So what is this foreigner doing in Tencent? I'm not the CEO as the lady from the fast-food company thought. I don't work for public relations either and certainly am not an English teacher.

I came to Tencent because I've always been interested in making cool new Internet applications. Just about 4 months ago I went through my job interviews after graduating from Computer Science from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (荷兰) a year ago. Work on QQVideo was already well under way at this time, but there was also still much to do. Coming from a different background, I can sometimes provide a new perspective. For example I think I drove everyone crazy by asking to support Firefox, but since last week QQVideo also works in Firefox!

When I was asked to write something for this blog, it was not easy to come up with an interesting subject. The previous authors have all been talking about releasing new products, so I'll talk about something different.

Today is a special day in the Netherlands called 'Sinterklaas'. It's a little bit like Christmas in the rest of the world, but with some unique characteristics. For Sinterklaas we always eat some candy called 'pepernoten' and we eat chocolate letters. I remember when I was a little boy, we always went to the house of my grandparents. In the evening somebody would knock on the door and then me and my cousins all rushed to the door to see who was there. Sinterklaas had already gone, but he would always leave many gifts for everyone.

Today is also the first time I am not home for Sinterklaas. My parents have sent me pepernoten and chocolate by mail and today at work I actually got candy that I shared with the team. Tonight I'll try to make some traditional Dutch cookies at home. Because of the Internet I can keep into contact with my parents and friends. Sometimes I wish I lived 50 years ago in China, or perhaps 150 years or 500 years ago during the great Chinese emperors. It would be very interesting to see the traditional houses and clothes, but it would also be impossible to write a letter home. Tonight I will see my parents on the webcam, talk to them over VoIP and perhaps share a movie I made with my digital camera through QQVideo. I can listen to Dutch radio and see the news online. And if I want to know more about those Chinese emperors that lived 500 years ago? I just search online, browse through bookmarks of other people and find many more interesting things to discover.

Can you imagine what other great things we can do with Internet? I have some ideas and I hope I can share them with you in the future. May you live in interesting times too and I wish you a happy Sinterklaas!