This week I was in Amsterdam for 2 days for business meetings and to give 2 speeches. It was a bit unexpected, I had not planned to be in Holland this month, but it turned out to be a good trip so I was glad I took the time to do this.

On Wednesday morning I started with some meetings at Spil Games HQ in Hilversum. I am not there very often anymore, so I always try to make a trip to Spil when I am in Holland. Spil Games is still going strong with a good strategy and excellent management, happy to see that!

After lunch at the Spil Games restaurant I went over to the Media Park for a radio interview on Dutch Radio 1. At first I did not want to do it because of time constraints, but it turned out that I could just fit it into my program. The live program lasted one hour, and there were 2 other guests, the mayor of Rotterdam Mr. Aboutaleb and Dutch pop singer Bennie Jolink. Mr. Aboutaleb could not join the full program because he had to catch a plane to Shanghai (which was a coincidence!), but he asked me in the program to meet up next time I’m in The Netherlands.

Bennie Jolink is well-known in Holland as lead singer and composer of the Dutch band Normaal. I knew his music but never met him, despite the fact that as a kid I lived several years in the village of Wehl, which is very close to where he lives (he told me afterward that he lives just 4 kilometers from there).

The interview was mainly about my career so far and about doing business in China, similar to most media interviews I did in Holland over the past years. I actually did not know that there was a live video stream as well (broadcast through the Internet), you can see about 10 minutes of it here – of course the audio is in Dutch.

After the interview I took a train to Amsterdam for the LOEY Awards 2012. These awards are given to the Leading Online Entrepreneur of the Year and I had been asked to give the keynote at the ceremony. The event took place at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, one of the top museums in Holland. The museum has been closed for several years for a complete renovation/reconstruction and will be opened officially later this month. So we were able to see the new museum before anyone else (even Queen Beatrix), which was a nice perk.

After a short meeting with the jury and organizers the managing director of the museum gave us some background information of the place and showed us several of its the architectural features. Then we did a sound check and rehearsal on stage, during which I found out that most of the slides of my presentation had been automatically modified (I used Powerpoint on a Mac and the organization used Windows, and that combined with the font I used caused the trouble…). Just in time we managed to change it!

Several hundred people attended the evening, mainly online entrepreneurs but also investors and leading business people in bigger companies. The title of my story was “The Art of Doing Business in China”, which fit well with the art museum location. The 3 topics I touched upon were the state of the Internet in China (trends etc.), challenges of doing business in China, and opportunities for Dutch entrepreneurs on the Chinese market. I really enjoyed giving the keynote speech, especially for an audience like this.

After the awards ceremony, won by Pieter Zwart of CoolBlue, there was a dinner in the halls of the museum, and after a couple of beers and wines I went back to my hotel room to get some sleep. When I’m working I don’t really feel my jet lag, but after a busy day and some alcohol it suddenly hit me, so I was in bed by midnight.

The next morning I had some more meetings, among others with the entrepreneurs at PeerReach (in which I am an investor). After that I had a lunch and then I had to go to the Opening of the Academic Year of Nyenrode New Business School. I had been asked to give a keynote and because I was in Holland anyway I agreed to do so.

It was the second time for me to open the Academic Year in The Netherlands, the first time was in 2009 when I gave the keynote at my alma mater Maastricht University (see this video of my speech). This year’s opening was a lot less formal, especially because this is a relatively new business school and because it’s focused on entrepreneurship. I was wearing a tie for the first time in several months, but many of the people in the audience (incl. some of the board members) did not wear one. Very different from the official ceremony at Maastricht University, where all professors wear their traditional robes and the opening is a very formal affair.

Nyenrode New Business School is very different from traditional universities in Holland, it is much more practical and focused on entrepreneurship. During the afternoon I learned that the school is actually called the Amsterdam School of Entrepreneurship, and indeed most of the students that I talked to had a very entrepreneurial mind. Before I gave my talk I had to randomly draw the names of 15 students who had to pitch themselves on stage for one minute. Most of them were quite nervous (several of them even started their pitch by saying this!), but all of them did a pretty decent talk in front of several hundred people and a couple really managed to sell themselves and their entrepreneurial ideas.

