Winter holiday in Holland

It’s New Year’s Eve and I am sitting next to the fire place at my parents’ home. This year we decided to spend the Christmas holidays in Europe, after spending the last 3 Christmases in China. Not leaving China during the Christmas season means no holiday feeling at all, because there are no Christmas holidays and I normally just keep on working. At least being away from Shanghai for 2 weeks or so gives you a partial holiday feeling: because work continues I still spent too much time on my mail or on the phone (my wife as well). I also spent some time at the Spil Games office in Hilversum, but most of the time I was at my parents’ place with my family. We did a lot of things over the past 2 weeks, and because of the nice winter weather we were even able to enjoy some outdoor winter sports.

The weekend we arrived I had a big Christmas dinner in Maastricht with a student club that I belonged to (or actually belong to: once you manage to get in membership is for life). Good to catch up with my friends, some of whom I had not seen for years. During the dinner it started snowing heavily and we were lucky to catch a taxi back around 1 AM. The party itself continued much longer but I was too jetlagged to really enjoy it (the night before we had spent on a plane with the kids, meaning hardly any sleep…).

The good thing was that we got up quite early the next morning (7 AM), despite many drinks and so could leave Maastricht before new snow storms would hit the south of Holland. The roads were pretty bad though (even the highways were often covered in snow), but we still managed to get back to Ommen in a reasonable time.

On Monday I had meetings in Amsterdam and Hilversum and spent half the day in traffic jams because of the snow. Not the nicest thing in the world, but it gave me time to think through a lot of things and listen to Dutch radio for hours.

The day after, we left early for a trip to the Sauerland region in Germany to do some skiing and sledging. This is only a 3 hour drive from my parents’ place (despite the snow), so you could drive over for just one day, but because of the kids we decided to stay overnight.

We had a lot of fun, the snow was excellent and it was not too cold. My dad and I went skiing and the kids mainly played in the snow. Scott loved to ride a sledge downhill, but Elaine was still a bit too young to enjoy it. The nice thing was that there were hardly any people, it looks like that in the days before Christmas people don’t really go on holidays or on an outing there.

The day after skiing I bought some new skates (my skates are still in China, where I used them sometimes on Houhai in Beijing) and tried them out right away at the ice skating track in the woods in Ommen. It’s a 400 meter oval surrounded by trees, not far from my parents’ place. The ice was great and also here there were hardly any people! I skated for the first time in years, but luckily I was still able to get around the track without too much trouble. But the muscle and back ache afterward was quite bad, I realized that while skating you use some muscles that you otherwise never use… But a glass of champagne at home after the skating trip compensated the pain of course.

Christmas Eve we spent at my uncle Victor’s place in Joure. He cooked an excellent meal for us, and our kids played with his kids most of the afternoon and early evening. Interesting thing is that their favorite toys were the iPad and the iPhone, at one point they were playing Angry Birds simultaneously on 3 devices! One thing we noticed in Joure is that there was not much snow there, and that the ice looked much better than the snow covered lakes around my parents place.

So the next morning we decided to drive in a northerly direction again to go skating there. We ended up on the Belterwijde close to Giethoorn where we (= my dad, my sister and me) skated for about 15 kilometers over the lakes and canals.

The ice was very nice with hardly any snow on it and because of Christmas Day not many other skaters. Entrepreneurial people put up stands with hot chocolate, tea and soup at some places around the main lake, so we could warm up after a bit of skating. A very enjoyable afternoon!

Christmas Day we drove to my sister’s house, a very nicely renovated old farm house. We had coffee there and talked a bit before taking the car to Oud-Zevenaar for a big Christmas lunch at Vlees en Vis.

I had not been to this restaurant yet and was pleasantly surprised. An excellent 5 course lunch with a bottle of champagne to get started and different wines with every course. Luckily my mom offered not to join every course’s wine and drive back home afterward.

If you are in the Arnhem/Zevenaar area the Vlees en Vis restaurant is an excellent choice, with a cuisine that matches some of the best restaurants in Holland and an excellent wine menu. A very friendly waiter/sommelier as well, and a cook who even created a special 5-course menu for our kids. I’ll be back!

Monday I went back to Spil Games in Hilversum for a couple of meetings, but left the office before 5 PM to be back in time at home for Scott’s birthday. He turned 3 years old that day, and got lots of presents once again (during Christmas he also got a ton of presents already). My sister also dropped by for the festivities, because she has her birthday on the same day as Scott. So we had some nice drinks and dinner together to celebrate.

Tuesday I had to follow up on my promise to my wife to go shopping with her. We decided to go to Hardenberg, the city where I spent part of my high school years. I hadn’t been there in years and it had changed completely. A bit like Shanghai, you don’t go there for a few years and you can hardly recognize it anymore. After shopping we had lunch in a small brasserie and then drove back to Ommen for some additional shopping. When we got home I decided to go skating with my dad, walking around shopping streets made me tired and I felt I needed to do something more active. We went to the outdoor track in Ommen for a few kilometers of skating. Because the track closes at 5 pm to clean the ice and we arrived at 4:15 we had the track for ourselves as most people went home early.

