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January 28, 2006
Google and censorship in China - Yaaawn
On my last trip to UK everyone was asking if my cough was bad as a result of the Bird Flu, and switching on any TV station had headlines of how everyone in China was catching Bird Flu (slightly exaggerated).
So on this latest trip back to the UK has a similar slant, but this time it's by people jumping on the Google censors in China bandwagon, and these are people who never seem to have anything positive to say about China in the 1st place.
I don't wish to get political here, but can I just say "Get over it folks, the world doesn't revolve around what the West thinks is democracy", firstly half the pople commenting don't even actually understand what has taken place and combine that with their blinkered view of China as a whole and you are heading for a bashing for sure.
The guys over at Danwei as always have some great posts on the topic and I suggest you go read them instead.
and as for democracy and freedom, that I will be posting about in my next post in a few days, sharing my wonderful experience of coming back to a so a called civilised society.
Posted by shak at 4:29 AM | Comments (1)
January 26, 2006
China Search Marketing Tour 2006 - SES China (Nanjing)
Even though I said NO more specific search news, this event is a must for anyone thinking of coming to SES China in the city of Nanjing.
The China Search Marketing Tour is business-focused,
providing participants with cultural, social, economic and
political orientations in China. Various business
briefings, receptions and banquets will lay the
foundation for valuable business opportunities and
unforgettable cultural experiences for all attendees. Visit
the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and other exciting
places in China.
Seems like a great trip combining business and pleasure.
I hope to be back in China by 1st of March so may see some of you there.
Posted by shak at 12:18 PM | Comments (1)
January 25, 2006
Happy Chinese New Year - I'm off to London
Blimey, time flies when you are having fun, it's 8.20am and my flight leaves for London in a few hours to home sweet home as such.
Can I wish everyone out there a Happy Chinese New Year, don't drink too much Baijo or Burp too quitely, enjoy yourselves.
I hope to be back at the end of February for a 3-4 month stay.
London should be fun as it consists of 5 weeks of SOLID work every day, but I am sure it'll be worth it in the end.
Adios Amigos
Posted by shak at 8:20 AM | Comments (1)
January 23, 2006
Only in China - 36 Hours of Chaos
So there I am Sunday morning at 8.30am asleep in my bed in Shanghai ...
9am >>> Wake Up
9.30am >>> Take Taxi to airport, Taxi driver decides he is Schumacher's chinese cousin and drives like a lunatic (considering every taxi driver drives like a lunatic which I now accept as normal, this was really was a lunatic)
10.05am >>> arrive at Airport
12 noon >>> Plane finally takes off, so we are already running late by an hour.
2.30pm >>> arrive in Shenzhen airport in Southern China
2.40pm >>> I go to buy a ferry ticket for my journey to Hong Kong, they don't accept credit cards and I am short of cash, so I go to 3 ATMs in Airport and 2 branches, NO CASH left.
3pm >>> AAARRRGGGHHHHHH,,,
3.10pm >>> After using all my Boyish Charm and some, plus a nice gift for the lovely female police officer who has decided that she will gladly listen to my broken Chinese finally resolves ina direct order to ticket clerk to issue me a ticket whilst accepting 4 different currencies from me.
5pm >>> I arrive in Hong Kong, and proceed to my Hotel, only to find out that they have booked me in the wrong Novotel and I need to be on the other side of the Island.
6pm >>> meeting starts and carries on till 11.45pm
Midnite >>> I call 2 of my friends in Hong Kong just to say HI, and both of them seem to be in places with lost of people and loud music and they persuade me to go down hang out with them.
12.30am >>> I am in a club called DROP with some crazy people including 2 mexican tax (evasion) lawyers, some Californian guy who is double ended toothpaste (different flavours for morning and nite) and various other crazy people.
4am >>> decide to leave and find a great kebab place where the staff speak Punjabi, same as I do.
5am >>> finally get to sleep.
7am >>> wake up
9am >>> leave Hotel for a meeting, but NO taxis, aaaargghhhh
9.30am >>> finally make meetings after walking for 20 minutes.
12.45 pm >>> Depart Hong Kong via speedboat from China.
1.50pm >>> arrive in Shenzhen port and am convinced I am carrying a fake passport as 3 Chinese immigration guys decide that the picture on the passport is NOT me ?
