 There are, there are nine million bicycles in Beijing, I think so anyway. That's Russell Loo, this is Asia in Review with Russell and me. Russell is a lawyer who practices in Beijing and also in Honolulu, and he is fascinated as we all are with the new prospect of bicycles everywhere, bike share, bike share. They got bike share in Honolulu, but come to find, they got bike share in Beijing. There's three million and rising fast bicycles in Beijing, that's why this song is appropriate somehow. Hi Russell. Hi Jay, I'm glad to be back here in Hawaii. Great to have you here. So you're all excited about the bicycles in Beijing. Let's talk about it. What do they got going? Now here it's called Biki, right? They just installed it on July 1st. There are a thousand bicycles out there in the community and a lot of bike stands everywhere you look. What's happening in Beijing with bike share? Well Jay, actually bike sharing in Beijing has been ongoing for the last two years. It's been going, working really well. It's a big phenomenon and I kind of wanted to share that phenomenon. Maybe people here in Hawaii would catch on to it. We need to get a little educated. We need to look at the platform in which a lot of capital raise. People are buying into this. We need people buying into this and the bikes are used by people to really get around man versus car on the bicycle. Well I remember a time when there were nine million bicycles in Beijing and everybody rode on a bicycle in Beijing. There were hardly any cars but then we went through this kind of cycle where the middle class arose, everybody could buy a car and then there were way more than nine million cars in Beijing and much fewer bicycles. But now we're back. The sine curve turns around. Now we're back to bicycles, old fashioned push-battle bicycles in Beijing. That's right Jay. It's back to the 90s. When bikes were the king, it's the bicycle kingdom. You raised an important point because when people started to have a lot of money, having a car meant a lot of face, a lot of respect. I have a big black Audi. Government would buy these big black Audi's. It was a sign of prestige, it's a sign of what I've made in this world. But today, people have money and now they're moving up that curve realizing, hey wait a minute, there's a lot of pollution. We need to do something. And there's a phenomenon because some young people, and we'll talk about the Ophold that company, 26-year-old founder of this company who's rigged in billions of dollars starting a great idea. Okay. So first, how does it work? How does, what do you call it, O-F-O, Ophold? How does Ophold work in China? Sure. There are several bike-sharing companies. The two largest are MoBike and Ophold. And Ophold, I like Ophold because it's the yellow bike, it's comfortable. Big seats, it's very comfortable. And even though it's 90 degrees, I was there last week, just got back from Beijing, 97 degrees, I was riding my bike and I would feel the wind blow and it was a great way to get around. I wasn't sitting in a taxi. But how does it work? Okay. Well, let's take a look at Ophold. Started by a 26-year-old entrepreneur, he started with $20,000, $20,000, two years, just in two years. It's now valued at $2 billion. Oh my God. Yes. Yes. And... This is like Jack Ma. Well, in fact, Jack Ma of Alibaba recently helped raise $700 million in latest capital offering. It's fantastic. And you know this young entrepreneur, he was interviewed by CCN TV. His name is Mr. Dye. And what he said is, it doesn't matter about what the value of my company is. What's important to me, he said, is what Ophold can do for the consumers. We're thinking really capitalism, consumers, he's thinking like a marketing person. And he said, quote, when you set up a company, you have to solve the problem. You provide a service for the users. He says, we have to figure out what is the main problem we have to solve. That's more important than valuation. And I think he's caught on to a point, Jay. So what he's done is he's realized that there are millions of people, cars are clogging the road, lots of pollution. So why not run the subway, but you take the bike from the subway or the bus stop to your last destination to your office or to a place for entertainment. And you can ride it back. And he said, we're going to make it affordable. It costs 15 cents for an hour, 15 cents for an hour. And it's fantastic because it's changing the lives of people there. The Chinese dream. I'm living at a J. What does it mean? I may take an hour on the subway to the far part of the city. But when I get off, I get on my bike. There's a bike stand right there. Bike stand right there. How do you do the transaction when you take the bike? Very easy. I take my iPhone. E-commerce. E-commerce. I have an application. It's called WayChat. WayChat allows me to talk to people, send video files, send word files. But it also allows me to pay for things. E-commerce is really big in China. I don't carry cash. There's no credit card to put in a slot. There are no coins. This is not credit cards. It's not credit cards. And so I just have my iPhone and I take a scan. The scan looks like this. You see the scan moving along there? Oh, maybe you can't see it. You scan a QR code. I scan it. The QR code will be at the side of the vendor in this transaction. That's