About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

Hui Xu, Founder and CEO of HiPiHi

Find out more about the growing industry of the new 3-D virtual world online experience. As the founder of HiPiHi, Hui Xu gives us an inside look at the purpose of virtual worlds and how they are the future of the online world. See how virtual interaction change the landscape for companies, brands, and real life communities.

Interview Transcript:

Thank you for your wonderful presentation, I feel we all learned a lot from it, can you talk about your background as well as your company, HiPiHi?

Our company HiPiHi has been in China since 2005, we are a global virtual world for business. I was one of the earliest IT entrepreneurs that started out in 1998. Then in 2000, I left the industry and took a break for three to four years. I came back to the industry in 2005 to give direction to a new 3-D virtual world.

How did you come up with this concept to create this type of company?

Even as far as back as 2000, I always thought to myself “why don’t we have real life simulations?” This idea for a virtual 3D world came to me when I was brainstorming with my friend. We were thinking of new ideas and concepts while enjoying a beautiful view. While we were both looking at the view and talking about the ideas, we realized the view is also looking back at you. This was something the virtual world couldn’t do at the time. When you are looking on the internet at sina.com or yahoo.com, no one knows you are looking at them and it is one-directional relationship. But when you enter the virtual world, then you become part of it, just like the scenery; it can see you too. And we thought if we can have a model based on this concept, we could make a world that’s created by our own users. We started our concept with this platform and set a goal to create a world where people can study, work, and be entertained. We want to give this tool to ordinary people and allow them to create their own world. As this world becomes more developed, its appeal will attract more users to join in.

We learn that your development has been tremendous as HiPiHi has already started to focus in on the smaller details in this “virtual world”. In this virtual world, whether people are in a company or at home, they can all come and create a world in your company’s site?

Yes, even companies can have interactive activities and training centers for their own employees to learn and have great teacher and student interactions in this virtual world classroom community.

How do you plan to promote this concept of your company to the rest of the world?

We are simply creating a platform, the real marketing and promotional work will be done by our users. We have a few different groups of users: one is the ordinary consumer, the other is the community manager running their own communities. The communit managers will be the ones helping us promote our platform as they increase their network and attract other people to join their communities.. These managers will be responsible for setting up their special clubs and virtual spaces and host everything such as parties, putting up photos, watching films, etc. The work of the community manager will allow us to be promoted through their work and gaining members for their own virtual worlds in a very organic process. I just used that as an example, these are just some of the possibilities. I also used the term of “user value” in my presentation which refers to, let’s say a virtual school, to make the school successful, this school has to recruit for students. Think of this way, suppose I’m a designer and I’ve done a lot of different decorations, I will want to promote my virtual world to my friends so they can come and see my work. HiPiHi simply creates a platform for users to create their own content and develop so the world can see the world of our users who create them for recreational and entertainment purposes.

Your company was established in 2005, only 3 years, how has your company grown so fast in such short time?

We are still in the early stages in development, but our influence on the market and IT industry along with this new trend on people following this “virtual revolution” has helped us garner recognition since we are headlining this new movement. We started in 2005, and had a demo out by 2006 that grabbed a lot of attention both within China and abroad. At the same time, we got a lot of support from partners and users, so we consider ourselves to be very lucky where we are today. We just so happen to catch the wave including the “Second Life” gaining special attention at the same time. Even though we are only a there year company at HiPiHi, our main core team members all have at least 10 years of experience. The founding team of HiPiHi is all experts of this field and arena. Within the past 2-3 years, we’ve been focusing so much on the basics and building up the foundation for the company that we haven’t put any energy into how to promote and expand our business. We believe in slowly building and making this platform nice and steady.

When you mentioned attracting international talents from different countries, does that mean you’ve already entered the global market?

HiPiHi from the beginning was meant to be a global platform. It differs from 2-D, and 15% of our customers come from overseas. Even though they don’t speak Chinese, they can still have fun and meet people inside our virtual world. When they speak English, they are usually understood by the non-English speakers as well. Our basic concept model was to make our model international even though our main focus is building around the Chinese population. From the start, we handled everything with the intention of going global within our companies from our company structure, the board, staff recruitment, are all focused on. We have contacts in Japan, Singapore, USA; we may have offices abroad in a few years and produce international teams in different countries to spread out product worldwide.

