Dead Busy

This morning I had arranged to spend time working on reception in the hotel here. I wanted to get to know the staff and to understand all the procedures they use - including the all important system for reporting to the police who is staying at the hotel.

 

There's a special machine that processes guests' identities. By placing the card on top of a blue box, the card holder's photograph, name, address and personal details all appear on a computer screen. The computer then emails all the details to the local police station. The receptionist then has to fill in two paper copies of the information that are used as an audit trail. One copy is kept at the hostel, the other copy is filed with the police station every month for them to check that everything matches up.

 

The police had visited early this morning and dropped off a photo of a man. The man working on reception told me the police want us to be aware that the man is a suspected criminal and we should call them if he arrives. The man was asleep in the photo and looked very peaceful. I suppose that is sort of helpful if you think he might be staying in the hotel and you sneak in to look at all the sleeping folk.

 

A few hours later, a police man arrived. He was holding another copy of the photo and told the other receptionist that this man had possibly stayed  in our hotel in the past but he wouldn't be staying again. The police just needed her help to find the man's name. The man in the picture wasn't asleep. He was dead.  My colleague spent an hour flicking through all the photos of all the guests who had stayed within the period the policeman outlined. I felt strange looking at all the faces passing by on screen and wondering if one of them was now the dead man I was looking at on a piece of paper.

 

I was so distracted by this incident that it didn't occur to me to ask why the police weren't the ones flicking through endless photos trying to find the man's identity. No one else seemed to think that anything about this was odd, so my guess is it's a regular occurrence.  

Chinese Niu Year

Last night, we said goodbye to the year of the rat and ni hao to the year of the ox (niu in Chinese - what a nice ready made pun for my blog!). Shanghai was one huge bowl of firecrackers which went off all night and the icy wind that blew today sent red bits of tissue fluttering through the streets.

 

The cultural norm is to travel back to your home town to spend the holiday with your family, just like Christmas except the journeys back to home towns here can be extremely long and many people can't afford the time or money for the trip.  My new boss, Mrs Shi invited me to join the rest of the staff from the restaurant downstairs who stayed in Shanghai for the festival.

 

I felt a bit self conscious on my way down to dinner. There were 4 large tables laid and about 35 people I hadn't met yet were standing around and chatting. I really struggle to remember Chinese names and I think this will have to be the first thing I put lots of energy into during my year here. Thankfully Mrs Shi spotted me and ushered me over to a table where she dazzled me with her knowledge of UK football. Usually I can bluff my way through a chat with the taxi drivers here given that, although I like the beautiful game, I have never really supported a team (aside from paying attention to Sheffield Wednesday on behalf of a previous boyfriend). Mrs Shi is obviously an avid follower of the FA cup and she can talk about the differences in playing style between all the European countries. For the second time this week, I was way out of my league.

 

Once everyone was assembled we were able to sit down and eat! Everyone was in very good spirits and there was a lot of toasting and plenty of eating. Mrs Shi gave a speech to thank everyone for their hard work, and then asked everyone to welcome the 'foreign friend' which was nice - if a little cringe worthy as 35 sets of eyes search the room for the outsider! It's traditional for every person to offer a toast to the host of any formal dinner. I watched as poor Mrs Shi had to drink a toast with every one of her employees. By the end of dinner, she was D.R.U.N.K. In her inebriated state, she came to sit beside me, took my hand and basically gave a Chinese version of an 'I love you Mate' speech. It was nice to know that she likes me, but I'm not sure she'll remember it today!

 

After dinner, the restaurant's resident poppet came to play with me. She's four and has bags of personality. Her Dad is the restaurant manager and she's the only child in the whole place.  She came to sit with me and started to play some sort of Chinese game along the lines of round and round the garden. It involved her playing with my hand and then tickling me! By this point I was sitting with Mrs Shi, the two restaurant managers and the head chef. Mrs Shi announced to them for the first time that I would be running the show upstairs and that everyone should do what I say. At about the same time, I was showing my new four year old friend that I can touch my nose with my tongue. Definitely the professional first impression I was hoping for! Word soon got round, not that I have a very long tongue but that I will be part of the management team, and suddenly my glass was filled faster, fruit and sweets were dished out and more people popped over to wish me happy new year. It was a strange experience and I admit to having laid low today as I'm not sure how to handle it yet.

 

More drinks followed dinner and karaoke and more drinks followed more drinks. I managed (somehow) to stick with my plan to drink more coke than anything else as the last thing I need in front of a new team of people I'm supposed to oversee is to lose my new years' dinner in the street! Sadly Mrs Shi wasn't so fortunate but something tells me they all will forgive her.