right. You take your phone and you scan that. What happens then? Then I will hear a click. And that click means that I've registered onto the system. And the lock opens up magically. It starts taking away. So the money now is gone from your phone, your account, to the vendor who had the QR code. And that's when I close the application. When I get off the bike, I lock it, put the kickstand on, and I press and it reads it again. It closes. Automatically it's read my QR code. And what it does is automatically it logs me off. And it tells, at that point, your amount to pay is $1.15. And it says, do you approve? Pay now. And I hit the pay button. It's gone. And you know what's amazing? One of the admirers of this whole bike sharing program is Tim Cook of Apple. He recently went to the OFO headquarters to see this young 20-year-old. It's phenomenal. Why? Because do you know it's a half a million downloads of this app through the App Store, iPhone. People are loading this app so that they can use the bike sharing. And that's just one company called OFO. Incredible. Incredible. OK, so that is an interesting comparison to what we have here now as of July 1st in Bike Share. But let me show you. I think we've got a video that we can show you. Take our viewers how it looks like on the streets of Beijing. OK, let's see that. And you can tell us what we're looking at. This is what a typical stop looks like, tons of bikes. There's got to be about 1,000 bikes lining up the whole block all the way to the subway station. These are all bike share bikes. These are all bike share bikes. See the colors? Blue, yellow, orange, all the competitors. OK, you'll hear this guy. There he goes. He's on a bike. OK, you can't hear it, but you heard the click. And there's another person. They get off the subway and take on and ride this bike to their workplace. This is an early morning shot in Beijing very early. But you can see how big this is. It's a revolution. People are riding. It wasn't this way a year ago. It was not. Well, it started about a year ago, but now I think it's really riding its drive. It's going viral, yeah. But you see how many bikes? That means that's corresponding to how many bikes are on the road. We're looking at thousands of bikes here. Thousands of bikes, right. That tells you it's also eco-friendly. People are taking the streets. Look how empty the streets are cars. They're on bikes. They're going to go ride the bikes to the workplace. They're going to unpollute the environment. So it's a great idea because people can find an economic, efficient, and a clean way, a clean way to get around the city. So this is a real game changer, at least in Beijing. This is not only in Beijing, but in the second tier cities like Tianjin. It's all over China then. It's all over China. That app works all over China. So again, Jay, this is what we will see all over in China. But that's just one shot. But do you want to see how it works, Jay? Yeah. Let's show our readers how it works. We've got a video of that of how we opened the app. Yeah, let's see what it looks like. Good afternoon. We're back live here on King Tech Global. I'm Russell Liu, your co-host, directly from Beijing. And I have here, I read Lee, who is a local from Beijing. And we're going to show you how easy it is to rent a bicycle for $0.15 an hour. And the user's smart phone, there's a bike application we use that's called Mobile. And believe it or not, it is in English. It shows me the location of all these bikes on the map here. It's tied into the GPS system. So it tells us which bike is available. And I read, and you see there's a button here that says Unlock. Underneath, all you have to do is click the Unlock. Unlock, and it will only take a few seconds. Then it will be Unlocked. We heard that sound. That wonderful sound. We heard a buzz, and we heard Unlocked. So the bike now is Unlocked. And we're free to use it. We want Unlock to go. OK, we're back. And we'll show you now just in a few seconds how we close the ride. Our next video. OK, next video shows how we close the ride. We're back again. It's 95 degrees here. We finished our ride. So when we're all done, we're going to show what we do at the end of the ride. Irene, we're going to lock this bike. Can you show what we do? So this thing here is the lock. All you have to do is just put it downwards. Oops, I can't do it. It's locked. And you just heard us how. It's locked. That means my charge is all over. I spent $0.15 for a beautiful ride on this bike. And I can take it anywhere in the city. Oh, that is so easy, Russell. It's brilliant. And the great thing about it is I don't have to take it back to the bike stand. Some companies, you have to take the bike stand. What a waste of time. I just drop it anywhere in the city. Why? Because they have a GPS. They will pick up the bikes if it's in a remote place. They know where the bike is. But what they also do is, because it's a remote place, if you take it back to a convenient place, they will give you a bonus, maybe another free ride. So the scent of works. And it really gets people. That's brilliant. I just want to go out there. And I look forward to it, Jay. I really do. I will get to the subway. And I'm always thinking about this is my 15-minute exercise. I get my Garmin watch. And I actually carry it with me. I read my pulse. And