About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

I’m looking forward to coming to China next week.  I wanted to share a personal update to friends I’ve been terrible out of touch with.  I also want to share my itinerary and see if there is some opportunity for me to meet with you (my friends and other CN Reviews readers) during this trip.

UPDATE ON ELLIOTT

I’ve been out of touch with so many of my friends in China.  First of all, I apologize!  I became a co-founder of and investor in UpTake in March 2007 when I joined forces with my good friend Yen Lee, who had already started working on UpTake for 4-5 months with my other co-founder Gene McKenna.  UpTake announced its $4 million Series A led by Shasta Ventures in late 2007, and recently closed over $10 million including a Series B led by Trinity Ventures.  UpTake has a small Beijing based R&D operation, and I try to use that to come up with excuses to come to China, often on my own dime.  The startup has sucked up all of my focus! (more detailed VisualCV bio if you want more details on me.)

Our traffic is growing well and so far our growth seems completely uncorrelated to the Dow!   However, the global financial meltdown and VC advice on how to survive nuclear winter will cause us to invest less aggressively and to single-mindedly focused on getting to cashflow breakeven.  For planning purposes, we are assuming that the Silicon Valley VC funding window is closed for the next 24 months and the $10 mm is all we’re ever going to get.

This is only my third trip to China this year, and I haven’t been to China since May.  This year I intentionally stayed away during the Olympics but then kicked myself for not being there.  It infuriates me to even think about it right now.  Unfortunately, UpTake is currently focused on North American vacations, hotels, lodging, attractions, beaches and restaurants.

CN Reviews has been a great outlet for my interest in “the biggest story of our time.”  I identify with Kaiser Kuo’s sentiment expressed in TIME magazine:  “It is a horrible place to live, but I wouldn’t be anywhere else on the planet…You get addicted to the excitement, speed and change. There’s nowhere else like it.”  What I would observe is that I cannot think of a single person I have met in China that isn’t doing at least 1 interesting thing, and usually its more like 2-3 things.  If it were not for the great life my wife and kids have in Silicon Valley, I’d be living in China.

MY ITINERARY

Beijing - November 5 - 12

I’ll be mostly tied up with UpTake related work until the morning of Saturday 11/8.

Saturday 11/8 - Beijing Tour with Winser Zhao of SinoHotelReservation

Winser Zhao of SinoHotelReservation is leading Yen Lee and I on a daylong excursion that starts with the Great Wall (Mutianyu) and returns to see “off the beaten path” or “hidden” Beijing.  It looks like Shel Israel (@shelisrael) will be in town that day too, and may be joining us to see some of the sights.  If any of the other China 2.0 Tour bloggers are in town, they are also invited to this private tour.

YOU’RE INVITED: SATURDAY 11/8 - BIAN LIAN Dinner, location TBD

Winser Zhao (@winserzhao) and I (@elliottng) will be hosting a meet up dinner Saturday night.   Here’s our current thinking on the event:

• Restaurant: Baguobuyi（巴国布衣地安门店)
• Entertainment: Traditional Bian Lian (变脸) “Face Changing” show.
• Date: Saturday 11/8
• Time: arrive around 7:00 pm
• Cost: around RMB80-100

I’ll be inviting and emailing my Beijing based friends to dine with us, and direct them to CN Reviews for the details of this event.  If any Beijing based CN Reviews readers want to join, drop a comment with your email and I’ll get back to you, or send me a Tweet on my Twitter account.

Sunday 11/9 - China 2.0 Tour commences!

I’m excited to be part of the China 2.0 Tour, sponsored by Edelman Digital Media China.  The concept of the tour was mine and Christine Lu’s, but Christine and Janet Carmosky of The China Business Network; and Markus Gruber and George Godula of Web2Asia have run with it and I expect it to be a great success.  It is sponsored by Adam Schokora (@ajschokora on Twitter) of Edelman Digital Media China.  A delegation of bloggers from the UK, the Netherlands, and the United States, will be meeting with companies, entrepreneurs, bloggers, and investors to learn more about China and share China’s many stories with our respective readers. I’ll be sharing more of the agenda when I learn more.  As always, things in China always come together at the last minute!

YOU’RE INVITED: TUESDAY 11/11 - BEIJING 2.0 COCKTAIL

The China 2.0 Tour is hosting a cocktail party on Tuesday.  Sign up here to RSVP in advance.

• Bar/Restaurant:  TBD, most likely near Sanlitun
• Date: Tuesday 11/11
• Time: 7:30
• Cost:  Early Bird RSVP: RMB 150.  At the door: RMB200

Shanghai - November 13-14

We’ll be moving on to Shanghai to continue the China 2.0 Tour.  Again, more details to come as I get them.

YOU’RE INVITED: THURSDAY 11/13 - SHANGHAI 2.0 COCKTAIL

The China 2.0 Tour is then hosting a cocktail party on Thursday in Shanghai.  Some pretty sexy venues are being discussed but it hasn’t been finalized yet.  But its definitely happening on Thursday 11/13.

• Bar/Restaurant:  TBD, most likely in central Jing’an or Huaihai Central Rd.
• Date: Thursday 11/13
• Time: TBD
• Cost:  TBD

Guangzhou - November 15-17

David Feng and I are then flying to Guangzhou the night of 11/14.  About half of the China 2.0 Tour will continue in Shanghai for more meetings, networking, and parties with Christine Lu.

