If you plan on attending the event next year make sure you turn up on industry day, which is typically the first day of China Joy. Otherwise you’ll have to queue up along side everyone else in a line which stretched for hundreds of meters, no joke.

At China Joy not only do you have to queue up to buy the tickets, you also will need to queue up for a security check before rejoining the queue to enter the dam venue. Once you’re inside the expo, be prepared to queue to buy water and food, to dispose of water (toilet), to take pictures with the booth babes and to collect premiums from exhibitors.

Be prepared for the heat – 38 degrees is hot even for Malaysian standards, so wear light clothing and bring along a hat and a portable fan. Bring EAR PLUGS unless you used to take E in your hay days in which case you should do okay.

The exhibitors at ChinaJoy all seem to employ the similar marketing tactics to woo the crowd:

- 1) Huge colorful booth structures – true to Chinese values – the larger the booth, the more “face” an exhibitor is perceived to have. It is a symbol of a publisher’s success in the industry and probably explains why Tian City is rumored to have spent close to 1 million RMB on their booth structure.

- 2) Exciting stage performance accompanied by ear shattering music.

- 3) Cute and sometimes scary looking Mascots to help with brand identity, perhaps?

- 4) Babes. Perhaps the most important and most over used marketing strategy for a Chinese game developer is to employ girls to create positive and sticky brand association.

Some pictures of girls dressed up a game characters

Babes posing with exhibitor’s product – I am sure many would remember the girls but how many would remember the brand?

Booth babes posing for excited onlookers armed with cameras

Unlike our snobbish Malaysian booth babes, the girls here are very obliging and would often change their pose to entertain the cameramen.

After an exciting, hot and tiring day at the expo be prepared for another long and unruly queue at the taxi stand. I was so glad I made the right choice of wearing my reliable Nikes.

The sales assistant gave a disapproving look as she immediately noticed he was wearing flip flops and therefore had no socks on.

Now there are two very good reasons why shoe shops should provide socks for customer who wish to try on covered up shoes:

1 People with broad feet tend to have difficulty slipping on NEW leather shoes without socks on and boy did Steve has broad feet, and

2 From the store’s point of view, socks helps reduce the shoe’s wear and tear from the sweat and stretch of people trying it on.

The sale assistant asked Steve to wait while she ran behind to get what we both presume would be a pair of socks. Instead she returned with two transparent plastic bags.

It seems that in China, you get plastic bags (which are reused – I assume for environmental reasons) instead of socks when trying on shoes.

Although the sensation of having plastic instead of fabric wrapped around your foot was pretty awkward, not to mention it looked ridiculous – Steve left the shop with a new pair of shoes in hand.

Instead of staying along the more popular Patong Beach, notoriously famous for it’s nightlife and shopping, we stayed at secluded Cape Panwa, possibly famous for being secluded and having heaps of dead and sharp corals to step on.

During our first night in Phuket, we decided to sample a coconut and banana pancake from a street pedlar outside the hotel.

The end product looked suspiciously like a roti pisang…but bigger on price (RM4) and even bigger on taste…mmmmm

The next day, we made our way to the Phi Phi Islands and ended up on the sandy shores of the famed Maya Bay, made popular by The Beach staring Leonardo DiCaprio. Despite the finest white sands and a breathtaking backdrop of limestone hills, tourism and perhaps the tsunami seem to have destroyed the island’s coral reefs and tour operators regularly throw bread into the sea in an attempt to lure more fish to entertain snorkeling tourist. Frankly I think Phi Phi Island is overrated, even more so as I did not find a huge field of marijuana and AK47 wielding farmers.

Speaking of tsunami – Tsunami: Wave of Destruction is ranked number 1 in the Thai Pirated DVD charts for two years running, beating international blockbusters such as Casino Royale and Happy Feet. The Thais really know how to turn tragedy into money.

I was pretty keen on watching a cabaret show but the men in our group did not want to find out the reason she’s got her legs crossed so tightly.

Instead we spent our last night in Phuket walking around Patong, sometimes forgetting that we’re in an Asian country – there seemed to be more white tourist then locals. I wonder if the locals love Phuket as much as her visitors. I can’t wait to get into the sea again. I love smelling like the beach.

Let’s play a game: Spot another (other than me la!) Asian in the picture above.