How's business? September

We have good days, at least once a week sales top 400 rmb.  Other days I need to stay open until 9 p.m. to bring in the last sales to top 100 rmb.  A few days a week I go home to nap in the afternoon, and then come back in time to relieve the night person who has to go home at 8 p.m. in order to catch the last bus.

On weekends I've begun the practice of coming in at 6 a.m. so that by 10 a.m. we can have baked goods on the shelf.  I don't know that it has been helping, but I think eventually it will pay off.

One good profit maker is 'veggie pie'.  For a late afternoon produce, I'll cook some veggies and wrap them somehow in dough.  I finally found a nice recipe in Rose Beranbaum's book for 'Sicilian vegetable pie'.  I have adapted that, which instructs for one long tube that is sliced at the dinner table.  I use her crust, more or less, and then make wraps three inches long.  I fold them lengthwise and tuck the ends under.

The first time I baked them I foolishly used steam.  They came out dark brown with scorched spots.  Never mind, Tina was on night shift and she sold them.  Customers turned their noses up until she cut one open and gave out samples.  They all sold out.

The next time I did them they were a nice light gold color, favored by the Chinese.  They too sold out.  The first time I used broccoli florets and jerusalem artichokes.  The second time I used the rest of that broccoli with the jerusalem artichokes, without affecting their popularity.

Tina has found her niche as the night person.  She watches the foot traffic outside our windows, and will go out and pull people in.  She is canny, and can sell damaged breads (when Peter rips the tops off by putting the lids on backwards, or I do the same by trying to remove the lid too soon).

I've started making Portuguese Sweet Bread.  Nice.  It reminds me of Pannetone without candied fruit. The recipe says you can put a shaped loaf in the fridge for next-day baking.  I tried that, but had to throw out the unbaked loaves.  The proof box (retarder) I use is cheap.  The bottom tray gets very hot, the top tray is cool.  In other words, it provides very uneven heat.  Those two loaves were on the bottom, and the heat was too intense for them.  Perhaps if I had tried to bake them sooner, it might have worked.  The recipe says they need about 4 hours to warm up before baking them after refrigeration.  These two loaves should have been baked no more than 2 hours after the cold.  Even then, who knows.  Now I will bake four loaves in one day.

In fact, I'm beginning to think that I have too many empty racks, and that is a psychological drag on business.   Either I remove one rack, or better yet, fill them up.  I think I will bake a lot of white bread and put that in brown paper bags and cover the shelves with those.  Then have the actual fresh-baked stuff on the top shelves.  I've been waiting for the money from the States before initiating that plan.  I'll talk it over with my staff and see what they think.

I am discouraged.  Money problems weigh me down.  How to increase sales?  The foreigners in Xin Bei have not caught on to my distribution system.  No one has used it yet, not even my faithful customer Ann Marie.  I think I must make a greater effort this week, to fill that basket again on Friday, maybe even again on Saturday.  I hate to make that trip, and it usually requires me to take an expensive taxi home, but I must do marketing.  Mind you, earlier I said I start work at 6 a.m. on the weekends.  It is difficult, then, to make the long ride north to Xin Bei early enough to be able to catch the last bus home.  Otherwise, I would not have time for a nap.  By 3 p.m. I am usually exhausted.  The question is, is the basket visible?  Has it been moved?  Have the menus and business cards run out?  I need to check these things for myself, no matter the effort.

The one time I did go, with the basket, Xiao Lan accompanied me.  It made the trip much more pleasant, and the weight of the loaves lighter as each of us took a handle.  But we must return to the shop by 5 p.m. when Tina leaves, or the place will be unattended.

Onus of being a company

The paperwork came through fast, once I signed all those papers.  The business visa was issued.  Actually, my passport contains a residence permit, and the stated purpose of my residence is written on there.  I presume it says 'business', though I haven't had it translated yet.

Now for the commercial bank account, and the much needed infusion of cash.

It took over an hour, going from one desk to another and back again, at the bank.  Then we needed to hop on the ebikes and go around the corner to the 'Peoples Bank of China', the equivalent of our Federal Reserve Bank.  Once back to the Agricultural Bank, I finally was given my passport back.  The clerk showed me a blue plastic card I needed, for doing transactions; she tucked it into my passport.  I noticed the large letters in English 'SAFE'. That's about all I saw.  The woman from the agency took control of it before handing me back my passport.