2.10pm >>> They finally decide to let me enter the Country, strange as I only left China 24 hours ago and my passport in covered in Chinese entry/exit stamps.
6pm >>> finally board flight which is 2 hours late
8pm >>> arrive in Shanghai
9pm >>> arrive home and dying for a cup of tea, to realise there is NO milk in the apartment.
I dont know whether I should laugh or cry, as the above was very mentally draining but very exciting at the same time, and ultimately one has to experience this stuff to survive in this country.
I must say the usa of my broken mandaring and light hearted humour got me back or I have NO idea where I would have been right now.
Oh well, back to the UK in 2 days :)
Posted by shak at 9:51 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2006
Soup or Hand Wash ?
A few months ago when I first arrived in China, I was taken to lunch by a senior guy at eBay China as we had some mutual friends back in the USA and Hong Kong.
Anyway, we meet and the guy takes me to this real nice Chinese Noodle Place in the same Plaza as their China HQ next to People's Square in a compalex called Raffles City.
The restaurant looks very nice and comfortable and I order "Spicy Sichaun Chicken" and he orders "Stir fry Something" ...
The meal arrives and it looks delicious and we dig in, about 5 minutes later the waitress (xiaojie) brings a bowl of warm/hot liquid with some lemon shreddings to me, this is quite common in China when you are eating food where your hands need a good wash afterwards, especially when easting prawns/shrimps etc.
So I finish my meal and wash my hands and say my goodbye etc etc.
Fast Forward >>>> to last weekend.
My flatmate Johan and I are just done having a workout in the Gym and I suggest we should go have lunch at the same place as the food was pretty good and it's not too far away from our gym, so off we go in a taxi and arrive at destination.
I choose same dish again "Spicy Sichuan Chicken" and he does the same on my recommendation, food subsequently arrives just like last time and then 5 minutes later the Bowl for the Hand Wash arrives.
Johan then asks for a spoon, and the Xiaojie brings 2 spoons, 1 for him and 1 for me, at this stage I am wondering I am missing something here.
He then proceeds to Drink the Handwash from the bowl with the Spoon whilst I am looking on in Shock, he notices this and says "What's so funny", I reply "You are drinking Hand Wash, not Soup" :)
Now Johan jas been here for a couple of years and is a bit of China expert and frankly speaking, if it wasn't for him advising and guiding me on the correct path here, I would have escaped a long time ago.
So to settle the matter and an excuse as always to practice my Chinese, I call the waitress over and ask "Excuse me, what is this", at which stage she looks at Johan and I and replies ... "SOUP"
So there you have it, I sat infront of a senior guy at eBay and washed my ahnds in a bowl of Soup without him twitching an eyelid, and on our many subsequent meetings he never mentioned anything.
"Mr, Noles, how could you ?"
anyway it's 8.30am and I am off back to Bed, as Germany's leading SEO decided to wake me up at 6.45am via cellphone to ask the distance between Shanghai > Hong Kong via air! (am still working out how I am gonna get him back for this)
Posted by shak at 6:16 AM | Comments (4)
January 17, 2006
All Change round here
So 2006 has started and everybody is back to work judging ny the long hours I see folks logged on their MSN and Gtalk accounts.
As for me, I have decided to get OUT of the www/online business for 2006 and do some other stuff for the next 12 months.
Considering ONLINE is all I have done since Feb 2000 it seems a bit weird moving away from this industry.
However having spent a total of around 5 months in 2005 in China looking at a number of opportunities for myself and others along with having met 100s of people in this industry in China has led me to make this decision based on the fact that IN MY OPINION the opportunities currently in China simply aren't there right now.
What I see around me is a lot of "Smoke and Mirrors" activity taking place, and I think sooner or later somebody is going to get their fingers burnt, and frankly speaking, I'd rather watch from the sidelines than be putting the fire out.
A lot of western companies are pumping big dollar to be a name in China like they are back home without actually understanding any concept of what the web is about in China, below is an example:
A very large USA based hosting company's head of China has spent a total of 6 days here, and had NO idea about any of the following: Chinese Firewall, Business License for doing business here, Currency control and how online payment works, her only criteria was that she was a semi-hot Asian chick who spoke worse Mandarin than me.
This is just a simple example of the kinda stuff you see here on a daily basis and it's growing day by day.