I time my ride to see what my workout is like. Who needs a health club, Jay? It's a wonderful thing. It's a great idea. And Beijing is flat. Beijing is flat. Well, there are hills in Beijing. No hills, for the most part. It's a bike-friendly city. You know, the mayor of Honolulu has a vision. And he was smart. He's a bike rider, I believe. But we already have the bike lanes. But what do we need to do? Well, again, we need to think this carefully. If you're going to have mass transit, if you're going to have the train station, you need to get the bikes near by the train station. Encourage people to take the 15, 20 minutes. And get companies that Garmin all the Fitbits. And have them through applications for the city of Honolulu. This is your routes. We give you the maps. And how to tie in health awareness. You know, all of these are wonderful. Well, you know, I'd like to take a minute break, Russell, and come back and talk about what you learned, what, you know, what everyone knows in OFO and the other bike share companies in China, which we could import to the US, to Hawaii, for example. Let's take a short break. We'll come right back. We all play a role in keeping our community safe. Every day, we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our every day. Some are good, others not so much. But that's life. It's when something doesn't seem quite right that it's time to pay attention. Because only you know what's not supposed to be in your every day. So protect your every day. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. Aloha. I'm Tim Appachaw, host for Moving Hawaii Forward, a show dedicated to transportation issues and traffic. We identify those areas where we do have problems in the state, but also the show is dedicated to trying to find solutions, not just detail our problems. So join me every other Tuesday on Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm Tim Appachella. Thank you. We're back. We're live here on Asia In Review with Russell Lu. He's a lawyer who practices in Beijing and in Hawaii. And he has discovered, truly discovered, OFO and other bike share organizations which are spreading throughout China. And he's here to tell us how great that is. And I asked him during the break, what happens when you leave the bike for a few seconds and deliver the package? By the way, all the bikes come with baskets. I noticed that, which is really good. Some bikes here don't have that. So you leave it for a second. Somebody could rip it off. How do you avoid that? Well, Ray, it's important that when you get out the bike and you're going to walk away, you want to close the lock because somebody will get on the bike. They may not steal it. They may ride it for free. It's on your die. On your nickel, right? On your nickel. So you close it. One Kwi, nobody's going to worry about that. You lock it up and you come out. You get the same bike or another bike. It doesn't matter what bike. It doesn't matter what bike. Pick a bike. That's the beauty. Well, that's a benefit of why it's successful. Because in the old days, I'd be afraid to take my bike, leave it there, lock it. Somebody may steal it. This way, I don't care. Because every bike is tracked by GPS. So they can find that bike. They will find it. Even if it's in a remote part. And if somebody stole it, they're going to find him. Yeah, exactly. But you want to try to at least get the bike. But I found a culture in China. People respect these things. They don't steal bikes. These kind of bikes. They know it's everybody uses them. Everybody. So there's enough of a group awareness that we don't steal these bikes. Maybe they'll steal some private bike, but not one of these. This is kind of a public property. Yeah, so in that device that fits, the lock thing that fits there, that has the unlock mechanism that you showed us. And it has the lock you showed us, which you want to when you stop riding. It has the GPS mechanism in it. And it's the security and identity of that bike. So that's the key to the whole thing, isn't it? That's a key. The other key to it is that the technology. This is a think-tact. So technology, that's really important. We've come to the age where I feel in the US, we are not using the technology where we should. China is leaps ahead of us. They use e-commerce. And for example, the question of how do you secure the bike? Well, before, when you sign up for the program, whether it's a full bicycle or a full bike. It has to be a member. Well, not a member. You register, but also you put a deposit, maybe $200 RMMB for offsetting the lock. So what does that come through in American money? $30. $30. But one thing good about this is that people will know that if you took the bike last, they know that you had it last. So they can go back to you and check where it is at Hock and Stolen or whatever. But again, these things do happen. But I think that there's a public awareness that this bike is for us all to benefit. The bike's in good shape. What happens if they break? What happens if these crews that come along on these special motorized bikes throw them on top, take the bikes away to get them repaired? And they did a good job of it. Actually, repairing the bikes, I rarely will come across a bike that doesn't work. My bikes are all well-fit. And the good thing about it is that the seats of certain