Then they told me there were regulations about how to use the money.  I needed a 'contract' for everything I purchased, not just a receipt.  What?  It was a bank worker who tried to explain to me, the official English speaker in that department.  I had no idea what she was saying.  I asked a number of times for a handout where all these rules were written.  Each time I was more insistent, and finally I was handed a much photocopied document in Chinese.  No English.

Me:  I need to pay back a loan.  What kind of documentation do I need?

Her:  Oh, you can't use the money for your personal needs.

Me:  This money was borrowed in order to rent my office, while I was waiting for these funds to arrive.

Her:  Oh.  [looking at her companion, rolling her eyes, looking up to the left.  A shrug of shoulders]

This is going to be very complicated!  I need to buy that water heater, I need to make improvements in the shop to increase storage capacity, to buy a much needed food processor, you know, personal stuff like that. I am registered as a consultancy, so how can I justify buying flour and any of the above listed things?

The Chinese are so very excellent at fudging all this sort of stuff.  I need to find the right person.  Shirley would have been that person, but now she's gone and opened her own business and is way too busy.  I will just have to keep looking.  I know the Lord will provide me with just the right person.

Candice came to my store yesterday. I taught her often at Web.  She was in the habit of texting me on Skype whenever she found me online.  It became a bother.  Her written English is not much better than her spoken English, which is barely understandable outside of the basic social chats.  I couldn't remember what work she did, but I had a niggling feeling.  So I told her I was looking for an accountant.  She said she was a certified accountant, and would love to help.  Later that day we had a long exchange on Skype texting.  Much of it was unintelligible.  She was trying to tell me how to use my account.  Hence, she is not exactly the right person to explain things to me, but once I understand the rules myself, she may well be able to translate what I want into what needs to be written.  As long as I know my needs clearly, I think she can fulfill them.

I am thinking about scanning the instructions and sending them to Su, the lovely lady at my wine tasting.  She loves translating and interpreting.  She may be willing to translate this document for me.  The obvious question is, why is there not already an English translation?  I think the answer is, there is but it is not widely circulated.  The instructions are in large type and bulleted, covering a little over two pages.

I think I might go to Monkey King and ask Lisa about this.  She surely must have to help Alex do his reports, and her English is quite good.

The other odd thing is that I need to transfer between 100,000 rmb and 101,000 rmb.  Not more, not less.  One Forex website said that equaled $15,831.  Well, but what about fees, and variable exchange rates.  I thought, well, round it off to $16,000 to be sure.  But when I ran that through a Forex converter, it was over the $101,000 limit!

All very interesting.  I remember a favorite expression of my dad's:  Makes you want to shoot your grandmother.  [He never knew his, as she was in Italy, just as I never knew mine because they passed away too soon]

Wine Tasting Evening

It was a long day of baking.  I arrived at six, and worked through until about 3.  Went home for a quick shower and nap, and returned after 5:00.  There were plenty of volunteers to help with the peeling of fruit, cutting of cheeses, and other tasks.  Tina and Peter were off duty, but they insisted on attending anyway.  Ricky came down from downtown a little early and helped supervise some of this.  She is an American whom I recently met.

Tina collected the money for me, and got people to sign in and leave a phone number.

I had hoped for 30 people, in which case I would have brought benches from home and extended the party to the outside.  In the end around 20 people came. It was crowded enough, though in a good way.  The acoustics suck, with such tall ceilings.  I really must find a way to install cheap baffling.

Funny how we only got this picture of the cheese platters before the event.  You can't see much for the shiny plastic wrap. Not of the subsequent photos included any food; only wine and people.

Rachel was working at Web, but her mom and dad came and set up the wines, the glasses, and stayed in the kitchen to serve.  I think her dad (silly, I don't know his name.  Chinese don't use names much) could have livened things up with wine information, but he doesn't speak English.

Xiao Lan is our dishwasher.  On Friday and Saturday she works the night shift, from 12 to 8.  So she arrived at work at noon wearing that pretty dress.  It is her name on my bakery business license.  I now have a second business license, in my own name, but that's another story.  We could not have opened the bakery without her amiable cooperation.

I baked many different kinds of breads, in small batches, hoping to sell some and get people started on new bread addictions.  

