Today is Halloween and probably for the first time in 10 years in China I am celebrating it. Most Chinese have no idea what Halloween is, but in an expat compound like the one that we are now living in it is a big thing. On Friday Scott’s kindergarten already did a Trick or Treat (Scott could not join, because he was still sick), and tonight was the big Halloween night.

This afternoon my wife and I went Halloween shopping: we bought a Halloween costume for Scott and masks for ourselves, plus a lot of decoration materials for the house. We also bought candy bars and chocolate for about 50 kids. We were just in time because many parents were in the City Supermarket as well hunting for treats and a lot of candy had sold out already.

We received a notice from the compound that the Trick or Treat would start at 6:30 PM, but already before 6 PM the first kids rang our door bell. And from that moment until 8 PM the bell kept on ringing! Around 7 PM we had run out of candy already, and had to check our storage for other things to give away. Around 7:30 we even went out to buy additional treats for the children. We were amazed by the number of kids in our compound, until we found out that there were at least two school buses that had unloaded their students in our compound to give them a special Halloween experience! No big deal, we probably gave at least 100 kids a candy bar and all were very happy. Some were so happy that they came back a few times to get more chocolate bars (3 girls came back 3 times until we figured out that they had been here twice already!).

Scott is still not completely well, but he was feeling good enough to dress up as a pirate and join his father and mother for a round of Trick or Treat. He liked it a lot, getting something at every door where we rang the bell, even though he did not want to eat any of it (he still hardly eats after being sick for a week). We walked from house to house with some of his kindergarten classmates, most of them are a bit older and some were truly scared of the dressed up people. But Scott seemed to totally ignore it, he did not even mind me wearing a scary mask! I guess he is still too young to understand that you have to be afraid when people put on a horror mask? It was a fun evening, and next year should be even better when Scott and Elaine will be a little older.

I am in Holland at the moment where I will give a speech at the WECBA Executive Conference this afternoon. It’s a very short and also very busy trip, but that’s how I like it.

I arrived in Holland Monday evening around 7 pm and had dinner with my parents in Amsterdam. The next morning I got up early to catch up on emails and then went directly to the Spil Games office in Hilversum, where I had several meetings during the day before leaving around 4 pm to go to The Hague. At 6 pm I had a cocktail reception followed by a dinner in the Ridderzaal (The Knight’s Hall), with among others Dutch minister of foreign trade Frank Heemskerk and many CEOs of big Chinese companies.

This morning I got up early to work on my presentation for this afternoon, and I just finished it. The conference starts in 30 minutes, so just in time 🙂 Luckily I also had time for a short walk on the beach in front of my hotel (the Steigenberger Kurhaus Hotel, a beautiful classic hotel – the Dutch government picks up the bill :-). Right after my speech I need to leave for the airport, because I will fly back to China late this afternoon. I hope I can catch up on some sleep on the plane, because I missed out on a lot of sleep over the past 2 days…

Scott had a cold for a couple of days already, and earlier in the week he even stayed home from kindergarten because of this. It looked like his health was improving, until yesterday he suddenly became really sick. He had a fever and did not want to do much. He slept a lot and went to bed early last night. Around 1:30 AM he woke up and started to throw up in his bed. It went downhill from there, because he could not keep anything inside that he ate or drank. During the day he kept on throwing up, I felt so bad for him each time it happened.

His fever also got higher, and eventually we decided to see a doctor. Because our favorite doctor at Hongqiao Parkway Health (which is quite close to our home) was not available we drove to the United Family hospital. We were well taken care of, but because Scott had a high fever (38.2 degrees when we arrived) we had to sit in a special fever area. Swine fever precautions I assume. Hope we did not catch anything from others there…

The doctor checked Scott up and thinks it is a virus. He actually thinks it’s just beginning and Scott will be sick for at least a couple of more days 🙁 Interesting is that Scott could communicate to the doctor that he had pain in his tummy, I did not realize he was able to tell us this already. He also could say “aaa” when he had to open his mouth so the doctor could look into his throat. The nurse gave Scott some dehydration medicine while there, and when we left we got a whole bag of medicine for Scott to take. I hope it will at least make him feel a bit better.

Having a baby or toddler who is sick is much worse than I would imagine. The problem is that Scott cannot really communicate yet what he is feeling, and the only thing you can do is trying to comfort him as much as possible. He doesn’t understand what’s happening and is either very silent and in a half asleep state of mind, or crying like crazy because he is in pain. As a parent that is a terrible thing to see. I’d prefer to be sick myself, but of course that’s not possible. I hope he will recover soon and that Elaine won’t be infected…

Last week someone posted some amazing pictures of pollution in China on the QQ BBS news forum. The post was translated in English on China Hush and is spreading through the blogosphere and on Twitter. The pictures were taken by Lu Guang, a freelance photographer, who won a USD 30,000 prize for the pollution documentary project. You can find the original BBS post here (in Chinese), and the translated article and pictures here.

