Where did we spend tonight at Christmas Eve? We went to Xintiandi. We wanted to find some place with large Christmas trees, and with many cute lights, so Yifan will be very happy about. It turned out Yifan was very happy, but there are so many people (I cannot imagine Xintiandi having so many people, and the newly built tower (at the corner of Taicang Rd, and Xingye Rd, and is very ugly. What is the name?) completely changed the feeling of Xintiandi – made it like a valley.

I took some photos of what I saw tonight.

Merry Christmas to my family and friends!

2008 has not passed yet (I am still waiting for December 31, 2008 to write about a summery of this year), but I cannot help thinking about the amazing year.

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

2008 was a very remarkable for me, especially the last few months of the year. I know it is not a normal year in China (Sichuan Earthquake, Beijing Olympic, and all kinds of scandle at the end of the year), and the world (Financial Crisis, of cause), but it also means a lot for me, personally.

I spent most of my time on my business – you know the life of a startup, especially an engetic, young, and promising startup. I feel very happy about it, but I also feel I spent much less time with Wendy, Yifan, my family and friends. (I still mean relatively less time than 2007, and of cause, much less than 2004, and 2003). Hope everyone understand. We didn’t have too much weekend afternoon tea time, as we did in 2005, and we didn’t have big fat dinners together. Oh. The other reason is, we have Yifan, and we expected to have every dinner with Yifan, but often failed to do it in the first part of the year, and frequently (Mondays, and Tuesdays) in the later part.

This year has also been a very challenging year for me. I just feel a little bit the sense of what a “middle-aged man” means – stuck in the middle of work, family, and somethings health.

Looking forward, 2009 will be a very nice year for me. Hope I can learn to keep some balance.

I feel I am so fortunate to have many friends around the world – and around myself. I would put a list in my Happy New Year post.

Merry Christmas!

Related:

1. Merry Christmas 2007 Dec 25, 2007
2. Merry Christmas 2006 Dec 24, 2006
3. Merry Christmas 2005 for My Friends and Family Dec 25, 2005
4. Merry Christmas 2004 Dec 24, 2004

Christmas is coming. Although we don’t have tradition to celebrate Christmas, and people have different oppinions about whether we should celebrate Christmas in China, the Christmas tree is getting bigger and bigger in Shanghai, despite of the financial crisis.

Christmas Outside Grand Gateway

Swarovski X’mas Tree

Below is the Christmas tree inside the Grand Gateway.

Super Brand Mall

This is from the Super Brand Mall.

I saw this in Metro City.

and this outside the Grand Gateway area:

Hong Kong

I didn’t capture any tree in Hong Kong, but I saw this big wheel in IFC (International Financial Center).

Conclusion

My basic feeling is, Shanghai has more decoration and a little bit better than Hong Kong based on the places I visited so far. I may be highly biased since I only visited several towers in Hong Kong during my trip.

P.S. You still have friends on Facebook that use this site, but haven’t connected their accounts

I never really understand the origin of Thanksgivings, and don’t know what people should do on this day. Meanwhile, at the back end of my mind, I still hesitate a bit to talk about this “western holiday“, confused about the terms of “westernization”, or globalization. To do something without a tradition just because of seeing it on TV, or movie sounds silly, just like people celebrating V-Day without know how to spell it. That is the starting point of my thoughts of Thanksgiving day. P.S. I even don’t know exactly what day is Thanksgivings if Judy hasn’t had written me a note saying: “BTW, today, our dinner is on Thanksgivings Day”.

So, in short, I don’t celebrate Thanksgivings day (no offense to people who think the day is so important. Just keep in mind, that in China, there is no such a holiday).

However, I do want to take the chance to thank a lot of people (as the name of the day implies). It is them who made my life so meaningful and happy. I want to thank many many people. What a hard task to do! The list is so long, that I can hardly put it into this article.

Merry Christmas, my friends, my readers, and everyone who see this note.

