Family Dinner

The VP of our partner bank invited BF, RW, WL, and me to dinner with his family. He and his family are from Henan province and moved to Beijing in 2006 like we did. He hosted us at the Henan provincial headquarter restaurant (Yu Fu Shen Chu in the Shang Du Hotel) in Beijing. The food and company was fantastic. We even had some local Henan musical entertainment (pictured above with entertainers) which was a very nice surprise.

Advisory Board Meeting #3

Executive Management came to Beijing this week for a number of meetings with our prospective business partner. The last time they were in Beijing was on April 29th.

On Wednesday we held our third joint credit card advisory board meeting. The meeting was scheduled for 2+ hours. It started with a nice draft video that the partner did on the evolution of the credit card business and the cooperation between the two organizations. Then two of JPM board advisors were presented with live plastics from our inaugural credit card product in China. I then presented the status of the credit card business and thoughts on strategic direction for profitiability. The Executives then had a discussion about transition plans (without me in the room. . . . . yahoo).

Later in the day we had an update on the status of the international business, JPM, and the Card business in the US. Then a nice dinner at the Ritz Carlton.

July 4th in Beijing

July 4th was just another work day in Beijing. BF and I did go to Tim's Texas BBQ for a good old American dinner and then off for a foot massage. Trying to get a taxi was quite an event since it was raining so hard. We had a hard time getting back to the apartment with street flooding near our apartment.

Saturday Test of FengTai Systems

I went in on a Saturday to the FengTai operations center to watch the data entry and card production process.

Credit Card Grand Opening Celebration

The two teams had a celebration for the grand opening of the Credit Card business on June 2, 2008. The party was hosted by our Chinese partner and was a fun affair near Ritan Park. The host of the party was VP Lv. Speeches were given by me, our JPM investment banker and the President of the partner bank. We had a great Chinese dinner and a cake cutting ceremony.

I called in sick that day as it was the fourth day of a severe soar throat and slight fever. I went to the SOS Clinic to get tested for Strep throat. The good news was no Strep but the bad news was a virus that would have to run it's course. My voice was shot.

There were some frantic calls to my house to get me to come to the event even for a few minutes. So as not to disrupt all the planning that had been done, I went to the event.

I was encouraged to drink Moutai as a remedy. My concern was replacing a soar throat with a headache. The drinking was getting a little out of hand and I don't remember how many toasts were done. The good news is the night was done by 8:30pm. I suffered no headache but my soar throat continues.

The Minister even made and effort to make a brief visit with the team:

Visiting the CITC Office

MF and BF came by the CITC office to say hi.

Another New Experience

We experienced another first today while living in China. I was on the 28th floor of our office building in the Central Business District in Beijing in the middle of a 2:30 pm meeting with a work colleague. I thought I was fainting and my colleague was looking at me strangely confirming that something was wrong with me. My only thought was not to pass out or vomit. Then I noticed the lights and the window shades were swaying. I then realized that our whole building was moving back and forth.

My first thought was that nearby construction had caused this or faulty construction of the building was going to result in a catastrophe. We all exited the building through the stairwell. I left me coat, mobile phone, and blackberry and exited quickly. The building was still moving while getting to about the 25th floor. Everyone was very orderly exiting in the stairwells.

We all gathered on the side walk across the street, then decided to move further away from the building. After some discussion and consultation with the blackberry we realized we had just experienced an earthquake. One earthquake was 7.8 and centered in Sichuan Province where the Three Gorges Dam is located on the Yangtze (950 miles from Beijing). Another one was a 3.9 which was centered in Tongzhou District in east Beijing at roughly the same time.

After 10 or 15 minutes on the side walk, a fight broke out and was coming our way. We noticed that 6 or 7 men were chasing another man. They knocked him to the ground and then began stomping him. The attackers ran off and the man got up and began calling on his mobile phone and was looking for his attackers who scattered. It was very difficult to tell what was going on and why the man was attacked.

We returned to the building after about an hour with no aftershocks felt. Another life experience in China............

