I am in a review mood these days, probably because work has not resumed at full speed yet – even though today was a regular working day and I spent the whole day in the office. Last night I walked by one of the DVD shops on Hongmei Lu and noticed that they had Slumdog Millionaire. I read quite a lot about it on Twitter already, so I decided to buy it and watch it right away. It was an excellent choice!

Just like most novels I read, I tend to forget about the movies I watch the next day already. Only a few really good ones stay with me for a long time (Ray for example, or The Thomas Crown Affair are films that come to mind right away). Slumdog Millionaire might be added to that list as well.

If you have not heard about the movie, for example if you live in Europe where the movie has not yet been released in most countries (in Holland for example the first screening will be on February 12 and in Germany only on March 19), I am sure you will hear about it soon. This might be Oscar material, and the movie has already been nominated for 4 Golden Globes.

Slumdog Millionaire, based on the novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup, paints a lively but painful picture of survival in Mumbai, a city full of danger and violence. It gives a fascinating look into life in the underbelly of India, which is not a pretty sight. Jamal, an young orphan from the slums of Mumbai, his brother Salim and another girl from the slums (Latika) try to make a life for themselves after their mother is killed during an anti-muslim riot. Years later the uneducated Jamal ends up in the quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? where he manages to answer all the questions correctly, leading to an interrogation by the police because they think he may be cheating. During the interrogation you learn why Jamal could answer all the questions and what happened during his journey from the slums to the hot seat at the popular quiz show.

I won’t give more of the plot away, but it’s a combination of a fast-paced action movie and a romantic film, with a Indian Bollywood twist. A bit of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist meets 21st century India. I loved it, not only because I visited Mumbai myself and some places are very recognizable, but for the most part because it’s a “from rags to riches” (or better “from rags to rajah”) feel-good story. And others love it as well, on Rotten Tomatoes the film currently has a 94% rating and IMDB shows an 8.7/10 rating (#46 out of all movies).

As a side note, the movie’s soundtrack is great as well. I just downloaded it and am listening to it while writing this blog post. Enjoy!

See the trailer for the movie here:

Yesterday I finished a pre-galley version of Jeff Jarvis’ upcoming book What Would Google Do? and I twittered that it was the best book I’d read this year 🙂

But I also said that it would have ended in my top 3 of 2008 had I finished it a few days earlier. Then James Gwertzman asked me on Twitter what my top 3 for 2008 would be. A good question, and I had to narrow down a list of about 10 books, but I finally came up with these three (in random order):
– The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
– God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything – Christopher Hitchens
– Mao: The Unknown Story – Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

Only non-fiction on 2008’s list, even though most books I read are fiction. Most novels, however, I forget about the day after I finished them. A nice way to relax at the end of the day or on a holiday, but nothing more. But these three books I still think about and discuss regularly with friends. In case you have not read them, below a quick take on why I like them.

The Black Swan is actually the second book by Taleb that I’ve read this year, I should probably also mention Fooled by Randomness here because both books cover the same subject. Mr. Taleb is a financial trader with a very strong mathematical background. His message is very simple, don’t look for patterns in events. The most important events are random and unpredictable, but most people (including traders) do not realize this. When something happens people look for explanations, but not everything can be explained.

Why does someone become a millionaire? Can you repeat what he or she did and also become rich? No, often it is just random factors, so no need to buy books about how to become a millionaire. Observing something once does not mean it will happen again, and even if something happens a few times it still does not mean it will happen again. The book derives it title from the fact that for centuries Europeans had only seen white swans, so it was a scientific truth that all swans are white. Until in 1697 black swans were discovered.

The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness are the least easy-to-read from the three books on my list, but both books are a must read if you want to understand the world a bit better. Mr. Taleb knows what he talks about and had done his homework before writing this book. The book is full of real life examples, making the theory easier to understand and making it a sometimes even fun read. The global financial crisis and the resulting stock market crash have proven the author right, they are exactly what the author is talking about: unpredictable.

God is not Great I bought last year around Chinese New Year and I was immediately hooked. Mr. Hitchens is known for his controversial ideas and that’s why I like him. You need people like him to stir things up. Watch some of his video’s on YouTube to get an idea of who Mr. Hitchens is. I sort of like him, but he is certainly not somebody who wants to be liked.

In this book Mr. Hitchens convincingly argues that religion is man-made and actually quite dangerous. Religion is based on ancient beliefs, it stems from times where most people were illiterate and tried to explain the world with the little scientific knowledge available to them. I agree with him on that and this book has changed my view on religion.