The other half of the Tour will come down to Guangzhou early morning of 11/15.  We’ll be staying in the Tianhe District of Guangzhou.  We will be attending CNBloggerCon in Guangzhou, which is probably the most exciting blogger meetup in China of the year.  CN Reviews is an official sponsor of the conference, and I’ll be blogging about what we plan on doing.  But for now, you can learn more about the conference at Tangos Chan’s China Web 2.0 Review blog.

There might be a chance to have dinner Sunday 11/16 in Guangzhou if anyone will be around.

Hong Kong - November 17-18

Morning of 11/17, I’ll be taking the direct train from Guangzhou to Hong Kong.  I have some banking and administrative matters to attend to, but mostly its a chance to catch up with some old friends (including a friend and mentor from my childhood church) and my cousins in Hong Kong.  I’m sure Hong Kong will feel quiet and peaceful in comparison!  And then back to the States.

It’s going to be a great trip.  I only hope there is enough time for me to blog and get some insights and thoughts out there for CN Reviews readers.

More to come!

Melissa Sconyers was just announced as the winner of the contest to join the blogger tour to China and blog for Mashable!  The contest was sponsored by VisualCV and promoted by Mashable, and the tour led/organized by The China Business Network, Web2Asia, and CN Reviews.

Melissa’s winning VisualCV

Here’s Melissa’s profile on VisualCV: http://www.visualcv.com/msconyers

UPDATE: Be sure to follow Melissa here:

• Twitter:  girk
• Blog: gee.ky

I asked Pierce Resler, Director of Marketing of VisualCV, what she wanted to say about Melissa and why she was selected. This is what she had to say:

We were impressed by all the contest entrants…However, Melissa’s VisualCV put her in front of the pack. Using several of the features of VisualCV.com, Melissa depicted her experience, passion and talents in a multimedia and visually compelling format allowing all of the judges to understand how she is a perfect addition to the China 2.0 Tour.  The ability to include text to outline your experiences and expertise alongside of examples, supporting documents and links help make a VisualCV powerful. Melissa tapped this to build a VisualCV that taught us about her and sold us on selecting her as the winner. Congratulations, Melissa!

VisualCV is partnered with The China Business Network and also with Guy Kawasaki.  With ardent promoters like Christine Lu and Guy Kawasaki, I think we’ll hear a lot more about this company.  According to Pierce, VisualCV’s can be a resume, online professional profile, business development tool, mini website, speaker’s bio, or any use you can think of.  Ultimate self-promoter Guy Kawasaki says so too.

I learned a lot about Melissa that I wouldn’t have on a traditional paper resume, which by the way I think is totally obsolete.  For example, she worked as a photojournalist for That’s Beijing (now called The Beijinger). Her Flickr photostream really got my attention and I can’t wait to go on tour with her.  Here’s a sample from her China Favorites album:

Congratulations Melissa!

I first met Oliver right after the Sichuan Earthquake

I became acquainted with Oliver Ding’s design work right after the Sichuan Earthquake.  He had put together a SlideShare presentation to help earthquake victims in China.  It may have been the even been one of the inspiration for my putting together the Sichuan Earthquake donation guide.  Oliver saw the guide, and put together a SlideShare version of the CN Reviews donation guide.  I collected 24+ ways to give (eventually 40+ ways) and Oliver cleverly worked it into this graphical image:

In this way, he brought together two powerful images:  (1) the image of the Red Cross, and (2) the image of the Chinese flag.  He used these powerful images to reinforce the intent of the donation guide, which was to provide people with the information they needed to take action and give money. His 24+ Ways to Give SlideShare slideshow was an inspiration to me and demonstrated how SlideShare could be used to spread the word, demonstrating the power of SlideShare as social media.  More about Oliver Ding here.

INTRODUCING: the New CN Reviews Identity by Oliver Ding

I wanted to create some CN Reviews business cards for CNBloggerCon 2008 and asked Oliver to consider putting together a new identity for CN Reviews.  I was pleased when he accepted!  He then asked all the right questions that led to our new identity.  Here is the grand unveiling of his work!

Oliver’s comments were as follows:

I designed the new brand identity of CN Reviews.

See attached two pictures.  The idea is very simple:

1. Letter “C” means “China”, “Community” and “Communication”;
2. C is ear which mean listening;
3. C also is wave which mean spread;
4. C seems like splash-ink, a technique of Chinese ink-painting (泼墨 pomo)

This really captured the original inspiration for CN Reviews, our focus on China, our interest in being a bridge between China and the West, and our passion for listening and understanding.

We tried some other variations, at my request, but Oliver’s first version was the best.

Here’s why:

I later discovered that Oliver had done work for other social media non profits, including Social Brain Foundation and CNBloggerCon

Oliver has also done some incredible branding and logo work for other non-profits and companies.  Here are some that  you might be familiar with:

Social Brain Foundation

source: Oliver Ding, Swordi.com Logo Design category

According to Oliver, the Social Brain Foundation(SBF) is trying to encourage the use of social media to enable collaboration among free individuals to deliver better ideas and better results. Isaac Mao presented earlier this year at Rebecca MacKinnon’s CIRC Conference on how the social brain is evolving in China.

