Freezing Harbin without water

Residents of Harbin, a 3.5 millon city in China’s northeast that is relatively famous for its yearly ice sculpture festival, will not be able to bath during the next 4 days. The reason is that the water has been cut off since last night and won’t be turned on until Saturday night, because of a leak in a petro-chemical plant that caused pollution in the Songhua river. The plant, located 230 km upstream in Jilin, had an explosion 10 days ago that killed 5 people. Strange enough no warnings have been issued over the past week for the cities along the river between Harbin and Jilin. Rumours are spreading in Harbin that people have been killed already by drinking the water.

Luckily for the residents the water was not suddenly cut off, so people could prepare for it by storing water. Also the city has several water wells that are not affected. Bottled water prices have tripled already, and some people are stocking up on large amounts of water. The heating system that also uses river water won’t be cut off. Considering the already freezing temperatures so far up north (daytime temperatures are around zero degrees Celcius at the moment) that is probably a good idea. But many people are staying in tents at the moment instead of indoors. Because of rumours that a major earthquake is imminent people are afraid to stay inside their homes. So far government reports that nothing will happen have not convinced people to return home.

Voicemail

Not only China Post is doing a bad job (see post below), but also China Mobile is not performing the way it should. Recently I suddenly had three voicemails. A bit strange, considering that my phone was on the whole time, and I normally have maximum one voicemail per day. So I listened to them and realized they were at least several days old! One was actually quite urgent, and the caller must have not been happy with me not getting back to him about it. Later that day I was talking to a business relation in Europe, who did not get back to me on some questions. He told me he left me a voicemail about them about a week ago. I never received that voicemail!
This is getting to the point that their unreliability might jeopardize business deals. I now consider switching off voicemail on my mobile, and getting a Skype phone number with voicemail (problem: no Chinese numbers available yet). Not the best solution, but better than not receiving voicemails! Who knows what other calls I might have missed?

China on a train & plane buying spree

China signed contracts for the purchase of 60 high speed trains from Siemens, and 70 Boeing ariplanes over the past days. The first 3 trains from Siemens will be imported, the remaining 57 will be built in China. This gives China plenty of opportunity to learn how to produce these trains themselves. The vice minister of railways does not even try to hide that by saying (quote from the Shanghai Daily):” It’s a small part of the construction of China’s high-speed railway. China will design and build its own 300-kilometers-an hour trains later.” China is still investing heavily in its overcrowded railway system.Over the next 15 years a total of 28,000 km of railway will be built. The total investment will be about 200 billion EUR, and this is more than China can currenlty afford.

The Boeing planes are all 737’s and they will all be imported. China has bought 534 Boeing airplanes over the past 20 years, the other major supplier is Airbus. For the next 20 years Chinese airlines plan to purchase an additional 2600 airplanes (but not all Boeing). As a comparison, currently China has about 800 airplanes, this will quadruple to about 3200 airplanes by 2025. It seems China is preparing itself for continuous high growth.

Marathon plan over…

Yesterday I went back to the hospital to get my bandage changed. The doctor still remembered me, not that many foreigners go to local hospitals I presume. My ankle was feeling much better, but I was surprised to see that it was still swollen and blue below the bandage. I asked the doctor once again about running, and now he told me I should not run for the next month. Until then I should be very careful not to hurt the ankle again.

That means my marathon plans for next week are definitively off. I will probably still pick up my start number, but I am not sure if I will even be able to watch the runners if I cannot participate. Feeling a bit depressed because of not being able to run. The daily 1-2 hours on the treadmill had become a bit of an addiction, and suddenly stopping all activity is more difficult than I imagined.

China Post

This morning when I turned on my mobile I had two missed calls from a Shanghai local number. So I called the number back, and it turned out that it was a local post office. I asked why they called me, and gave them my address to make it easier for them to find it out. They checked and then said that they did not call me. I told them I had a call from them twice on my phone, so someone must have been trying to reach me. The person who had answered the phone bluntly told me I had called the wrong number and hang up on me.

Not very happy with this ‘service’, but curious to know why they called, I called back again. Same person on the phone. Once again he did not want to talk and hang up. One more try, and once again the same guy. This time he was kind enough to transfer me to a more patient colleague. I explained the story and he also said they did not call us. He said that his office was at Nanjing Dong Lu which is not Nandan Dong Lu where my house is, so I must be wrong.

Then I realized that maybe the translation of Nanjing and Nandan may have gone wrong: in China if you receive mail from abroad someone translates the address into Chinese characters, and that may have gone wrong. So I asked them to check. Reluctantly they did, but came back with the answer that there was no mail for me. They asked for my Chinese name, because they cannot handle foreign names, but I told them that I never use my Chinese name for mail. Not being able to help they hang up again.

A few minutes later I realized that the Nanjing Dong Lu post office area might also include my office address. So I called back once again. After some pushing they finally decided to look one more time, and Eureka: there was a mail for me at my office address. I can pick it up within 5 working days. Glad I insisted on calling them and looking for my mail, otherwise my mail would have not arrived. Maybe it’s an idea for them to be able to do a search on phone numbers as well? Great service China Post 🙁

Sprained ankle (2)

The pain did not get any less, and my foot started to get bigger and bigger, so I finally decided not to be stubborn and go to a nearby hospital (the YueYang Hospital, part of the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine). As I have written before on this blog, Chinese hospitals are always an interesting experience, and this time it was similar.

