A posting on the Oriental List tonight linked to a warning on the US embassy in Beijing site, that reports a terrorist threat from Islamic fundamentalists to attack 4- and 5-star hotels in China. I hardly ever stay in top hotels anymore (if you have to pay yourself you think twice before staying there), but from tomorrow onwards I will stay in the 5-star Kempinski Hotel in Beijing for a few days. Let’s see if they have any extra security measures, I suppose not. Not that I am afraid, it’s probably all blown out of proportion (just like bird flu), but I find it interesting to see if you will notice anything.

Talking about bird flu, it seems the hype is a bit over in Europe. First there were many reports on bird flu breaking out all over Eastern Europe, and later even Germany. But suddenly there are no reports anymore. Censorship in Europe? Or did the virus just disappear? Or did the media finally realize they were once again making an elephant out of a mouse?

This morning for the first time I had the feeling that autumn is starting (I don’t like to use the word ‘fall’, it sounds depressing). It was raining, a bit windy and the streets around my office were full of fallen leaves. Sitting in the back of a taxi it was interesting to observe people who were struggling to get a taxi as well (when it rains it is impossible to get a taxi on the streets, especially in the morning – that’s why I always reserve taxi’s in advance when driving to work).

Temperatures in Shanghai are still OK, today around 21 degrees Celcius (70 degrees F). But a week ago we still had 26 degrees, so it is getting cooler quickly now. I don’t look forward to the Shanghai winter. It is not really cold (it hardly ever drops below freezing), but because it is humid and none of the buildings have central heating it feels cold everywhere. Beijing winters, with its very cold but dry air, are much better. And at least you know that when you are cold outside, it will be warm inside the buildings.

Rebecca McKinnon, former bureau chief of CNN in China and an active blogger, was one of the participants of the Shanghai bloggercon last weekend. On her blog she wrote a post about it, and one issue she mentions there has been going through my head for the past couple of hours. She noticed that web 2.0 is potentially a very Chinese thing: at the core of web 2.0 is social networking and relationship building. And these are the bricks of the Chinese economy: guanxi (relationships).

Rebecca states it like this:
The Chinese economy functions today (to the extent that it does) thanks largely to personal relationship networks: networks that enable people to get stuff done despite bone-headed regulations, politics, logistical obstacles, and everything else. You are nothing in China – and can accomplish very little – without a good “guanxi” network. Expect Chinese internet users to seize upon Web 2.0 tools as a way to expand and deepen their human relationships, enhancing both personal lives and businesses.

I never really gave it much thought, but being an active participant on the internet in China can give you a much bigger network that can help you out in difficult situations. By following people’s blogs and commenting on them, you can get to know other people quite well (and they get to know you), without having physically met. Micah Sittig mentions this on his blog as well when he describes the blogger meeting:
“…this was the first time that many of these people had the chance to meet face-to-face, but the camraderie felt was deep because lots of these guys have been very good friends online for years”

This is of course true all over the world, but because you have to rely more on guanxi in China, it can have a much bigger impact here. Could a poor but intelligent migrant worker build a network through his blog and step up the social ladder because of the guanxi he can develop? Maybe, but he likely does not know about blogging yet and does not have the funds to go online. But this will come. There are smart people out there who otherwise just do not get the chance to show their skills.

The same is true for Chinese companies, building an online network can enhance your reputation in the business community in China. Through the guanxi you make it can directly or indirectly bring in new business, or help you make friends to solve your problems. The only problem is that most Chinese business owners here do not even read blogs yet. But I am sure that time will come sooner than many people expect. At the lastest when the current generation of students start working and bring their blogs with them.

I was preparing a presentation and did a Google image search on ‘China Internet’. I did this a few days ago as well, but then Google seemed to be very slow and did not show the pictures. When I tried it this morning I got the first few pictures, but the others did not display. Strange, because just before that I had done several image searches on other keywords without a problem. I tried other keywords, but from that moment on only got the message ‘the document contains no data’.

What does this mean? It seems that the search term ‘China internet’ is blocked in Google, at least for images. Once you hit a forbidden combination of keywords, as a punishment other image searches also do not work anymore. Luckily there is still Yahoo image search, which seems to have no problem with these keywords. I am starting to use Yahoo more and more lately for search (they are getting quite good!), and now I will also start using them for image search.