OOPS:  Opensource Opencourseware Prototyping System

source: Oliver Ding, Swordi.com Logo Design category  

Read more about the OOPS logo and introduction on Oliver’s blog.

CNBloggerCon 2005

Oliver was also the designer for the 2005 CNBloggerCon, and subsequent logos have continued to use his ideas.

source: Oliver Ding, Swordi.com Logo Design category

Here is the story of how Oliver came up with the logo for CNBloggerCon 2005.

source: Oliver Ding, Swordi.com Logo Design category  

Oliver’s visual images have greatly inspired me, and I’m honored and privileged that Oliver judged our efforts worthy of his time and investment.  Thanks Oliver!  I hope I can see you in China wearing a new CN Reviews T-Shirt!

Once you’ve been living in China for awhile, you begin filtering out all the background noise and taking many of the things you once marveled at for granted. This includes the bad stuff and often the good stuff too. I suppose that’s the natural thing to happen as you settle in, becoming wiser in the ways you navigate what was once your new surroundings, populated as it once were by all those foreign people. Live here long enough and you might even return home (wherever that may be) to suddenly and ironically find yourself unaccustomed to how you once lived pre-China.

It is, surely, a testament to one’s ability to adapt.

I usually ride the Shanghai metro to get wherever I need to be and, like most people, I tend to pass through People’s Square metro hub quite often. That is where the two oldest Shanghai metro lines intersect in the heart of downtown Shanghai and, as you can imagine, it gets a lot of people passing through representing a good cross-section of the population. It is, simply put, a great place to observe the forward marching progress of Chinese urban civilities.

Photo Credit: www.shanghaicalling.com

Now, it wasn’t long ago that the People’s Square station featured, frustratingly, teeming mobs of humanity that swelled forth towards the train doors blocking the very teeming mobs of humanity within that tried to swell out. Of course, jam-packed subway trains are nothing new, particularly within big metropolitan cities in Asia. Moreover, many of us have seen those cute pictures of little Japanese metro attendants wearing white gloves trying to shove yet another sardine into the can. Well, jam-packed subway trains in and subway stations in China, even oh-so-modern Shanghai, are a whole different, ludicrous beast. They rightfully confound many a jostled foreigner, who wonders: “why can’t they obey the damn signs?” Of course, these signs spell out what should be a common sense maxim: let those inside get off first, then board.

If the people in Hong Kong and Taipei can do it, why not the mainlanders?

Photo Credit: www.shanghaicalling.com

Well, the very logical answers to that age-old question are beyond the scope of this piece, and wholly irrelevant because, alas, times are changing. Since I first arrived in Shanghai, the People’s Square metro stop has been redesigned to solve the enigma of why it takes longer to go from Line 1 to Line 2 than going from Line 2 to Line 1. They’ve also, somehow, made great strides in civilizing the masses, as I recently actually bothered to look up from my cell phone Sudoku game (my commute pastime of choice) and beheld the most curious of sights: People waiting with a reasonable amount of patience by the sides of the train doors leaving an exit path open to let the passengers within get off before swelling forth into the train.

It was mind-blowing.

I admit, fully, that I’ve had my nose stuck in my Motorola on the subways for far too long now, paying little heed to anything else save the announcement of my destination stop and the woefully expensive Gucci wallet I received as a gift (arguably the most expensive and wholly unnecessary part of my low-maintenance existence). Have all those Shanghai municipal government and transit authority efforts to teach basic courtesy to the denizens of this great city so they won’t embarrass themselves in front of tourists been paying off?

Good god, they have!

For the briefest of moments, I had snapped out of my daily routine of being oblivious to what I had long ago accepted as commonplace and no longer worth noting.

This was a most reassuring development.

Now, I’m not quite sure if it was precisely at that exact moment that I swiveled my head to the flat-screen televisions installed in the subway trains here, or if it was during some other ride, but I was suddenly face to face with Jeremy Clarkson, on Top Gear, reviewing the Ariel Atom.

Surprise #2.

I love Clarkson in a most non-homoerotic way because I love Top Gear. I love Top Gear because I have loved cars like any red-blooded male who has hung a Lamborghini Countach poster in his room when he was a wee little boy and grew up to discover both the internet and how said internet could bring fantastic BBC programming and British humor to lands dry of, well, fantastic BBC programming and British humor. Here was a man paid handsomly to drive the world’s most exotic, testicle-tingling machines and, for the first time ever, I was able to watch it riding the metro (tube?), crammed with all the other car-less suckers of Shanghai.

Bloody fantastic.

Despite reminding me of my no-car-reduced-to-mass-transit lifestyle here in urban China, it surprised me because it represented an importation of not just British pop culture but also of the increasing Chinese culture of car-ownership. To be sure, China could do with less cars and the people driving them, but Top Gear running segments of its show as advertising half way around the world in Shanghai’s metro was fascinating. It was, for me, such a beautiful sign of culture-crossing, globalizing interests. What red-blooded mainland Chinese male wouldn’t love to watch an overweight Brit carting himself around with oodles of groin-quivering horsepower, looking forward to the day they too can partake in such delights?

This was a most aspirational development.

For those who have never been to China, I can attest that China is probably quite different from what you envision it to be. For those, like me, who have been here for awhile, it might be a good idea to wake up from our stupor every once in awhile and ask ourselves if we’ve noticed any positive non-political changes lately.

