In the plane to Holland

In the plane back to Holland for a two week stay in the Netherlands. Sitting in an airplane always makes you so lazy and sleepy. I’m one of these persons who cannot find sleep very well when traveling, but it a good time to write you this little update, although not much happened since my last writing on Sunday. To summarize, I was working and enjoyed some social activities at night (diners). Because I’m going back to the Netherlands it was nice to see some people before I left.

In Shanghai it felt a little bit like we are awaiting a second Christmas holiday, because the Chinese New Year will be celebrated this Sunday. On the streets people are wishing each other happy New Year (xinnian kuaile) and the streets are less busy. A lot of the Chinese leave town to go on Holiday and even a lot of Westerns leave to go back home (like me), or go on a little holiday. So for business this is not great time. This makes January a really ‘slow’ month in China, everything just got started and now again a break. So I’m happy to go back to the dynamic Holland. I’m curious how I’ll experience it after being in this totally different culture for the last four months. Actually I don’t expect to find much change in the Netherlands since my departure, but maybe my own perspective has changed a little. ‘Culture shock’!

This week I still had a couple of meetings. The most interesting was probably my visit to the Fudan university. This is one of the biggest and best universities of China. I visited the incubator of this university which holds approximately 1.000 starting companies – it’s definitely large. I want to include the Fudan University in the program of the Baak-program “The New Manager” that visits China in March. Fudan was very interested in this and even wants to talk about more possibilities for collaboration in the future. Personally I’m interested in the developments of the entrepreneurship network in Shanghai, so I’ll be happy to be more involved. It will give me a change to use my valuable “New Venture”-experience. This could be connected to my meeting with the Consul-General Eric Verwaal two weeks ago. He also plans to develop a strong (Dutch) entrepreneurship network here (potentially in collaboration with De Baak). So everything comes together (again – good!).

I’m curious to find out about the Dutch view on the “financial crisis”. One of my good friends in Shanghai (working for a recruitment office) was fired last week, so you can also feel some signs of some sort of ‘recession’ here in China. What stroke me most was the speed in which this happened. She heard it Friday afternoon and last Thursday was already her last day. So within a week, everything just goods quicker than we Europeans are used to, it seems. A few weeks ago I was speaking about this with my American friend Eddie. He said that Europe is really a ‘planned’ culture, when compared to China (or even the US). He could be right – at least it’s food for thought.

Beautiful Beijing: the great capital

Last week I’ve been in Beijing, which has been totally great. I went to the great Capital to prepare a management trip in March and April. One of the modules of a larger Baak-program will be in China. It will be a trip of one week in which 20 Dutch managers will visit Beijing and Shanghai. Goal of the trip is to introduce the Chinese market and culture to the group and give them more experience in doing international business and overcome cultural differences. The trip will consist of different company visits and network dinners. In the last four months I’ve developed so much network in Shanghai, that I felt no problems at all to make it happen there. However, for Beijing I was a little nervous, because I hardly had any openings there. Beijing and Shanghai are seen as the Amsterdam and Rotterdam of China, but the cities are geographically definitely not close (more like Amsterdam and Rome). So my goal for these five days in Beijing was to prepare the program of the trip for March in Beijing and get a general network started there.

The trip was a great success. I met so many interesting people and companies in Beijing, more than I possibly can put in the program for March. And I was not alone, because Isabel (a beautiful Chinese girl) helped me to move around in town. She was my Cross Cultural Consultant and did a great job. Isabel has lived as a student in Beijing, before she move to Canada. Now she flies everywhere across the world. She really knew all the hip bars and restaurants in Beijing – delicious and reasonably priced. In my five days we had 15 meetings all across town. Three a day, which made us spend lots of hours in the taxi - all lot of traffic jams (just like home). One of the most interesting meetings was the diner we had with Paul Denlinger on Monday night. Paul works as a consultant with a focus on internet startups. He is critical on the developments and current situation in China. He also keeps a blog in which he collects his thoughts – check it out http://www.chinavortex.com/.

For the management trip in March we went to Atos Origin (they did the live streams of the Olympic games - http://www.atosorigin.com/en-us/olympic_games/), Printing company Elanders, the ZhongGuangCun Science Park (http://www.zgc.gov.cn/) and Internet consulting company Plus8star (http://www.plus8star.com/). Magnus Miller of Eilanders was a very positive and nice guy. Eilanders is growing fast in China. In two years from 1 to 280 people working. My god, I’ll be happy if I have 5 people working here for De Baak in two years. Next to all these companies the Dutch managers are also invited by the Dutch Ambassador in March - a happy development. It will definitely be a really nice program in March and personally I can’t wait to go.

Me and Isabel made long days in Beijing, so I haven’t really been able to enjoy much of the Cultural sites. However I made a night walk around Tiananmen Square and had a lunch with Isabel at 798 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/798_Art_Zone) – the big artist community located in Beijing. Beijing is really the cultural capital, something I miss sometimes in Shanghai – you cannot have everything all the time. One thing is certain, I want to go back there a lot more often and this trip has been a great start in getting to know the city and its people better. Next to all the business activities I also met a Chinese girl called Angie, beautiful and sweet. I hope to see her again soon – she wants to look for a job in Shanghai, so let’s see what will happen.

I came back on Friday night in Shanghai and had a very nice weekend with a nice dinner at my house yesterday and of course playing music…. Shanghai is still good and really feels like home, more and more. This Friday I’ll return to Holland for 2 weeks. My last days here are busy (what's new?), but I'm ready to go back to the Netherlands – I’ve enough stories to tell and experiences to share.

Too busy to blog

Welcome in the New Year 2009. I find myself to be very busy. Don’t know what happened, but I didn’t even have time to write my normal blog post last week. One of the biggest reasons could potentially be that I’ve planned a trip to Beijing next week to prepare for a management trip ‘de Baak’ wants to make here in March/April. I had to arrange a total program for the week, to make sure my time there will be spend as effective as possible. It was a little difficult to get the arrangements planned in the start, but now I have 10 meetings in four days and expect to be able to make a few more. So it will be a dynamic and interesting week and the start of a network in the Chinese capital. Potentially I’ll be accompanied by a Chinese girl called Isabel to help me for the translations and she also has some contacts in Beijing. The more, the better is my feeling for next week.

The week after Xmas has been good. Just working a lot and preparing for Beijing. No holiday for me this year. Also I’m now busier, because I have doubled the number of Chinese classes (twice a week). My Chinese teacher wants me to learn around 30 new characters a week, which means around five a day – its ok, but gives a little pressure. However my Chinese language skills also pay off for me. I met a great guitar player called Eddie. He’s a middle-aged guy who’s been around in Shanghai for three years. He hardly speaks Chinese and when I heard me speak, he was impressed. We made the deal to exchange Chinese lessons for guitar lessons, meaning he will teach me the guitar as I’ll teach him Chinese. A great deal for me, but also means I have 2/3 classes extra each week. This means that also my weekend is getting totally full. So far, I’ve managed with starting to cut on social activities. Which is ok, but I’m still developing a network of friends …. Just not enough time in a day, I guess.

In 2,5 week I’ll be back in Holland, which I find exciting. I’m also working on my Dutch schedule for my two week stay there, which will also be busy. Further, all is well. I have enough friends now to not be lonely, further I had a small romantic encounter with a Chinese girl. Not very serious, but still nice. I’ll keep it short this time, but will keep you posted.