To say that the run-up to the Oympics (whee, 9 days left, rah rah) has been a stomach-churning, mind-numbing roller-coaster ride of twists and turns and ups and downs would be an unforgivable understatement, on par with asserting that the Chinese outfits for the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony is only…slightly clashing.

The latest nauseating corkscrew of an embarrassment to the Chinese-run Olympic Games has been the popular outrage amongst Chinese citizens that buffet meals served to foreign reporters and media will only cost one measly USD (~6.8 RMB). To add insult to injury for the Chinese, not only is it all-you-can eat (because Westerners love to eat, just look at those gargantuan Americans), it’s also a smorgasbord of culinary delight rumored to be prepared by China’s top chefs! Great, so that’s three whammies in a row. Cheap, plentiful, and prepared by the finest…oh, and the fourth, reserved only for foreign devils.

Yeah, I’d be kinda upset too.

One of the mass e-mail forwards references a recent story of a mother who stole meat for her child, asking emphatically:

CCP，请问你们用了人民的钱去办奥运，为什么不让那个偷肉的母亲带着小孩去吃奥运的一美圆（7人民币）的自助餐呢？ 才一美元啊，所有中国老百姓都能享受的起吧！但是为什么只让外国人享受，却不让 中国人民享受呢？

“CCP, you used the Chinese people’s money to put on the Olympics, why not let the meat-stealing mother bring her child to eat the Olympic 1 USD buffet? Just 1USD, all the Chinese commoners can enjoy! But why only let foreigners enjoy and not let the Chinese people enjoy?”

To be sure, 1 USD buffet meals is a downright steal for the vast majority of foreigners…and an outright affront to the vast majority of Chinese who spend 1 USD each day and get far less.

But, our dear Chinese can take solace in knowing that the Chinese government has not completely betrayed them once they take a gander of how ridiculously expensive internet access will be for those same Olympic reporters and media personnel. US$1,131 for one month of broadband DSL service…that, contrary to what everyone originally thought China promised, will still be censored. Wow, I only pay 130 RMB (19 USD) a month…for censored internet…suckers.

One, perhaps unsurprising, Chinese comment in response to Western complaints about this reads:

你们他妈的脑子进水了吧,都想来白吃白喝白住,还他妈白用,去死吧

Has water entered your mother*ucking brains? You all want to come eat without paying, drink without paying, stay without paying, and use the internet without paying? Go kill yourselves.

Well, that certainly helps put the Chinese resentment in perspective. This one provides a humorous counter-balance.

So maybe the government got it backwards. That whole “food before freedom” argument works with the poor Chinese masses…but not so much for the now well-fed Western Olympic journalists

While randomly browsing the ShanghaiExpat classifieds for random knick-knackery that I could use because I, too, am a tight-fisted bastard like Will the Imagethief, I came across an interesting–if not suspicious–listing:

WFOE for Sale! (07/21/08)

Wholly foreign owned entity for sale in Shanghai!
Business scope: Restaurant with attached licenses for
Alcoholic Beverages, Dairy Products, Snacks, Coffee, etc.
Location in Puxi available if required, otherwise licenses can be transfered to different location of your choice.

This is a great opportunity to save time and money!
F&B licenses are difficult to get and require a lot of time.
By buying this WFOE you buy as well the attached licenses which enables you to open your restaurant or coffeeshop significantly faster.
The registered capital of 140.000USD has been fully verified.
Send us an email to know more about this great opportunity!
contact us at wfoesales@gmail.com …

Now, anyone who has looked into the legal requirements for starting a legitimate and legal business in China knows that there are quite a few requirements and quite a few formalities, none of which seems to be easy to execute with any measure of confidence. Not only is the official information difficult to follow, you’re inevitably fearful of someone ripping you off somewhere or something biting you in the ass when you least expect it.

Therefore, the prospect of being able to by a WFOE off the shelf with all the requisite legalities and licenses handled for you does indeed sound like an incredible convenience, especially if you’re a scrappy entreprenurial foreigner looking to open in a land where you may not speak the language. Ah, all the dreams of showing the locals how to set up a proper, comfortable, dining environment (with ice on demand) that isn’t made up of rickety tables and chairs, grimy floors, and surly service come swirling into one’s head.

