July 13, 2008 by admin.

As a follow-up to my last post, a couple of days ago on Yahoo I watched this story:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=8772855

It would be funny if it was not perfectly representative of the prevailing attitudes of the TSA and most airport security people in the United States today. This poor woman did nothing wrong (other than to possibly verbally express her objections to what was going on - apparently airport security has never heard of the First Amendment, I believe that one has not been overturned….yet).

In the video, the defense attorney’s arguments in favor of what airport security did are disgusting, she should be ashamed of herself for even attempting to defend what they did - in a court of law that would be her duty as a lawyer, but on television she is only saying what she is saying to get camera time. She is exactly the type of lawyer that gives all lawyers a bad name.

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July 13, 2008 by admin.

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July 9, 2008 by admin.

Having just returned from a 3-week vacation back home in Oklahoma, I just read one of the travel newsletters that I subscribe to to try to keep up with what is going on in the industry even though most of it doesn’t apply to Beijing tours and tours of China. One of the articles that I just read, from my daily ASTA (American Society of Travel Agents) newsletter, talked about reasons that the United States is losing out on international tourists (you can read the article here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/369774_tourism07.html ). First and foremost, and the article mentions this as one of the main reasons that we are losing out on tourism business in the U.S., is the unfriendly and downright rude behavior of our U.S. Customs Agents and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and I can speak of this through numerous personal experiences with these unfriendly people, who are often the first people that visitors to our great country encounter. Since I don’t have all day to write about my numerous bad experiences with these surly black-uniformed, jack-booted customs agents, I’ll limit this writing to my most recent experience with them in Vancouver, Canada (yes, the American Customs Agents operate in Canada at a “pre-screening” checkpoint, which at the time that I went through was an absolutely un-funny joke, for all people traveling on to the U.S.) Our flight of around 290 people arrived on time from Beijing; then we were herded and separated into passengers staying in Canada or traveling on to the U.S., so there were probably 150 or so of us traveling on to the U.S. We had to go down some stairs into a narrow glass-enclosed hallway to wait our turn to go through U.S. customs, which had so thoughtfully decided to staff this jammed checkpoint with 1 or 2 officers (it varied throughout the time we were there but there were never more than 2 of them.) We never could figure out what the holdup was, but these guys were incredibly slow, taking about an hour and a half to get us all through customs, causing many of us to miss our ongoing flights. Once we were fortunate enough to step up to the non-smiling customs agents after waiting for what seemed like forever, the agent that I dealt with curtly asked how long I had been out of the U.S., then dropped my passport back to me and I had to rush to go claim my bags, which had been sitting beside the baggage carousel for an hour and a half, then hurry to re-check my bags and make my departing flight for Denver, which was leaving in less than 15 minutes. Already harried for having to hurry and disgusted (as was everyone else) at having had to stand in line for so long to get back into my home country (even though I was still in Canada), I was stopped by a cocky little TSA agent who chose me for a random check - which involved not only a 3-minute search with the hand-held metal detector but also a hand pat-down, even though I told him that my flight was leaving in 5 minutes. This TSA guy acted irritated that I even mentioned that I was going to miss my flight and that I pointed out that I had just been thoroughly searched with the hand-held metal detector (he said “that’s right, I was the one the one that told him to do it”) - what was the point of a pat-down by hand? Unless he just enjoys doing that kind of thing…..anyway, I look about as threatening as Mickey Mouse but I was treated like a criminal by an officer of the U.S. government on foreign soil (still in Canada), and I really didn’t appreciate it. Not only did I miss my flight, but my bags didn’t even make it on to Oklahoma City until the next day because of that hour and a half delay caused by the slow/undermanned U.S. Customs checkpoint. Plus it’s always nice to be automatically treated like I am a criminal and tht I have done something wrong when returning to my homeland. This treatment stands in stark contrast to the friendly reception that I usually receive when I return to China, even with the heightened security now at the Beijing airport because of the Olympic Games only being one month away. Kind of makes a person wonder which is the “free” country - Communist China or the United States of America? I am sick and tired of rude treatment by U.S. Customs Agents and TSA “officers”, nearly all of whom seem to get off on a power trip performing their duties rather than trying to keep us safe, which is what their job is all about, not about seeing how many people they can get to jump through their ridiculous hoops. I should not have to feel like a criminal when returning to my homeland, especially when it gets to the point that I get anxious every time I come back home, just because I have to go through this unpleasant experience every time (with rare exceptions, Chicago’s O’Hare seeming to be one of them, at least in my experience.)

