Hong Kong: experiencing the VISA run

At my good friend Theo’s house in Hong Kong I am writing this blogpost. I flew here today, because as I’ve written in my last blog I encountered some Visa-problems in Shanghai. My Visa was expired today and as I only heard five days ago that my application for renewal was refused there was no option for me, but to leave the country. Due to Harry’s stay in Shanghai last week I had not enough time to find alternative solutions. I just arrived a few hours ago in Hong Kong and tomorrow I am going to explore the answers to my Visa-problem. It is actually not bad to be back in Hong Kong again although it was unexpected. It is a great and dynamic city and of course my good friend Theo lives here, so I am not frustrated and enjoy the moment. However this Visa-case makes it clear that we need to get an official status as De Baak in China as soon as possible to make sure this won’t happen again. The time is right now too, because during last week when Harry was here we developed big plans for the Baak in China.

Harry’s stay in Shanghai was great, because it gave him an opportunity to see what is going on here in China and get a feel for the projects that we can develop here. For me it was good, because it gave me the commitment from the Netherlands to really start to get thing ‘on the roll here’. We will intensive the trips from Holland to China, the project with the Consulate will be realized, next to that we will develop a program on ‘Doing Business in China’ for managers, and lastly we will be a partner in the organization of the Dutch Design Expo in October in Shanghai. So there are many interested things planned for the coming months. I am very excited.

A few of the highlights of last week were eating with the CEO’s of the Dutch multinationals, a dinner at the Consuls home with a group of successful Dutch entrepreneurs, a visit to the Chinese Executive Leadership Academy Pudong, a session some key players on the Dutch Creative industry in China and a diner with two Chinese Dutch entrepreneurs that want de Baak to facilitate trips for Chinese entrepreneurs to introduce them to the Netherlands/Europe. So, it was business wise an important week for me. Further the week was personally also very good, because Angie came back to Shanghai. She will stay now in Shanghai until September, which makes me happy (expecting to also be allowed to come back to the country). The weekend was also quite social with drinks on Thursday, Friday and Saturday (there are so many nice people in Shanghai). To summarize it all, I was a great week with Harry, very happy to have seen Angie again, and got a visa-problem that made me fly to HK. To plans for me are to enjoy HK for a few days and then go back Home to Shanghai.