Enter NOW to win a FREE trip to blog from China! (or read below if you are interested in the back story)

During a trip to China in May, Christine Lu of The China Business Network and I developed a seed of an idea to bring Western bloggers to China to create more dialogue and mutual understanding between the West and China.  We wanted to build bridges and fight homophily (and read more about xenophilia on GVO co-founder Ethan Zuckerman’s blog).  Turns out this idea (especially inviting non-Chinese speaking foreigners to CNBloggerCon (zh)) was more controversial than I would have expected, at least among you commenters on CNReviews.

This seed has now come to fruition as The China 2.0 Tour, which is hosted by The China Business Network, Web2Asia, and CNReviews, and sponsored by Edelman Digital Media PRC.  More info on joining the tour here.

Mashable just announced that VisualCV is sponsoring one blogger to join us on this tour.

WHO IS GOING:

The tour already includes some amazing people, including:

• Shel Israel, invited international speaker at CNBloggerCon. Please read his post on why he’s excited to go to China. (Global Neighborhoods blog, Twitter: @shelisrael)
• Sam Lawrence (GoBigAlways blog, Jive Software, Twitter: @samlawrence)
• myself (CN Reviews, Elliott Ng on Visual CV, UpTake, Twitter: @elliottng)
• David Feng, speaker at CNBloggerCon (CN Reviews, TechBlog86, Beijingology, Twitter: @DavidFeng)
• Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (Bomega Blog, The Next Web blog, Twitter: @bomega) woops, sorry
• Ernst-Jan Pfauth (The Next Web blog, DutchProBlogger blog, Twitter: @dutchproblogger)
• Also, Robert Scoble will try to join us for part of the tour as he will be touring China around the same time!  We wanted him to join but he is juggling other commitments.

WHAT IS HAPPENING:

We’re going to meet with a variety of companies, entrepreneurs, and bloggers and get a deeper look at China that you can’t get just by reading Western media and Chinese media.  More specifics will be posted on CN Reviews and the official China 2.0 Blog. We’ll be going to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

WHEN IS THE CONTEST DUE:

According to Mashable, the contest to win the trip: October 16th to 27th, 2008.

WHEN IS THE TRIP:

The actual trip dates are: Arrive Beijing Sunday November 9th, Depart Beijing Monday November 17th, 2008.  From the US, you would have to fly out Saturday November 8th.

HOW TO APPLY:

you can see more details on the Mashable site.  You have to create a free VisualCV and then notify them at china2.0@visualcv.com and they will review and announce the winner on October 28th.  Here’s my Visual CV.  Click this link to enter now.

I’ll blog more about the tour in the coming month.  I’m leaving for China November 4th and will be in Beijing before the tour.

On CNReviews, we showcase the best, the most innovative, and the most interesting debate about the Chinese Web 2.0 as the week draws to a close…

This week has been the first “real” week after the October Break, which this year was moved ahead two days to start September 29, 2008. We’re starting out with some of the most known tech-related sites in China; we’ll expand our view a tad later on and help shine spotlights on some of the lesser known sites that have interesting views to share…

Kaiser Kuo’s Digital Watch

Probably one of the most notable and Must-Keep-Your-Eyes-On-This tech blogs in the PRC is that from Kaiser Kuo. The bilingual Digital Watch posted quite a number of interesting posts throughout the past week…

• The US markets have plummeted beyond recognition, and the very same can be said for much of the world’s economy, so there’s a post about how the downturn will impact China’s Internet sector. Kaiser spoke with David Wolf of Wolf Group Asia. Funding is expected to get tight, but at the same time, local VCs with RMB-denominated funds could really jump into the limelight.

The DF (David Feng) Take: I chatted with my best friend in Singapore just days ago, and the consensus is that the world economy has taken a hell of a beating. China is likely to face less impact, though, as its economy is not exactly USA II (either in terms of policy, or “opennness”, or the somewhat-convertible Renminbi Yuan). However, bits and pieces of the PRC economically connected with the US on a larger scale will likely get hit — quite a number of export factories around Guangzhou and Shenzhen have apparently felt the punch.

As an entrepreneur-to-be (I do, after all, want to start my own company), the thing that gets you out of the starting gate is MONEY. The CNY still buys less than the USD if you’re looking at the whole thing on a “How-Much-Is-This-Dollar-Worth-In-Terms-Of-Actual-Renminbi” basis (as in USD 1 = approx. CNY 6.8 or something like that), but the Renminbi is the currency of the future. It will appreciate. Money from any (legit!) source is what gets your company out of the starting gate. If I had to start a company the next second, I’ll look for both local and global players to get the money in — never discount the local VCs!

The Mobinode

• Gang Lu’s excellent (and equally bilingual) The Mobinode tells of the imminent inaugural Open Web Asia 08 Conference. There’s a 10% discount (if you act really quick — they could’ve already disappeared…)

The DF Take: If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve commitments in Beijing that have more than implanted me here, I’d have flown over to South Korea in no time. I wish the inaugural Open Web Asia 08 Conference nothing but the best, and am confident that they’ll do more than well. I hear that @loiclemeur’s headed to Seoul.