Now I know that some people (if anyone ever actually reads this) will say that these people are just doing their jobs and defending our country from terrorists, and that they should be held up as heroes, not villains. Maybe people who have not repeatedly returned from abroad to come back into the U.S. and put up with consistently rude and unwelcoming treatment can say this (and even my own parents say that), but there is a huge difference between protecting us from terrorists and acting like little Nazi dictators throwing around their far too encompassing power and authority. To be fair, I have encountered friendly officers from both U.S. Customs and TSA (I wish that I knew their names so that I could commend them here), but they are very few and far between. I am sick and tired of being treated like a criminal simply because I choose to live my life abroad. I overheard an older American couple while we were standing in the eternal line to pass through customs in Vancouver talking about some British friends of theirs that refused to even travel in transit through the U.S. because of rude treatment and draconian security measures. The article that I linked to above bears this out, and it is destroying what little positive image the U.S. still has left in the world. It is absolutely ridiculous that the “land of the free” bullies those people that are our friends abroad when they come to visit our great country, and something needs to be done about it. There is no reason that these front-line ambassadors for our country can’t at least smile while performing their duties, which are unpleasant enough for people unaccustomed to such treatment when simply visiting another country, and if they can’t do that because they don’t like their jobs or for whatever reason, then they need to find another line of work.

Perhaps this is not an appropriate posting on my business blog but I feel strongly enough about it that I feel more people need to complain and get something done about poor treatment of both U.S. citizens and our foreign friends that come to visit our country. It makes me feel embarrassed that so many people who like the U.S.A. enough to spend hard-earned money to visit but then are subjected to unfriendly border agents, and I feel truly angry that I am forced to feel like a criminal every time that I go home to visit my family. I would encourage anyone else that feels the same way to get the word out in whatever way possible, and maybe eventually someone that has the power to do something will enact some much needed changes to create a more pleasant experience when people enter our country.

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May 22, 2008 by admin.

Life sometimes throws cruel ironic twists at a person, and the key to living a happy life is to make the best of what could otherwise be an unbearable situation. I mentioned in a previous post the tour guidebook about Dujiangyan that my friend had written, which has the incredibly tragically ironic title: Dujiangyan: in Harmony with Nature. I had attended a party to launch the book on April 30, 2008, and had even added a webpage to our website devoted entirely to Dujiangyan. Very sadly, it is one of the cities that has been hardest hit by the tragic earthquake of May 12, 2008 and its aftershocks. Thousands were killed in this great city alone, many of them young students killed when their classrooms collapsed.

So what to do with travel guide books for a destroyed city? The publishers have wisely decided to sell the books as a memorial to those great people of Dujiangyan and the surrounding area, with all proceeds going to the Dujiangyan Young Survivors group, a charity group donated to providing support services to the youth of Dujiangyan and Wenchuan who have been disproportionately affected by this enormous disaster. You can not only get a book about the great city that Dujiangyan once was, but you will also be donating to a worthy cause dedicated to efficiently using that money to help those that need it most. To buy the Dujiangyan guidebook, please visit the publishers homepage at www.cnlookingglass.com. 

To contact the Dujiangyan Young Survivors charity group, please email them at DJYoungsurvivors@yahoo.com.

It’s a good way to get a great book of the way that Dujiangyan was before May 12, 2008, and hopefully how it can be again in the future.

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May 14, 2008 by admin.

Now that the enormous scale and loss of human life in the Sichuan earthquake has become clear, my earlier post about motion sickness and the swaying of our apartment building in Beijing seems incredibly trivial. I do remember though, in the hours immediately after we felt the earthquake, feeling this ominous sense of dread, because as much as our building was moving around here in Beijing, I knew that wherever the epicenter of the earthquake was located, it had to have been hit very, very badly. Slowly the news came out, first 4 confirmed dead, then more, and more, and more, along with horrific photos from Dujiangyan and elsewhere in the area that were absolutely heartbreaking. I felt a personal connection with Dujiangyan even though I had never been there, because one of my friends here in Beijing had recently completed a travel guide for foreigners that was all about Dujiangyan. There was a book launch party for the Dujiangyan book at the end of April here in Beijing, which I attended, and where I met the head of the Ministry of Tourism for the city of Dujiangyan. We had even put up a web page for the city in anticipation of offering tours to the area because it was a truly interesting place with thousands of years of history and tremendous strategic importance to the development of China over the millennia. Tragically, it is impossible to know what the future holds for this devastated city, but the people there are strong and they can and will recover from this terrible earthquake. Faced with a decision on what to do with the unfinished web page for tours of Dujiangyan after this disaster, I decided to put up a couple of links to trustworthy organizations on the web page for donations to the victims of the earthquake. I couldn’t stand to simply delete the page, as if the city had never existed. I just hope that anyone that comes across that web page on our website realizes that it was there before these tragic events unfolded. For now, we are left wondering if our friends in Dujiangyan survived, with the hope that they and all of the people affected will have the strength to get through this unimaginable tragedy.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

World Vision

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May 12, 2008 by admin.

