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.