China Esquire

Just wanted to wish all of my readers a Happy New Year / Spring Festival 2010! (which brings us to the year of the tiger in our Chinese zodiac)

It’s been a crazy year so far and I’ve been overwhelmed with some interesting stuff at work: some cross-border M&A, foreign entity tax registrations, intellectual property strategy and enforcement, and plenty of contracts and agreements to keep me busy. I can only hope that all of you are having wonderful new years, with plenty of interesting work and issues, as well as a good week of rest (for those of you in China or Asia). Those of us in America wish we also had an entire week for spring festival too!

Yes, a little late, but I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas. (Sheng Dan Kuai Le)

We just got back from Macau/Hong Kong a few days ago and remain very badly jetlagged. Baby China Esquire still doesn’t want to sleep at a bedtime in any U.S. timezone, making our holidays this year a little different.

Still, just wanted to wish everyone the best this holiday season and looking forward to 2010.

I just wanted to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving 2009! I can’t believe that the time has flown by already and that the holiday season is already upon us in the U.S. I look forward to 2010, hopefully with more active posting and interesting tidbits about China, business, law, and non-profits/NGOs. Thank you to my readers who follow this blog, even in my more inactive times (due to Baby China Esquire being a fun handful), and for those of you who also picked up on my twitter feed. I post regularly to twitter, so that’s probably a good place to follow me as well!

Some quick updates for everyone. First, I decided to update my twitter account username. Chinaesq is shorter, but since my China Blog is China Esquire, I decided to go with the full name. Please let me know if you think its a bummer idea.

http://twitter.com/ChinaEsq

Please update accordingly.  Hopefully those following will get it updated automatically.  Second, I will be using twitter a lot more actively since I can still give my thoughts on a wider variety of matters than putting full posts together.  So if you follow the blog, I encourage you to follow the twitter too!

UPDATE: I am changing back to chinaesq based on initial feedback. Good call, Dan.

Yes, I bit the bullet.  I resisted the Twitter thing for a long time, but for a few reasons, I decided to give in and try it out.  I don’t know if I will stick to it, and I have no plans to let everyone know the microfine details of my life, but it’s fun enough to play with for now.  My Twitter feed is located at:

http://twitter.com/chinaesq

Feel free to subscribe!  You might see more there than on this blog.  Raising a child is hard work and I don’t know how some bloggers can nurture their families AND their blogs.

I just couldn’t resist doing posting at least one baby picture of Baby China Esquire.  I know, its not related to Chinese law, business, non-profits, or society other than the fact that the little baby has Chinese parents…  but I hope that you will pardon my excitement!

I hope to get back to blogging about my normal blog subjects again soon.

Just an FYI, I’ve been very busy and haven’t been able to post.  Mrs. China Esquire and I had the privilege (and the responsibility) of bringing Baby China Esquire into the world this past week.  As a result, I haven’t been getting much sleep on top of an already rigorous work schedule.  I don’t plan to disappear completely, but if my post count remains low for the time being, you know why.  I must say, baby is awfully cute!

Just a quick update that I’ve consolidated my blogroll into a single page on my blog.  It was getting way too unwieldly and long for a sidebar blogroll (widget) that I had been using since I started China Esquire: Law and Business Blog.  The problem is that since then, there have been many good Chinese business blogs, Chinese law blogs, and the like that popped up.  (which is a good thing)  And I am discovering new blogs each day.

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I decided to overhaul my blog site.  I wanted something cleaner.  However, I wanted to see what everyone thought.  I have a few options.

UPDATED: the people have spoken and I’m back to my old theme. Thanks for voting! (You can see the choices I had opened polls on after the jump)

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Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!  (Xin nian kuai le!)  May 2009 be one that is blessed and wonderful for all of you.  (especially for my regular readers!)

I also wanted to say thank you for those who voted for my blog in the China Blog Awards 2008.  While we didn’t win, we did make a respectable finish!  (6th place if I recall correctly)  Congratulations to the winners, especially to Experience Not Logic for being the top finishing China law blog–good job, Will!  (we came in 2nd place among the law focused blogs)

And here’s to hoping that readership at China Esquire Law and Business Blog will grow in the coming year.  I hope to become somewhat more active again, though I don’t think I can match the torrid pace of my prior blogging activity in 2008.

Best wishes to you and your family & friends in 2009!

I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  (Sheng Dan Kuai Le for those of you in China…  I don’t have Chinese character capability on WordPress or I’d use them)  Thank you for continuing to drop by my blog and comment, especially the regular readers.  I never expected that I would have a readership and regular hits when I started the blog this past year, so I am grateful to all of you.

Voting for the China Blog Awards closes December 31, 2008, so I want to make one last push for votes.  If you’ve enjoyed my blog this past year, please take the time to vote!  It’s simple: click this link and then click the “+” symbol.

Wishing you the best and happy holidays!

I figured I would announce it soon enough on the blog, but I have decided to break from law firm life for the time being.  I recently joined TechSoup Global as an Eligibility Manager, which is doing domestic and international legal compliance on tax and non-profit/NGO issues.  (though I am also handling a fair amount of general corporate, international, and in-house legal matters as well)

It’s a big change, and I hope to continue blogging more in the new year once I am more settled.  I have been at TechSoup now for over 3 weeks and really enjoy the culture here.  The people are very nice, and the Global Networks Team that I am a part of is very entrepreneurial.  Our service is currently in 19 countries, but will likely be in another 10 by the end of 2009.  (it’s very exciting…  especially since I get to work on international corporate matters and more business design)

Here is the announcement that went out yesterday:

Dear Partners,

We are very excited to be introducing Thomas Chow!  Thomas is our new Eligibility Manager for the TechSoup Global Network, where he will be taking a leading role in managing and implementing our eligibility rules and standards across the donation programs. And given his legal background, it hopefully won’t come as a big surprise when he starts pitching in on legal matters as well.  We’re very fortunate to have persuaded him away from his traditional law firm path and I hope you will please join us in welcoming him.

So don’t be surprised if I start adding some non-profit/NGO related material to this blog in the future.

Merry Christmas if I don’t have a chance to write again before then…  (and please don’t forget to vote for my blog at Chinalyst)