Although we do not celebrate Christmas in Shanghai, I’d love to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and very soon, a Happy New Year!

 
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I am not a person who enjoy too much of a western holiday. However, Shanghai is moving fast to embrace any holiday possible, from Christmas, to Women’s day.

Today, the Xujiahui area is full of a special atmosphere – the smell of love? It is even more crowded and busy, and it seems every girl (OK. Not every, but many) has a handful of roses on the street.

So, happy Valentine’s Day!

Merry Christmas!

Today is Thanksgivings Day. This is not a popular holiday in China, but I love the concept to take a pause and start to think about people you should thank for.

Chasing Daylight

I am reading the book written by Eugene O’Kelly: Chasing Daylight.

It is a great book, and O’Kelly has a great story – a cruel but warm story. As CEO of KPMG, O’Kelly knew he only had 3 months of life, and wrote the great book. Maybe O’Kelly will be known not for his role as head of KPMG and his 30 years service to the company, instead, he will be known about this great book which inspired many people, including me.

Circles of Friends

On the page 105 of the book, O’Kelly drew a diagram about his friends that he need to unwind.

Image in courtesy of Eugene O’Kelly, and Amazon

I had hard time to recognize his handwritting, and finally I figured out the five layers of friends:

Outtermost circle: People who because of shared experience or shared passion.

Then: Business Associates

Then: Lifetime Friends

Then: Immediate Family

Then: Children

Then: Wife

O’Kelly spent about 3 weeks to say good-bye to the 1000+ friends in his outercircle. He spent enough paragraphs explain why he need to unwind all his relationships. He wanted to spend one more Perfect Moment with his friends and recall all the Perfect Moments he had with his friends. This is beautiful! He just touched the deepest and sweetest part of human nature – to cherish all the great experience, and to refresh the warmth from friendship.

On page 171, his wife asked him: “Are you prepared to leave me?”

“I think so,” he replied.

When I read about this, my heart is broken.

I would highly recommend everyone to read this book. It is not a big book. It helps to understand the meeting of life, and the value of relationship.

I have my Circles of Friends

I am also writing down a list of my relationship in my circles, and I am sure I also have 1000 friends. O’Kelly reminds me how long people get together is not a big issue, it is all about the great moment we had shared. After I create this list, I will look at each of the name and spend some serious time to recall the great time and the perfect moment we have. It must be a very enjoyable time.

Merry Christmas! The Christmas Eve arrives.

I’d like to send my Christmas gifts to a lot of people. As the saying: “Friends are the flowers in the garden of lives.” I love all my “flowers”. Merry X’mas to them.

Merry Christmas to Carroll and Jim . You gave me most of the “Christmas feeling” for sending me may X’mas greetings and inviting me to the trimming tree party. Hope you have a wonderful new year.

Merry Christmas to my friends in San Jose – RC , Nancy , Yumi , Selim , Dan , Max , Erik , Tom , Richard, Rachael, Jacob… The list is too long that I cannot put all names, but X’mas means a lot and give me the opporunity to say how I am happy to be able to be part of this big family.

Also to my friends in San Francisco: Tom (BV Capital), other friends in BV I met in my last trip there, Andreas , Jing , Nina (KQED), Christ (Rojo), and Ginger (Six Apart). 16 hours later, the Christmas eve will shift to San Francisco. Merry X’mas to you!

Friends in Seattle, like Robert Scoble , Zhang Ning , Zhang Chen , Roger , Stone …

Merry Christmas to my family in Luoyang, Tongchuan, Fuzhou, Portland, Toronto, New York, Cleveland and York in UK…

Merry Christmas my friends in Shanghai. Oh. I realize it is a really long list that I may not be able to capture all. The recent contacted include: my old friends like Mvm (sorry, the blog is still not back yet), Liurun , Linda , Hacky , Liang Ming , Steven , Yale , Grace , Hwhua , Claire , Danny , Steven Huang , Jiale , Edward , Hotcan , Jackgu , Zhao Yan , Henrygu , Wangchen , Eddie , Eddy , Tim , Helen , Hippy , Zhouxiang , Xiaowen , and many others. I listed about 30 names, but found it not possible to mention all. I do want to say Happy New Year to you.

