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Walter Landor's Day Out

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Today was Walter’s Day, an official worldwide day at Landor in honour of our founder Walter Landor. This is our T&T day where we celebrate our local work which has “Transformed and Transcended” (T&T) our clients business. In the afternoon we went to a 300-year old Hutong restaurant to have lunch. The weather was perfect and it was good just to get out the office and do some team bonding. (Left to right- Wei Ting, Me, William, Miki, Karen, Zhang Miao, Cao Gui, Mandy, Li Xiang, Holly, Bi Tao, Andy and Kevan).

Three Little Pigs

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

My colleague Miki came back from lunch today and gave me a present. Three little pigs, made of sticky dough, with red bean paste inside. Actually only one was for me, but I thought they looked pretty cute. It tasted a bit rubbery and I am not a fan red bean paste, but was OK with a cup of tea. Red bean is a very popular and used in many desert dishes including moon cakes. However, for me it’s just not sweet enough and I would of preferred a chocolate filling. But then I am a real little pig when it comes to chocolate, haha.

Embarking On A Clean Desk

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

My company has just launched a new global on boarding programme called Embark. It is something we should of have a long time ago but better late than never. It’s a pretty impressive online training for new recruits to introduce them to Landor and what we do. As part of the launch every employee got a box of chocolates and a welcome note on their desk. These had to be put on a ‘clean desk’ for when the employee arrived at work. Well I am not sure what you office is like but trying to find a clean desk in a design office is like finding a needle in a haystack. In fact most designers desks look like haystacks, piles high with papers, sketches, magazines so you can hardly even see the desk. However I did find one (Miki’s desk) which looked good enough to photo.

New Crackberry

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

What a better way to start the day than with a brand new Blackberry. Actually it’s the worse way to start the day, as I hate my Blackberry. Infact I often forget to charge it so it sits in my bag powerless and I love the freedom it gives me not to be connected. I travel frequently and see so many people addicted to their crackberry’s. Often they can’t wait to even get off a plane before they start furiously typing away like they are saving the world with their email. Me, I like to travel in peace, keep my mind clear and focussed for whatever presentation I am going to give. However I must admit that sometimes they are useful for last minute requests when you are on the road. But most emails are never that urgent and can wait till you get to a hotel or office. Well, my new BB looks prettier than the old one, more colourful and it lights up too, so I just have to remember to keep it charged.

Bike Shower

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

I got my mountain bike serviced yesterday as I have had it almost two years without doing anything to it. It has never been washed or cleaned so was looking pretty grubby and dishevelled. However, I kind of liked the rugged, macho look to the bike, like it had taken part in the Paris Dakar rally or something. In reality I only ride it to work and back everyday and have never even been off road with it once. So I woke up early and decided to give it a good clean in the shower before Canthy woke up. Unfortunately my plan didn’t work and at first she thought it was funny me showering with my bike in the shower. But then she saw what a mess I had made of the bathroom as I got oil stains al over the wall and floor and she went mad.
Luckily we have separate bathrooms and I had used my one otherwise Canthy would of killed me. We had the ai (maid) coming later and when she saw it she screamed and ask Canthy if we had been cooking in the bathroom.

Inflatable Haier Kids

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Today was the 4th July and I was thinking of having an American lunch to celebrate it. In the end I decided I needed to get my bike serviced instead. On the way to the shop I passed a Haier store with two inflatable boys outside. They reminded me of the giant ones I had seen at various New York parades. Now Haier is one of our big clients and I have written about them many times. They have the Haier brothers, as their brand icon in China, which is used on products packaging and communication material. However I have never seen them used as inflatable’s before. The icons are uniquely Chinese and part of Haier’s history but probably not something that would work outside of China. Though fun and friendly I couldn’t see these giving the right impression of Haier going down Fifth Avenue.

Duck Head Dinner

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Friday and night and I was going to out to meet some colleagues from our Paris office. Canthy decided to stay in and order her favourite food – spicy duck head. As I was about to leave the duck head arrived and Canthy laid in out on newspaper to eat in front of the TV. It’s really local food and very cheap Y15 (£1.50) for 4 heads, so it reminded me of eating fish and chips out of newspaper.  I am not sure how it is cooked but it is extremely hot and spicy. To eat it you basically break it up into little bits and chew and suck the bones to get out the meat. Obviously there is not a lot of meat but it’s the process of eating it that she really enjoys so much. Chinese people love eating meat of the bone but its something I never found appetising. When I came back home later after midnight, I found her fast asleep on the sofa. In front of her was a pile of tiny bones, and no duck to be seen, so it was hard to tell what animal it had come from.

