Success at work

On Friday was the launch of our 9 million USD partnership with Nokia China; so it was sort of a big deal, with media etc. The highlight was the ice mountain of ice being smashed in order to release the 'love' inside (i.e. let the potential of rural children be released) and the lowlight was when one of the pretty ladies on stage feinted :(. Still I can claim some responsibility for the partnership (on my CV!) and we are happy with the money contribution (And are hoping to develop other elements of the partnership in the next couple of months) and hope to leverage the partnership to raise our profile. Plan is the most unknown of all organisations unfortunately!

On Saturday i went to watch a Chinese band playing in a bar. The warm-up band was excellent (soft-rock) and the main band were pretty good too, though different. They mix rock with a traditional old people's singing style; they also like wearing their underwear on stage and the singer's does a sort of Marilyn Manson by using make-up on his face.

Today is wonderful blue sky: Beijing is definitely getting better, even if there were a couple of bad days last week. The previous week I was in Shanghai, again blown away by its pomp, skyscrapers and trendy drinking options. Read 'trendy', think 'expensive' but that is Shanghai for you!

I was also in Suzhou where a few months ago their (famous) lake was a big cess pit due to industrial waste discharge leading to an algae explosion and all sorts. It was so bad the PM of China said something had to be done. Eventually it seems something was done (though probably only through the cheapest, temporary solution) and thus the government put on a conference about Corporate Responsibility including a trip on the lake. I could not make the boat trip unfortunately, but at least there was no subtlety about the motivations for the conference! Apparently, it will cost 14 billion USD to solve the problem long-term. Now that is a lot of money to pay for a mess caused by irresponsible companies polluting the lake... who will presumably not be putting in towards that cost!

And, i have no travel plans for at least 2 more weeks; which must be a first in 2007!