daily life depends on Gmail. Because of the all the computer problems I had recently, I lost all my emails that I saved in Outlook and Entourage. But that was not a big deal because all my emails accounts are automatically forwarded to my Gmail account, so I have a back-up there.

Today I decided to reinstall Outlook on my laptop and Mail (not Entourage this time) on my Apple. I set up the Gmail pop3 account settings on both machines and let them run to download all my mails. At the same time I was using the Gmail on the web to write and answer emails. When a new email came in I clicked on it, and suddenly my screen read “Lockdown in sector 4!” and then: Our system indicates unusual usage of your account. In order to protect Gmail users from potentially harmful use of Gmail, this account has been disabled for up to 24 hours.

What happened? I guess I was downloading too much data, and they suspected abuse. But can they just shut down my mail without any warning? And is downloading information from Gmail to a mail client not something standard? I contacted them directly (they have a special email account for this), and got an automated reply back with several questions. I answered those right away, but have not heard from them since, which is about 4 or 5 hours ag0. This is giving me a serious headache, because I have no back-up whatsoever now. And what will happen when I manage to access my account again tomorrow? If I continue to download my files, will they disable my account completely?

On Christmas Day I decided to go for a stroll at the Longhua Temple. This is supposed to be the oldest temple in Shanghai, built over 1700 years ago (although it has been rebuilt several times due to fires). And as I learned, it is also the biggest temple in Shanghai. For some reason I had never been to this place before, and because it was nice weather (about 10 degrees and sunny) it seemed a good time to visit.

The temple is located about 2 kilometers south of my home (actually very close to the old Toodou office), and so it was just a short taxi ride. Next to the temple there is beautiful 7 story, 40 meter high pagoda. It must have been visible from the former Toodou office, but I had never noticed it before.

Entrance was RMB 10 for the whole complex, and it was absolutely worth it. The temple complex is quite big (about 20,000 sqm) and is in good condition. It consists of six big halls with buddhist statues and is completely symmetrical. Many people were preparing paper money, cars and even houses to burn for deceased family members (so they can use this in their afterlife). The preparation takes quite some time (several hours), especially because each piece of money had to be folded into another piece of paper. And glueing together a house from paper is also not that simple.

The temple is actually also a monestary, as many monks are living here. Most are quite young, at least the ones I saw. They sing and pray for the deceased if you give them a donation. The temple also has a vegetarian restaurant, but it was closed, so I could not try it.

It’s quite a nice place to spend one or two hours. Beautiful buildings and statues make you forget that you’re in the middle of Shanghai. Interestingly, there are hardly any foreigners there, probably because the temple is a 15 minute cab ride from the city center. Next to the entrance there is a small market that sells all kinds of Chinese candy, dried fruit and nuts. I picked up some of my favourite Chinese candy (a sticky mix of nuts and dried fruit from Xinjiang province – no idea what it is called), so for the next couple of days I know what to eat with my afternoon tea or coffee!

It’s the afternoon of December 24, almost Christmas Eve. But I am not really in Christmas mood yet. Why? Probably because I decided to stay in Shanghai this year. Even though there are lots of decorations on the street and you hear Christmas songs everywhere, there is not really a Christmas spirit in China. People keep on working, if I look down from my apartment I see the construction workers building up another crane, and the traffic jams on Caoxi Lu are the same as on a normal Saturday. Another reason is that I am working as usual, some very interesting things are going on that keep me from really relaxing and putting away my laptop. Furthermore, Christmas is during the weekend so we do not take any days off at the office. Monday will be a normal workind day as well.

Still trying to create a Christmas atmosphere at home, by having a mix of 100 songs streaming from my iTunes and having a small Christmas tree with lights next to the TV. I am going out later to buy some Christmas food at City Supermarket, and I plan to make Gluehwein later. Qi’s parents are visiting and they will create a Chinese Christmas meal withs special dishes. I look forward to that!

The past days were busy as usual, but I also had some interesting meetings. On Wednesday I had lunch with Erwin den Breejen, he is a manager for IG&H Management Consultants. I never met him before, but got to know him through my weblog. He helped me with some questions during the preparations for my marriage (he also married a Chinese). He lives in Holland, but is on holiday in Shanghai with his wife. It turned out that we almost had been classmates: we were both admitted to Nijenrode business school in 1991 (now Nyenrode), but in the end I decided to study business economics in Maastricht instead. The world is small!

Talking about classmates, on Thursday night I had dinner and a couple of drinks with Hugo Verkuil, a fellow member of my fraternity in Maastricht, and now head of strategy for Unilever’s icecream division. He works from Rome, but spends about 5 days a week on airplanes. His colleague who I also met quickly noted that he sleeps more often next to Hugo (on airplanes – don’t get me wrong here), than Hugo next to his own wife. Hugo had been in Sydney the day before and had actually planned to fly from Shanghai to Bangkok at night but could not get a flight.

Interesting talks with him about how multinationals work, and the joys and sorrrows of being an entrepreneur. What I did not know is that Hugo actually set up a small but lucrative business in Holland while being a student. He bought second-hand washing machines and leased these to student homes, with maintenance included. Later he also diversified into bicycles for foreign students.

Time to go to the store, buy some Christmas food and try to switch to Christmas mood. Merry Christmas to all my readers!