Expensive Chicken Feet

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Lunchtime for me is normally a sandwich working at my computer. I know it’s an unhealthy habit, working and eating at the same time, which I am slowly trying to change. Eating sandwiches for lunch is a very English, as my Chinese colleagues always go out for lunch and eat hot food which they think is healthier. So today Canthy took me for lunch to Lee Garden, which is one of the best (and expensive) Hong Restaurants in Beijing. Their specialty is Dim Sum, or Xiao Chi (in Mandarin). We ordered lots of small dishes and feasted on I000 year old eggs, Roasted Pig and Chicken feet, which are all Hong Kong delicacies.

Crouching Superstar Hidden Supermarket

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

I got home from work but we didn’t have any food in the house, so we decided to go to our local supermarket to buys some snacks and wine. At the supermarket we bumped into Chow Yun-Fat, the HK movie superstar who was shopping incognito with his wife. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is one of my favourite all time movies so it was incredible to see him in real life. Canthy actually didn’t recognise him until I whispered who it was. She then had a meltdown gasping “Oh my God, Oh my god, it’s Zhōu Rùnfā (his Mandarin name) I cant believe this.” She then went up to him and asked him for his autograph and started talking with him. I was a little embarrassed at first, as I know some stars can be protective of their privacy. However CYF was great, really friendly and even let me take a photo with him. Him and his wife were really cool and he even shook our hands and said goodbye. Canthy was so excited she was on the phone all night telling her friends about the story and making all her friends really jealous. We then decided to have a CYF movie festival at home and download all his movies to watch next weekend. Cant wait to see Crouching Dragon Hidden Tiger again.

Ikea

Panda

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Zara

Westin

Toliets

Train

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Fish heads

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Train

Red sofa

Heavenly bed

Bed

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Mind

I went to a great conference organised by Tencent, one of China leading Internet portals. It was one-day event which must of attracted well over 500 people for the conference. I managed to get a VIP pass for the event from our parent company WPP. Mark Read, WPP’s Strategy Director, based in London was the keynote-opening speaker who I was keen to see. I had met him the day earlier at another WPP event and he recommended I come along. Well I wasn’t disappointed as his presentation was great and by far the best of the day. One of the highlights explained how Obama had used social media to win the US election. The other great piece was on a ad campaign for Drench Water, which had used the Thunderbirds TV character called Brains. This then turned into a social media phenomenon, as people were uploading their own version of the ad to Youtube. Fascinating stuff.

Jackie Chan in Beijing

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Jinbao Place the shopping Mall across from my office, had its grand opening today. As usual, they had a host of celebrities, socialites and anonymous business executives attend the event. The highlight for most of the local onlookers was the Hong Kong Kung Fu Star, Jackie Chan, who helped cut the ribbon. The street outside was crowded and traffic came to a standstill on the road, as people were stopping to see what was going on. I got there early so got a good view but it was standing room only, on whatever you could find to get a better view.

Police

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

I had to renew my visa to allowed to live and work in China. This process is very bureaucratic; takes a ton of paperwork, various official stamps and many different stages to process. One of these steps includes registering at the nearest police station as an “Alien” All aliens, as we are called on the official form have to register at the police station. It’s a complex process which Mandy my administration assistant helped me with. The written word for police is “Gong An”, but when spoken people use the word “Jing Cha”. I got Mandy to pose pretending she was going to steal the police car, which I thought was funny. However, Chinese people tend not to joke about the Police so I think she was a little worried we would get caught taking photographs.

Hanging on the Telephone

^{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Moving into a new house and have so many things to do like getting a new phone line installed. Everything in China takes longer than you expect so just getting a line transferred is one week. Also you have to be prepared to spend a long time queuing just waiting to be served. Here at the China Unicom you have to get a ticket first and then wait for your number to be called. This ticket and queue system is now used almost everywhere like banks, telecoms, government services and other service orientated businesses. At some hospitals and government offices people make a living queuing for tickets and then selling them on to other people. Well it’s a capitalist supply and demand economy even in a communist country like China.

