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!
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look forward to meeting you in shanghai .. should be a great learning opportunity .. enjoy, gregory
Great, welcome to China again, haha :)
Looking forward to the meetup :)
Congratulations to Uptake’s latest funding! Only the well managed startups will survive this nuclear winter and I believe Uptake is going to be one of those. Somehow the images (from the 300 movie) of young Leonidas fighting the harsh winter keep flashing in my mind:)
No concrete plan yet but I really hope to show up at CNBloggerCon in Guangzhou.
–Wayland
At Kai. The reason you do not see me more on chinasmack is because I’ve stopped commenting usually on the nature of things in China. Usually. It’s really pointless. No one every changes their mind whether they be proChina or antiChina, and invariably nobody in the english blogosphere will change anything in China. People in China might though, but not outside, writing in English. And so China will keep going on its path to modernity, and all my efforts are usually just a waste of time.
And if you want to know what my site is, I linked to you here:
http://cfensi.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/taiwan-popgroup-ing-to-be-boycotted-in-mainland-china/#comment-170
This was a most curious place to leave me a message.
In any case, maybe you shouldn’t see commenting on the nature of things in China about changing anyone’s mind. Maybe you should look at it as changing, growing, evolving your OWN mind with regards to what YOU know, think, believe, feel, want, fear, or hope for China.
Sometimes the most rewarding conversations are those we have ultimately with ourselves, and not necessarily in the act of dictating or prescribing to others.
Cheers.
Yes, but I can do that in my own mind and look at it as well as if I had written it down. Better actually.
Bloggers write in public so people can see it. It’s very nature is didactic.
Btw, I don’t really think there was any other option…I really didn’t care for a swarm of ChinaSmack readers to know my site.
You’re still striking me as focusing more on the effects of using comments as prescription instead of using comments as discourse. The whole point behind a discussion (via comments or otherwise) as opposed to just mulling things over in your own brain is subjecting your beliefs and opinions to peer review. Even if you’re legitimately confident that others couldn’t possibly contribute anything to you, it is a dangerously arrogant precedent to start thinking that way. I should know, I struggle with it all the time. Heh, I don’t post much on chinaSMACK much anymore either. There’s a new crop of commenters there.
To tie in with what I said in the previous response, my point is that discussion may not lead you to agree or ascribe to what others say to you, but it may challenge you to further refine and adjust your own position, hence the line about a “conversation with ourselves.”
BTW, I agree that blogging is by nature didactic. However, it can also be a conversation, especially when the comments are open to others (example here vs example ESWN where there are no commenting available). Blogging is just another means of expression…but so what? I’m not sure what your angst is with this.
Next, I’m not sure what you mean by “I don’t really think there was any other option.” Are you referring to leaving me a message here on CNR as opposed to the comments we were initially posting to on chinaSMACK? If so, that’s fine. I’m not sure why you don’t care for a swarm of chinaSMACK readers to know your site. Keep in mind that commenters are not always the same as readers. Not everyone comments. That said, I’ve never visited your site as wordpress.com is blocked in China and I’ve been too lazy to reinstall my VPN since I recently reformatted my fossil of a laptop.
Anyway, all I know about you is that you first popped on chinaSMACK after Peking Duck and you seemed to be a pretty angsty person. Shrug.
Funny you think I’m angsty…my blog is all about Chinese entertainment….
My last post talked about Fan Bingbing, Hunan TV’s New meteor garden with the Superboys, boyband Lollipop, Jacky XueZhiqian, Jane Zhang.
Then before that it was a poll seeing who drank better, Zhang Ziyi or Guo Jingjing.
Wordpress blogs are not really much to miss out on really, but I thought Chinasmack was wordpress based…at least my icon showed up there which I was horrified about.
I’ve realized Chinasmack can open eyes for people who think Chinese aren’t critical about their society, but it’s also very flawed in nature…I’ve seen people take quotes and use them irresponsibly, like trying to instigate Korean/Chinese hate. Also, people who comment are self-selective. But I suppose it shows something other than your usual China blog.
Dana, as I said, I haven’t seen your blog. You probably struck me as angsty simply because of the circumstances in which we met. I believe your first post (that I recall reading) on chinaSMACK was you ranting about Peking Duck. That kind of set the tone, you know? You continue to strike me as angsty simply because you seem bitter about one thing or another. I could be misreading you but hey, that’s how I’m reading you, right?
chinaSMACK is WordPress based but my avatar shows up because I use Gravatar which is associated with my email I think. I’m not sure what the dynamics are for your avatar, or why there’s any reason to be horrified if you use an avatar in the first place (unless you’re aiming to be incognito or a sock puppet…for who knows what reason though).
I’ll go to bat for chinaSMACK simply because, like you, I recognize that its something different than what we usually see as far as English-language Chinese blogs go. Yes, people who comment are self-selective, there’s certainly no way around that. I think Roland Soong had a good comment about that over on his ESWN to explain why he’s so big on opinion polls, but as a statistician (I think he said he was) even he knows opinion polls are imperfect also…but probably better than random internet comments. Honestly, it isn’t that difficult to point at anything and make a reasonable argument that it is flawed. I’ll encourage what the guys at chinaSMACK are doing so long as it shows another side of the Chinese that may be underappreciated.
You’ll never be able to stop people from interpreting things as they will and even using them for their own ends. All you can do is try to reason with them or make sure a competing interpretation and use is made available for those observing. That’s why people comment, or argue in comments. Try not to think of it as trying to convince the other person, but about convincing the people in the middle who may be undecided and may benefit from you bringing up something they may not know and try to avoid letting them fall into the line of thinking that others are advocating that you disagree with. Just because you can’t convince one person doesn’t mean it was a waste of time.