China Web 2.0 Review

China Web 2.0 Review, written mainly by Tangos Chan, but also by others of note, has been tracking the next-generation Web in China for quite a while and is worth a read.

• BlogBus is about to launch an SNS service — this is of note as Blogbus is a relatively well-established blog provider based in Shanghai. 100 users have been invited to test the new SNS service. Also of interest: the new SNS will not have games such as “Friends for Sale”. The report rounds up saying:

2008 will be marked as a year of SNS in China, but most of those social networking sites look similar. Can Blogbus bring some surprises to us?

Well said, Tangos. The PRC web needs more innovation and less imitation.

The DF Take: First of, I’m really pleased that the new SNS will not have pointless (the way I see it). Second of all, this is going to be a brave new step for an established blog provider.

Just before this post went to press the Internet, I heard by way of a few tweets that China Unicom may also have did its own SNS thing. There’s nothing wrong with SNSs — and do note that the Chinese as a whole are more group-oriented than individualistic — but doing 1.3 billion SNS services pushes the whole thing to saturation point. Things will eventually happen — and for some, it won’t be all that good.

• Also of note: Don’t Just Talk At Me, Talk With Me — two video clips about how to be newly successful in China’s changing branding environment.

I’m in Austin, Texas ya’ll!!! I’m currently at the Austin Asian-American Film Festival, if ya’ll in the area, come by Saturday for my film’s Texas premier.

It is now day two of the AAAFF, and I sit here awake at 7:30am still suffering the lingering effects left by Arthur Dong’s Hollywood Chinese, a feature documentary about the history of Asian-American filmmakers/actors from early Hollywood to today. I highly recommend this film for anyone.

The scene I can’t get out of my head from this documentary is the crowd’s reaction against Justin Lin at the Better Luck Tomorrow Q&A session during at Sundance film festival when one gentleman shared with the audience his distaste for the film due to racism(my own opinion) by saying the film degraded Asians, and I applaud Roger Ebert for coming to stand up for the Asian-American filmmakers by literally standing on his chair and screaming “You wouldn’t say that to a white filmmaker”. My first reaction was “WTF?”; how could someone who was not Asian-American judge what degrades our own culture and identity? That guy was VERY lucky it wasn’t me there at the Q&A because I would’ve GOT HIM GOOD!

I don’t think the dude would be saying the same stuff at a Spike Lee Bamboozled premier in New York today? He’d feel intimidated because he’d think there would be a ton of “confrontational” black gangsters from American Gangster with Denzel leading the pack waiting to beat his ass since blacks are suppose to be violent, right? Please… And supposedly, he can say what he said to Asian-Americans because we’re suppose to be soft and “non-confrontational”, the never fight back kind, right? Homeboy please… Man, I thought as Americans we were all beyond that. I think out in Cali, we take for granted how diverse everyone is while there are still pompous ignoranuses out there in the rest of the country. By the way, it was also embarrassing when a press member asked Ang Lee the day he won his Oscar what part of his Oscar was “Taiwanese”, WTF? Ang Lee graciously answered he wasn’t about that.

Ok, let me finish my first train of thought on why I was pissed off: What bothered me was not the fact that this non-Asian American ignoranus would come out and say Lin embarrassed Asian-Americans by making BLT; what both bothered & surprised(maybe even SHOCK) me was the crowd’s reaction in support of the man after his comments. People were applauding and agreeing with him in an effort to embarrass Lin and the crew who were all standing in the front shell-shocked not knowing how to react. Let me ask again: Do you think he would be doing the same thing with Spike Lee? At a Jungle Fever premier today? I don’t think so…

It is during times like these that we see the true colors of a lot of people. Seeing all those noding head, clapping hands, “YEAH!” yelling supporters lead me to believe they were doing so NOT because they agreed with the man’s base-less argument; but because of racism. Or maybe I am wrong, and all the people agreed because they also wanted to HELP another culture by discerning FOR US what is right and wrong… Hmm… What do you think? On my account, maybe I’m dilussional, but I thought I saw some faces filled with sheer joy and satisfaction who were salivating to see the kind of reaction Justin Lin and BLT crew would give back. I personally would have liked to see the response from Lin and company(hopefully it was going to be a good one), but I’ll take Roger Ebert’s support anyday!

WTF?

This movie theatre serves food INSIDE THE THEATRE!!! While you watch, people come and take your order and bring it to you! GENIUS! Infront of every row is a long table for food. DINNER AND A MOVIE at a movie theatre! We gotta bring this to Cali

Clean Energy in China with JUCCCE

Part I: Chairperson Peggy Liu gives some background on JUCCCE (Joint US-China Cooperation on Clean Energy) and their green operations within China. JUCCCE General Manager O Koo joins Peggy to fill in some of the finer details on JUCCCE’s individual ongoing programs, including a push to distribute 10 million free energy efficient light bulbs.
Part II: JUCCCE Chairperson Peggy Liu gives an overview of the environmental situation in China and the methods that JUCCCE, as an NGO, is undertaking to push the green movement here forward.

The video can be viewed here.

Interview Transcript:

If you can give us a brief background on JUCCCE and when it was formed and what it stands for?

JUCCCE stands for Joint US China Cooperation on Clean Energy, we are a non-profit in China that’s trying to bring international expertise to accelerate the greening of China. It was formed in April 6^th, 2007 out of a conference called MIT Forum on future of energy in China.

