A working week and jazzy weekend

Late Sunday night in the bed with my laptop (something I tend to do more often lately) updating you all on the recent developments here in Shanghai. My neighbors have just left after a nice social visit. I’m doing good, but dead tired and physically maybe not in my best shape (one of my teeth hurts). I need a holiday (which will be there in four days). I’m exited to go to Thailand. I think the political situation over there stabilized again a little, so still seems to be safe to travel there. So I didn’t change my plans and will go. I will meet my Dutch friend Stefan in Thailand and on the 2nd of May we both fly back to Shanghai, so I can show him the sights here. After his return to Holland the CEO of De Baak will be here. So in between all these holiday and social activities I have to create an outstanding program for the CEO's stay. I made the outline and already confirmed a couple program elements – but it will still be an amazingly load of work and I have difficulty finding the time.

Last week Angie was in Beijing to do her second test for a Master in Beijing (she made it – and is accepted), which will mean she will move back to Beijing in September. I’m very happy she’s accepted at the university, but the idea that’s she will live in Beijing is of course not something to look forward too. For now, I’m not stressing about it, and we will see how it will go. So without her I was alone again last week. I used most of my time during the weekdays to prepare for Harry’s visit and got other long-term Baak-projects rolling again, like the Entrepreneurship program with the Consulate, and there’s also a fresh project which concerns of group of Chinese entrepreneurs and business men that want to go to do a trip through Holland. This would be a great project for De Baak, so I really hope we can make it happen. When Harry is here in May we’ll set the next step for this, and I’m sure he will be as excited as me.

The week was focused on ‘work’, the weekend was centered around my performance at JZ Club. The JZ Club is the best jazz music bar in town and my band (which has the working-title: “The long undertones”) got the opportunity to play for an hour at peak Saturday night. We were the opening act playing form 8.30pm to 9.30 pm. The set went great and the public was also very enthusiastic. It was definitely a performance to remember and now at least I can also say: “I played the JZ”. I was happy to see that I master the Jazz style in six months enough to please the jazz audience’s critical ears. Still there's more than enough to improve music wise, so I will keep going. However, for the two saxophone player this was their last gig with this band and the drum will also leave Shanghai in June. The rest will stay, but we need to reform the group soon. Anyhow the gig yesterday was a nice achievement, we did it! Now quickly go to sleep… It’s going to be busy days, before the holiday ....

All over the country

The Trip of The New Manager was a huge success and now I find myself to have a three rest holiday in Xi’an, which is the old capital before Beijing and famous for its Terracotta warriors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi'an), which are really impressive. I’ve arrived here two days ago with Angie and will go back to Shanghai tomorrow. Xi’an is a beautiful city with a rich old history and many great sights. The atmosphere here is different from Shanghai. Although it is a very large city with over 6 million inhabits it feels quite local, definitely not international. Only when you are at the tourist hot spots I meet other foreigners. There are many large avenues with gives the royal feeling of an old capital. The streets down town are packed with large warehouses and fast food places, which totally makes it difficult at first to feel the unique features of a ‘new’ city (there all the same!). On the night of arrival Angie and I had the local specialty, which is a bread noodle soup. We, the costumers, had to break some small hard small breads into little pieces, this took us about 40 min – I must say we were definitely hungry after. If you ever set foot on Xi’an ground it worth to try, but I didn’t find it very delicious.

I’m here in Xi’an to rest a little after the intense trip of last week with The New Managers of de Baak. Saturday the group flew back to Holland after an full schedule lastly for 7 days. Jessica (Chinese logistic manager), Isabelle (Chinese cross cultural consultant) and I received so many compliments by the end of the week. That was just great. The managers also made their own report on this week which you can find on the http://dnm141.blogspot.com/. In this report I hope you can read their enthusiasm between the lines (it's in Dutch).

During the trip I’ve seen so many interesting things. A few of the high lights for me personally where the visit to (1) the Silk Factory on Thursday in Jia Xing, (2) the Creative discussion meeting I organized with PlusEightStar and (3) our visit to the Deputy President of ZhongGuanCun. The Silk Factory was placed on a huge terrain with multiple factories – I was exposed to big hallways full of noisy machines and literally hundreds of workers producing the most beautiful fabrics. ("Twente" in the 21st century I think). The Creative Discussion meeting with PlusEightStar was an great event with 40-50 attendants and it gave me a good starting point in the network of Creative entrepreneurial people in Beijing - want to see if I can create connections between this starting network in Beijing and the Creative community in Shanghai.

The visit to the management of the ZhongGuanCun was fascinating. It was a very official meeting and we were with a delegation on twenty people. When you’re with a big group a lot of things are going very different compared to when you visit just them by yourself. It gives it a very official feeling, and this is also the way in which the Chinese view such a group. I feel this is a great experience to have, to get a better understanding of the way China works. It was very nice that Isabelle was there to share her remarks and insights to gain an understanding for the group, but also for me personally.

It’s already very late, so quickly to bed. After tomorrow another new period in Shanghai will start with: (1) a trip to Thailand, (2) the visit of Harry Starren, CEO of de Baak, to Shanghai (mid-May), and (3) the feasibility study of my project with the Consulate. Further personally I want to keep my focus on my developments in Chinese and music. I have no clue how I can manage it all, but I will pull it off in the end, I’m sure.