Hot in here...

It's February in southern China. That means heat, humidity and general uncomfortableness. The air conditioner is already on to dehumidify.

Tea Shop in Shenzhen

Eric Liu and I had a great discussion over tea in Shenzhen. A nice little tea shop nestled amidst lots of greenery.

Street vendors in Shenzhen, China

Street vendors outside a subway station, Shenzhen, China. The vend such wares as food, farm-fresh produce (oranges, strawberries, etc.) pirated DVDs, etc.

"Focus Media" in taxis now

Focus Media ( 分众传媒 ; Nasdaq: FMCN) popularized LCD-screen enabled monitors in elevators and lobbies in China -- in commercial, office and residential properties. "Focus Media" fever has spread and such ad screens can be found in supermarket, trains, planes, and taxis in China.

Here are some photos from a new "Focus Media"-like ad screen service in taxis in Shenzhen. Thankfully, one is able to hit a mute button...

Dog Meat - Tastes like chicken

It was inevitable. After 16 years in Greater China, I finally took part in a meal that included a winter stable in China, dog meat. I took a bite. Tasted a bit like greasy chicken. Felt quite guilty afterwards.

Trip to Nanjing

Recently visited Nanjing, China for about three days. A quick business trip. Was able to spend time with old friends, Alex Yan and Kehong Woo - and was able to make new friends such as Jiping Wang of ArcherMind and Yongquan Tan.

Some photos of Nanjing posted here.

Double Sadness Internet Hell in China

I spent a week in China on business. To my dismay, I was all but unable to access my www.netidentity.com e-mail account (Boyd@JonesEmail.com ) and many Web sites in the West were incredibly slow or blocked by the Chinese Internet censors -- or both. Gmail worked well though (for the most part) and I tried to move all e-mail traffic to Gmail during that week.

Truly Internet hell. "Double" in the sense that the sites like Wikipedia.org remain blocked by the China Internet cops -- and in the sense that the Taiwan earthquake in late December 2006 (and the cutting of underseas cables) is still slowing Internet access in China.

Things were a little better in Hong Kong (I assume Hong Kong has some Internet access redundancy of some sort) and back to normal when I returned to Taiwan (although the earthquake cut cables south of Taiwan, Taiwan's access itself to the Internet cloud was not affected).