Now, I’m not particularly put at ease with an e-mail contact like “wfoesales@gmail.com” nor do I want to pass judgements just yet. All I want to do is give some business-owners or lawyers in China the opportunity to chime in on what they think about this, how legit it might be, and their advice for would-be foreigners looking to give it a go in China.

UPDATE: Found another listing, this time with phone numbers:

Foreign owned restaurant company for sale

Fully foreign owned company for restaurant operation for sale. Includes full set of permits and fully licensed for immediate use. If interested, please call: 150 2162 2008, 135 6457 2083.

Note: This post is only intended to provide would-be business-starters some additional information or cautions. It is not designed to provide proper legal advice from a legally China-licensed attorney. Please do your own due-diligence. It is your own butt you’d be protecting.

It’s with us already — you’re seeing less and less cars (zero cars in the Olympic lanes, unless you’re an Olympian yourself) on the streets. The sheer prowess of 3 million+ cars in the Chinese capital is — being, well, halved “thanks” to car limits.

And all this, in the name of the Olympics.

The Olympics was designed to break through limits — more sports-wise than transit-wise — but even with the artificial transport limits, here’s a quick guide on how you can still get from A to B in Beijing.

  First Limit: No “Yellow Label Cars” or Non-Beijing Trucks

If you’ve a car in Beijing with a yellow “eco sticker” on it, you can pretty much leave the thing at home. First to fall victim to restricted traffic is the innocent-yet-environmentally-guilty “yellow label cars”, whose emissions are not up to standard — or at least up to Games standard.

Most cars sold today are of National Level IV — those with a yellow sticker are not even close to meeting National Level I. It’s therefore little to no wonder that The Transit Powers That Be started cracking down on yellow label cars way ahead of the Games — already on July 1, 2008.

Also hard hit are non-Beijing trucks. These guys get sent back outside of Beijing — trucks not from Beijing must be off Beijing roads until the Games are done. (Most of us travel in cars, not trucks, but it’s good knowing this anyway.)

Second Limit: No Cars That Can Blow Up

That’s right: Beginning mid-July 2008, if you carry anything that could potentially pose a safety hazard into Beijing — let’s just say No Way Jose.

The reason: all around Beijing, even on remote county highways, police checkpoints are in full force. Cars with dangerous goods will simply get dealt with — whether it’s confiscation or sending the vehicle back.

Don’t try storming these checkpoints, by the way: these guys are supplemented by armed police. They’ll also need to check your ID to make sure you’re “OK” for entry into the nation’s capital.

Third Limit: No Cars in the Olympic Lane

This is easily the most visible, and to many extents, the most painful limit ever. Whole through lanes of ring roads and even freeways (!) are being done away with in the name of the Five Rings — to serve more Olympian vehicles. As a result, the leftmost lane of many a through route is yawning empty — a massive waste of city transit space.

And these lanes have teeth. If you’re caught slipping into one of these thingies by mistake, you’re either warned by the police or get a RMB 200 fine — straightaway, just like that. Stay in the lane for too long — and that’s RMB 1,800 plus a possible visit to the detention center. (Ow.)

These lanes are present on quite a fair bit of Beijing’s 2nd, 4th and 5th Ring Roads as well as the Badaling, Jingcheng and Airport Freeways, just to name quite a few. And while you’re free to use the bus lane on roads that have such a lane (on, say, Chang’an Avenue, which also sports an Olympic Lane), you’re likely to encounter long queues on freeways, which don’t come with built-in bus lanes.

Thankfully, some of these Olympic Lanes are timed: the shortest ones are in force from 06:00 through to 16:00.

Fourth Limit: No Cars on Alternate Days

Further reducing motorized four-wheelers is this odd policy called odd/even license plate road rights (), which may have you scrambling to find the last numeral of your car’s license plate.

That’s right — if it’s odd, you can only drive on days which themselves are odd, such as July 29 or July 31. If you have a license plate ending in an even number, such as 2, you’re on the road August 2, 4, and 6 instead.

