Rebuilding Shanghai for the World Expo – Help, noise everywhere!

I’m writing this form a coffee bar close to my house. I’ve escaped my house, which has been turned in to a complete chaos, since the last few days. A huge renovation in my housing block has started and will last for three months - aaaargh! The outside of the house will be done, but also inside will be the necessary changes. Next to that our nextdoor neighbors (two nice American guys) have moved. The new Chinese couple that will live there is now completly rebuilding the apartment (which makes the noise surrounding us even worse). As you can read I'm not happy with this, especially because I have been working from home mostly since I’m here. Thank god, I made some deals now with other people/organisations that I use their offices once a week – so together with the coffee bar, appointments outside I try to limit my time at home. Further Eddie is moving out (he was a great neighbor), something I start to think about moving out myself too. However all the hassle of moving houses (including finding one) also doesn’t seem very appealing to me.

Also when I’m outside the amount of construction workers seem to double each week. Every street is open, houses are renovated everywhere, subway lines are build etc. etc. I guess next year Shanghai will be totally ready to welcome the world, but it seems there are a lot of last minute changes to be made – what to do? Just hope to get used to the noise and other disturbances.

My work is going ok, but find myself to have many different projects whit no quick deadlines, so I am working on all these things the same time, and that is sometimes not easy. Further I'm looking out to create clear agreements with a company/organization with which to integrate my activities for ‘de Baak’, else we will have to set up our own ‘real’ office here and that will definitely costs a significant amount of money and time. So the strategy is to link my activities to an existing company here. I’m talking with multiple possible candidates and no clear decisions have been made. I have to start to hurry a little, because on the 16th of August I will fly back to Holland and than it has to be arranged. Next to all this long term activities I made an outline for a Chinese group that want to visit the Netherlands in the fall of 2009, and finally also made a next step with the Entrepreneurship-program (maybe a content overview and timetable). I need to communicate more and more with the Baak in the Netherlands which is good, but also I find long distance communication sometimes difficult. Keep it together and slowly progressing (Shanghai wasn’t builds in a day – it goes fast, but everything takes time).

Musically I gave my last shows with the current band formation, one last show was last Sunday (in Jz again). However yesterday we played at Mario’s (new Sax-player) birthday party (he has definitely the most beautiful apartment I ever entered in Shangai (expect for the Consuls home maybe, which was also amazingly nice). It was a nice party and with the people staying we are quite determined to keep the playing level up high. And last week I also sing some songs with Angie at home (she has a beautiful voice). She just got a new job for a company selling classes on Chinese language and culture… we try to speak Chinese three days a week now, but this is difficult to maintain, because even though all the studying hours, I keep missing out a lot.

The summer has totally started and it's bloody hot!

My parents in town for a week, rain season and blocked sites.

At Rosalie’s and Michiels house, and outside it is rainy very very heavily. The rain season has started in Shanghai. Looking outside you can’t see further that one block of houses. It will be this weather for a month I've heared (nice!). My parents had very nice weather during their stay in Shanghai, so they were really blessed. It was very great to show them around town (although parts of the trip - they were only accompanied by Angie, because I had some meetings or other work activities). We did very nice things: visit the Shanghai Aquarium (biggest in the world), walk on the Lupu bridge (with view over the Expo-terrain), sightseeing in the French Concession (always nice), great dinners (incl. one were Eddie played the piano)… etc. etc. My parents loved Shanghai and a week was far too short, but that’s life. They also got along really well with Angie, pfff. During the weekend we went to Hangzhou with the four of us. Hangzhou is famous for its West Lake, which is amazingly beautiful. This was the second time I went here, but enjoyed it even more. I can recommend it to you all.

The work for the Baak is going well. I have enough projects to keep myself very busy, but also feel I will have a little more time this summer to create more structure in the things that I’m doing here. Yesterday I had a meeting with DiPauLi to discuss about the possibilities to bring a group of Chinese business man to the Netherlands. They would like to go by the end of 2009. This would be great for my colleagues in Holland, so the can feel the dynamics China brings to you, very well. I hope we can realize it that quick. The vibes in the Netherlands concerning China are growing and growing, last week there was a very successful event in Amsterdam in which the Old-consulate-general Jochem Haakma was the main speaker: http://www.debaak.nl/en/events/theartofleadingin. Four times a year there will be a China-event in collaboration with Pakhuis de Zwijger. Check it out, if you have the chance.

Not much progression for me personally on the music level. Next to the band I haven’t been able to study the bass guitar the last weeks and Jim (Sax) and JP (Vocal) are leaving Shanghai. Yesterday we had the goodbye party of Jim and JP is leaving by the end of the month. Tomorrow I’ll have two gigs and next weekend also one, but after that the band will have its summer break until September. Keep you posted … since the Chinese government wants to prevent unwanted discussions these days all the blog-sites and Twitter is shot down here in China. So only when I use a special internet tool I can reach my own blog (not very convenient, but what can you do?). Also I heard they are going to renovate my house (the whole apartment block), starting this week and will last for 3 months (ai, what to do?). Angie started a job as a waitress, but doesn’t like it very much (hope she can find something better, what can you do?)…. So you see there are some rainy bits here, but also a lot of sunshine.