I had decided to use the same title for my kenote as for the LOEY Awards presentation, but I changed the content a bit for the students. I focused more on what they can do to become successful entrepreneurs and of course I encouraged them to do part of their studies in China (I was told that Nyenrode is setting up a campus in Chengdu).

After the Opening of the Academic Year I had a chat with some of Nyenrode’s board members and students, and I left with a very positive feeling about this business school. Even though it’s a relatively young business education I feel they achieved a lot already and they managed to recruit some very entrepreneurial students.

At night I had dinner and drinks with some friends and then the short trip was over already. It was pretty busy, but I am glad I took the time to fly over. I met a lot of people, learned a lot and of course had a lot of fun as well!

Next week Holland will have general elections for the 5th time in 10 years. Government cabinets generally don’t last long here because there are too many parties and they can’t cooperate to solve the countries problems. Even worse, some of the populist parties seem to have no aim other than to criticize and attack others without having real solutions themselves.

This is called democracy, and it leads to slow (or no) decision making, and short term thinking instead of solving long term problems. I still like being in Holland, but when I see the mess the politicians are making I don’t mind not living here myself.

I have been away from Holland for 17 years but I normally don’t realize how much the country has changed over the years. Yesterday I had one of those moments that I saw changes I did not see before. I returned to my Amsterdam hotel room after giving a speech and turned on the TV to watch the news. After the news an election debate between the leaders of the leading parties was scheduled. I was working on some emails and did not really pay attention to it until I heard all of the politicians laughing.

I looked up, because I thought an election debate is supposed to be a serious program where parties discuss ‘important’ topics. But no, one of the party leaders, the most controversial and (probably) most hated one, Geert Wilders of the populist anti-foreigner/Islam/Europe party PVV had his birthday. So the presenter decided to ask the other party heads to sing a birthday song. Of course nobody dared to refuse (one tried by saying “let’s do this afterward”, but was conveniently ignored by the presenter) and the whole singing was ridiculous. Even the guy who had his birthday looked uncomfortable, and I was wondering how anyone could take the rest of the program serious when you start off like this.

But it got worse, after the singing the party leaders had to give a funny one liner about a picture of one of their opponents. They had turned the debate into an enterainment program! It seems elections in Holland are not about the ideas and solutions of politicians anymore, but about how good they are at giving witty remarks in what is supposed to be an important debate. Is this what Dutch viewers want to see nowadays? Don’t they understand the significance of electing smart politicians who can execute in the middle of a European crisis, instead of ones that are funny and can sing well? I turned off the TV.

This morning while having a quick coffee in my hotel room before checking out I turned on the TV again, and coincidentally a new debate was announced: a debate in today’s “Jeugdjournaal”, the daily news program for kindergarten and primary school kids…. The Jeugdjournaal interviewed Geert Wilders in advance of the debate and he was passionately talking about the toys he used to have as a kid. I picked up the remote control and pushed the off button. Holland changed a lot.

Source of the pictures of the debate:
Economische Faculteitsvereniging Rotterdam (EFR),
https://www.facebook.com/efrnl

In early June I was very lucky to be one of the first guests to experience Paul Pairet’s cooking skills at his new restaurant Ultraviolet. I wrote a blog post about the dinner in which I said that it was an incredible food experience for me. And it seems I am not the only one, because this week Ultraviolet was voted “Best New Restaurant in Shanghai” at the Shanghai Food and Drink Awards. Quite a feat considering that so far only about 650 people have been able to participate in this feast of the senses. Next to that Paul Pairet was voted “Best Chef” as well, and I fully agree with that.

I had been able to make reservations for my parents at Ultraviolet last Wednesday and I expected they would enjoy it as much as I did. My dad has had lunches and dinners in the best restaurants in the world during his career (my parents took me and my sister to top restaurants from a young age onward, for which I am very grateful), so I was looking forward to hearing his opinion. My parents thought it was amazing, they never had such a dinner before in their whole lives. I talked to them for at least half an hour after they came back (which was long after midnight!), they had a fantastic night and could not stop talking about it.