Playing foul’s not going to help… The old adage To every exception there is a rule (or the wrong way around) works here, too. If you have a 2002 License Plate (which sports six numbers instead of five and looks a white-cyan background), you’re an even license plater even if your plate reads 111-111. (This is when the maths start not making sense.)

Who’s exempt from this numerical nut-ness? Diplomats, police cars, as well as taxis, just to name quite a few.By the way, these restrictions do not apply from 00:00 to 03:00 every day. (That’s most likely a response to Karaoke people who drive odd-numbered cars on the 21st, only to return at 1 AM on the 22nd. What a downer — a fine if you’re caught after a night of all-out crooning!)

So What Does This Leave You?

With all these excruciating and at times infuriating limits in force, just how do you get from A to B — quick — and whenever you want to? We’ve a few options…

• Take the Subway. Now 198 km in length with 8 lines, the Beijing Subway is a serious contender for surface road traffic. No jams — guaranteed — underground, especially during rush hour!

Escape the chaos — go underground!

• Nab a taxi. These guys are all over the place, and it gets you from A to B in relative privacy — but at a price. (Flag fall already sets you back a handsome RMB 10 — good enough for five Subway rides (OK — an extra RMB 15 if you want to do the Airport Express...)
• Take a bus. Buses in the capital are just about everywhere — there’s something like about a thousand bus routes all over the place. Services end early in the evening, however (the odd night bus route excepted), and you’re often likely to be sardinized in one of these things.
• Bike or walk. It may not exactly be getting from A to B at laser speed, but here you go: the old, traditional way of getting mileage without having to wait in long queues. How neat it must be to zip by the average Beijing jam on two wheels instead of four!

Warning: Off Topic Post

Paul Denlinger of China Vortex and I attended the TechCrunch August Capital party yesterday night. (Paul’s a bona-fide A-list China blogger, even if I’m a pretender.) I had a great time–a great chance to forget about the larger, fundamental economic problems facing the United States and the world at large! Sand Hill Road (home of the world’s VC)seems completely separate from the hard times that Alibaba’s Jack Ma talks about, or the mortgage meltdown.

Here’s some photos to bring the experience to our readers in China:

Long line to enter, over 1000+ people attended.

photo from Chris Alden, CEO of SixApart Ltd.

Custom engraved geek gear and suspiciously attractive excited party attendees

photo fom Mike Arrington, Flickr

New Tesla sports car parked outside, probably Mike Arrington’s

photo from Tristan O’Tierney, Flickr

Celebrity bloggers and their fans

Photo from Mike Arrington, Flickr

And colleagues from UpTake Travel

Regular CNReviews coverage will resume on the next post!

Kaiser Kuo just broadcast over Twitter that an Uighur separatist group (Turkestan Islamic Party, which may or may not be the same as East Turkestan Islamic Movement or ETIM) has taken credit for the deadly bombing of Shanghai bus route #842 I posted earlier this past May. From Yahoo News:

In a video statement, Commander Seyfullah of the Turkestan Islamic Party claimed credit for several attacks, including the May 5 Shanghai bus bombing which killed three; another Shanghai attack; an attack on police in Wenzhou on July 17 using an explosive-laden tractor; a bombing of a Guangzhou plastic factory on July 17; and bombings of three buses in Yunnan province on July 21.

Three people were killed as a result of the explosion on the crowded bus in Shanghai on May 5, police and witnesses said.

The incident occurred during the morning traffic rush hour in northwest Shanghai and also left 12 people injured.

At the time, authorities attributed the blast to flammable materials carried by a passenger.

But Seyfullah said the blast was the work of his group and warned of more explosions to come.

…read the rest.

I quickly questioned the “official story” given by Chinese authorities after the incident that the bus merely caught fire. While I fully understand the idea that we don’t want to cause needless panic amongst the citizenry, I (and a lot of Shanghainese) do feel a bit vindicated that the truth has come out…of course, provided the Turkestan Islamic Party isn’t just misappropriating credit.

In light of this, I do feel a bit for the Chinese central government, dealing with “splittists” and “terrorists” on one side while having to fend off the constant criticisms of “the West” on the other. But hey, welcome to the big leagues, China. Please take a seat next to the United States. There’s always a price to pay for greatness, everyone pays it, and “harmonious, peaceful China” is no exception.