After the ice skating my dad and I still went for a snow bike ride through the woods. It was extremely tiring, but it’s the best way to see the beauty of nature in the middle of winter. Back at home we decided to have dinner in an Italian restaurant. My favorite in this region (Bacco in Marle) turned out to be closed, so we ended up at another one in Ommen. Not bad either, but certainly not as good as Bacco.

Wednesday most of the snow on the roads and bike paths had disappeared, so for the first time this holiday I went running with my dad. It felt great to be running in the cold air again, but we had to watch out not to slip. It wasn’t very easy, but I felt good after I did the 5.5 km run in about 25 minutes. At home an uncle of mine came by to visit and it was good to catch up. Race car driver Ho-Pin Tung also called to see if he could come by, so we had a full house in afternoon. Of course we opened some nice bottles of wine again (I lost count how much I drank this holiday, and that’s probably better. Luckily my dad’s wine cellar is big enough!).

Thursday we drove to Antwerp to meet with some friends who just moved into an amazing house in the city center for a kind of housewarming visit. We started with coffee and a very nice raspberry cake followed by

After 5 years it’s time for a change

After 5 years it’s time for a change. I am not talking about my 5-year marriage, but about my business activities. 5 years ago I set up Spil Games Asia (at that time called Spill Group Asia), starting out as a 1-person company in January 2006 and now in December 2010 with over 100 employees in our Shanghai office.

Today it was announced to the Spil Games crew worldwide that I decided to step down as CEO on February 1 next year. I took that decision already a long time ago, but it took quite some time to find a good successor and to work on the transition. But I am happy to announce that Chen Qi, our current COO, will take over my functions in just over 6 weeks from now. I will stay with Spil Games in a global advisory role, but will have more time for my family and for other business activities that I am involved in.

I had a great time at Spil Games Asia over the years, but like every start-up it’s been a roller coaster from time to time. Quickly adopting to fierce competition, encountering sudden regulatory changes and managing staff that may have different objectives than the company was sometimes challenging, but these things also make running a business in China one of the

The most difficult flash game in the world?

Our game studio makes a lot of flash games and I try to play most of them. So when I came across “The most difficult flash game in the world” on Twitter today I could not resist to try it out. I have to admit that I can’t finish many of the games that we make at Spil Games, so I didn’t expect a good result.

The game starts with a screen telling you that “You are QWOP, our small nation’s sole representative at the Olympic Games. Ideally you will run 100 meters but our training program was underfunded”. Well, that’s an understatement, because at first it’s almost impossible to get QWOP to even walk a meter. I tried a couple of times but each time I fell down. So I tried to figure out a strategy by trying a combination of keys – and eventually managed to figure out the best order to let QWOP ‘”run”.

It’s actually not that hard, and I managed to finish the 100 meters (in about 8 minutes though…), including a hurdle at the 50 meter mark and a jump right before the end. A cool game if you want to waste 10 minutes of your life. But the most difficult flash game in the world? Not really.

Play the free game here: http://foddy.net/Athletics.html
Or just one of the many FAIL QWOP videos here: http://thehairpin.com/2010/12/the-qwop-viral-video/

Job Opening: Commercial Manager Kids Online Store @ UnitedStyles.com

United Styles (www.unitedstyles.com) is an exciting new online kids fashion store where kids and parents can design kids clothes in 3D. We are looking for a commercial / sales manager in our Shanghai head office, preferably a mother who wants to use her commercial and management capabilities to grow our business.

Main responsibilities:

Responsible for growing the sales of our web shop (sales worldwide with initial focus on Europe)
Manage day to day operations of the kids brand
Manage the flow of creating garments and themes with designers and merchandisers and getting them in the store
Get feedback from consumers and execute ideas that come from them

Requirements:

Commercial thinker and manager
Experience in e-commerce sales is preferred
Can relate to fashion trends in Europe, but fashion-industry background not a must have
Speaks good English and at least basic Chinese

Our offer:
We are a start-up company with a young team. If you want to be part of our journey, there are many ways of accommodating to your wishes and career plans.

Interested? Feel free to send us an email with your resume, or contact me for more information.

The cheating taxi driver

This evening I had a couple of beers at Bar Rouge with Spil Games colleagues from Holland and took a cab back home afterward. I let the driver stop outside my compound and gave him RMB 100 to pay the RMB 45 fare. A second later he had an old RMB 10 note in his hand and told me that I had given him only RMB 10. For a moment I thought I made a mistake and took another RMB 100 from my wallet. But then I realized that he was cheating me, because I had just spent my last RMB 10 in the cab to Bar Rouge and I remember thinking to get some change in the bar for my taxi ride home (which I then of course forgot about in the bar).