It was already hard to get seats at Ultraviolet, but now that the restaurant starts to get awards it will be impossible to make reservations. I just looked at their site, they open up reservations 90 days in advance, but there is only 1 seat available over the next 3 months. All other days are fully booked. That’s the downside: I would love to go back and experience the fantastic food once again, but it will be very hard to get seats. But I am very happy for Paul,Fabien and the rest of the team with this early success: Ultraviolet is a winner!

In Shanghai I hardly ever run outside, most of my miles I make on the treadmill in my home gym. One reason is that the air is often too polluted to run comfortably, but also the fact that there are no quiet streets to run in my neighborhood plays a role. And during summer it’s just way too hot to run.

Occasionally I drive out to the countryside to run, for example in the area southwest of Sheshan, where it’s still relatively quiet. But within Shanghai I also have one favorite running place: in a riverside park along the Huangpu river in Puxi, at the end of Ruijin Nan Lu (the street where I park is called Ruining Lu). The government built this park quite recently (not sure when, but on the satellite pictures in Google Maps the park is still under construction), and it’s not very crowded yet.

The park stretches just over 3 kilometers, with a pedestrian walkway all along the river. No cars, no bicycles and just some other runners and pedestrians. Because it’s next to the river you can always watch the ships sail by and there is normally a bit of wind. I enjoy the scenery a lot, it’s probably the best place in downtown Shanghai to run. The Bund may have a nice scenery, but it’s just too busy there to enjoy the run.

This morning my dad and I arrived there around 7 AM for a run, it was my first outdoor run in Shanghai since the beginning of summer. The temperature at 7 AM was only 27 degrees Celcius, so quite comfortable for a run. During daytime it’s still way too hot to run, it will take at least another 2-3 weeks before you can run again during daytime. And the good thing is that there is not much traffic early in the morning, so the drive from my house only takes about 15 minutes. If I have to face traffic jams to drive there I would not even consider running here.

We ran just over 12 kilometers (2 times back and forth along the whole waterfront) in just over an hour. This is my favorite speed for an outdoor run because you don’t really get tired and you can still easily talk a bit during the run. There were a few more runners, some pedestrians and some groups of Chinese doing tai chi exercises. But generally it was very quiet, especially towards the southern part of the park (south of the bridge).

After the run we freshened up a bit at the (brand new and very clean) toilet area next to the parking place and then drove back home. We made a stop at the French bakery on Hongmei Lu for some croissants, pain au chocolat and a baguette and then had a nice family breakfast at home before 9 AM. A great start of the weekend!

The riverside park is located just south of the Expo 2010 on the Puxi side of Shanghai. If you come by car there is a paid parking space on Ruining Road (RMB 10) or there are many places where you can park for free. If you come by public transport it is easiest to take Line 7 to Chuanchang Road. The park is also nice for an afternoon or evening stroll, so try it out!

In early June Grace and I were early for a dinner at Bund 18, so we strolled around the luxury shops downstairs and by coincidence Shanghai painter and paper cutter Li Shoubai (李守白) was having an exhibition there. Although he was not there anymore (the exhibition was officially only open during daytime) we spent quite some time looking at his paintings and paper cuttings, and I really liked his art. He has a very distinctive style (contemporary but quite realistic) and focuses on Shanghai scenes, especially things related to life in and around shikumen (traditional Shanghainese houses).

A few days later Grace visited his gallery in Tianzifang (Taikang Lu) and she bought among others one of his books and a 3D paper cutting of a Shanghai scene. We  took the paper cutting to Holland a few weeks later and gave it as a present to my parents . The day after a photographer came to do a photo shoot of me at my parents house and he wanted a Chinese touch to the picture. He then decided to put the paper cutting in the window through which he shot me. This picture eventually ended up in a Dutch newspaper (you can see the picture here) and Grace put it on Weibo. Guess what, Li Shoubai saw the Weibo tweet and she got in touch with him again.

This morning we visited his studio with my parents to look at some of his works. Li Shoubai showed us around and explained everything about the different paintings, cuttings and sculptures that he makes. He also introduced us to his team of artists and to his daughter, who is also an artist. We also met his wife, a very nice lady who, judging from her looks, was probably a model for several of his paintings.

