The Olympics

Many of you have asked if I'm heading to the Olympics. The simple answer is no. While I had originally thought it would be great I believe now it would be a challenge. First off you already have 1.3 billion people here! The local demand for tickets is so high that the web sites created to purchase tickets keep crashing!

The other thing that is making the Olympics and just living here in general interesting is the challenges in Tibet. I will try and outline here.

My boss flew over from Chicago a couple weeks back sitting next to the CFO Asia for a major brewery in the states. This guy said that they knew there were problems in Tibet 3-4 months before the actual news broke. He pulled out his computer and showed graphs of sales. 3-4 months back they totally started to nose dive! The unrest had begun but it hadn’t gotten publicity yet. Pretty interesting.

The most interesting thing about Olympic protests, Tibet protests, etc is that China has now put a stop on multi entry visas until at least after the Olympics. They will still do single entry or double entry but no multi entry. For example I have multi entry for 1 year (expires in Dec so I’m ok). I can come and go as much as I want with that Visa. If my Visa was expiring this summer (instead of Dec) I would probably have to come back to US. I know many people in that boat right now. The only way a Visa is being given is with receipt of round trip air tickets as well as confirmation of hotel reservation. This is putting a huge crimp on businesses right now.

Take it one step further and everything French is being boycotted to some extent. Carrefour is the number 2 retailer in world behind Wal Mart is a huge target. It’s funny b/c Carrefour sells many items made in China and they employ Chinese so a boycott of the stores here really isn’t going to do much. Now for French people living here they are having huge problems with their Visas! Basically the word is they are either being kicked out or denied admission altogether even with a valid visa!

All in all this is kind of unifying the Chinese people. They are becoming very patriotic about this, kind of like 9/11 was for the US. They are all rallying behind the government and feel that they will have no problems pulling off the Olympics.

It's an amazing time to be living here for sure!

Typhoon

On my flight to Singapore we experienced a tremendous amount of turbulence! The plane was rocking every which way for quite a while. It wasn't until the next day that I learned we had flown in/around a typhoon! In actuality the typhoon had hit Hainan (where I had vacationed a few weeks before and the first ever Ironman China was being held a few days later) and was literally at this time over Shenzhen (where I live).

No damage just lots of rain! I guess this was early for a typhoon as the season starts later in May typically. Because of where I live they don't hit directly typically however I've heard we get some amazingly strong summer storms. Should be interesting...

Travel

Since some of you think that all I do over here is have fun, since that's mostly what this Journal mentions, I thought I would share my current schedule.

Friday: Work full day in office then fly to Shanghai at night.
Saturday: Meet my boss from US first thing. Get driven 2 hours to a factory. Meet with them until 1PM and then hustle to the airport. Next we have a 5 1/2 hour flight to Singapore, getting to our hotel around midnight.
Sunday: At 8:00AM we get picked up by one of our factory partners in Singapore, drive a couple of hours to Malaysia to see meet with them at their factory. (Most factories are open Monday-Saturday but with the boss coming from US they will open for us). Long story short we have 3 factories visits today all around Malaysia. At the end we have a couple hours drive to Kuala Lumper. My guess is we will arrive at our hotel around 9PM???
Monday: Same thing as Sunday except there are only 2 factories to visit. However we do a lot of business with each so it means longer visits.
Tuesday: First thing in AM fly to Guangzhou China - 4 1/2 hours. Arrive and immediately get taken to factories. We have 2 to hit that afternoon. Plus a dinner scheduled with another. But after that my driver will take me home to sleep in my bed (well my Asia bed that is!)
Wednesday: Visit 3 factories in Southern China and then my boss heads back to Shanghai where he will fly out on Thursday.

All in all a busy schedule. So while I get to "visit" some places I really don't get to "see" them all the time. I write this from my hotel in Singapore. I specifically got up at 5:30AM to go for a run so I could see the city! However right now it's still pitch black out so I figured I would update this for you all.

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying this journal.

Hainan - Sanya Beach

I've been here nearly 3 months and this weekend was a Chinese holiday so I figured it a good time to take a 3 day weekend. I ventured to the province of Hainan to the city of Sanya Beach. On the far side of the island about 400 miles away is the city of Haikou. On April 20th Haikou will host the first ever Ironman China! Should be very cool for those racers.

In any event I came to Sanya beach to relax by the pool, read my books and take some well deserved naps! All I can say is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

This area is gorgeous for sure. Some say it is the Hawaii of China. I don't know that I would go that far but still it's a great get-away. The biggest challenge I faced is the language. The tourists are all Asian or Russian (for some reason this is a hot spot for them) and therefore English, even at the nice resorts is rare to find.

Check out some of the photos I took....

Hong Kong (part 2)

Two of my work colleagues, Emily and Courtney, were visiting China in the past week. Therefore I had to take them to Hong Kong to check out how different it is from mainland China. I love getting away to Hong Kong even for a day trip as it's very different for sure.

I thought this was too funny. It's a sign on the road that says "Maintain Cough Manners." It goes into detail as to what you should do when one coughs. It's really funny when you compare it to what does happen in China when someone coughs, sneezes, etc. Essentially they do nothing and have no problem coughing all over you or your food!
Hong Kong has a walk of stars so to speak. Almost all the stars have their names in the ground, with their signature and sometimes their hand prints. Except Bruce Lee, well he is the greatest as this local will attest. It was too funny watching him try and get the pose exactly right. His wife kept yelling adjustments at him! All in all he got it pretty close.
Lastly, this one sums up what lots of people think Asia good are... "Cheapy". Well not in Hong Kong they aren't as it is expensive like New York City in reality. However the photo is priceless to me...