Chinese Nationalism Going Too Far?

I apologize in advance and you can skip this entry if you are not interested in the political situation in China. It is something that is real for me here. It is a very different way of viewing things and cannot be taken lightly when you have to work with the Chinese government every day.

The Communist Party is starting to be concerned about the protesting and anti-west sentiment. The government has concerns that this could impact the Olympics as well as could get out of control and the protests turn to other issues in China. Here is a good Wall Street Jounral article that points out the issues concerning the Communist Party.

The Chinese government is moving to tamp down nationalistic anger over Western criticism of Beijing's policies in Tibet.
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and JULIET YE in Hong Kong, and LORETTA CHAO in BeijingApril 24, 2008; Page A6

In the latest sign, authorities informed participants in a major music festival that the event would likely be postponed to avoid providing a venue for new demonstrations of patriotic or anti-Western sentiment. Already, they have been cracking down on student protests and online videos of demonstrations have disappeared from Chinese Web sites.

It is a familiar pattern: Chinese nationalism rears up, sometimes with what seems to be tacit government backing, only to get reined in before it threatens to spin out of control -- in this case, before it can mar preparations for the summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

At Nanjing Normal University, researcher Guo Quan says counselors have been told to "manage student sentiment." On Monday, he says, universities around China were told by the central government to stop all protests.
Such fervor that has generated protests against French retailer Carrefour SA in nine cities and cyberattacks on American media.

"The Chinese government is trying to cool patriotic fervor now, because it believes that it has already achieved the desired goal: to tell the world that Chinese are protesting against the French," says Mr. Guo. "We're in a time when there are lots of other social problems such as a troublesome stock market, and rocketing commodity prices might drive people's anger to a larger scale."

The student crackdown appears to be particularly strong in the city of Hefei, in the eastern province of Anhui, where on Saturday, thousands protested outside a Carrefour store near the city's university district, waving red flags and chanting "love China, boycott Carrefour." On Sunday, universities there suspended classes and asked students to stay on campus, students say.

The Communist Youth League, a division of the Communist Party with a big presence on Chinese campuses, has been arranging meetings and distributing propaganda to calm nationalistic sentiment, say students. The Anhui branch of the Communist Youth League declined to answer questions.

"The atmosphere here on campus is a bit intense at this moment," said a Ph.D. student surnamed Shen from Hefei's China Technology and Science University. "Those who went out for the weekend protest were called for a talk in counselors' office this week," she said.
Some Chinese have reported difficulty sending text messages such as "boycott Carrefour" and "don't shop at Carrefour" on the cellular network run by China Mobile Ltd., the country's largest cellphone carrier. Rainie Lei, a spokeswoman for China Mobile, said the company wasn't blocking any such messages.

In Beijing, participants in the Midi Music Festival that had been scheduled to start May 1 were informed on Wednesday that the event likely will be postponed to October due to safety concerns. Zhang Fan, the festival's director, said he thinks the authorities are "afraid that the participating music fans and young people will conduct Tibetan or anti-West" demonstrations.
Last month, Icelandic singer Björk declared "Tibet! Tibet!" at a concert in Shanghai, embarrassing authorities.

"It's very regrettable," said Mr. Zhang, who noted that some foreign bands are already in China for the show. "Midi is a very good opportunity to show the world that Chinese society is happy, equal and free. Western media always says China suppresses people, but Midi shows that China's young people are so happy, so looking forward to welcoming the Olympics."

Kou Zhengyu, a guitarist who planned to play at the Midi festival, said while he felt "music has nothing to do with politics," he also "could understand the government decision. The government must worry about the safety issue."

After initially trying to play down coverage of Olympics torch-relay protests in London and Paris, the Chinese government went on a public relations offensive. Jin Jing, a wheelchair-bound torch bearer in Paris who was attacked by a protester, became a Chinese hero. An April 11 editorial by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said "Chinese people are seriously disturbed and hurt" by the incident involving Ms. Jin. French President Nicolas Sarkozy later apologized to Ms. Jin personally over the matter.