I’m curious how this might (or if it will) play out in China’s domestic media. Let me know in the comments if you see any news reports on this.

7/26 UPDATE from Elliott:

via Kaiser Kuo of Digital Watch, here is what is supposed to be the Turkestan Islamic Party’s video (Arabic) claiming responsibility:

 

7/26 UPDATE from Elliott:

The Guardian.Co.uk (via Reuters) reports the denial of Chinese authorities that the May 5 bus explosion was not the work of this group:

Chinese authorities denied claims by a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party that it was responsible for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and Yunnan province ahead of the Olympic Games, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.
The group released a video threatening the Beijing Olympic Games and claiming responsibility for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and in Yunnan’s Kunming, a terrorism monitoring firm in Washington said on Friday.
But Xinhua reported that a police investigation of the Shanghai blast on May 5 had nothing to do with “terrorist attacks”.
The blast, which killed three people and wounded 12, was caused by inflammables such as oil, Cheng Jiulong, Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau deputy head, was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
“The blast was indeed deliberate but had nothing to do with terrorist attacks,” he said.

7/26 UPDATE from Elliott:

John Kennedy at Global Voices Online also posted on this and highlighted the fact that the Turkestan Islamic Party may not actually be ETIM, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement.  Also, he posts what may be a translation to the video, also posted on the IntelCenter website:

恐怖份子 Turkistan Islamic Party Commander Seyfullah: “Our damullah, Abdul Heq, made his final order to the [person] responsible for the military regarding the issue of severely attacking all central cities in inner China, particularly focusing on eight cities that are going to hold Olympic games. … ask our merciful Allah to allow these brothers and sisters [suicide bombers] to deal a fatal blow in this jihad against Chinese & we ask our merciful Allah to completely stop Olympic Games. … Bomb Chinese government buildings, military barracks, airplanes, airports, railways, hotels, entertainment venues, tourist spots and similar places…You’re even permitted to use biological weapons this time.”
Hopefully, this topic will not become too sensitive such that this post gets blocked.

Kenneth Tan at Shanghaiist also covers the story in more depth than we have here.

Victor Koo, Founder and CEO of YouKu.com

Anyone from China or has lived in China has heard of Youku. Victor Koo, Founder of Youku, shares with us the difference between Youku and Youtube. What has been the secret to success for this online video website’s rapid growth? What is in the future for Youku and video advertising? Plus, hear Victor’s advice on how to get started as an entrepreneur, and how he feels homegrown companies differ from those entering from overseas.

YouKu.com: Victor Koo is the creator of YouKu.com, he is also the former President of Sohu.com. The company has recently just received $25 million investment from various VCs. Ranked #1 in China in video sharing, YouKu’s future plans include collaborating with Myspace in China.

Interview Transcript:

• You’ve been in the tech sector for many years now; can you give us a brief background for those who aren’t familiar with you and what you’ve done here in China?

I was based in the U.S. between 1985 and 1994, coming off from Stanford business school I moved out here to Beijing. It’s my third startup company now, first which I was in an early stage venture capital firm where we invested in both media and entertainment companies as well as manufacturing companies. Around 1997/ 1998 is when Chinese internet started emerging, and I met the founder of Sohu.com Charles Dong in 1998 and went in as the CFO, then COO, then the president of the company over a six year period of time. And then in 2005, I decided to take a sabbatical and afterwards started my company, which is YouKu.com, now the leading online video site in China.

• Tell us a little more about YouKu.com, What is your business model? Who is your target audience? And what separates you from the other players in the market?

YouKu.com when people think about it from the U.S. immediately may relate us to YouTube, now in some ways that’s true, from a product standpoint, we are an online video platform, but I think the significant difference is we view YouKu as an online video platform not just for amateur video but as much for professional content as we do for amateurs. We are an online video platform for many television stations as well as T.V. film production companies. The reason being in the U.S. the media landscape is very concentrated, where as in China it’s fragmented as well as geographically focused, hundreds of television stations, thousands of film and T.V. production companies, so we’ve been able to syndicate a lot of this content with a whole variety of different partners.