bike companies are adjustable. I fit the switch. I like to reach it smaller. Because then the ride is easier. My legs don't cramp. Extremely comfortable. But again, that's the human side. That's the mechanical side. So that's important. Bikes have to be comfortable, clean, working order. They have to have GPS. How can they make billions of dollars doing with one RMB, one QUI for an hour? That seems like it doesn't compute. Well, that's the model that's being criticized by the West. I was looking up some research about it. It's not going to work because they're not going to make money. But I believe that at a certain point, because of the amount of the ridership and the frequency of the bikes, they will come out and make money ahead. Plus, right now, I think the movement to make a cleaner Beijing, cleaner city in China, it's making a difference, I believe. And people are getting healthier. All of these are good things. I found that I have this bike withdrawal. So I'm back in Hollywood. I want to get a bike. I want to ride down the street. You can take the Viki bike right around the corner. Well, it's too expensive for me. It's three-something for half an hour. And I think you've got to return it to one of their stations. I don't think you'd just leave it there. Otherwise, you're going to be socked for a loss of a bike. But again, it's the platform. It's making sure that the consumers are aware of what they're using it for. The way they designed China is for people to use it every day, living. So, OK, let's take what you have described, what you know about how it works in Beijing. What can we learn here? What can we do here to make it better? What we can do to make it here better is to have the technology to have e-commerce. We need to wrap up our technology. And our technology is important because that's the key to making it work. It's the technology. You need to have the apps on the phone. You need to encourage people to use it. And you need to make it convenient for people. Are they doing that in China? Are they encouraging people to use it? Is there an advertising program going on to let everybody know how it works and why they should use it? It's because with all the bikes all over, the free instructors are free advertising. It's on advertisements through the application. And it's convenient because you're using your smartphone. You need to carry cash. You need to carry a credit card. You don't have those kind of problems. You don't have that kind of problem now. It's the masses can use them. So there's a big difference. Yeah. Well, it sounds like we're a long way from what you described is happening in Beijing. And they're kind of ahead of us in a way because it's much more affordable, because it's easier, because of the smartphone. And in general, it sounds like it's more well thought out as against the kind of people who would be the market. It fits right in. So instead of a few tourists coming at random here in Beijing and to use it here in Honolulu, everyone uses it. And that's what we have to achieve. We have to achieve a community here in Honolulu anyway, where everyone is riding a bike. Everyone is physically able to riding a bike. And even if it's not, give them a way to do it. And so I think there's less than we can learn about the 15 cents, about that lock design that we looked at a little while ago, about the notion of leaving them anywhere and tracking them with GPS. A lot of those things, we don't have that. We don't have the GPS tracking, I don't believe. And we have to use credit cards, and we have to go from station to station instead of anywhere. So there are limitations in the system that we just installed on July 1. That could be improved somehow by referring. I think that people in Biky ought to go to Ofo and take a look. That's right. I think the idea is that it's a community-based project. It's not just a company only. The community has to buy in. Maybe if you franchise this in the different communities in the city here, where there's a private franchisees who make it work within a community and tie it to a bigger part, you make it work close with the public transit, put it by the bus stations, you make incentives so people will ride it. And especially with the mass transit, you want to get it by those stations where people get off and ride that bike. Yeah, but all you have to do is have a bike rack. You don't have to have a fancy. I mean, the Biky down the block has this huge steel plate that fits on. And then each bike has a special kind of holder for it. And then there's a solar. This is creative. There's a solar device, a solar cell that feeds the electricity to that particular station. That's all very creative. But it's not mobile. It's not mobile. We can't move it around. It's a fixed platform. We're talking about a world in China where it's not fixed. We have the smartphone. Put them anywhere. We don't put them anywhere. We've got the smartphone with track you. You put a deposit. You go anywhere. That's what the beauty is. You make it work. You make it work not for the tourist, but for the community. Right. And everyone and anyone would be riding all the time. And there's an old rule is the more people that ride the safer it gets to be to ride. You were telling me before the show that it's quite safe to ride a bike in Beijing. Even though