Will you be in Shanghai this Friday (October 23) and do you like to drink good wines? If so, you should consider to join a Charity Wine Tasting event at Mesa-Manifesto. The event is organized by Tom Stader of The Library Project, and the proceeds will go toward a library for an elementary school in Anhui province. The event is from 7-9 PM and entry is RMB 250 per person. As usual there is also a lucky draw with among others stays in the Royal Meridien and Marriott Hongqiao, plus diners and brunches at several locations. More info see here. You can get in touch with Tom directly at (+86) 159-2955-6183 or send him an email at tom@library-project.org

In case you don’t know The Library Project, this initiative donates books and libraries to under-financed schools and orphanages in China and Vietnam. The project is based on the belief that education is the key motivator to breaking the cycle of poverty that exists in the developing world. So far about 179 library donations have been made, with another 14 this week to rural elementary schools in Sichuan province. If you want to support the Library Project by making a donation you can do so here. You can also opt to sponsor a complete library (USD 750 for a small one, USD 1100 for a big one), for more information see here.

This weekend my wife and I spent mainly at home with the kids. The nannies and ayi all had days off, so we could spend some private time with our kids. I enjoyed it very much. Especially Elaine has suddenly grown a lot bigger and is changing from a helpless baby into a little person with her own will. Of course she is still completely helpless, she cannot sit yet on her own and if she manages to roll over she cannot roll back, but she is capable of expressing a lot more things than just a few weeks ago. She smiles a lot when she likes things, and she tries to talk back when I talk to her. Mostly just some random sounds of course, no real talking, but it’s fun to see her reacting.

I also played airplane with her (which used to be Scott’s favorite game with me), but she looked more confused than happy after flying through the room above my head. Either she is not as much into rough games as Scott or she is just too young. Then I put her on Scott’s neck, and Scott walked around the room with her – with me holding Elaine of course. She seemed to like it, and Scott liked it even more. I often walk around the compound with him like this and he was really proud that he can do this now with his mei mei.

The weather was still very nice during the past two days, with blue skies and temperatures around 25 degrees. So I decided to have a last swim in the outdoor pool. I was the only one there, and probably rightfully so: the water was much colder than before. Either they put cold water in or the night temperatures (around 16 degrees) cool the water off more than it heats up during the day. Anyway, after it took me a minute to get used to the temperature I still enjoyed it, but it will likely be my last outdoor swim this year.

Scott also keeps on developing. He starts to make real sentences now, although still very short ones, but only in Chinese: he still understands Dutch when I talk to him but he does not use any Dutch words anymore (except for ‘nee’ which means ‘no’). He also knows how to make coffee with my help. We have been making coffee in the Senseo machine together for the past weekends and he now knows the routine. He is always very happy when the coffee comes out and claps his hands when it’s finished. He now also knows how to ride his tricycle: so far he used his legs to push himself forward or backward, but now he uses the pedals to move. I tried to teach him for weeks, but he did not (want to) pay attention, and suddenly he starts doing it by himself!

I am very happy with our two kids, they are the best thing that’s happened to me. A few years ago I would not have believed this, but kids literally give more meaning to my life. Of course I am very happy with the businesses that we are involved in and with the comfortable life that we live, but Scott and Elaine are most important to me. I am glad I could spend a lot of time with them this weekend.

Taxis in Shanghai are ridiculously cheap compared to most major cities in the world. For a few USD you can drive all over the city, and you are not even expected to tip (if you tip they will normally hand you the money back, because it’s so uncommon). I have no idea how taxi drivers can earn money at the current rates.

Now that the National Holiday is over and the city is back to work again the local government announced that the prices will go up starting tomorrow. Not a lot, the base price goes from RMB 11 to RMB 12 for the first 3 km, and to 2.4 RMB (from 2.1 RMB) per km thereafter. Prices between 11 PM and 6 AM will increase to RMB 16 for the first 3 km and RMB 3.1 for every additional kilometer. This is of course still very cheap compared to what I am usually paying in Holland, or to what taxis dare to charge in Tokyo (that city must have the most expensive taxi fleet in the world). But compared to the average salary in Shanghai, many people will think again before taking a cab.

I wish the government would put a surcharge between 7 AM-9 AM and 5 PM-8 PM instead of after 11 PM. Especially during rush hour it’s often impossible to find a taxi. That makes a lot more sense than charging more after 11 PM when most taxis are empty anyway.

Picture: The taxi receipt next to this post is from a business partner of mine who was seriously overcharged by a cab: RMB 626 for a 19 minute ride (the driver added RMB 600 in toll fees). He paid for it, and the taxi company later said they could not identify the driver.

My laptop got extremely slow over the past couple of days, so I decided to find out what the reason could be for this unexpected behavior. I could not really figure it out, until I noticed that my trash bin had over 3 million items in it. Several hundred GB of data that I had deleted but that was still sitting in there. After emptying the trash (which took at least an hour) and restarting the computer it is now noticeably faster, so maybe this was indeed the reason?