Now in terms of differentiation, besides the traditional media corporation that we are very strong on, another area is the amateur side we push on is called PaiKe; the citizen video. We are very famous for having very fast response uploaded video from our users, To give you example, the recent earthquake, a very unfortunate incident of course, but within 10 minutes of the earthquake, there is already the first video uploaded on our website and now there’s 10’s and thousands of earthquake related videos from all around China that’s been submitted to YouKu.com.

I think in terms of another very important reason why YouKu.com grew so quickly is because of one word: speed, I think we have the fastest download speed both from a search, viewing, delivery, and upload standpoint that users find it user-friendly, and we have been consistently ranked #1 on all user kind of behavior indexes. In terms of scale, YouKu.com, as of the end of the last year, Nielssen ratings did a census on YouKu.com, and we are the first online website to break 100 million daily video views. Now if you think back, it also took YouTube a year to get 100 million daily video views, for them it was from 2005 to 2006, for us it’s from 2006 to 2007. So the tremendous growth YouTube observed in the U.S. is also something YouKu also achieved in China.

• Now in what stage are we catching you for YouKu? Where are you guys headed and where do you guys hope to be? Even for a few years?

For YouKu we beta launched in June of 2006, and officially launched in December 2006, and we’ve gone rapidly ever since. Now we are in 2008, really for us, and the entire industry, as well as YouKu, is the beginning of online monopolization. We have proven the success of our product model, and with our large user base, we are really talking about going forward to build a business model, which is what we hope to prove in the next 18 months. We have a lot of good traction with major business partners, for example: China Mobile, Samsung, Dell, HP, Nike. A lot of international as well as top local clients are now using YouKu to reach their consumers, and unlike traditional text and picture portals, we can offer very visually impactful as well as storytelling form of video advertising; which is some very strong results in brain recall as well as traditional click-through rates.

• Now let’s go back to Victor Koo the entrepreneur, a lot of our audience is based in the U.S. and are new to China business. For that person watching, who isn’t necessarily in the technology sector but is in China business in general, what advice would you offer them?

Sure, certainly I am an early bird in the Chinese internet industry, I think the field has changed a lot in the last 10 years, and if you really think about setting up an entrepreneur company, I think there are three essential elements: the team, capital, as well as viable concept, or business model, so those are 3 areas in the beginning. If you go back 10 years, those three areas are all areas besides opportunity; there were a lot of market opportunities, but in terms of team and capital, they were very hard to come by. Now over the last dozen years, the infrastructure or the value change of Chinese internet industry has developed tremendously, with tremendous amount of fusion of international venture capital as well as Chinese venture capital as well as a team with all these NASDAQ listed companies and a lot of the startups that have happened in the last twelve years, and basically it’s relatively easier to hire an experienced team, for example for YouKu.com, most of our team came from top notch internet as well as television companies such as baidu, cnet, sohu, focus media and so forth, also we attract talent from CCTV because we are really a convergence between internet and television.

• Even though you are from the U.S. and educated there, your company is a Chinese homegrown company, can you tell us what’s the main difference between the homegrown company and the foreign company?

If you look back at the last ten or dozen years in Chinese internet history, the dominant players in each segment of the market are all clearly very local. I think besides the obvious language and cultural differences, understanding the market, dealing with the government, key constituencies, whether it’s users, clients or agencies, and a local understanding are all critical to the success of a company. Also I think fast response and speed is much easier for a core team that’s based here and can make decisions very quickly because internet is such a fast moving industry, and for companies with international headquarters, across the pacific ocean is just too long for the internet area. I think that’s something that makes a significant difference between a local competitor and a globally very strong competitor.

An interesting conversation unfolded on Meg’s blog post about China Visa problems. Commenter CnInDC offered a well-argued explanation of the root cause of work visa limitations in both countries.

But one thing he (or she) shared helped me understand the feelings that some Chinese people must have:

I agree that the current visa “crackdown” was caused by security concerns about the Olympics. If you watch news in China you’ve probably already noticed that the China’s domestic Olympic propaganda has been dramatically toned down from wanting a most successful Olympic to a merely safe one. The reality is there, that a most successful Olympic is already beyond our reach. The people they wanted to impress the most, the western media and the general public from the western countries, are impossible to please. So they go for the next best one, that at least it’s safe, no ugly scenes (or at least not a major one), and the Chinese can enjoy the party all by themselves. I’ve heard this before from the Chinese people around me and think it may have a point: “大不了办成全运会”, or, “At least we can turn this into a national sports event”.

