There'll be no plugging for the Phoenix this week

This morning, I climbed the tiles stairs up to the roof where I have
been managing the construction of the Phoenix bar. It was a stunning
spring day in Shanghai - bright blue sky, sun and crisp air. I spent a
few private moments enjoying the feeling of being almost there. Almost
everything is ready and I am excited about actually opening. We have
fridges, drinks, all manner of glasses, a coffee machine, a sound
system, tables - chairs and sofas are being delivered on Wednesday. We
are almost there and I was very happy.

That is, I was until around 3pm this afternoon. At 3pm I decided to
plug in the coffee machine and have a go at brewing a cup. It's quite
a different machine from the ones I have used before and it's second
hand and without an instruction book. I figured I would figure it out.
I avoided pitfall number one and plugged it in. Sadly, I did not avoid
pitfall number two, making sure the plug socket was connected to an
electricity supply! My beautiful bar was designed with 10 sockets, 4
behind the bar, 2 for the airconditioning and the rest strategically
placed for guests' laptops so they can make use of the free wireless
access. It seems our builders assumed that I had put the plug sockets
on the plans for decoration and not actually to use them. Three
sockets are actual sockets, the other seven are just the white plastic
fascia stuck onto the beautiful brickwork that runs half way up the
wall. Gutted. Did I learn nothing from the "flat floor" issue. Of
course, if I had wanted plug sockets that were actually connected to
an electricity supply, I should have said so in the first place.

The Nag's Head

During the last week, I reached my stress threshold. It sneaked up on
me and all of a sudden, it was too much. When I first arrived at work
I asked for a phone, fax machine and a printer to be put in my office.
None of these things materialised.

Every day my list of requests grew and still nothing was done. I
started to suspect my colleagues of sabotage. Naturally my role at
work means a lot of change for them, lots more work for them and
perhaps they are not so happy about this. Even my most basic requests
were ignored - a wastepaper basket please, a new screw to fix the
broken lock, a roll of sticky tape. I spent an hour each day repeating
my lists of requests and being as polite as possible - but feeling
like a total nag.

My thirteen hour working days are starting to show and by last
Wednesday, I was reduced to tears.

On Thursday, my manager called a meeting with the staff to find out
what the problems were. I was so worried - would they be honest and
say my Chinese is too poor ad they can't understand a word I say?
Would they plead ignorance? Would they continue to be so unhelpful?
No. One of the restaurant managers scratched his head and looked on
bewildered before saying:

"Freya only asked us once every day so we didn't think she really
meant that she needed those things"

I now make every request 5 times every day - I still feel like a nag,
but at least I have a phone in my office!

Lost in translation

I write this post half way through a task that I have been putting off for the last few days. The ground floor of the building where I work is a cheap but excellent restaurant serving Shanxi food (that's spicy, sour and uses lots of garlic along with plenty of noodles and dumplings to fill your tummy).

One of the tasks that has to be completed during this week is translating the 25 page menu from Chinese into English. I am on page 14, where I am currently grappling with "fragrant and crisp wind flavours",and "Sliced husband and wife with spicy sauce". Other than the odd names, I am loving learning so many words about food!

The manager here was not so impressed that I was translating the menu myself and not using an internet translation service and that I was bothering to translate the whole menu. Although I adore menus with excellent translations - personal favourites include: fried sea bears, little chicken safety eggs and fungus borulumugubumgus - I am not willing to be responsible for such a menu. Isn't the point of me being around to make sure our English is perfect?

As for translating the whole menu, I really hate going out to eat here and being given the much abbreviated shortened menu full of dishes selected for "foreign tastes" - the way to get the chance to eat something new if you don't speak Chinese is for it to be recommended - so the whole menu will be translated into English. All 25 pages. Included the slices of husband and wife in spicy sauce.

The longest to do list and the world's biggest market

I love a good list. My to do list for tomorrow runs to 5 sides of A4. I wrote it in the car on the way to a furniture market this afternoon where I went to price the cost of furnishing the 2nd floor and 5th floor of The Phoenix. I was issued with a driver (yay!) and two men to accompany me.　I am not sure why there were two of them but there are lots of things I am not sure about so we shall not dwell on it.

We drove through a large gate that said "Nine Stars Market" and I was told that it was the biggest market in Shanghai. I asked where we would park the car, and the driver said he would park in the furniture section of the market. We drove on and on and on...and on and on. The market continued. Forty five minutes later, we arrived in the furniture section of the market. It really is the biggest market in Shanghai and certainly the biggest shopping place I've been to. I am sure it could rival Meadowhall or Blue Water! The furniture section had a sofa city, a table city, a PVC floor covering city...you get the picture.