However, Mr. Hitchens could have made his case stronger by being a bit more tolerant of believers. Religion also has it good sides (it gives people hope for example), he is too much focusing on the problems that religions have caused (and are causing) for this world. By being a bit more open to other opinions and by not only trying to offend believers he could have been even more convincing.

The book is in my top 3 because of the impact it had on me and my thinking about religion. As some of you may know I lived in a fundamental Christian family for a while in the late 80’s in the US, and that experience changed me at that time. Looking back it was one of the best things that could have happened to me, because I have a lot more understanding now for people with different views of the world and how they get these ideas (a lot is based on peers having the same views and wanting to be part of the group). I am not a Christian anymore, however, mainly because I saw how absurd fundamentalism when I was able to look at it from a distance. This book reinforces my ideas, but I am afraid it is close atheist fundamentalism.

The third book, Mao, is also quite fundamental in its views. It is a very one-sided account of who Mao really was. Living in China for many years, I have heard numerous stories about Mao. Some from people who still fully support his ideas and even his ways to reach his political goals. Others from people who are more moderate and follow Deng Xiaoping’s line that Mao was 70% good and 30% bad. And some, but a minority in China, completely denouncing Mao and everything he has done.

This book follows the last view. And just like God is not Great it loses some credibility because of this. It shows Mao as an opportunistic crook, a mass murderer who was only thinking about himself. He was a brilliant politician playing out all his opponents against each other in order to reach his goals. Even though I think it’s a pity that Jung wrote the book from a very one-sided perspective it makes for an extremely interesting read for anybody who wants to know more about what has happened in China during the first three quarters of the 20th century. The book reads like fiction, and it’s sometimes hard to believe that everything really happened. Be prepared for a long read though, the book is over 600 pages plus almost 200 pages of references.

Last week Scott had his first birthday and because of that we decided to take some professional pictures of him. We found a photo studio specialized in baby pictures on Hongmei Lu (Babypark, 5/F, 3211 Hongmei Lu, phone 021-6208 3786, above City Supermarket) and last Sunday we went there to do the photo shoot.

The shoot itself was quite tiring: Scott did not exactly like to follow the photographer’s directions and he had to use many tricks to get Scott to collaborate. It took us over two hours to take all the pictures we wanted to take, but it was totally worth it. We love the photos! The photographer said that Scott actually did quite well, normally one-year old babies are much more difficult to work with. Glad I don’t have his job.



The other pictures you can see here as a set on my Flickr account.

First of all a happy New Year to all my readers!

2009 was off to a good start for me. I had an excellent sleep and got up around 10 AM this morning. When I came down the stairs into the living room Scott awaited me with a big smile and I was happy to hold him in my arms. My wife and I had a big breakfast together, which does not happen too often anymore, and after that we had some coffee with Dutch oliebollen. Scott got a bit sleepy, so I took him to bed and managed to get him asleep within 5 minutes. I felt happy, this is how a day off should be.

After coffee I worked a bit on an article, read some blogs plus Twitter, and later on watched the start of 2009 at Times Square in New York on CNN. I had some more oliebollen and appelflappen before we went to Parksons in Hongqiao to buy some baby clothes. It was busy there, with long lines for the cashiers. No recession yet here, that’s for sure! One reason why it was so busy is that Parkson’s had a sale going on, for every RMB 200 that you spend you would get RMB 100 back. Not bad. Another reason is their archaic system, where you get a receipt for every item you buy, then you pay separately for each item (because the discount system works per item), and only then you can pick up your goods.

When we got home I did a live radio interview with Radio Gelderland about New Year’s Eve in Shanghai and then watched a baby DVD with Scott. Halfway through he got sleepy again, so I took him to bed. Also this time he was a good boy and within 10 minutes he was sound asleep on my shoulder. Now I am back at writing an article while listening to last year’s New Year’s Concert in Vienna. I will watch this year’s version in half an hour or so, in China it only starts at night because of the time difference.

A good start of the day, I look forward to the rest of this year. I did not make any New Year’s Resolutions, I don’t need a new year to start changing my life. If I want to change something I can start any day of the year, you just have to make sure you’re motivated enough to make a change. But I do have some plans for this year of course. Business-wise I want to grow Spil Games Asia’s sites, not only the two huge ones in China but I will also focus more on Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan. I think these countries have most potential in Asia. Our Chinese portal game.com.cn will launch some new important functions this month already, and we have some new ideas for the rest of the year.