Q: How big of a foothold does JUCCCE have right now in China? And can you give us a background into the type of initiatives you are involved in.

JUCCCE has people in Shanghai, Beijing, U.S., we have executives, volunteers, and a team of strategic advisors. Even though we are only a year old, the footprint is quite large. That includes the likes of McKinsey, Richard Branson from Virgin, Train, Owens Corning, to Margie Yang of Esquire, people from government, industry, media, research, all walks of life. People who have the resources to help, and are very motivated to help tackle the climate change problem.

Q: O is working on a specific program for JUCCCE, can you tell us a little about what it is that you do?

It’s about reducing green gases in China, particularly CO2, the question is a lot of people want to do something for the environment but don’t know how, so here we come up with a project to empower the individual to do something about it. And this is basically the light bulb changing, using compact fluorescent to exchange for incandescent light bulb.

Q: What’s been the reception thus far from the companies you’ve worked with, your clients, and even the people you’re trying to educate here?

I’ve been blown away by the response we’ve been getting internationally, people that want to volunteer, people who want to work with us, and O should talk about his unique background. The governments on both sides are very eager to support us, companies are very eager to do the right thing and learn how to go green. We are very lucky we have the support of some very high level people from around the world. And they have all helped us with the comprehensive roadmaps of programs we have developed in conjunction of the experts we have brought in.

Q: And O, as Peg mentioned, can you give us your specific background?

I worked for General Electric for a number of years, and I was actually leading the lighting group for Asia-Pacific, and at that time environment was a big concern of mine personally. And I felt there’s something more I needed to do as an individual, so after I met Peggy last year, we had talked about doing different things, but we’ve realized there’s synergies in terms of what I wanted to do, in terms of empowering the people, social people, and doing something differently for the environment, and also working with JUCCCE to put this thing together.

Q: What kinds of difficult challenges have you faced?

I think when you look at China, people think about the scale of the country. McKinsey is coming out with a report on the urbanization of China that says basically in the next 20 years, we’ll have 1 billion people living in China, and that means 350 million people will be moving into Chinese cities. They estimate we will have 15 mega-tropolises of 60 million people or more, what that means is we’re going to have a very condense populations that are all competing for the same resources. The same drinking water, which is very polluted right now; the same basic energy resources, so energy prices will go up, they will be competing for food, which means if we have bio fuels, which is a renewable sources, that’s going to affect the food prices as well, so how do we build eco-cities that will sustain this type of population growth and this type of condensed population. So the scale is the number one issue.

How do we take a pilot program, which O is working on, and distribute 10 million light bulbs and distribute them to students in one city, and how do we take that to other cities in an economical feasible way to buy these bulbs and distribute them, so that’s the challenge we face, to come up with programs that make sense in terms of how we fund them, what are the channels we can address to get these programs implemented locally, how do we share leanings.

What I like to tell people is that China is a very interesting country where the central government level, they have really changed their way of thinking, and they have now become one of the most progressive countries in the world I believe. From banning plastic bags in supermarkets June 1^st, to the 11^th 5 year plan, which is coming up, even the 10^th 5 year plan, there is a lot of ambitious central level policies, unlike other countries like the U.S.

The main challenge we are facing here in China is creating the energy workforce we can deploy and implement all these policies because policies are only as good as how you implement them. So China will be facing a huge challenge in the next 10 years, so we have a 10 year time frame in combating and mitigating climate change. That means we have a very short amount of time to build this energy workforce. For example, if we were able to give free solar panels to everyone in China, it’d take a lot of time to deploy those panels, because we don’t have roofers, electricians, contractors, green procurement folks, designers, the full supply Chain of people who know how to implement these types of programs, and the same is true of any type of supply whether it’s solar, bio-fuels, or the grid, for distributing transmitting the electricity, or demand-side management, building the materials.

Q: Can you give us a background on how long term these plans for China are and what these plans are?

With every issue you need to take a look at the positive and negative side. For example, somebody was just talking to me about how we can stop new coal fire power plants from being built in China. My answer is simply that there’s no way we can stop building coal fire power plants. However, whenever someone says the statistics of two new coal fire power plants being built every ten days or so, they don’t also give credit to China for closing down the thousands of small inefficient plants; they are very conscientiously doing that. The central government is very conscientious about harmonious society, I guess in American terms, that translates to continued GDP growth, provide everybody in China with basic drinking water, energy, and food at a reasonable cost. The Chinese government is actively drafting a new energy law, every level of the government is trying to figure out how they can within their territory affect how China is using energy, so I think you have to give China credit.

A lot of stuff is happening here at all sorts of levels, the industry is being led by MMCs, as far as going green, at different levels, some industries have already very conscientious about what it means to take your supply chain green, they are doing it one step at a time. For example, Esquire, which is a leading textile company, a manufacturer, they’ve done many things to green their supply chain. Another company working in the paper industry is very eager to go green but their questions are what does green mean? So there’s a lot of awareness building that we’re dealing with here in China. But we have to give the credit to China to give attention on how they can do the right thing, then the question is how can we provide them with the resources, the best practices, what are people already doing? What can we implement? Who are the vendors from around the world that have the technology, the services, and the products that we can bring in locally, at a reasonable cost? How can we finance this?

