Author Archives: leendertvandoorn

July 1st was the 100-year anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It was a major event and then again it wasn’t. Let me explain. The whole city was reminded of the upcoming anniversary about a week before the event. Posters were all over the subway stations and 100-year signs were mounted all across theContinue reading “100-year Anniversary of the Communist Party”

Like a true local, I haven’t done much sightseeing yet. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet, but that changed this weekend. I’ve been trying to catch up with a friend of mine in Beijing for almost a month and we hadn’t managed to do so. He probably felt guilty about that because thisContinue reading “A Weekend Excursion: 古北水镇”

After almost a month I have found my daily routine. In the mornings, I get up around 6am, have breakfast at 6:30am and I’ll start my US calls from 7-11am and then head for the Microsoft Research office in Haidian, Beijing. If I have a late office start like this, then I tend to grabContinue reading “Daily life”

I’m a bit behind with my blog writing. In part because I got a cold that was more persistent than I had originally thought and in part because work got in the way. Here is the blog entry I started last week and didn’t finish until the week after. Sunday afternoon, June 6th, I decidedContinue reading “A smoldering Sunday afternoon”

Friday afternoon, June 4th, I had some spare time after a morning filled with calls and I decided to walk up to Tian’anmen square which is around the corner from where my apartment is. I had already noticed that there was increased security around Tian’anmen square and the forbidden city since I arrived the WednesdayContinue reading “Attempt to visit Tian’anmen square”

In the fight against COVID19, China mobilized its mobile infrastructure (pun intended) to track its citizen and foreigners alike by introducing health and travel codes. Although these are all apps, I decided to dedicate a separate blog entry to them because they are such an important part of today’s society. You cannot go anywhere inContinue reading “Health and travel codes”

China is the most automated and cell phone app-based society I know of. Everything is online and everything can be arranged through an app. While the US has good apps as well, I have the feeling China got there earlier and its app ecosystem is much better integrated and more pervasive. While these Chinese appsContinue reading “Simplifying your life with Chinese Apps”

The highspeed train system (高铁) in China is second to none. It rivals airplanes, especially for 2-4 hours flights, like the one from Shanghai to Beijing. By the time you have checked into the airport, gotten through security, dealt with the inevitable delays that plaque China’s air transportation network, the 4 hour and 28 minContinue reading “Taking the train to Beijing”

This has been a busy 10-days in Shanghai. With the exception of Saturday evening, each evening was filled with dinners and typically I had meetings during the day as well. Rather than describing each day individually I figured I jot down some of my overall impressions to make it less boring. Shanghai is about makingContinue reading “Impressions from Shanghai”

Never a dull moment. After we reconfirmed last week with the company that runs the long-term stay apartments in Beijing that the current Beijing policy is 14+7, I got an email today from that same company that stated that the policy was 14+7+7. Apologies, if this is a repeat from my previous blog, but ChineseContinue reading “Should I stay or should I go?”