Privately I managed to work less hours last year already, and I plan to keep it like that. My work-private life balance is much better than before because of Scott. Mid-2009 our 2nd baby will be born, so I suppose I will have to work even more efficiently in order to cram all the work into less time. It’s actually not so difficult. You need a good to-do list and try not to deviate too much from it. Furthermore I do not answer all mails when they come in, only the real important ones. It’s more efficient to wait a few hours and do them all at once (or for the non-urgent ones do them all once a week or so).

I cut out a lot of RSS feeds, saving me at least 30 minutes per day that I now use to study Chinese again. I started a few weeks ago and am reviewing the Chinese characters. I used to be able to write at least 1000 of them, and now I can hardly write my name anymore. Reading is still a little better, but I want to get it up to speed again. I also listen a lot to Chinesepod.com podcasts, the best way to improve your listening skills in my opinion. I take about 50 lessons with me on my iPhone wherever I go. And no, I am not an investor in Chinesepod, but I wish I would have had the opportunity to invest. A great company.

I have also cut down a bit on sports. When preparing for the Trailwalker I overdid it a bit, running half marathons in the morning before going to the office. I suppose that’s doable if you have an easy job or no young family, but for me it became too much. At first I was thinking about doing another ultra-run this year (the 100 km Sunrise to Sunset race in Mongolia), but I might instead just do some half- or full marathons. I love running but it just takes too much time to train for extreme events. I also don’t know yet which physical challenge I will do this year – Gary, my dad and I used to do one every year, things like cycling from Lhasa to Kathmandu through the Himalaya in 2007 and climbing Africa’s highest mountain Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2008.

Blogging is something I really like to do, so also in 2009 I will keep updating you about life in Shanghai in general and mine in particular. Also on micro-blog and social network Twitter I will remain active, I enjoy the conversations there and learn a lot all the time. Social networks have become quite important to me, without them life would not be as interesting. If you don’t follow me on Twitter yet go to http://www.twitter.com/marcvanderchijs and add me as friend (after first setting up an account yourself).

But the most important thing for the coming year is to be happy and healthy. My job and family make me happy, and hopefully good food and enough exercise keep me healthy, so let’s try to keep it that way. See you here or in real life in 2009!

The end of 2008 is less than an hour away, so this is a good time to look back at the past year. For me 2008 was once again a quite successful year and I enjoyed almost every day of it. Of course the global financial crisis hit during the past year, which also had an impact on some of my investments, but that doesn’t bother me too much. The fun I am having during my daily work and with my family over-compensates any monetary losses, whether in real money or on paper. 2008 had its ups and downs, but overall the outcome is very positive. Let’s look back at some of the things that were most important or most interesting over the past 12 months.

First, and most important, was of course the addition of Scott William van der Chijs to our family, 4 days before the start of 2008. This little boy (I should stop calling him a baby boy, he is more like a toddler now) completely changed our life – in a very positive way. Sure, the first months were not easy, especially because of a lack of sleep. You suddenly realize that your baby will be with you for the rest of your life and that you have a big new responsibility. But it’s just so great to have a baby, and Scott is such a nice and happy boy that he makes it the nicest responsibility I can think of. We are lucky to have domestic staff, so we do not need to take care of Scott all the time. We now have a great nanny who likes Scott a lot, and who Scott also likes. It took a while to find a good one, we had 6 different nannies during 2008!

Because of Scott I realized that my work is not as important as it used to be to me. I don’t really work less hard, but I manage to be more efficient and try to be home every day before 8 PM so that I can still play with Scott before he goes to sleep. It’s great when we see him waiting for us when our car pulls up in front of our house every evening, seeing the smile on his face when I step out of the car is one of the highlights of my day.

The downside of having a young kid is that your daily life becomes more focused on activities in and around the house. My wife and I used to go to restaurants several times a week, but that has been reduced to just once or twice a week. The rest of the time we eat at home (we have an ayi who cooks for us) or by ordering food. We also travel a lot less as a family. No beach or skiing holidays during 2008, but we still took Scott to Europe when he was about 5 months old (among others to the INSEAD 5-year reunion in Fontainebleau and to my parents in Holland) and he flew to Beijing a few times with my wife.

I made some trips without my family as well. Among others to Tanzania, where Gary, my dad and I successfully reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on June 1 at 7 AM in the morning. Also I made a couple of trips to Hong Kong to practice for the 100 km Trailwalker race last November. Then of course several private and business trips within China, mostly to Beijing. For work I also traveled to Holland a couple of times, and there were trips to Singapore and Japan. When I think about it, even though I cut back on travel because of Scott I still logged quite some miles in airplanes.

Because of Scott we decided to move to a house from our previous apartment. We just needed more space and I wanted Scott to be able to play outside instead of playing on a 37th floor outside terrace. We now live in the suburbs, which was a bit of a change for me at first. But I now like it, it’s quiet where we live and all important shops (incl. a City Supermarket, a Dutch bakery and the Apple shop) are within walking distance, just like a lot of other conveniences (Starbucks, DVD shops, good bars & restaurants). The compound itself is nice, with for example an outdoor pool where Scott can swim and good quality management.

We moved right before the Beijing Olympics in August, which was the highlight of the year. What a party and what a fantastic atmosphere! I watched more sports within the span of 3 weeks than I normally watch in 3 years, and met tons of new, interesting people. The Holland Heineken House guaranteed a great party every night. I was lucky to get tickets to both the Opening and Closing ceremonies, so I can say that I literally watched the Games from the beginning until the end. For me and for China the Beijing Olympics were a big success.

Another highlight for me was the so-called “Chinareis 2008“, a trip for 42 Dutch entrepreneurs and business executives active in new media to Shanghai and Chengdu. I helped to co-organize the trip and had one of the busiest but also one of the most interesting weeks of my life. We not only visited many companies, but among others also watched the Water Releasing festival in Dujiangyan (the city would be partly destroyed a month later during the Sichuan earthquake) and met the head of Taoism in a temple in the mountains outside Chengdu. Some of the participants have become good friends in the meantime and I was happy that I could show the “real” China to a group of influential people. It changed many people’s perspective on China, and because of the trip some of them even set up their own businesses here.

Work-wise also quite some things happened. I only did a few investments this year and I likely will do even less next year, mainly because of Scott and the fact that I want to spend more quality time with my family. One that I did do is a fun one: I invested some money in M1NT, a private club and restaurant in Shanghai. Even if the investment would not pay off (something I do not expect!) it is nice to be part of this club, and I already spent quite some time there over the past months.
A top class atmosphere, cool people, perfect cocktails and an excellent fusion kitchen – and that all while overlooking the Bund and the Pudong skyline. And when the weather’s getting warmer I already look forward to the rooftop jacuzzi!

2008 was a good year in the online gaming space and Spil Games Asia did very well over the past 12 months. The growth of our online game sites game.com.cn and xiaoyouxi.com was amazing, especially during the first part of the year and also our revenues were much higher than we had budgeted for. We added quite some new functions (among others multiplayer games site 4299.com and a mobile gaming site) and have a lot more waiting to be released in 2009. Zlong Games, our game studio in Shanghai, also had a good performance, with an average output of up to 2 good quality flash or shockwave games per week and hardly any staff changes during the year.

China’a online video space had more turbulent year, but despite many rumors saying negative things about the company, Tudou managed to get through it quite well. Not only did the company close a USD 57 million dollar round, but it also got its SARFT license after the Olympics. The future looks good for Tudou, with most competitors gone bankrupt or changing their business model by now and others weakened by lack of funding and not enough advertising income. Tudou has a great product, a large user base and a huge amount of money in the bank, so I think the future looks good. But for the online video industry 2009 will be another interesting year for sure.

I have been in the media a lot over the past year, not only on blogs and websites (and on my favorite social networks Twitter and Facebook), but also in the traditional media. In Holland articles about me have been published in almost every major newspaper and in many magazines. I also did quite some radio interviews and had 2 TV interviews this year. I like to give my view on entrepreneurship and doing business in China in the media, and I also gave some talks at universities about this. During the past year I spoke for example at CEIBS, East China Normal University and even at my alma mater Maastricht University.

All in all it was a very eventful year again. As usual there were some downs, but most of the time my roller-coaster life went up. And as the final minutes of 2008 tick away it’s time to go from reflections about the old year to looking forward to 2009. I hope it will be as eventful as the current year. I have lots of plans already for the new year and look forward to it. I want to wish all my readers a very happy and healthy New Year, and see you on this blog in 2009!