I had five kinds of cheeses.  A small round of Camembert and one of brie.  Then a few platters of cubed Ementaler, Edam and a mild cheddar.  I selected a good variety of breads.  I think lean breads go best with wine and cheese, so I had only one enriched bread in the lot.  That was the New York Deli Rye, which has onions in it.  The other breads were pain a l'ancienne, and the rest were sourdoughs.  I had a simple rye sourdough; a sunflower rye sourdough ring; a hardy dense whole wheat sourdough round.

It's just as well I can't find the picture of the sunflower ring.  It's the second time I've made it, and I still haven't got it right.  At least, the appearance is lacking, but not the flavor.

A pregnant couple wanted to come.  They are a lovely young white South African couple who would liven any party.  I reduced her admission price and prepared a special fruit drink for her.  I cut up apples and pears, peeled oranges, and a few slices of an unripe nectarine.  Tina was slicing, and after a few got into the mix she asked me about it.  The remainder of the nectarine went back into the fridge.  To that mixture of sliced fruits we added cinnamon sticks and a few whole cloves.  I covered the fruit with water and let it soak for a most of the day.  When I finally tasted it, it was sour.  I added a dollop of honey, and that did the trick.  It went into the fridge until 7 p.m., when it was then poured into two pitchers.  There were actually two abstaining from alcohol, but as the night wore on more and more people shared in it.  There was still a lot left over.  On Sunday I started work at 3 a.m. in order to prepare some special orders, and drank a whole pitcher of it by myself while working.  It made my body feel great!

South Africa on the left, Australia on the right.

I was pleased that Su and her husband Ge did come.  It took a while for them to integrate into the group, but once they did they fit right in.  They excused themselves a little after nine, and Ricky hitched a ride home with them.  The buses stop running north at 8:45.  Fortunately, it wasn't much out of the way for the couple.  

On Thursday I experimented with baking crackers and bread sticks.  We set them out on display.  The breadsticks sold out, but not the crackers.  I sealed them in a tin overnight, and was able to serve them Friday.  They were a hit.  

In the end, there was a lot of cheese left over, and sliced breads.  The stragglers finally got the signal to move on at 10:45, and I packed them off each single or couple with a sack of leftover cut bread.  No one bought a loaf, and only one couple bought a bottle of wine.

Financially it was disappointing, but it was a social success.  People enjoyed themselves, even suggesting that we do this once a month.  They were not much impressed with the wines, to hear tell. I need not have spent so much money on fine wines.  I could just as easily picked up a selection at Tesco, the evening would have been equally successful.  And I would not now be stuck with a large inventory of expensive wines.  I was forced to buy five cases, and received two more as a gift.   Among 20 people only 10 bottles were consumed.   I thought about doing it again in a month, but it feels more like a party.  So how could I charge people?  Then I realized that if we met at a restaurant we would also have to spend a lot of money.  I could hit on an admission fee that was both reasonable and economically sound for me.

 As I say, there was plenty of cheese left over. 

I'm having to add cheese dishes to use up that cheese.  These two are cheese scones and quiche.  The Chinese do not like the quiche.  They are used to sweet custard tarts which are ubiquitous here in Changzhou.  So they see this and expect it to be sweet.  Another reason is that it is cold.  They don't like to eat cold food.  So I only managed to sell two slices to the rare foreigner who walked in Sunday.  The rest became my meals for two days.

The scones will be no problem to sell, I think, but they only use cheddar.  I must find some use for the Edam.  I did put a notice on our Changzhou ex pat page saying that I'd share cheese with others.  By buying bulk I get a better price and selection than others can get, so I can resell it.  That worked, one person came in and bought 900 gms of Edam, another said she wanted Parmesan.  I haven't bought the latter, though would dearly like to.  Now I am motivated.

Would I do it again?

It will take time to see if as a marketing tool it is effective.  Perhaps I should have done more to encourage them to buy loaves while they were there.  They were in a party mood, not a shopping mood, however.  As for sheer fun, it was well worth all the preparation.  I had a good time.  I am not averse to trying it again in a month.  October 1 is a national holiday, people will be off from work.  Some will try to travel, but other of us more experienced China hands know better than to try to buck the traveling crowds and increased travel prices.  Perhaps it will be a good time to get just a small group together.  So very hard to predict.  Lori will be down from Beijing, staying on my couch.  (I would so love for her to stay in my spare bedroom, but that is now dominated by a 70 pound useless bread slicing machine that the vendor will not take back; but that's another story.) It might be easy to get a bunch to come down and visit with her.  We were a tight group when she worked here in Changzhou.