Some Chinese started calling for a boycott on French products, and in particular Carrefour, which has a significant presence in China.

But late last Thursday, the government's rhetoric began to change, with a call from Xinhua for "patriotic zeal to concentrate on development."

A news editor at Phoenix Television, a Hong Kong-based Chinese news broadcaster with ties to Beijing, said news, pictures and video of the anti-Carrefour protests weren't allowed on air. Xinhua reports said the protests were targeted against "Tibet independence," not against foreigners. (News Corp., owner of The Wall Street Journal, owns a minority stake in Phoenix.)
China has periodically seen major student outbursts of patriotism. In 1999, after the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed by a North Atlantic Treaty Organization mission, students across China engaged in occasionally violent protests against "American hegemony." (NATO contends the bombing was accidental.) After a few days, during which students vented their anger, the government told the students to stop protesting and go back to school.

This time, China can't afford to let the backlash continue too long without poisoning the atmosphere for the Beijing Olympics, which is just over 100 days away. The event is expected to bring throngs of visitors to China, including 25,000 foreign journalists.

Nationalism and sports have proven to be a volatile mix before in China. After a 2004 Asian Cup soccer final between China and Japan held at Beijing's Workers' Stadium, hundreds of Chinese fans rioted, throwing bottles and yelling at police. China had lost the game 3 to 1.

Another factor that separates the recent spate of nationalism from past student uprisings is the Internet, now a major cultural force in the lives of young Chinese people. According to official Chinese data, the country has more than 210 million Internet users, the majority of whom are under the age of 30.

The Internet developed into a significant platform for organizing protests and venting anger with foreign attitudes toward China. Users created countless patriotic videos detailing the crimes of the West against China. Millions of people using the MSN messaging program promoted their patriotism by adding a heart symbol and "China" next to their names.

There have been some efforts in recent days to curtail online displays of nationalism. Some videos of the Carrefour protests available earlier on sites such as Tudou.com are now gone. A Tudou spokesman declined to comment, but Chinese Internet-media companies routinely remove content that violates their antiviolence or antipornography-service agreements, or which they feel may be objectionable to the government.

Moreover, some Chinese hackers who had planned a significant attack on the Web site of Time Warner Inc.'s CNN, a major source of nationalistic resentment over its coverage of the recent unrest in Tibet, appear to have withdrawn. While CNN.com did experience an attack that affected users in Asia last Friday, hacker Web sites in China had promised much more.The posts by some organizers of the attack calling for disbandment have an edge of "fear" to them, says Scott Henderson, author of the book Dark Visitor, about Chinese hackers. One in particular "could not have added many more exclamation points in his announcement," he said. "It was a 'PLEASE DO NOT HACK!!!!!!!!!' sort of plea."

Pollution

I was beginning to actually think air quality was getting better about a week or two ago. We saw quite a few "blue sky" days. Then over the last few days it has been quite "yuckky". A colleague at work took a picture outside our office just to show the contrast that one day can make. Keep in mind the smoggy day picture is actually a color photo.

Two-Year Anniversary

Valentine's Day commemorates the two-year anniversary for me and my colleagues in Beijing working with our partner on a credit card business. It all began at a dinner the night we first landed in Beijing. We went to a restaurant called A Fun Ti. We celebrated last year our first anniversary. We won't be celebrating the second anniversary as the Chinese New Year is getting in the way.

First Advisory Board Meeting

We held our inaugural credit card advisory board meeting between JPM and our partner on January 30, 2008. This was a very special occasion for both organizations. Many resolutions were passed including who the senior management would be. I was appointed the general manager (but for our partner since I am not an employee, I am still a special advisor). This was done with an official offer letter and a presentation by the Chairman of the Advisory Board.
I also gave a presentation on our business plan. The whole meeting was done with simultaneous transalation. The meeting went very well, buy the equipment was a challenge at times. Now lets see how things progress between the two organizations.................