Photos from my visit to see the Good Luck Games in May:

It reminded me of this poem entitled “My Friends, What Do You Want From Us” I saw earlier in April on China Digital Times (also on China Herald) from cbc forums via C’est la vie blog:

What do you want from us?

When we were called “sick man of Asia”, we were called peril.
When we billed to be the next superpower, we’re called the threat

When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to open markets.
when we embrace free trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.

when we’re falling apart, you marched in your troops and wanted your fair share.
when we’re putting the broken pieces together, “Free Tibet” you screamed! “it was invasion.”

So we tried communism, you hated us for being communist.
So we embraced capitalism, you hate us for being capitalist,

Then we have a billion people, you said we’re destroying the planet.
Then we limit our numbers, you said it was human rights abuses.

When we were poor, you think we’re dogs,
When we loan you cash, you blamed us for your debts.

When we build our industries, you called us polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blamed us for global warming,
When we buy oil, you called that exploitation and genocide.

When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted rule s of laws for us.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you called that violation of human rights.

When we were silent, you said you want us to have free speech.
When we were silent no more, you say we were brainwashed.

Why do you hate us so much? We asked. “No”. You answered, “we don’t hate you”.
We don’t hate you either Bud, do you understand us?? “of course we do”, you said, “We have CNN, BBC, and CBC”.

But why, we still feel, your western people are not happy with us.

What do you really want from us??

My friend, What do you really want from us??

There is plenty of angry rhetoric from people who take extremist political positions on China on the China Digital Times post. There is also some extremely thoughtful points there too. Please read that comment thread first before posting some extreme rant (either highly critical of China or highly defensive against perceived criticism of China) that has already been said over there.

I propose we just take the time to try to understand the feeling expressed in the poem above and figure out how we can all take this feeling into account in our behavior with each other.

(Why am I posting this? I figured this poem would be hard to find in the future and wanted to just capture it on the blog where I know I could find it)

China Net (中国网) reported that there will be 50,200 registered guests visiting Beijing during Olympic Games weeks. They are athletes, officers, medias, sponsors and special guests. The estimated oversea visitors are 600,000 and domestic visitors are 2,600,000. Beijing Tourism Bureau said that there will be sufficient accommodations for all the visitors. The key is that you, as a visitor, must prepare more budget for your stay! Here are some numbers:

• Vacation home: 1 bed room/2 bed rooms : 800 RMB - 1500 RMB/day (120 -220 USD/day)
• Budget hotel (e.g. HomeInn): 1,000 RMB - 2,000 RMB/day ( 150 USD - 300 USD/day)

Wow. Can you believe that people are actually going to rent apartments at this price?

Tips to SAVE money:

1. Stay at your friends’ or relatives’.
2. Stay in neighborhood city, e.g. Tianjin. The commute between Tianjin and Beijing is about 1 hour, ticket at 70 RMB single trip. Not a great deal if you are traveling with a family.
3. Stay away from the Bird’s Nest. The closer to the Bird’s Nest, the more expensive it is.

Our friend Eric is just relocated from Beijing to Shanghai, and he wants to rent out his apartment as an Olympic Home. If you are visiting Beijing for Olympic Games and haven’t found a place to stay, this is a pretty good deal:

• Address: Rm xxxx, Building 10, Xinkang Garden, Xisanqi Est. Rd, Haidian, Beijing
• 地址: 北京市海淀区西三旗东路新康园10号楼xxxx

• 10 minutes’ walk to Huoying (霍营) Subway Station on Line 13. Taxi 20 RMB to National Stadium.
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bath rooms; all rooms are equipped with air conditioning.
• Unlimited broadband Wireless/cable Internet
• Solar energy power warm water system.
• 40 sqm living room, 25+sqm patio, total indoor area 137.15 sqm (not include the patio).
• Full electronic furnished kitchen

More information from Eric via Q&A:

Q: How much are you charging? For what period of time?