Li Shoubai is getting quite well known, he told us that he just got back from a trip to Germany where he held an exhibition in Hamburg (the show ended yesterday). Also one of his large art pieces is used in Starbucks in Xintiandi, right behind the counter where you order your coffee. And many famous people visited his gallery, among others I saw a picture of the French prime minister and of course pictures of many well-known Chinese.

We both like his work very much, and we therefore bought one of his paintings today (it’s the one that’s above my head in the picture). When his works from Germany are back in Shanghai I plan to come again, because during the exhibition in Bund 18 I had seen some works that intrigued me but that were not in his gallery, but might have been in Hamburg.

If you like contemporary Chinese art you should visit his gallery and studio in Tianzifang, located in Lane 210, right off of Taikang Lu. Also check out his websites at www.shoubaiart.com and www.lishoubai.com.

This morning after taking the kids to school I decided to visit Qibao. This is a small watertown that is now part of suburban Shanghai, located in the same district (Minhang) where I live. It’s only a 15 min drive from our house (30-45 min from downtown), but I had never been here.

My parents who are in town also joined me, they had actually visited the place before and wanted to see it again. When I told my driver we wanted to go to Qibao he told me that he has a house there where his parents are now living!

Qibao is a typical Chinese water town, but it is very small compared to the water towns around Shanghai. It’s basically just one river (or canal?) with a few bridges and a couple of small streets full of small shops and restaurants.

We only spent an hour there, which is enough if you just want to do some sightseeing. But if you want to indulge in the many different foods that are sold here (see this article on CNNGo for example), or visit a museum or temple, you will need more time.

We were quite early (we arrived at 9:30 AM) and it was still relatively quiet in Qibao. But when we left an hour later it became really crowded already. My parents had been here once during the weekend and then it was so busy that you could hardly pass through the small streets. So if you want to check it out make sure to go early.

Qibao can be easily reached by subway, take line 9 and get off at Qibao. Take exit 2 and walk 200 meters south from where you will see the signs to the Qibao Old Street and the canals. More info on the town and its history here on ChinaTravelGuide.com. More of my Qibao pictures here on Flickr.

Tonight we had a family dinner at Haiku by Hatsune, one of my favorite Japanese restaurants in Shanghai. When we left the place a female beggar sitting in front of the restaurant saw us as a good target. She was holding a plastic cup that she tried to put in front of my face to convince me to give her some cash.

Because we were trying to quickly get the kids into the car (our driver parked in the middle of the street, blocking the traffic) I ignored her but she kept on putting her hand and cup into the car. I finally managed to shut the door and we drove off. Then Elaine looked at Grace and said: “Mommy, I think the lady wants to give us her cup.”. So cute how kids see the world!

View over downtown Vancouver from Stanley Park

Last week I spent a few days in Vancouver with Grace, for business meetings with VCs and start-ups, and to look at some potential investments. Because we were only in town for 4 full days we had a busy schedule, but luckily we also managed to find some time for sightseeing.

View over Coal Harbour and Stanley Park

We stayed at the Delta Suites, a nice all-suite hotel in downtown Vancouver. Originally we had planned to book a room at the Wedgewood Hotel, but because they did not have free wifi in the rooms I decided not to stay there (as regular readers may know, if I can avoid staying in a hotel where I need to pay for Internet I will do so. For me Internet is the same as water or electricity, and you also don’t pay for that). Delta Suites turned out to be a great choice, with big suites and in a very central location.

View from terrace of the Delta Suites hotel

I booked the best room I could find online, so we ended up in a suite on the top floor with access to the executive club. This may seem like a small thing, but if you have a huge jet lag (there is a 15 hour time difference between China and Vancouver) it’s great to be able to get some food or coffee at any time of the day. The club also had a balcony overlooking the city where we normally had our breakfast. Nice and quiet, much better than in a crowded breakfast room.