I don't know if it is difficult or easy to leave comments.  If anyone knows anything about acoustics, I'd appreciate suggestions on how to improve the acoustics in my place, without spending thousands.

exhaustion

Our 'night man' Johnny left to go back to college.  Each of us is having to take turns staying until 8.

It was my turn to stay, on Tuesday.  I had called Su, the wife of that lovely couple I met that night I was stranded outside Metro.  I reminded her of the wine tasting, and suggested she and her husband come, that I'd love for my foreign friends to get to know them.  She said that was the day they were sending their daughter back to college in Beijing, so maybe they'd be tied up.  But she did say she and her husband would like to come visit the shop.  They said they would come one evening.

We find that we do most of our selling in the evening.  Xiao Lan should have finished work at six.  Rachel finished at Web and came down, ready to go.  But her son had come around 5:00, and was playing a computer game.  Six o'clock came and went, and they still hadn't gone.  He was sitting at the selling counter, making it difficult for me to settle down there.  I asked them when they were leaving.  Rachel said they were waiting for their brother to finish his computer game.

I was thinking that I was very tired, and there wasn't that much to sell anyway, and I wouldn't mind closing shop early and going home.  I had brought a book to read, so once they finally left, after 6:30, I read for a little while.  Seven o'clock seemed a reasonable time to 'close early'.

The book, a thin forgettable mystery novel, had me pleasantly engrossed until a customer walked in.  I served the customer, and then Su and her family walked in.  We were talking away, when Jimmy walked in.  Rachel had told him that I needed to turn in my passport on Friday for a new visa, so he came to assure me that his wife would be working at the police station that day.  I introduced him to my new friends.

Other customers walked in, so I served them.  Jimmy chatted with Su's husband.  The family stayed until closing.  There were waves of customers.  I tried my best to keep up.  When Tina balanced the sales log the next day, she said I must have forgotten one sale because there was a 37 rmb discrepancy. Everything sold out, except of course the ciabatta.  One Chinese customer said she'd like to try one, but I told her it was chewy and she probably wouldn't like it.

During the lulls I was able to chat with this family.  They told me that they brought their daughter to meet me because I was an example to the young.  They had been telling her about my story.  She seemed a lovely girl, and expressed interest in hanging out at the bakery next summer to learn baking.

It was past 8 o'clock when the place emptied out.  Weariness swept back over me.  I looked at the sales log, which needed to be balanced.  I opened the cash draw and dropped it in.  I cleaned up the crumbs, put away the remaining three scones, locked up and went home.

I took a Sominex, put in my ear plugs, and lay down for a good night's sleep.

Wednesday was supposed to be my day off.  Rachel was free in the morning, and so we planned to go to Metro together.  I needed help with the heavy bag I'd be coming home with.  This trip was especially to buy the things we'd need Friday at the wine tasting.  Serving platters, cheese and sausage.

Tuesday night Jada texted me.  She had arrived from Shangdong.  After years and years in China, she was finally 'going home'.  A spinster in her 40's, she is from Hawaii.  She looks Asian, being half Filipino and half Chinese.  She has had endless trouble working as an English teacher in China.  One problem was that she didn't look Caucasian.  In some types of schools that's a problem.  Another problem is that she has psoriasis, so she tends to dress funny to hide her peeling arms.  But the biggest problem is her personality.

Back when I worked at Changzhou University we had tried playing badminton together, a game we both wanted to learn.  This lasted quite a few months.  We stopped playing during the summer, because it was just too hot.  We resumed again in the fall.  But on one of the last times we played, I was chatting away, so glad to have someone to chat with.  She admonished me not to talk during the play.

A pity relationship is hard to sustain, of course.  This one finally came to a head, and we agreed not to be friends.  I was relieved.  As time passed I knew I had made the right decision, when I realized I didn't miss her friendship at all.  She was active on Facebook, and so I knew that her contract was not being renewed and she'd need to find a new job.  The job she eventually found took her away from Changzhou.