Merry Christmas to my team at Kijiji – Ji , Vi , Ir , Ga , De , Lv , Me , Se and … just two letters without revealing too much details. ;-)

Merry Christmas to my friends in the IT industry. Thanks Hengge for treating us the Christmas evening dinner, and Happy Birthday to you today. Also Robert Mao and his wife , Gary (from Toodou), ABei (douban), Lv Xinxin (Feedsky), Isaac (special thanks for leading me to the field of innovative application I am in now), Xiaoxiong (askyaya), Zhang Zhang and Lisa , Dash , Xdanger … Also say Merry Christmas to Shangjin , Yang Linhua , Feng Dagang , Wangzhen , Keso , Liuren , Huang Fang , Fang Gang , Yubo , Fang Xingdong …

My friends in Hangzhou – Huangwei and Pan Xiaowei (edushi)…

Last but not least, to Wendy . I don’t need to put it here, since we are just back from Christmas Eve Celebrate for only two of use.

Ops. It was already a long list, but it is only very small part of people I want share the happiness of a holiday with. (Sorry if your name is not here, or not in a way that you can easily discover. It is only the top of mind names at in a massy brain of about 1:00 AM). I cherish every day we spent together and expecting for great years to come. When I was at Carroll’s party, many of hers and Jim’s friends went to the party almost every years in the last 35 years! What an accomplishment. I cannot imagine that before to have close and sincere friends for that long period of time. What I learnt was, to cherish every friendship I have and maintain it as long as life lasts…

Look back, I am proud to see how many brililiant friends I have in my garden of life. I hope I am also one of the flower in yours.

I enjoy the Art of Travel more when I read more. I especially love the chapter IX On Habit and chapter VIII On Pocessing of Beauty. It suggested people to draw pictures of the world as a great way to help observe the beauty in the details and look at daily life as a stranger or visitor does. I read the chapters twice in Starbucks in the Super Brand Mall in Lujiazui. I also spent 3 hours to draw the Valentine’s Card for Wendy – it is almost a project as big as the Balloons Reach the Roof. Just kidding. :D

This year’s valentine’s day falls into the Spring Festival long holiday, while the previous several V-Days are many days after Spring Festival. For example, the Valentine’s day is the 24th day of second month in Lunar calendar in 2004, and in 2003, it is the 14th day of the first month in Lunar calendar. That means, some people will have the opportunity to stay together the whole day this year, while more may be apart due to the long vacation. That affected the red rose price. This year’s rose is only at the half price of the last year, which is about 6 RMB per piece [1] [2]. I guess it is due to many people do not go to office so the senario of dating at night with rose in hand decreases. Meanwhile, the production of rose was raised this year.

Valentine’s Day is a holiday adopted from the western tradition. Just like Christmas, young people like to celebrate these western holidays instead of the traditional Chinese holidays. I am returning to the traditional value of old China, and appreciate the traditional Chinese new years.

The Rose House on the first floor of the Super Brand Mall is another great place to enjoy afternoon tea after I found Ambrosia. Unlike other days, today, all the seats were occupied and there were no more tables. The servers said: “It is because of the V-Day”.

It is the same in Starbucks. Waiters have to ask the youngh couples to find a seat inside the store before ordering coffee. Every details in the store – from the special menu, the hand-drawing on the black board in the store, to roses on girls hands or decorated in the store, imply it is a special day – a day of love.

Merry Christmas to all my family members, all my friends and all the readers of this blog.

©Jian Shuo Wang. The Christmas gifts in Chicago.

Love is in air today. Look at the Valentine’s Day Rose. It seems Wendy was very happy with the flowers. :-D

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang