Privy Porsche China Event

"Privy recently teamed up with Porsche Centre Shanghai Pudong and Muse Entertainment to throw our first private party in Shanghai. The evening was put together by superstar attorney and Muse Partner Paul Lin, who co-hosted the evening along with Muse Managing Partner Michael Sun and Privy CEO Stephen Liu. Prior to the Privy shindig, Lin, recently inducted into the Committee of 100, attended meetings in Taipei and Shanghai with his fellow C-100 members. It was an eventful few days for the group, which met with Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, among others, before joining us in Shanghai. David Xiao, GM of the newly minted Porsche Centre Shanghai Pudong, took a break from heading up the Chinese flagship facility to represent our gracious sponsors.

Guests came in from Seoul, San Francisco, Taipei, Hong Kong, Beijing, and LA to reconnect with old friends and mingle with new ones in the Chinese hub city. Some flew in just for the event, while others took a detour from their travels to join us for the evening.

The setting proved to be the perfect backdrop for an intimate night with some great people. C-100 members Judge Elwood Lui and Peter Liu, Chairman of WI Harper; James Chen, EVP of Diebold International; Joel Tzo, GM of Bose China; Eric Han, President of KFC-Yum China; Eddie Lui, CEO of Excelstor Technologies; Leon Soo, President of Shanghai Heling Lexus (Hotai Motors Ltd.); Tina Cheng, Country Manager of Jigocity Taiwan; Olivier Burlot, Managing Director of Blu Inc. Media HK; Sam Lee, Chairman of Interserv Inc.; Rita Huang, Managing Director of Bayern Capital; Bob Lu, GM of Lamborghini Shanghai; Shew Chen, Partner at HydePark Capital Partners; Andrew Bigbee, the Commanderie de Bordeaux Shanghai; Stream Lee, Privy Seoul Ambassador; and Eric Zho, CEO of Ato Ato Integrated Media, Inc. were among the notable guests.

"The Piano Teacher" By Janice Y.K. Lee

My friend's sister has come out with a new book, "The Piano Teacher"

Some good reviews by a few Amazon top reviewers and other solid reviews by various critics. Here are a couple of them...

Chicago Tribune, January 3, 2009
"Evocative, poignant and skillfully crafted, "The Piano Teacher" is more than an epic tale of war and a tangled, tortured love story. It is the kind of novel one consumes in great, greedy gulps, pausing (grudgingly) only when absolutely necessary..."

Marie Claire, January 3, 2009
"In her debut novel, Lee tells two engrossing love stories, both involving the same man. Just hide your phone before cracking this one open - or risk calling your ex..."

Synopsis:
In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences for both of them, and for members of their fragile community who will betray each other in the darkest days of the war.

Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter’s piano teacher. A provincial English newlywed, Claire is seduced by the colony’s heady social life. She soon begins an affair, only to discover that her lover’s enigmatic demeanor hides a devastating past.

As the threads of this spellbinding novel intertwine and converge, a landscape of impossible choices emerges—between love and safety, courage and survival, the present and, above all, the past.

Upcoming Asia Web Conference

Chang Kim, CEO of TNC (leading blog software company in Korea) and blogger of Web 2.0 Asia, initiated an effort to have a conference in Asia on the Internet/Web 2.0. He was nice enough to invite me to be part of the organizing committee even though I'm no longer living in Asia.

Anyway, if you have any speaker suggestions or interested in sponsoring, just contact me. More from Chang's post, "Progress update on the Asia Web Conference plan"