Putting that all together in simple term key manner is key for these people who are making these large decisions are important for the JUCCCE program. It’s education, awareness building, leadership development, collaboration, meaning share leanings across the country, and what we’re really focused on is in the next 10 years, how can we build and enable this energy workforce, how can work on programs that have impact, like O’s program, which will have immediate impact with switching of the light bulbs and awareness building, and how we leave a legacy where we’re building local capability. So if JUCCCE leaves in 10 years, we will already have taught the fisherman how to fish.

Q: Can you give us some background on some of the other programs JUCCCE is involved with in China?

Our programs are all to help teach the fisherman how to fish; to build local capability. We want to do this across China, so we work with key channels of decision makers. So as an example, we are trying to work with the ministry of construction, which has invited us to a 2 day course on city level energy efficiency program for mayors, with the mayor-training center in Beijing, so this is mandatory meeting that all mayors must attend. So what we want to do is bring in experts from around the world that we work with, like Rob Watson, father of Plead. Build a database of city-level case studies, for example street level congestion pricing, it could be lighting, for example, it could be working with hospitals to do energy efficiency, that together with vendors and funding solutions, so that the mayors can follow-up with programs that are appropriate for their state of development. SO the mayors are the kings of the kingdom locally, every decision they make have huge impact, so we want to be enabling the local leaders; that is leadership development.

Another program we are trying to get off the ground is Smart Grid Initiative, this is important because 2/3 of energy is lost during the time of generation and use, so by the time it creates an ice cube, in your glass, 2/3 of energy is lost, which is tremendous waste, so what we want to do is cut down on that wastage by making that grid intelligent, by making every part of the grid communicate with each other so that it can balance the load. The smart grid is something that is an integrated plan that China needs to work on by bringing multiple different parts of the government together, the government, the grid, private companies, the people who are working in transmission distribution, appliances, buildings, plug-in hybrid, all need to work together to establish a communication standard.

So JUCCCE as a non-profit is in a unique position to bring people together to have this dialogue to start the debate, to start thinking about how do you define this smart Grid to China. We’ve brought in Diane Grudnick, the commissioner of California public Utiliies commission, Steve Papermaster, the energy committee of culture on science and technology, we’ve brought in VC’s, smart metering companies to put together reports that we can bring to government leaders, this is something that’s a long term program, but if we can be successful in starting the dialogue to drive a national smart grid plan, this will tremendous impact beyond our tenures.

photo courtesy: The Sietch Blog

I attended the World Savers Congress panel on China hosted by Conde Nast Traveler on September 23.  The panel was convened to answer, “How can the travel industry contribute to the positive development of China?”  But the discussion went far beyond to provide a broad framing of the huge environmental and economic development challenges facing China.  The panel provided a balance perspective that I’d characterize as a blend of cold-water realism and cautious optimism, and was moderated by Dorinda Elliott, Deputy Editor of Special Projects and previously Beijing Bureau Chief for Newsweek.  This is Part 1.  Part 2 forthcoming.

First, some background on the World Savers Congress event

How can the travel industry, which generates an estimated $8 trillion of revenue, make a positive impact in the world that provides its stage?  The editors at Conde Nast Traveler have cleverly created an awards program called World Savers Awards to harness the competitiveness of the travel industry to encourage examples of sustainability in travel.  Awards were in the categories of Poverty Alleviation, Environmental/Cultural Preservation, Education, Wildlife Conservation, and Health.  Thanks to Wendy Perrin of Conde Nast and the Perrin Post blog, I was able to get an invite to attend the World Savers Congress in New York to see the awards and keynotes by Jeffrey Sachs, Queen Rania Al Abdulla of Jordan, and Ashley Judd.  Pam Mandel of NerdsEyeView live-tweeted the event (transcribed by TravelingMamas) and posted about environmentalism in travel and did a nice round-up of the event.  Great roundup of the event at Perrin Post, Conde Nast Daily Traveler, TravelMuse, and NerdsEyeView. More on Conde Nast’s social responsibility initiatives here at Conde Nast MakeADifference.

Background on the China Panel

• Orville Schell - Director, Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations (bio, Wikipedia)
• Barbara Finamore - Natural Resources Defense Council’s China Clean Energy Project (bio, blog)
• Mory- Marriott International (lost her contact info — need to get this from Dorinda)
• Albert Ng - CEO of WildChina (bio, blog)

By the way, Schell recently wrote a richly nuanced article entitled “China: Humiliation & the Olympics” in New York Review of Books that discussed the connection between the perception of “a century of [Western] humiliation”, the impact of this perception on the Chinese psyche, the use of this perception to reinforce political power of the government, and the relation of this to nationalism in the face of the Olympics.  I am especially curious what Chinese people think about this article.  Read it!

Schell:  “Paradoxically, the kind of environmental problems you can see in China are not really the ones that are the most troublesome and worrisome in China”

photo courtesy Chang W. Lee / The New York Times via Envirochina blog

Thanks in part to the Olympics, the symbol of China’s environmental problems may be Beijing’s air pollution (and the heroic efforts by the government to control it).  Schell suggests that the real issue is China’s thirst for energy, burning of coal, and resulting greenhouse gas emissions.  The United States is, of course, the #1 emitter of greenhouse gases, and Schell points out that “neither country is going to shake off coal, especially with [today's] oil costs…This is a real dilemma.”  While China’s carbon emissions is five times less per capita than the U.S., last year China beat the US to be the #1 carbon emitter in the world.