Designer Boxes

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally.}

We had moved everything into the new apartment but it was still a mess with boxes everywhere. I lost count along the way but it must have been 70 or 80 big boxes in all. On Sunday night I opened one of Canthy’s drawers and gasped at what I saw. She must of had over 40 boxes of designer jewelley, rings, watches, purses, belts and other high end items from Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Bvlgari, Cartier etc etc. I don’t think I have ever seen so stuff in one place. When I asked her why she had so much stuff, she replied why not. I didn’t really have an answer for that but I suppose it’s a women thing; like guys having loads of gadgets and tools, just because they can.

Gang of Four

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

It’s part two of our big move to our new apartment and the second weekend in a row to be packing and moving stuff. This time Canthy got up early as we both just wanted to get it over and done with. We had a lot of help as before from the Gang of Four. They looked more like the Three Stooges (plus one) but they were actually very helpful, friendly and overall good guys. Canthy gave them a hard time and shouted at them a few times but that was just to show who is the boss and its part of her character. In China you have to supervise helpers or workmen very closely to make sure they do the right thing as sometimes they can be sloppy and not take enough care in doing their jobs.

Canthy & Panda

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Canthy and I went for lunch today to the Oriental Plaza at Wanfujing which is one of the big shopping malls near our office. As we walk back pass the cinema they had this large display about a new film coming soon about a boy and a panda. It suppose to be quite good if sentimental so a bit like Lassie but with a panda not a dog. I think we are going to plan a trip to Chengdu where there is the largest panda reserve in the world. Someone told me that for Y100 kuai, (£10) you can actually hold a baby one. Its quite expensive but as all the money goes towards the pandas upkeep it’s a worthy cause. As Canthy screamed when she saw the cardboard cut out I hate to imagine how she would react with a real one!

Millionaire's Lunchtime

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

I got invited to an Executive lunch briefing on the Chinese luxury consumer in China. It was organised by the Hurun Group, which has probably the most authoritative resource on China’s wealthy elite. They publish a number of magazines including the monthly Hurun Report, which includes a ‘China Rich List’ of the top millionaires in China. Rupert Hoogewerf, the founder and publisher of the group, gave the briefing in Chinese, but luckily his supporting slides were in English so it was easy to follow. The talk was fascinating and peppered with facts and figures about these people. One of the most interesting was “that five of the ten richest women in the world are Chinese!”

Unlucky Number 12

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Yesterday was May 12th and the anniversary of the Sichuan Earthquake which tragedy happened last year. Yesterday was weird as the number 12 kept cropping up in my day. I was staying on the 12th floor of the hotel; I got to the immigration counter at 12:23pm; and then was flying back from gate 12. No my seat number wasn’t 12, but on the seat next to me was this newspaper with the front page headline, 5:12, referring to May 12th.  Interesting dates in China always start with year, month and day, the opposite way we use dates in the West world. Definitely that was a day to remeber.

Air China's Big Bird

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally}

Flew back to Beijing and saw another one of Air China’s new rare birds. This time it was a Boeing 777 2JC that was taxing on the runway. I had just got on the moving travellator when I saw it so had to run backgrounds against the movement of the travellator and people as I didn’t want to miss the shot. I kept saying “Dui bu qi, ren yi xia” as I bumped my way pass the other passengers. They must of thought I was a crazy laowai and wondered what the hurry was for.

The planes livery is a based on the Phoenix tail and clouds design. This one is in blue and gold but I have also seen this design in red and gold on Air China’s website. The plane is part of the 777 family, which is one of the world’s most successful twin-engine, twin-aisle airplane. Fifty-six customers around the world have ordered just over 1,100 of these new planes. The 777’s combination of payload and range, as well as the lowest fuel consumption and operating costs in its class, make it one of the most popular airplanes with passengers and airlines. Recently I have taken quite a few photos on planes and inside aircraft so I think I might be turning into a plane spotter.

Group Dynamics

_{Photo copyright Ray Ally.}

Had to get up early for another flight to Qingdao as we were running a global brand strategy workshop for one of our clients. There must have been almost 50 people in the session, so one of the largest workshops we have ever run. Often large groups can be difficult to control unless you use the divide and conquer strategy. Dividing the groups into teams or 6-8 eight people, which make it more manageable and leads to better group dymamics. Ideally teams of 4-6 is more ideal as the dynamics work better as everyone feels the need to contribute. In larger team people tend to sit back and let other do the work. This principle can clearly be seen in TV shows like Survivor and the Apprentice. Despite the size the workshop went went and most teams were quite animated about what they thought was the right and wrong direction for the organisation.