This weekend my baby boy Scott celebrated his first birthday. Amazing how fast his first year has gone by, I still remember his birth on December 27, 2007 as if it were yesterday. Scott has grown quite big already, I think our nanny and my wife spoil him too much with tons of good food 🙂

During his first year he traveled a lot already, among others twice to Beijing and once to Holland, Belgium and France. And within the next six weeks he will visit Beijing again and make his first trip to the tropics. Lucky boy!

We celebrated his birthday with a brunch at the Le Meridien Hotel in Sheshan, where Scott among others tasted cheese cake, mousse au chocolat and cotton candy for the first time. He loved all three of them, but we did not give him too much to ensure he would still eat his regular food. Scott actually eats everything, so far there is nothing he really dislikes. From a few drops of champagne to a small spoon of caviar, and from French Camembert cheese to kiwi, when we eat or drink it Scott likes to eat or drink it as well. I hope it will stay like that, it will make our life a lot easier over the next years.

In the afternoon we did his one-year old Pick Ceremony. This is a tradition in which the baby has to chose from several objects which one he likes most (you count which one he choses 3 times, and you mix them up all the time in order to make sure the order does not determine his choice). The result should show what he will become as an adult. Scott’s main pick was an abacus, which means that he will likely become an entrepreneur or manager in later life. No surprises there 🙂

At night we had a small party at home, where Scott got his presents. For Scott the packing paper was often just as important as the presents. And what he loved most where the gas filled balloons that we bought in the afternoon. He has been playing with them for days, holding the string of one of them in his hands whereever he walks around in the house!

At night Sam Flemming and Vennie came to visit us with their son Leo (2.5 years old). We had a nice dinner (Shanghainese food) and chatted about all kinds of topics, while Leo and Scott were playing. Leo is a very polite boy, saying ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome’ all the time, I will also try to make sure Scott turns out like that. He has a good role model now!

I look forward to the coming year with Scott, the older he gets the more fun it is to be around him. Especially now that he starts communicating a bit and now that he can walk independently. And next year he will get a little brother or sister, I look forward to see his reaction to that.

Today I was looking at some hotel options for a stay on a tropical beach in February. I found a very nice resort that has good reviews and I checked their availability online. I wanted to book two rooms for 6 nights each through asiarooms.com, but received a message that there was no room available during that period. That happens sometimes, but I also know that if you go to the hotel website you still might be able to get rooms. On the hotel site I found that for 5 out the 6 nights there were two rooms available, just for one night they had only one room available. So I sent the hotel a message asking if there would be a solution for this, as we would very much like to stay here. The reply: “Sorry sir, we cannot accept your booking. For one night we indeed have no rooms available, only a deluxe suite. Thanks for you interest in staying with us.” The message was signed by the resorts Reservation Assistant.

Now what would you have done if you would have been the manager of this hotel? The reservation assistant probably cannot be blamed for this, but I think she made a big mistake: the hotel just lost a booking for 12 room nights because of her reply. If I had been in charge of this hotel the solution would have been very simple: I would have sent a message in which I would thank for the booking and say that unfortunately for one night no room is currently available, but that the customer would get a free upgrade for this night to a suite in case by the time of arrival there would still be no vacancy. Simple as that. There is always a chance that someone cancels during the next 6 weeks, and if not you only miss the extra income that you potentially could have earned by selling the suite for that night. Now the resort for sure misses out on 12 room nights… Not the smartest way to earn money in my humble opinion.

Over the past weeks I have been asked by several media about the effect of the global crisis on China. I normally reply that I do not really see much of an effect yet in Shanghai (see for example here, in Dutch), and that I am not too concerned for now. Exports are down, but consumer spending is still pretty good. Also the huge amount of money that the Chinese government tries to inject into the economy will certainly help to soften the potential negative effect of a global slowdown on China. But by coincidence I may have found an indicator that things are not the same as they used to be.

This week we were analyzing the traffic figures on our Chinese online game sites game.com.cn and xiaoyouxi.com, when we noted a strange effect. During weekdays there was hardly any growth on our portals, but on weekends the growth was similar to what we were used to. We looked a bit deeper into this and may have found a reason for this: staff in companies play less online games during working hours (normally we see a spike in traffic around 11:30 AM and from 4 PM onwards).

Why? Likely people are getting more afraid of the effects of the crisis and focus more on their work in order not to run the risk of being laid off. The effect started somewhere around November but seems to be getting more pronounced. I did not do any statistical analysis (and also do not plan to do this), but it seems like an indicator that some Chinese are changing their online behavior because of the crisis.