Upon arrival in the hospital you have to queue for a ticket to see a doctor. I had to walk (or actually more ‘hop’) to the traumatology department, at least that was what the English sign said. I don’t think my ankle gave me a trauma, but it may have been a mistranslation, or a non-English speaking worker just missplaced the signs. Whatever, inside there were several patients being treated. Wounds were being cleaned all around me, not a prety sight. I only had to wait a few minutes before a doctor came. I took off my sock and was surprised to see that my foot had swollen even more and partly turned blue. The doctor thought there might be a fracture (broken bone), so he sent me to the X-Ray department. So Catherine, my colleague who went with me, arranged a wheelchair and pushed me there (and she lost control of the wheelchair twice – once I ended up in some potted plants – but that is a different story).

Upon arrival it turns out we had to pay a fee first, and had to go back to the main building. This took a few more minutes, but then I was allowed in. The room was a concrete bunker with an old X-Ray machine in the middle. It all looked a bit scary, especially the electricity lines that were laying uncovered on the floor! Pictures were taken quickly and 10 minutes later we were with the doctor again (quite efficient). He looked at them and told me nothing was broken, so I was quite relieved. Then he wanted to tape my foot, but we first had to pay for the material and the Chinese medicine that he put on my foot. So Catherine had to stand in line again. Total costs for consultation, x-ray and medicine was about EUR 16. Not too bad, in a foreign clinic in Shanghai that I went to once you have to pay USD 80 just to see a doctor.

Because I could hardly move I needed crutches, but the doctor told us they did not provide those in the hospital. The only way to get those is to go to a store and buy them, so that was my next mission. I was lucky, because the first store I went had them, and even a size which (just) fit me. Price: only EUR 14 for a new pair!

Sprained ankle


I trained very hard for the past weeks for the Shanghai Marathon. For the first time no real injuries, at least no injuries that lasted more than a few days. I was feeling great and was ready for the race. But what happened last night? After leaving the gym I slipped on the stairs (3 steps only) at the entrance and sprained my ankle. It hurt a lot but I did not want to give in and actually tried to run a bit on it. Not smart, afterwards it got much worse and I could hardly sleep at night from the pain when the blanket touched my foot. This morning I could not take more than a few limped steps.

So what should I do now? My wife wants me to go see a doctor, but I don’t really want to go. Well, the doctor might give some advice, but going to see a doctor takes always so much time in China. A quick internet search gave me lots of information already. I will wait a few hours to see how things go. If I still cannot walk I might go to get some crutches.

The worst thing is that I might not be able to run the marathon. Many weeks of intensive training for nothing… That’s probably another reason why I do not want to go to a hospital: they will advise me not to run, and that’s something I don’t want to hear right now.

Car bombs not allowed

This sign I noticed in the Sanlitun diplomatic compound in Beijing: You are not allowed to blow up your car! Not sure if it is a temporary sign (Mr. Bush will visit Beijing this week) or whether it has been here longer already. Or does it mean something else?

Few days in Beijing


Just flew back from Beijing tonight, where it was a lot colder than in Shanghai (running in shorts and t-shirts early in the morning is not recommended – I got a bit of a cold because of that). The reason I went over was because I was asked to give a presentation at Vok Dams yearly trend.lab. Vok Dams is a German live event marketing company (the leading one in Germany actually), and they organize so-called trend.labs in Germany, the US and China. These are seminars in which the latest trends in marketing and PR are discussed with an audience of mainly marketing people. I talked about trends in online marketing in China, and enjoyed the giving this presentation and the questions people had. Anybody interested in this subject, feel free to contact me (note: am quite busy this week, so answer may take few days).

After the seminar was over I visited a friend of mine, Tobias, who was just appointed CFO of Mercedes-Benz China. He has 90 people working for him. When I was still at DaimlerChyrsler in Beijing we had a total staff in the whole company of about 90 people! The company is really growing.

After meeting Tobias I met up with Olle, who is in charge of business development Asia Pacific at Red Herring. I knew Olle from several years ago, when I just left DaimlerChrysler and he was part of the EU-China management program. I met him a few times in Beijing and Shanghai, but lost touch with him. But because of the publicity around Toodou he contacted me again, and we had an interesting talk about start-ups in China, and Toodou in particular.

At night I had dinner with another friend of mine, Carlo Crosetto and his wife Susanne. Carlo is the new CFO of Beijing Jeep (or actually Beijing Benz Daimler Chrysler as it is called now that they also start producing Mercedes-Benz passenger cars). My wife was supposed to join, but she could not make her flight from Shanghai on time due to work, so she was just in time for dessert. We had a last drink at their house and then went back to the hotel. My wife had to finish a presentation, and continued working until 5 AM, while I got some sleep.

Saturday I went for a long run and went to the spa in the Kempinski. A nice and relaxed day. Qi worked the whole day (consultants do not have an easy life!). At night we were invited for the German Ball. Qi missed the beginning because of her work, but she was just in time for dinner to start. Met many former colleagues and friends, although most people have in the meantime left China. Only the ones who are really making a career still seem to be here! We were invited by Vok Dams, who were also one of the sponsors. In case they read it: Thanks guys, I appreciate it!

Sunday morning we had a big breakfast at Kempinski, and then we packed our suitcases. We went for a a walk along the Liang Ma river and in the Sanlitun diplomatic compound. It was beautiful weather, but a bit cold. I visited my old tailor, he still recognized me although I had not been there in 3 years (Rong Xin Tailor, above the Friendship supermarket on the northern part of Sanlitun Street – north of the Spanish embassy). After the walk I took a cab to the airport. Qi stayed in Beijing for meetings. All in all some good days, some new business ideas and meeting lots of old friends.
note: the terrorist threat in 4-5 star hotels (see post below) as mentioned on the American embassy site seems to be based on unreliable sources – at least according to the Chinese government. In the hotel I did not see any change – no additional security and people could walk in and out even through the side- and back doors.