After 2 hours I had a bad case of IKEA syndrome - desperate never to look at another piece of furniture (as all chairs had started to look the same) but with a strange desire to by remarkably low priced bowls with brightly coloured lids that nest inside one another. The prices seemed high until I sat down now and looked through my notes and photographs - £50 for a dining table and chairs, £400 for an 8-seater leather sofa! Even with the rapidly decreasing British pound, it's still cheap!

Somehow I have to select chairs, tables, sofas and bookcases - all within a very modest budget - and make the Phoenix lounge look very far from low-priced. Quite a funny job for a woman who only owns a few book cases and a miniature chair and chest of drawers as her only bits of furniture! Good job I played with my dolls' house a lot when I was little!

How high to set the bar

The last 7 days have been rather tense and I haven't had the energy to focus on writing. I am really grateful to those of you who sent messages of support and encouragement. The Chinese call this "adding oil" or "加油" and I really needed it.

All the oil helped as the cogs seem to be grinding a bit more smoothly now. My pay deal was agreed yesterday, but without anyone checking with me whether a substantial cut in income would be a problem. I very nearly lost it and seethed all the way through the 'celebratory dinner' for having sealed the deal. My manner was duly noted and a new pay deal was agreed today resulting in a pay packet that still won't make me rich but will give me twice the amount agreed yesterday. I am bemused to say the least.

Deal done, I had a meeting with the construction team this afternoon to talk about finishing the bar on the 5th floor. The design for the bar is very simple, a rooftop terrace with a large glass roof over a deck and a cute Chinese style house for the days when the weather limits sitting outside. It will be lovely. I say "will be" because the man who designed the bar neglected to consider that a bar might need running water... and so there is no water supply inside the lovely Chinese house. The floor is also sloped so considerably that I can roll cans of coke down it with the Resident Poppet as the new best game of the year. Amusingly, when I mentioned this to the restaurant manager who has taken care of the construction thus far, he just replied that I never asked for it to be flat! I am now responsible for this renovation and for thinking of all the things that no one has thought of to date. Things like fridges. And air conditioning and the electricity supply to both things. It may sound tedious and it probably is but I had such a lot of fun figuring it all out.

I also have to start the designs for the cultural lounge on the 2nd floor. Remind me to say that I want the floor flat!

An Ode to Blocks in the Road

I was expecting some bumps in the road on my new working venture. Things have been rather smooth over the last week and it was making me nervous. Thankfully I need not worry much longer as we have hit something more like a giant hole in the road rather than a bump!

Contract negotiation is an interesting activity  here in China.  We have presented our bilingual  plan for the Phoenix lounge three times now.  The lady who owns the building and will be the main investor is very happy with the plans and does not want to change anything. This made me feel very  pleased with the level of our work and the ideas we've generated.

The road block is the management fee that she will pay to the company I work for. I had been assured that this was all agreed and covered off in the contract I signed before Christmas. However, the murky waters now reveal that she hasn't agreed the fee and that she wants to set it at 4000rmb a month for two people working full time. I know that labor is cheap in China - but it's not that cheap. If my company accepts this fee, I will earn less than the lady who works on reception! And I will be her manager, the manager of the bar, the project manager for the construction of the culture lounge on the 2nd floor and responsible for all the staff in the whole place. A mere 45 people.

My company insists that everything will be OK - but this odd system of negotiation where everything is vague, contracts are signed but don't seem to mean anything and no one will actually formally commit to anything is rather stressful.

It's hard for me to describe the cultural difference - but I shall relay an anecdote which I hope will reflect the experience.

The second floor of our building needs extensive renovations - in ou business plan I said that we would need 45 days for the building work to be completed providing the construction team starts work next week - this plan includes 7 days contingency for any unexpected issues. I have watched enough episodes of Grand Designs to know there are always issues.  I was told that 45 days was too long to put in the plan and we needed to say it would take 14 days. But it won't, it will take 45 days. But still, we have to say 14 days because we will be judged on how fast our plan says we can open the second floor for business. But the second floor will not be ready for business within 14 days. That doesn't matter. The plan doesn't have to reflect the actual activity or time frame. The plan just reflects the plan.

I am not in Kansas anymore.

Hopefully over the next week, I  will have a clear idea of what my actual salary will be (rather than the one that is in my contract or the offensive offer on the negotiating table). It's all fascinating - and horribly frustrating at the same time. Luckily I found chamomile tea in the supermarket so at least I can relax!

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.