Without sounding harsh, The INTERNET is closed for business in China unless you happen to be Chinese or have very strong business relationships here.
(hence why the YAHOO and AliBaba deal in my opinion is the perfect scenario, as Yahoo made the aboslute right decision based on current market conditions)
Now I am sure things are moving at a rapid pace, but for the sort of stuff I have been doing over the last 5 years, there really isn't anything worth writing home about.
I could spend all day here writing about This That and the other, but I wont waste your time.
Considering I came here to be a "Man on The Ground in China", that's what I internet to do for the rest of 2006, and below is what/where I am at present.
Mandarin Lessons daily with the new teacher are making all the difference, and I can now hold a basic conversation which is making life so much easier, Language here is the key as it makes ALL the difference from simple daily tasks to dealing with Laoban's (bosses) at big companies, anyone who comes to China and doesn't want to learn Mandarin should be sent straight home.
I am gonna keep watching the Internet stuff here from the sideline, and as I hang out with quite a few of the Chinese VC and Web crowd, this should still allow me to have a grasp on where things are headed.
Still gonna be a "Man on the Ground", just in a different area, and current projects I am working on include:
Sourcing Highest quality Poker Chips for a leading European Online Poker store (Have already managed to cut their purchase cost by 35% and they were actually buying from China before).
Sourcing Corporate Gifts on behalf of 1 of Scandinavia's largest Corporate Gift Suppliers, hey are currently buying 1 container a month and want to increase this by 300%
Setting up a JV with some friends back home to export highest quality Display equipment from China for resale in Europe.
Helping a very large European VITAMIN manufacturer with production facilities find new partners in the West who want to launch their own brand of Products using the same OEM products that major Health Food chains are using.
China is made for guys like me, even though I say it myself, you have to see your opportunity and then go with it, doing the above is giving me a whole new insight into business is actually done in China, rather than the BULLxxxx taking place in VC meetings in Shanghai.
So I hope I can end 2006 with the following:
Good Spoken Mandarin
Monthly paypacket from a number of projects currently incvolved in.
Much better understanding of Business and mentality of the Chinese.
As for the blog, changes round here aswell, getting up at 5am and going to visit factories leaves very little free time, however I will update as and when I can, but NO more JUST Alibab or Baidu stories :)
And if you are interested in sourcing anything from China, feel free to give me a shout, however let me clarify that I only take on about 1 in 10 projects that I am pitched, as most people don't honestly what they want from China and I have NO desire to be their low paid research assistant.
Actually I think I have a good system now, whereby I charge a minimum daily amount for the research into the project, and then this is refundable on first order, this eliminates the timewasters and tyre kickers out there. my email as always is shakil.khan AT gmail.com should you need to make contact.
I will be back in UK from 26th Jan > End of FEB, so may see some of you there.
adios amigos
Posted by shak at 5:39 AM | Comments (6)
January 15, 2006
The Best Holiday ever
30th Dec > 6th January was by far the best holiday ever for me, and this picture should give you a clue to what I mean:
The journey started at Shanghai's Pudong Airport > Bangkok > Koh Samed Island > Bangkok and back to Shanghai.
I think I along with a lot of other people have or had this igorant view of thailand being full of GoGo Bars and Tuk-Tuk's everywhere, and that is so far from the truth, NOT mentioning the fact that even Shanghai seems very expensive compared to most things bought in Thailand.
Some of the Bangkok highlights included watching Thia Boxing from the Ringside, my 3 friends doing a SEGWAY tour of Bangkok, Celebrating the New Year countdown at Bed Supperclub, finding the best ever Donner Kebab place in Asia, and a ride on the back of a Motorway to an urgent meeting for 4 of us which I can safely say is the most frightening thing I have ever done.
The Koh Samed highlights include going to a beach for the first time in Asia, Chilling by the Beach at night, Me choosing a paradise Island for Honeymooning couples by mistake as we were like the only single guys there and returning home in the early hours without keys was not fun.
Here is another picture which sums it up:
and these are links which you may find handy:
President Solitaire Serviced Apartments
Muay Thai Boxing
Bed Supper Club
Lima Coco Resort
Posted by shak at 6:27 AM | Comments (1)
January 6, 2006
Back from Holiday
Sorry for not posting lately, just got back from a holiday which I will blog about in next day or two.
Posted by shak at 4:59 PM