So I looked at him and told him angrily he was trying to cheat me. He said no, I made a mistake and showed me he did not have any RMB 100 notes in his wallet. I repeated it again and then he said, ah, sorry I made a mistake. He then tried to give me RMB 25 back instead of RMB 55, which made me really angry. So he then apologized again and gave me RMB 55 back. I asked for a receipt, but he refused. Then I got really angry and tried to write down his taxi number, but he ripped the card out of its holder so I could not see his number.

That was too much for me and I told him I was going to call the cops. He started pleading me not to do this, offering me several hundred RMB (suddenly he had RMB 100 notes!) if I would let him go. This confirmed to me that he had probably played this trick before and may have gotten a warning and would lose his taxi license if he would be caught again.

I told him I did not care about money, but that it’s about ethics (well, at least I tried to explain that to him in Chinese, not sure if he understood what I meant), and that I hated him for trying to cheat his customers. I was very angry now and sort of felt that he deserved to lose his license, this kind of cab drivers give the others a bad reputation. On the other hand the punishment would be a bit too harsh, but at least I wanted to teach him a lesson. So instead of the cops I called my wife who turned out to be at home. The driver was almost crying when he saw me calling, probably assuming I was calling the police. In a way I felt bad for him, even though he was the one trying to cheat me.

My wife came out and the driver apologized to her many times and told her that his receipt printer was broken so he could not give me a receipt. She then said she would call his company to check if his printer was really not working after which he also offered her money not to do this and pleaded her to please be generous.

My wife argued with him for a while but was smarter than me and eventually let it go, telling him that he should never try this trick again. So I went out and tried to take a picture of his license plate. When he saw that he jumped out, standing in front of his plate and pleading me not to do this. So I just took a picture of him instead in front of his car. I had planned to put the picture above this post, but it’s probably better I leave it like this. He got his punishment and I don’t think he will easily try this trick again.

Great weekend

It’s Sunday night just past 11 PM and I am sitting behind my laptop to read some emails and RSS feeds. I had a great weekend with my family, doing lots of things and with quite nice weather as well (up to 22 degrees yesterday).

Friday night we stayed home and because my parents were visiting we decided to open two very good bottles of wine. We started with a bottle of

Reading a story for Scott’s class

This month is book month at Soong Ching Ling kindergarten and parents could sign up to read a story in class. Of course I decided to participate and signed up for yesterday to tell the kids a story. I didn’t really know what to expect with 2 and 3 year old kids, most of whom just started learning English 3 months ago. Would they be able to sit and listen quietly or start running around? It turned out that it was a great experience and I don’t think I ever had a more captive audience!

I only read for 10 minutes, because the attention span of young kids is not that long. I chose a story about a mother duck that had laid several small eggs and one big one, and she went to visit all different animals to check if the big egg was theirs. So on each page I could ask the question if the egg belonged to a cat, a monkey, a bear etc. After two animals the kids realized the answer was always no, so they all started screaming “No!” to my question. So cute to see them so involved in the story.

I really enjoyed it. “The best things in life are for free” may be a cliche, but this kind of experience is just priceless. Scott was very happy and proud to see his dad in his class room, and I later heard that he told both our driver and his nanny that I had read a story in his class. And he even told my parents what the story was about. Glad I had the opportunity to do this!

A Ferris Wheel next to my office

Yesterday I saw from my office window that a construction company was building a strange looking device just 200 meters from my office window. It looked like a ferris wheel but because it’s in the middle of a residential area I assumed it was some sort of machine used in constructing a new road or a subway line. But when opening today’s Shanghai Daily I learned that it will indeed be a ferris wheel.

The newspaper writes that from the wheel you will have a bird’s eye view over the Suzhou Creek. Really? Maybe if all buildings along the Suzhou Creek would be demolished first, but otherwise I don’t think you’ll be able to see anything except for concrete buildings. The ferris wheel will only be 42 meters high, which is only a bit taller than our 7-story office building and similar to some of the other buildings along the creek.

According to the paper the attraction was built by a new shopping mall that’s opening next to my office. Using the ferris wheel will be free (expect long waiting lines), so if you want to peek into my office bring a pair of binoculars and enjoy the ferris wheel ride. The planned opening is in about 4 weeks, on December 18, and likely the wheel will be torn down in 3 or 4 months time (land is too valuable to ‘waste’ in downtown Shanghai). The ferris wheel will be open from 10 AM to 10 PM and is located on the corner of Xizang Lu and Qufu Lu.

How long does it take to build a 15-story hotel in China? 6 days!

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me, is how quickly China’s cities change. Buildings seem to pop up out of nowhere, and if you don’t visit a neighborhood for a few months it can look quite different. On average skyscrapers grow 1-2 stories per week, but sometimes it can go a lot quicker. See for example this time lapse video in which a 15-story hotel in Changsha gets build in just 6 days! Amazing.

(source: TheNextWeb.com)