A huge earthquake of 7.5 - 7.8 on the Richter scale centered north of Chengdu in Sichuan Province had Beijing shaking as well, and reportedly buildings in Bangkok, Thailand were swaying too. I know that our 13th floor office apartment was swaying quite a bit for a minute or so; one of the most bizarre feelings I have ever felt. I’m prone to motion sickness anyway, so an hour and a half later I’m still feeling it. Office buildings were evacuated here in Beijing, and now they are saying that there was a smaller earthquake located just east of Beijing in Tongzhou at 3.9 on the Richter scale that may have been responsible for us shaking in Beijing. Whatever the source, it seems that the ground underneath us is moving, and I wonder if it is the result of the incredible number of huge buildings and construction happening in China that is putting pressure on the Earth’s surface, or perhaps the Three Gorges Dam in central China and the enormous weight of the dammed up water that is to blame. China has in the past had numerous earthquakes, so it may just be time for things to shift again. Regardless, it sure has people here in Beijing literally shaken up today.

Beijing Discovery Tours

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May 11, 2008 by admin.

One of the great things about living in Beijing is that there is an endless number of interesting places to visit and sites to see in this amazing city. It’s not only because Beijing is an ancient capital city that it provides a wealth of worthy sights to see, but also it’s importance to China and the rest of the world throughout history. One can visit the Marco Polo bridge in southern Beijing, supposedly visited by the famous traveler himself, or travel even farther south to visit the Peking Man site, where archaeologists have uncovered evidence and bones of prehistoric humans that lived near Beijing. Fantastic and largely unexplored “wild” sections of the Great Wall of China lie scattered to the north of the city, making for great one-day or overnight trips to visit on of the “modern” wonders of the world (strange that something hundreds of years old would be considered “modern”.) I would recommend for anyone visiting Beijing to certainly take in all of the familiar “must-see” sites - The Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven, but if you can possibly spare one day to visit some of the more obscure places in and around the city, you can have a unique adventure that most tourists never get to experience. Beijing Discovery Tours can take you to these places. Just let us know what it is that you would like to see while you are in China, including ancient important Buddhist sites, temples, mountains, caves, horseback riding etc., and we will do our best to make it happen for you.

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May 11, 2008 by admin.

One of the things that I just realized that I really love about starting a company like Beijing Discovery Tours is that we get to meet people from all over the world and help them to explore China in comfort without getting ripped off, which is very easy to do if you tour Beijing without an experienced and licensed Chinese tour guide. (Sorry for the constant linking to our website - Google search made me do it.) So far we have hosted groups from Mexico, Germany and the United States, with upcoming tours for groups from Hong Kong, Russia, Ireland (I think), Mexico, and the United States, and tours already booked even into January 2009. We have taken people to the Simatai Great Wall, Badaling Great Wall, Mutianyu Great Wall, and the Juyongguan Great Wall, which is an often overlooked (fortunately) section of the Great Wall near Beijing that avoids the huge crowds and traffic jams associated with the Badaling Great Wall. Other must-see sites that our groups have gone to include the Forbidden City (also known as the Palace Museum), Tian’anmen Square, the Summer Palace, the Lama Temple, the ancient hutongs of Beijing by rickshaw, the Beijing Opera, the Kung Fu Show and the very impressive Acrobatics Show. Beijing is filled with great sites to see, even after you have seen the main places mentioned above, there is no end to what there is to see and do even on your second, third, tenth or twentieth tour of Beijing. We also have groups scheduled to visit Xi’an and the Terracotta Warriors, as well as beautiful Yangshuo, Guilin and the Li River in Guangxi Province in south China, and we have even sent a nice family of 3 on a Yangtze River Cruise. (OK, enough with the links, we’ll probably get penalized as a spam site or something if I don’t stop it.) The point is that there is an incredible diversity of what to see in China and in Beijing in addition to the iconic sites that everyone must see on their first visit to this amazing country. There are wild sections of the Great Wall that are not generally open to the public (sorry, I couldn’t resist linking to that), and even after 8 years of living here I have yet to visit even a fraction of them. I have also just recently bought a tour guidebook of day and overnight trips to the outskirts of Beijing, and hopefully this summer I will be able to talk one or two of my more adventurous friends into trying some of them out. With any luck, I’ll be posting about these visits on this blog and adding new destinations to the Beijing Discovery Tours website in the near future.

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May 11, 2008 by admin.