A: For August 1 - 31, I charge 100 USD/day for the entire apartment (3 bedrooms).

Q: What is the rental market like? What are you seeing people charging? You must know the market to be able to price your own property.

A: Beijing government have collected lots of Olympic Homes to provide such service. They charge 60-80 USD/ room/day.The hotels charge for olympic guest for about 200$/room/day. Here are some Olympic Houses that charge 5,000 USD / month.

Q: What is the market for Olympic rental housing at this time? What other websites have rental housing listings? (whether or not you posted on it?) Anyone who is seriously looking around will look at other listings as well so helping people get educated will make them more confident about your listing.

A: The market for Olympic rental include the oversea visitors and China domestic visitors. Lots of local people hope to make money from oversea guest. Beijing Craigslist has lots of houses for Olympic visitors. Most of them charge about 1000RMB/room/day or 8000 USD -20000 USD per month for a 3-bed room apartment. I only posted once on Beijing Craigslist, but didn’t get any contact so far.

Q: You show a floor plan. Are all the numbers square meters? Is it 137 m2 inside and 168 m2 including the outside patio?

A: Yes, you are right, it is 137.15 m2 inside, and 168m2 including the outside patio. It is on the top floor of the building, have a very good view.

If you are interested in finding more information about the apartment, contact Eric directly: mobile: 0086-135-6458-628eight, Email: yundong.sun#gmail.com.

Calvin Chin, CEO and Founder of Qifang.cn

Calvin Chin talks about how his company is working to provide Chinese students opportunities to receive higher education. Find out how this ABC former corporate worker made his jump to China. Plus, find out what kind of advice this Chinese American has about coming to China and starting your own business.

Qifang.cn: A social venture that is China’s first P2P student loan community.

Interview Transcript:

• Give us an introduction about you, what brought you to China and how long have you been here?

I’ve been here for four years, and I currently live in Shanghai. In 2004 when I first came here, I joined SMIC, a semi-conductor company. The decision to come here was really part career opportunity and part wanting to return to our roots. My wife and I are both American born and we wanted to get closer to China and see the exciting changes while also seeking a deeper understanding of our parents’ immigrant experience.

• Can you give us an introduction to your company and its background story of how it all came about?

At the beginning of fall last year, some colleagues and I started to brainstorm and do a new project. Our heart was going towards social ventures and we wanted to help ameliorate this gap in opportunity and life which many in China are a victim of. Through those conversations, the three of us started looking at international models for microfinance, we looked at prosper.com, zopa.com to learn from their models on finance for consumers. Around those ideas we really figured out what would work for China, so the 3 of us started Qifang, basically doing a pure lending model focused on Chinese students wanting to go to school.

• How’s the reception so far? Can u take us through the steps, the challenges, and the opportunity?

Thank goodness everything has been really well received so far. The investor community has shown strong interest whether it’s early stage of investors who express strong interest in this round of funding, or late stage. We’ve also received interests from the government, partnerships with schools, companies with training programs or are hiring new graduates, and most recently we are gaining interest for partnerships with financial services around technology handsets.  We are receiving all kinds of different partners, reception is great!

• What stage are you guys at right now? Where are you hoping to be in a few years? What’s the end goal?

Well, as of right now, it’s about 9 months now and we’ve developed a prototype of a product. As of this week, we’ve launched our first live transactions in a close beta format, partnered with one school, and in the next 6 days, we’ll be partnering with two more universities. These pilots are mainly us to build relationships as well as getting feed back on our product. Important feedbacks that we know can be felt in the new versions of the product as we start to hone our model and  product.

• You’ve been in China for a long time now, what general advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to come to the market in China?

I strongly encourage everyone to be entrepreneurs whether it’s in your home market or in new emerging markets, there’s something irreplaceable about it. I’ve taken the traditional corporate path before and worked in big companies including investment banks. Now having worked with good friends on this new project and doing something that’s our own doing, not only are we building a lucrative profitable business, but also helping society with our own social venture. We want to extend to the 900 million Chinese in western and inland China and give them the opportunity that our parents gave us.

• Where can people go to learn more about your company?

They can contact me directly or go to Qifang.cn. There’s not much on there right now, but do leave us your email and we will invite you to the beta.