More from David Temple on the China Search Marketing Tour:

The China Search Marketing Tour left Beijing and headed to Shanghai. All the tour members liked the "vibe" in Shanghai, a very modern city. Shopping was the first priority and everyone headed down to Nanjing Road, a famous shopping area of Shanghai. Our bargaining skills came into play and there were good deals to be had. We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant, Ajisen Ramen, (of all places) but the food was good and the price was right. That evening we attended a fantastic acrobatic show. Women spinning plates, men juggling, feats of strength, etc. The show culminated with 4 motorcycles driving around in a round cage at the same time. Talk about a death defying act.

The next day we went to the tallest building in Shanghai and 5th tallest in the world. The Jin Mao Tower is an 88 storied building that is 1,380 feet high and from the observation deck the otherwise ordinarily tall buildings were dwarfed. Ian McAnerin took that time to meet with a company in the same building and managed to sign a "Memorandum of Understanding". Common in Asia, this document sets the stage for future partnership opportunities and is followed by a letter of intent. Our next stop was a trip to a famous cashmere factory. The tour group went their own way for dinner and the next morning we headed to Nanjing by train (a great way to see the countryside) for the Search Engine Strategies Conference.

The first Search Engine Strategies Conference to be held in China opened with Chris Sherman interviewing Google China CEO, Johnny Chow and Jack Ma Alibaba and Yahoo! China CEO. Johnny Chow talked about Google's strategy in China which was to abide by the corporate culture which he described as "innovation by technology". Their highest priority is the customers they serve and he felt the development of the Internet would benefit from technology and create a good environment for China. He explained although there are 111 million users there was a small penetration rate and Google would like to reach a broader audience. He also said the most SME's don't have a website and those that do have one don't understand the value of search and online marketing. When asked about competition he said Google welcomes competition because it brings out the best in people.

Jack Ma starts out by saying he will speak in Chinese and receives a thunderous applause. You can tell he is very popular in China (at least with this SES crowd) as people pour out of their seats to get a photo of him on stage. He explains that Yahoo has been in China for 8 years and that it ultimately will help their Alibaba clients. When asked about the $1 billion they received from Yahoo he said there was a lot of gossip about that and $750 million was reinvested back into the company. Chris Sherman asked him about his statement that eBay was a shark in the ocean but his company was a crocodile in the Yangtze river and Mr. Ma responded that his view on competition was really different from a battle. In a battle he said someone must die but in competition on one dies and he is not afraid of anyone (again thunderous applause). He went on to say that they won't follow the rules set up by Baidu or Google but will make their own rules.

For more coverage of the SES China event, see SERoundtable's coverage from Marc Macalua and Miles Evans' ProfitPapers.