Hopefully, with any luck, I will be moving our Beijing Discovery Tours blog to this site - it looks great (this hosting site, not our blog)! So much better than our old location that has almost no functionality. So far I have not been able to import all of our old posts from our old host, and I’m not sure what the problem is, but we’ll keep working on it and we hope to have this blog up and running soon.

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December 4, 2007 by admin.

I had pretty much given up writing on this blog because it seems like a waste of time and really, I had nothing much to write about. But I am having an experience with the Citysearch pay-per-click company that I think everyone should know about so that they can avoid this company like the plague. They have tried to charge my credit card for nearly US$200 for fraudulent clicks and they don’t seem willing to listen to my complaints.

First of all, as a very small business owner, I was looking for ways to promote my website (the same reason for first starting this blog), and I had signed up with 1and1.com as our ISP (no complaints about 1and1 though, they have been great!) I received vouchers for Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and one for US$25 for Citysearch. I found much better vouchers for Microsoft, Google and Yahoo elsewhere, but I thought that I would at least give Citysearch a try until the $25 credit ran out. The deal was also supposed to be that there would be no monthly charges, but the cost per click was very expensive (in my opinion) at US$.75 per click. Even so, I thought that with my small website, $25 would last a couple of months at the very least.

Once I signed up on October 7 and supposedly put my ad up on Citysearch, I looked for it for several days afterwards but could never find it. It was only supposedly listed in the Oklahoma City area Citysearch (my company is registered in Oklahoma) so how hard could it be to find it, especially since I knew what I was looking for? I never could find it, so I just assumed that they had decided not to post my ad for whatever reason and then forgot about it, until I received an email from Citysearch on November 3, stating that I was about to be invoiced. I couldn’t imagine that I had used up the $25 credit already, so I logged in to my Citysearch account. It showed that my ad supposedly ran from 10/7 to 11/1, with zero clicks everyday except for 4 days: Monday 10/22 showed 51 clicks, Tuesday 10/23 showed 25 clicks, Wednesday 10/24 showed 25 clicks, and Thursday 10/25 showed 21 clicks. All other days there was nothing. They were trying to charge me somewhere around US$97 (they have deleted this information from their website so I’m not sure on the exact amount.) Just from that alone a person would be suspicious, I mean how many people look for tours of Beijing in the Oklahoma City Citysearch website? Furthermore, I have Google Analytics set up on my website, and the TOTAL number of visitors to my website for the two months that I had been using Google Analytics was not even close to the 122 clicks that Citysearch was charging me for, and that was before I even figured out how to exclude my own computers from showing our own visits to the website. I emailed Citysearch to complain and cancel my account (there was no way to do it through their website, and I could not remove my credit card information) but I heard nothing back. I checked my account a few days later, and the $97 charge was gone, so I assumed all was ok. WRONG! I got my credit card bill on November 29, and Citysearch had charged me $66.50 on 11/8/07, then $40.50 11/16/07, this time without telling me that I was about to be invoiced or any notification whatsoever. If I hadn’t checked my credit card bill they would have, at least initially, gotten away with it. Immediately I emailed Citysearch and told them that I knew that these were fraudulent clicks and demanded that they credit my account, or I would dispute the charges through my credit card company. I also saw when I logged in to my Citysearch account that they had canceled my account and conveniently deleted all of the “statistics” that showed the number of clicks, etc. that they were trying to charge me for. Once again I checked Google Analytics, and found nothing from Citysearch or anything that could have come from them. The total number of clicks on my website once again were nowhere near what Citysearch was charging me for.

I finally got a very unprofessional email back from a “Bruce Jones, Senior Account Exec (sic)”, which implicitly made fun of my family name (I have an unusual family name), complete with punctuation mistakes and words that were left out. Bruce informed me that I should call him to talk about my cost per click, but said nothing about my telling him that there was no way that there had been that many clicks, if any at all, from Citysearch, and that I had never been able to even find my ad on their website.

After that last email from Bruce, I followed through with my threat to dispute the charges with my credit card company, especially since the credit card bill has to be paid within a week.

A quick search on Google for “Citysearch fraud” found other stories very similar to mine:

http://aldebaranwebdesign.com/blog/my-adventure-with-city-search-pay-per-click-advertising-and-click-fraud/
http://approachingmidnight.blogspot.com/2006/11/citysearch-sucks.html
http://venturebeat.com/2007/02/28/citysearch-snaps-up-insider-pages-in-local-search-race/ (look at the comment on 11/8/07, before my comment)

and those are just what I found within the first couple of minutes of searching. I’m a licensed attorney in Oklahoma - is anyone interested in possibly starting up a class-action lawsuit against Citysearch? They cannot be allowed to get away with behavior like this, and I am sure that there are many others that don’t use visitor tracking software that have no idea that they are being scammed by Citysearch.

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