Mestrelab in China - Again!
Shanghai was exciting as ever, and we spent most of the week in the Zhangjiang High Tech Area, in Pudong, which many Chinese call Pharma Valley. There we visited many companies, both divisions of Western companies as well as Chinese CROs, as well as holding a presentation/user meeting, which was very well attended, with over 30 representatives from companies in Zhangjiang. It was also pleasing to see that the uptake of our software by Chinese Universities continues to be very fast, with the number of users in China growing rapidly.
Of course, being Galician my stomach is very close to my heart, so I have to comment on culinary matters. Whilst running around the Zhangjiang area, we had several lunches and dinners which never cease to surprise me. If any of you guys are travelling there in business, you need to check out some of these restaurants. First of all, the food is nothing like the Chinese food I have had in the West. It is a lot more interesting and varied, and in Shanghai there is a lot of local cuisine specific to the area, with a particular mention due to a kind of dumpling called Xiao long bao (well, that is more or less how you pronounce it, if you are looking for it in Chinese menus it would look something like 虾肉小笼包 or 蟹黄小笼包, whether it is crab meat or beef – both are excellent. You can see a couple of photos below). All in all, we had several excellent meals, generously accompanied with TsingDao beer, for normally less than $30-$40 for 3 people, despite been in the commercial hub of the country and one of the main commercial cities in the World!
I also took the opportunity to visit the Expo. I must say that, although a lot of it is spectacular (special mention there to the Chinese Pavilion, which we could not enter, but which is pharaonic it is proportions and very becoming in its design, and to the Saudi Arabia Pavilion, with the World’s largest cinema screen, which visitors traverse on a conveyor belt in what is called screen immersion technology. I have to say this is very cool! Again, there are some photos in the photo gallery if you want to check them out) I don’t think the Expo is for me. A lot of queuing and waiting to see some introductions for a lot of different countries, it is an exhausting day. And, judging by the very weird Spanish Pavilion, you may come away with a very peculiar idea of what some of the countries are about. I guess, however, that if the only chance you have to visit these countries is through their pavilions at the Expo, then this may be an interesting and exciting cultural experience.
Whilst in China, I also decided that we definitely need a version of Mnova in Chinese, and this is now in the works. It will be released soon, I hope, as soon as we get our translations from the NMR people at TLWB, our very hard working Chinese distributors.
So, watch this space, I am hoping that we will very soon be announcing some more deals for our software in China as well as our Mnova Chinese version! And, of course, if you go to Shanghai, in particular to Zhangjiang, don’t go away without checking out the Xiao long bao (specially the crab meat one, delicious!)