Schell: “unless the US and China get in the game, there is no game”

Because the US and China emit 50% of all greenhouse gases in the world, “unless the US and China get in the game (solutions to climate change), there is no game,” according to Schell.  Right now there is no game.  US refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol.  China signed as a developing country, and thus has no binding emission limits until 2012.

Some related charts from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change

The Pew Center for Global Climate Change has a good resource site on China with some information and a downloadable brief (pdf).  Here are some charts that tell the story:

China emits a lot of greenhouse gases…

…but not much on a per capita basis…

…and power generation and industry is the lions share of greenhouse gas emissions

The need for energy, and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, is “of all the issues confronting China…probably the most daunting and the most inflexible,” according to Schell.  And the Chinese government and people are clearly seeing the “circumstantial consequences” of global warming, such as the ice rain in South China earlier this year.

When is America going to take the lead?

At this time, there is only one country in a position to lead a solution:  the United States.  According to Schell, “China is loathe to lead internationally.” China doesn’t want to be telling other countries what to do because it doesn’t want other countries telling China to do.  This obsession with mutual non-interference insures China will follow on global issues but will not likely lead for some time.

The discussion reminded me of some remarks I had heard from Taylor Francis, a 16-year old Menlo Park, CA high school student trained personally by Al Gore at The Climate Project and invited by the Chinese Government to speak about climate change, said that the resounding question from Chinese youth was “When is America going to take the lead?”  In his 26 events with high school youth and other interested Chinese citizens, Francis observed:

By far, the most common question revolved around China’s obligations as a developing country. They asked how the U.S., which rejected Kyoto, could call on China to act before we do. They were also concerned about the economic consequences of action; I tried to point out the business potential in developing new technologies and new jobs.

It is not hard to see why Chinese see Western hypocrisy everywhere they look.  In this case, the perception of hypocrisy is well-justified.

“The place is like a house on fire”: sheer scale of the problem makes small solutions seem adequate

Schell closed with some reflections on the daunting nature of the challenge in China.  “The sheer scale of development [of economic growth and environmental impact]..outstrips the scale of the remedy,” said Schell. “We can talk about the hopeful things that are happening, but the place is like a house on fire.  How do you moderate and modulate the growth to reasonable levels?  It is a real contradiction that [the Chinese government] doesn’t have the answer to.  There will be no answer if there is no partnership between the US and China, and unless the market develops support for a remedy.”

In short, we can all do our small part.  But we are in big trouble unless the United States government leads with the “power of our example, not the example of our power.”

More from the World Savers Congress in Part 2!

My film “600″ which I shot in Shanghai in 2007 has recently been accepted into some major U.S. and international film festivals after a short successful China festival 2007 showing(3 awards in 2 festivals). I’ll be heading to the following venues in the next month Austin Asian American Film Festival, Vancouver Asian American Film Festival, International Community Film Festival(can’t make this one, it’s in England). I’ve been wanting to share “600″ with CNreviews for the longest time, but post production with my 2nd film “Drowning” prevented me from having any free time to write. BUT!!!! I FINALLY have some time, so here it is:

Background: I spent my post-college years all over China acting in movies before ending up in Shanghai. While living in Shanghai, I also took a part time job at an English teaching company formerly known as TalkdaTalk as an events coordinator(flexible, easy, I loved it!). When I was free, I would also teach English there and hosted company events. During my time there, I met a lot of English teachers; people from all walks of life now living in Shanghai as expats. Besides the English teachers I met at TalkdaTalk, I also met a huge number of them during social and expat community events. Why teach English? The reason being English teachers are a hot commodity and the Chinese pay nice $$$ for a full time teacher. Full time English teachers are making the ranges of 10,000-15,000 RMB per month. Even though that doesn’t sound a lot to people here in the States, you have to consider the cheap living standards in China where you can eat a cheap meal for 7 rmb( $1), share an apartment for 2000 rmb ($300). To put things into perspective, most of my Chinese local friends all make between 2000rmb-5000 rmb per month (note: most have a college degree). For this reason, people come from all over the world to teach and party in Shanghai.

The film’s core: The core of “600″ is about the loneliness and struggles with identity of an American ex-pat living in Shanghai teaching English. I used the stories of many expat English teachers as inspiration in writing “600″. The main motivation behind this film being the crazy stories I hear from people talking about their lives and how they somehow ended up in Shanghai. When I was living in China, I felt this aura from all the expats that they were all lost(myself included), and was looking for something. This maybe the reason why most of the expats I knew had different jobs and was always trying to do different things. They all deeply loved Shanghai for the city’s energy and were drawn closely to it. In getting to know more and more of these people, I realized most of them were all looking for something in life that they hadn’t found in their previous existence. As expats of Shanghai, they all loved the city and culture initially and are having the best times there. But gradually, over time, the reality and problems begin setting in… and this is where our film begins…

The film”600″ is online and you can watch it for free HERE

(feel free to donate $$$ to support my next film)

In my next post, I will focus on the theme from “600″ and talk about

Living in China as an Expat

Don’t touch that dial!