Chinawhite

Have had an amazing 2 days, and finally started achieving what I came out here for, the problem is that a lot of it is commercially sensitive stuff, but I'll try and give you a summary:

Wednesday 21st September:

9am = Breakfast Meeting with a New York Private Equity guy who is looking at investments and was in China for dot com part 1 as such, very interesting talking to him and getting his thoughts on what "his kind" are thinking when it comes to China. He pays for Breakfast.

11am = Meet the CEO and President of a Chinese contextual/behavioral marketing company doing some pretty funky stuff with an impressive Client and Partner list, both are EX Silicon Valley guys and speak fluent Chinese and more importantly are doing Business the Chinese way, the way it should be done here, They pay for lunch.

3pm = Meeting with the VP of a an incubator in Shanghai, tells me that he is getting cold called by at least 10 foreign VCs a week looking at pumping money in, and also trying to get local knowledge, shows me some of the stuff they are involved in and I leave suitably impressed. Seriously connected on the ground.

5pm = meeting Cancelled due to heavy rain and NO taxis.

7pm = Get picked up by an UNlicensed taxi driver in Shanghai and I have to dive out whilst he is driving at 5 mph or so, nutter wanted to charge me 10 X the going rate, must think I am a bloody Laowai "Wo Jiao Shak, Wo Shi Ying Guo Ren"

8pm = Dinner at a real nice Middle Eastern restuarant where we sit on cushions and eat like they would in Lebanon, great food followed by smoking of the peace pipe, meeting is with 3 guys who have been here for a few years chasing the dragon, sorry dream I mean. They all say the same thing "Check Please"

11pm = Get dragged to MINT nightclub as it's ladies night and and I have a meeting with someone who has a business idea and needs some advice on how to market this to the West via the Web, 1 thing leads to another and I leave at 2am.

2.30 am = Bed

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Thursday 22nd September

5.30am = Alarm goes off and I feel like death warmed up

6.05am = In Taxi on way to Airport

8.00am = Flight to Xiamen for an all day meeting.

10am > 5.30pm = In a meeting with an SEM company with 3000 sub agents underneath them, I learn more about search and distribution of the likes of BAIDU, Yahoo, 3721 then I have read in any S1 statement, meeting includes lunch which was very interesting shall we say "1000 year old eggs" and various other things which were looking back and winking at me.

6.30pm = Flight Back

9pm = Stop off for a Pizza

10pm > Midnite = Dealing with emails ...

and you lot think all i do is hang out in Starbucks.

I am so TIRED .......