This week the Toodou.com team moved into its new office in an old warehouse on the Suzhou Creek. A good reason to throw a party, and so we did!

Coincidentally the party was the night before Shanghai Bloggercon, so many of the bloggers that made Toodou well-known were able to attend as well. Furthermore, the traditional media were there, several VC’s, and of course lots of friends. In total about 200 people showed up, and it was already busy before the official starting time of 8 PM.

To add to the fun, we decided to allow anybody to put graffiti on the white walls. At first only a few people made some paintings, but when one professional artist took out his airbrush suddenly everybody started to ‘help’. The result: a very colorful office! Interestingly, most people did not sign their creations with their names, but with their weblog addresses.

IDG, the company that invested in Toodou, also put its name on one of the pillars. But it seems that another VC (who I won’t name) was not so impressed with them, because a few minutes later he put a big cross through IDG’s name!

All pictures from the party can be viewed and downloaded here

Update: Just noticed that Fons Tuinstra already put an entry on his blog before I had a chance to write.

According to an article in the China Daily, the government has decided to introduce a black list of all companies and individuals that have offered bribes in sectors such as construction, finance, education, and government procurement. The hope is that this will reduce corruption.

But will it really? First of all giving bribes and kick-backs is so common that it will be a huge list. So I suppose only the big cases will end up there. Second, it could have the exact opposite effect. If someone needs vendors for the company he works for and is looking for some money on the side for himself, he can use the list to find suitable suppliers!

The article also includes a sentence I do not fully understand: “The maximum penalty for a bribe-taker is the death sentence. But in reality, punishment for bribe-takers is usually much heavier.” Does the China Daily employ any editors who check the articles before they are published?

It does not happen often to me, but today I had a day that everything that could go wrong indeed went wrong.

It started in the morning. I woke up because I heard the maid walking around the house cleaning stuff. That is strange, because she normally does not arrive before 7:45 when I have gotten up already. A quick look at my watch revealed that it was 8:30… I overslept! That never happens to me, I always get up right away when I hear my alarm and also never miss my alarm. Turns out that I forgot to set my alarm this time.

So I had to hurry, because I booked a taxi to pick me up at 8:45. I just managed, and even had a quick breakfast in these 15 minutes, but then the taxi did not show up. After waiting for about 20 minutes, a phone call to the taxi company learned me that they made a mistake and cancelled the booking.

When I finally arrived in the office and wanted to check my mail I noticed that my computer was extremely slow. I restarted it, and then it did not load the operating system. One more restart worked a little better, and I even got into my mail, but it took me 15 minutes just to restart. So I decided to visit the Apple shop on HuaiHai Lu for a computer check-up.

There they checked my harddisk and virtual memory, but that did not reveal any problems. I told them the computer had been slower for about 10 days already, since they installed OS X Tiger for me. But that could not be the problem they said, and sent me off to an Apple Service Center. After arriving there, they told me that I would need to leave my laptop there for two working days and that they might need to format my harddisk. Oops… I told them that this was not an option for me, so they just ran a one-hour hardware test (for which I had to wait). Also here they found no problems, so they told me to go back to the store again. The service center only does hardware not software, and this must be a software problem. Great, that’s where I just came from. But glad I did not let them keep my computer for two days and format my HD.

The Apple store agreed to reinstall the operating system, but first needed to back-up my data. I had about 80 GB of data on my laptop, and they did not have a harddisk that size left that could be used. This took them 15 minutes to figure out (solution: not backing up the applications that they could reinstall themselves). They told me to come back in 1-2 hours. I asked them for their phone number, because I did not want to come back for nothing.And I was glad I did, because when I called them 3 hours later they told me that backing up was taking so much time that I could not get my laptop back until Friday afternoon….

Back in the office I decided to work through my webmail on another PC. But what do you think? The webmail was not working either. So I decided to forget about work for today (it’s 7:30 PM anyway), write a quick post on my blog and go home for a run in the gym. I hope the treadmill will not suddenly stop working!

Not much sleep last night because I stayed up until 3:30 for a live interview with the Dutch radio program Radio Online. The interview in Dutch can be heard here (Real Player stream), or the whole program can be downloaded here as mp3 (the Toodou interview is at the end of the program).