She continued to text me, with updates on management moves at her new company.  Sometimes I replied, but often there was no response required.  She then began phoning me. Once I answered, but the other times I just let it ring.  I just didn't have the energy to listen to her whiny voice.

I learned through FB that she'd be leaving China, going back to Hawaii.  I think she trumped up some family illness, to keep face.  But I think she was terminally lonely and fed up.  She texted me that she'd be coming to Changzhou to close a bank account and buy dollars.  Her bank was in the same shopping area as my shop, so she said she'd stop in.

The sleeping pill kept me resting until after seven.  I got up, made some oatmeal to take with me (I love it with milk, and there's none home but lots at work), and arrived after 8.  Tina texted me to tell me that my 'Facebook friend' was waiting for me at the shop.

Once at the shop I was kept busy supervising Peter and Tina, eating my breakfast, starting the ciabatta, sorting out the til, and making a list of what we'd need at Metro. In between, I chatted with Jada.

Rachel came, and we headed out to Metro.  It is a long bus ride, with a change of bus.  We finished shopping around 11:30, with a huge Metro bag so heavy that even with the two of us we could barely move it.  No way we could walk all the way to the next bus stop.  We called a taxi, and as luck would have it there was one at the gas station which is at the entrance to the Metro service road.

Once back at the shop I looked at what was being baked and thought it would not be enough if we had traffic similar to the previous night.  I took some sourdough barm out of the fridge, thinking I could begin something for tomorrow anyway.  I made a cheese sandwich.  I used bread we bought at Metro!  I had bought a small loaf of rye bread, to see if I could figure out how it's supposed to taste.  Once the meal was eaten, I realized that the lethargy I'd been feeling since Sunday was still with me, in spite of one good night's sleep.

Thrice weekly I fill a standing order for the German restaurant upstairs for three flavored ciabatta.  Wednesday was a scheduled delivery day.  I had started the ciabatta before going to Metro, and Peter had taken it through the shaping phase.  I had not yet initiated Tina into this process.  Once in the proof box, the ciabatta needed lots of time until it swelled.  Tina saw that I was busy talking with some foreigners that had come in, asking for directions.  She took the initiative to put the ciabatta in the oven, which she had turned on some time earlier in anticipation.

I was unaware of this.  She came to me and mumbled something about steaming the ciabatta.  I said the ciabatta could wait a few minutes.  In a moment the guests left and I walked into the kitchen.

The ciabatta were in the oven!!!  And Tina had not turned on the steam, which can only be useful when done immediately upon putting them in the oven.  By the time she came to ask me, it was already too late, even if I had understood what she had done.

I blew my top.  This is the sort of thing the sweet thing always does.  She wants to be helpful, so she jumps in even if she doesn't know what she'd doing.  The oven temperature had not been turned down when the bread went in, which is supposed to happen as soon as the steam button is released.  But of course, she doesn't know that, because I've been training Peter, not her, in ciabatta making.

I had long ago told her that she needed to be aware of everything going on, so that if one baker gets distracted with other business the dough making that was interrupted wouldn't be ruined.  So she did as she thought she had been told.  I now need to teach her how to interrupt me and remind me what's cooking, and ask for instructions.  Poor girl.  I can't figure it out.  Is it because she isn't quite that bright?

Soon after that I went home.  Yu Xiao Mei was cleaning the house.  I remember this happened last week as well. Fortunately, she had started in the bedroom.  She closes the cats in there while she cleans the rest of the house.  I was able to go in there, close the door, and read until I fell asleep.

I slept a good sleep for a couple of hours, then got up, made a salad and watched a movie.  I had no trouble going right back to sleep at 9 o'clock.

Rachel asked me to dinner at her house on Thursday night, because it was her birthday.  I thought of all the things I had to do to prepare for the wine tasting event on Friday.  Most of all, I needed to get to bed early and get a good night's sleep.  She lives far outside of the city.  I wanted to turn her down, but how could I?  It was her birthday.  She persuaded me that someone would be there with a car and could drive me home.  A number of the other staff and teachers at Web would be there (all Chinese) and they were looking forward to sharing the evening with me.

If only I found it easier to fall asleep in the afternoons, like the Chinese do so easily.  I'm going to have to work harder at getting adequate sleep.  The thing is, it seems to me that soon I shall have to begin work at 6 a.m. so that we can open our doors earlier than 12 noon.  The other thing that needs fixing is the afternoon slump.  There is at least three hours in the afternoon when everyone sits down and plays on their computers. the baking is basically done, and afternoon walk-in customers are rare.