New Milestone

We moved into our new office space in Beijing. We had a nice celebration to commemorate the event on December 10th.

The commute now only takes me 15 minutes in the morning instead of 35-45. Going home is another story after 5:30. Traffic can be very unpredictable in the short distance (at least 30+ minutes). I think it takes just under an hour if I were to walk home so maybe that will be one of my alternatives. There is the subway but takes a number of connections and still a bit of a walk.

Holiday in Beijing

The work team got together at the new Goose and Duck for a holiday get-together. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend as a Director at JPM was her in Beijing for meetings during that time. I understand the new G&D is a Chinese version of Dave & Busters but not in a good location.

Democracy the Chinese Way

A company in China is taking a chapter out of former GE chairman Jack Welch's business manual and going a step further. Can you imagine if this policy were implemented at your place of work. Maybe this is just China's version of democracy in the workplace.........

Unpopularity contest stirs company waters

(China Daily)Updated: 2007-12-11 09:15

A company in Laixi, Shandong Province, is planning to hold an unpopularity contest to identify the three least-liked people in the office. They will be fired next year.

One employee told reporters that he would nominate people he disliked, not people who were bad at their jobs. Another worker, surnamed Zhang, said he was concerned his name would appear on the list since his boss often praises him for his diligence, much to the dismay of his envious colleagues.

Officials from a local social security bureau are investigating the situation and said the contest is probably unfair and possibly illegal.

Observers wonder whether the boss should worry - his name could end up on the list.

(Bandao Metropolitan News)

Senior Management Meetings

We had senior management visit us in Beijing for the early part of the week. Here is a candid picture at the St Regis restaurant, Danieli's:

Visit from HQ

It was nice to have a visit with our boss from HQ in Wilmington. He brought his lovely wife with him. We were able to visit from October 16th to the 21st. We were able to share a few things of the Beijing/Chinese culture with them, like the Great Wall, good food and shopping just to name a few.

Local Incorporation

We celebrated the formation of our local incorporation in China. This is a wholesale banking operation in Mainland China which now allows us to do business in the local currency (RMB). The celebration was attended by a couple hundred clients and employees at the Red Gate Gallery of teh Dongbianmen Watchtower. It was a beautiful night with great local entertainment, dinner, and cocktails.

Karaoke

One of the events we hosted for CB's going away was a Karaoke event with our new friends from Beijing. The event was also for SL as he will leave us at the end of the month, but we will have more time to celebrate with him.

The event was very much appreciated by our Chinese friends. They really enjoyed the evening and their were some excellent singers in the group.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/560188915iYCoPv

Happy 4th of July and 400 Days to Go

It is Independence Day in the US and just another normal day in China. SL brought in an American-made US flag. We just had to hang it and take a picture.

We did have a nice hamburger at Friday's during their "I Love NY promotion". Not quite a picnic on the 4th of July, but a good substitute.

We also stopped at DQ for a Blizzard (wanted to expose our Chinese co-workers to some more American "culture"). We talked about all the different kinds of candies and cookies you could get mixed into the ice cream. Good idea but JLo went with the Green Tea flavor (mixed in "green" powder).

It has also been 50 days since I reported on "the Countdown". The Beijing Olympic countdown clock is now at 400 days. Another counter we are keeping from the local paper is the number of week (57 more weeks). So what has happened over the last 50 days?.................... There are so many things:

• We enjoyed the graduation of our last child, albeit in China (fabulous ceremony including fireworks...can you imagine that in China).


• Both of our current college students were able to visit us in Beijing. We really enjoyed sharing our temporary home with them.


• We visited Tibet which was a once in a life experience that we will never forget in our lifetime.


• BF, AF and MF were able to go back to the US to enjoy a wedding for BF's niece in Milwaukee.


• AF went on a great school trip to Guilin, PRC (BF and I hope to visit sometime while in China.


• We have become empty-nesters (this is a big change and is especially hard being in a foreign country, sorry BF).


• From a work perspective, there have been many changes to the organization back in the US.