there's gobs of traffic and all that, people respect bikes. And there's a place for bikes. There's this kind of side road, isn't there, where bikes can ride? There's a side road. And you know the latest thing that came up? There's so many bikes that now, even a bike laid, the traffic guides, the major restrictions, have a bar with the red light to hold the bikes back. And then when the light says go, the bar rises. And everybody in a group hoards on their rented bikes across the city. But it's amazing. But again, getting back to it, we need a community base. Second, technology through the apps. Third, we need to have e-vendors. We need to stop looking at the old platforms of credit card. We need to have the banks change. We need to think digital. This is what's all about, Jay. And you know what? We're not going to be in the global platform, because the Chinese are moving their stuff all across the world. So we need to get with it. We need to start to change our models. And the old traditional models monopolize industries. There's no chance for people to take risks and invest, such as this. So is this something that an American entrepreneur could do? Sounds like he could buy this technology. It's probably available. And he could rent bikes. And then his friends could compete with him. And we'd have bikes all over the place for $0.15 an hour or something like that. That's right. But here's the other clinker that we get back to the title of the show, leadership. We need good government leadership here to support it, who's going to work hand in hand to create incentives. And I'm sure in Honolulu, that's what happened to make the new bike sharing program. And that's wonderful to see the government progressive. But we need to get the banks also involved in the street. We need to get the finance industry. We need to sit down together and figure this out. If we're going to be truly a great place, we have to do great things. We have to let the entrepreneur take that risk. But we're not going to happen unless we don't have that leadership to say, OK, banks, we're going to have to sit and make it work. We want to have it so that let's call Tim Cook at Apple. We want to get your ideas how this fits in the American model. And maybe this model can roll out all the cities across the US. We need to have that happen. We need a people's revolution to the bikes. Yeah. You know, I'm just reminded that we only have a minute to go. But I'm only reminded recently, I forget who it was, it was the trust that runs Coppulani Park. There's a charitable trust that runs Coppulani Park. They said, no, don't put the bike share here. We don't want bike share. It's a commercial activity. We don't want bike share in Coppulani or around. It was actually on the periphery of Coppulani Park. I said, gee whiz, somebody should talk to them. We need a leader to step up and say, no, no. We need it everywhere. We need bikes everywhere. This could be a much easier place to ride than Beijing. Well, definitely it's beautiful. But isn't that what the park is for? A preview of the joy? You're not running like a motorbike across the park to injure people. It's clean. And you're letting people have access. So who should do this, the mayor? Well, again, your guess is as good as mine, but I think we need leadership to say, you know what? It's for the people. That's what's all about in Beijing. The government there sees it as for the people. And it's quirky. And believe me, I'm an American. I'm living a Chinese dream because you don't know how wonderful it is to avoid taking a taxi, getting stuck in traffic, having pollution. I go down deep into the subways. I do my 45-minute subway ride. I get to the other side. I'm happy because why? I've got my mobile bike. I've got my oval bike. And I'm going to ride for 20 minutes down to location B. And the air blowing into my face, it's been clean these days. Look, yeah, the air is clean. You look good, Russell. You look like you've been exercising. This has changed your lifestyle, hasn't it? Well, it definitely changed your lifestyle on the outlook. Because you know what? And now it says that I can do anything what I want. I have freedom. And I have mobility. And this is what it's all about. I think that's what's happening in China. People are so enthused. If you go and Google that, you read the reports of what people say, you'll be amazed. And I feel the same way. It's wonderful. Even my American friends, they're riding bikes. When you visit each other by getting a subway and then get off and getting the bikes, taking a ride, we get our Garmin watches. And we record our rides. And we do an exercise. And we felt like, I've done something today. I've done something productive. I went to work. I got my bike exercise today. I got my carded basket. And I paid one quai for a few minutes. That's Russell Liu. He's a lawyer in Beijing and in Honolulu. Then he's had a biking epiphany. And it's really remarkable. And I think if you don't know about this, you certainly want to learn about it, just to see on a comparative basis how the Chinese have moved ahead. They've done an amazing job here. Look up OFO on Google and you'll find out. Anyway, thank you so much, Russell. Great to talk with you. Great to find out about this. And you do look good. Thank you, Jay. Say, Shay, say, Jen. Say, Shay, say, Jen.