Forming a company

I knew that I needed to file with the city government as a company in order to get a business visa.  I had been to the government office to find out the procedure.  They were very helpful, and along with all the instructions they also gave me the name of an agency whose business is to process these applications.

I had asked Rachel to phone them.  She spoke a long time with them, but she must have been very busy with Web at that time because she did not give me much of a translation about what I needed to do.  She fed me bits and pieces, from which I could not lay out a plan.

Three weeks passed.  It was soon time again to try to renew my Hong Kong obtained tourist visa.

I went to Rachel and explained how time sensitive this whole thing was, and how helpless I felt not being fluent enough in Chinese to do it myself.  She was spurred on to tackle it.  We went in to see the agent, and got the ball rolling.

Two weeks earlier I had requested from my home bank a wire transfer of almost all the money in my US bank account, to carry me over in the bakery until business finally caught on.  I checked once at an ATM machine, and got a strange result.  It looked like too much money had arrived in my account.  Silly me, I did nothing.  Eventually, though, I checked again.  Apparently, the first read out had a computer glitch so that the decimal point was not in the right place.  No money had arrived.

Calling my bank in the States requires careful juggling of time.  They are about 15 hours behind me.  I finally hooked up with them, and asked about my funds.  It took a while to figure it out, but I had made a mistake.  I had looked up the SWIFT code of my bank online, instead of going to the bank and asking them for it.  I confused the Agricultural Development Bank with the Agricultural Bank, and sent the wrong SWIFT code. I held on the line quite some time until my bank managed to track down the funds.  They indeed were in Changzhou, but at a bank where I had no account.  The money would be returned to Seattle, and resent using the correct SWIFT code.

This last phone conversation took place a day before Rachel and I went into the meeting with the agent.  At that meeting I learned that funds transferred from my US account to my private China account would not count.  I had to first open a local commercial account, and then have 100,000 rmb wired into that account from the States.

I juggled the time difference again and called the Seattle bank back.  I asked if the funds had yet been received, they said no.  I then instructed them to hold them in the States until I called back with a different bank account.

That was lucky.  Sending money back and forth obviously includes a lot of fees.  I was relieved that I had stopped the money from bouncing around, generating more fees.  But there still remained a problem.  I was planning to transfer 60,000 rmb.  That left me 40,000 short.  The obvious solution was to find a local Chinese business person, a student of Web, who had that kind of cash in the bank and who was willing  to lend it to me for about ten days.  That was not a pleasant thought.

Amazingly, about two days after I went to the agent's office to sign the papers (no exaggeration, about fifty pieces of paper needed my signature; they don't except photocopies, so eight copies have to all be signed, and there were a few sets of those), they emailed Rachel to say that the Foreign Investment Management office had approved my application.  Now I need only pay the fees and get the gilded certificate, and I can then apply for a business license which I need in hand when I apply for the visa.  Did I mention the current visa expires September 9?  When it was issued I was told that I could not get any more renewals of tourist visa.  It has to be the business visa, or another trip out of the country.

In the end, I find myself short about $4,500.  Doesn't seem like much!  And in fact, if they would allow me to pay the $1,300 fees after I transfer my funds, I'm short even less than that.  It will be interesting to see where those funds come from.  As I say, I only need to hold the money in my Chinese account a few days, long enough for them to verify that it arrived.  Apparently, they don't have a system to continue monitoring it.

My visa expires Sept. 9.  On Sept. 6 I was informed that the business license had been granted, again at lightening speed.  So I took the passport to the police station.  However, I was informed that there was still one document lacking.  I called Su to interpret for me.  Once I discovered the problem, I called the agent I'm paying, and she spoke with the policeman.  We agreed to meet at the appropriate government building.  It was now 3:00, but the offices stay open until 5:30.  We got the missing document, and I tried to speed back to the police station.  However, my ebike was out of juice.  I was not far from the bakery, when I called Rachel and asked if I could swap bikes.  No problem, she said.  My bike died as I reached the bakery door, no exaggeration.  With this bigger, faster back I was back on my way to the police station.  In the end, the application was accepted, and I paid the 800 rmb.  Once it comes back, hopefully on Wednesday week, I will then be able to go to the bank and set up the account, and order the wire transfer.  I thought that I was desperate for that infusion of cash, but actually we've been limping alone fine.  Soon I'll need to buy a water heater, though, as the weather cools.