My First Meeting

This afternoon I had my first formal project meeting with my boss, Mrs Shi. I bombed! I made the huge mistake of preparing for the session in English and then spent a lot of time translating sentences (badly) in my head. It was painful for both of us! 

 

My Chinese is fine in informal situations and I don't mind that it takes me much longer to say things than my rapid fire English delivery - but when I have to access my business vocubulary and the verbs that you would use for your boss (rather than in regular speech), I am a bumbling mess.

 

We muddled through and got some decisions made but it had made me realise how much work I have to do, not only on this huge project, but also on my Chinese ability.

 

Once more into the breech!

Far from flat-pack

Today has been filled with magic. Shanghai has served up little treats for me all day, sunshine, blue sky, nice people, tasty food and, thanks to the skills of my friend Stephanie (from now on referred to as Beautiful Stephanie just like in Short Circuit!), the perfect Shanghai apartment.

 

We signed the contract while I was in the UK over Christmas, or rather Beautiful Stephanie signed it on my behalf, so I hadn't actually seen the place. I just saw photos and had a rave review from my friend and decided that it would be fun to move in somewhere I'd never seen. And if there were rats, I could blame her!

 

I was filled with butterflies as I followed her directions to our new home this evening. At least I think it was that and not my barbecued potato slices from last night. I walked into our compound and my heart sank a little. A series of very ordinary looking white tower blocks were lined up in front of me. Beautiful Stephanie and I had often talked about living in an old-style Shanghainese house and how fun it would be to live in a characterful old place. Her emails about the flat had described how it was just as we had talked about. I worried that perhaps our versions of the Shanghai dream flat were different as these white blocks just weren't doing it for me.

 

However, peeking through the white blocks is a shorter, squatter building with a zillion windows straight out of a 1930s Shanghai film. The kind of building where the hero's girlfriend lives. I skipped into the building and ran up the stairs. A mass of corridors led me to our front door. Actually that's a lie. Beautiful Stephanie led me to our new front door as I got lost in the mass of corridors! We are going to live somewhere lovely, somewhere that fills all my expectations of what a Shanghai old apartment should be - it even has a light that doesn't work and a washing machine you have to pull out to use. I am totally charmed. The big move happens over the weekend and that's when we'll meet the landlord, register at the police station and start making it cosy. I am in charge of the cosy part as Beautiful Stephanie is taking a well-earned break and flying off to India for a holiday. Photos will follow after the big move!

 

The other bonus is that it's a 5 minute walk to an incredible restaurant that Beautiful Stephanie and I both adore so we had a great dinner of dragon beans and deep fried taro balls and made a pact that we could only go there for dinner once a week or we would be too rolypoly to fit in our new bathroom.

 

Today I am very happy and excited about my new life here. Tomorrow I have a big meeting at work so I need to learn some useful words to add to my vocabulary and get some sleep. I am aware that Shanghai will pay me back for this perfect day with some yang to my yin. But for today, I'm just going to enjoy it.

 

Back - and in business

I am back in Shanghai. My working visa is sitting happily in my passport and as soon as the Spring festival holiday period is over, I will apply for my resident's permit - a joyously bureaucratic experience involving the four corners of this fair city.

 

I arrived at 7am this morning to this exciting new world with its new American president. I missed all the action as I was watching terrible films in a tin box flying across the gobi desert...luckily Sam is in Washington and so I have very good videos, photos and blog updates to read.

 

I started work at 10am. I am now the manager of The Phoenix - a cultural activity center, bar and hostel in the middle of Shanghai. Rather a different role to my last few - but exciting and challenging as we're starting it from scratch and the majority of my work will be done in Chinese. I am writing this while I figure out how to write my plan for the next 12 months in Mandarin. The place is still a building site - but has improved dramatically since I left in December. The bar is on the roof and overlooked by some impressive skyscrapers. I'll put photos up soon.

 

I've had an interesting lesson in recruitment and management today, the first of many I suspect. I hired an intern to help with the project management over the next few months, she was due to arrive in Shanghai from Chongqing and collected by my friend and colleague, Aaron. Sadly, her flight was delayed by 6 hours and due to other commitments, Aaron couldn't meet her. She arrived at the site and was so unimpressed by her surroundings and welcome that she left without speaking to Aaron or me and put herself straight back on a plan to Sichuan and didn't answer any phone calls for 2 days! Remarkable! I tried to be understanding about it, and you'll all be able to imagine how awful I felt that she didn't have a nice welcome, but now I'm just left feeling like she's a bit too delicate for me.

 

Perhaps my jet lag is making me harsh.

 

So, tomorrow I'm writing a business plan in Chinese and recruiting interns who can cope with the odd hitch.