Sea plane departing in Vancouver harbour

Upon arrival we walked over to Canada Place to look at the boats on the harbour and the sea planes taking off. Then we went to buy a local SIM card, but that turned out to be quite hard. Canada is a great country, but it’s not necessarily service oriented. Several shops refused to help us and it took me a while to figure out why (they need to register the number, which takes times, and don’t want to do that for pre-paid numbers that are only used for a short time). Eventually I just changed my story and said that I needed a number for a couple of months and that I wanted to pay per month, and that was possible.

View from White Rock to Vancouver

But then the sales lady at the shop made a mistake and registered a normal SIM instead of a micro SIM (despite her checking my phone in advance to see which one I needed), which I could not use in my 2nd phone (a Galaxy S3). She said she could not change it and then bluntly refused to give me back my money, because “pre paid cards are non-refundable”. The fact that I asked her for a micro SIM instead of a normal one was unimportant to her. When we asked for the manager he immediately said that the computer system was down, so he could not change the SIM card, but of course that was BS. He just did not want to help. Eventually he agreed to cut the SIM card so it would fit and luckily that worked. But this was not a good first impression. All countries have its pros and cons I guess…

After an early dinner we went to bed before 11 PM already because jet lag started to kick in. I slept well and got up around 3:30 AM to catch up on emails. Because I had been interviewed by 2 Dutch publications (Elsevier magazine and the Financieele Dagblad) my email box was pretty full and I answered most of the people that I would get back to them in a week or so. During the trip I would get about 40 emails from companies that wanted to work with me after reading one or both interviews, a new record for me.

Kitsilano Beach with downtown Vancouver in the background

From Monday-Thursday we had a lot of meetings, and generally I have a good impression about business culture and start-ups in Canada. People for sure seem to enjoy life here a lot, very different from Shanghai. The first meeting of the day often did not start until 9:30 or 10 AM, and I don’t think we had any meetings after 4 PM.

Start-ups work hard here as well, but people do more than just work. In most business conversations things like sports or weekend activities came up, something you normally don’t touch upon in Shanghai. Also lawyers don’t work very hard here it seems, we had a bad experience with one of our lawyers who just unexpectedly turned off his phone for a few days. In China that would be impossible to imagine, but in Canada people accept it – or have to accept it.

Granville Island, Vancouver

The British Columbia government gives quite some incentives to angel investors and start-ups. In a way it reminded me of what the Singapore government is doing. Because of that there seems to be a lot of angel investment activity, but not that many follow up VC rounds (yet?).

As a city Vancouver exceeded all my expectations. Its location is superb, in the middle of nature and with clean, fresh air. The city is surrounded by water and mountains, meaning that there are beautiful views almost everywhere. Because of the relatively mild climate it’s one of those places where you can ski in the morning and sail in the afternoon (there are 3 ski areas within 20 minutes of downtown Vancouver, and Whistler is just 120 km away).

Horseshoe Bay, Vancouver

We were lucky with the weather, with blue skies and sunshine, and temperatures between 25-30 degrees Celsius during the whole trip. Great weather to go running, which is what I did of course. Among others I ran around Stanley Park, an island (actually now a peninsula) in Vancouver bay. This island has a seawall surrounding it, with a pathway on which you can run or bike. I went very early in the morning and saw the sun rise while running, it was beautiful.

Stanley Park, Vancouver

The Stanley Park run itself is one of the nicest city runs you can imagine: you run all around the island with the water on your right and forests and partly a massive rock formation on your left. Especially the west coast was impressive and I did not really feel tired despite the relatively long run (around the island is about 9 km, but I also ran along the harbour for a total of 14.5 km).

View to Stanley Park from the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club

We had a couple of nice dinners in Vancouver, where I mainly ate local seafood and tried out some of the British Columbia beers and wines. They do have quite good white wines, but they don’t come cheap. I also bought a couple of local bottles that I took home and that I will try here over the next days. At home wines always taste different than while on a trip.

Restaurants on Granville Island

Looking back we should have stayed one or two days longer so we could have seen a bit more of the local sights. And if I had been smarter I should have booked my trip a week later, so I could have participated in the GROW conference as well (everybody was talking about it during the trip). But we had a great time anyway, I learned a lot and have seen a lot of things that I wanted to see. I hope to be back soon!

View from Lions Bay

Some more pictures of the trip to Vancouver are here in a set on Flickr.