Have you read 'Poorly Made in China'?  It gives further insight into how appearance is more important than substance, to the Chinese way of thinking.

health inspectors

I look forward to the weekends, because I anticipate foreigners coming into the shop.  This is Tina's and Rachel's day off. On Friday we do all the preferments and other preps, so Saturday morning is easy for me and Peter by ourselves.

But this Saturday we got a surprise.  A Chinese man came in, speaking rapidly.  Peter wasn't up to the translation.  I grabbed my phone and dialed someone who could translate.  This took time.  This man began looking over his shoulder, walking back and forth between me and the front window.

I had called Shirley, who spoke with the man.  Then she told me what was up.  This man was from the sanitation and health department, and he was going around giving folks the heads up that tomorrow official inspectors would be coming around.  Changzhou is once again pushing for the 'civilized city' certification.  I thought they had already received it, so I am puzzled.

Shirley advised me to call Jimmy.  He is the Web student who is a manager in the city's health department.   I explained to Jimmy that his colleague was here, and could Jimmy speak with him.  Then I handed him the phone, and he spoke with Jimmy. After an animated conversation, I once again was handed the phone.  While Jimmy was explaining to me what was going on, the man actually walked outside, looked up and down, and came back in.  I suppose we were detaining him longer than he anticipated, and he was anxious to continue his Paul Revere mission.

The problem was, each worker needed to have a health certificate.  Peter smartly told the man that he left his home. Xiao Lan was the only one who had one, and she wasn't due in for another hour or two.  So we had nothing to show, at all.

On the phone, Jimmy told me to call Tina and tell her not to come into work tomorrow.  He sent Peter home to get a photo (no, Peter did not actually have a health certificate at home).  I had a photo handy, and turned it over to Jimmy.   Peter borrowed my ebike and returned quickly.  Jimmy took our photos and said he'd be back.

Xiao Lan finally arrived while Jimmy was there, and she inserted her little health booklet into the plastic sleeve with the shop's official health/sanitation certificate.

Some foreigners did actually come in.  At the same time Jimmy arrived.  Since neither Peter nor Xiao Lan speak English, I had to speak with the customers.  I explained the products, and eventually got around to talking about the wine tasting.  Eventually they left, and Jimmy asked what they were talking about.  Perhaps he wondered why I ignored him.

Jimmy had with him health certificate booklets for Peter and me.  He slipped them into the plastic sleeve along with Xiao Lan's.  Now we were official, all except for Tina.

Later, when Peter and I were alone, I thought it interesting that he pointed out to me these certificates were 'jia de', or fake.  In stating the obvious, it seems he takes it less in stride than I do.  He is a straight arrow, perhaps more for lack of opportunity than from moral conviction.

The afternoon was slow, so I was thumbing through the recipe book under the sourdough section.  I know people like breads with sunflowers in them, so I was happy to find a rye sourdough sunflower bread.  I got a cup of barm out of the fridge and fed it, and left it overnight.

Sunday came.  We had planned a lot of baking.  Our staffing, though, was slender.  Johnny had finished work with us and headed back to college.  Xiao Lan and her daughter Rachel both take Sunday off, a family day with dad.  We were on a new schedule now, with people taking turns doing a night shift to compensate for the loss of Johnny.  This meant that Peter had a half day today, from 7 to 11.  And now, no Tina.

When I arrived around 8, Peter had the kitchen lit up with energy.  He had two bowls filled with recipe, the oven was baking the cinnamon buns, and the proof box held a couple more bowls.  I wonder if he arrived before seven!  It normally takes the cinnamon buns a couple hours to warm up and rise enough to bake, after taking them out of the fridge.

I was trying different scenarios to get the evening shift taken care of.  Peter must have called Tina, or perhaps she called him to find out what was going on.  At any rate, Peter was unwilling to return in the evening to close at 8.  He wanted Tina to do it.  And apparently, she wanted to do it.  At any rate, Peter left at 11, after making a quick trip to the supermarket across the street to replenish our egg supply.

The day progressed with no inspectors in sight.  So I called Tina and asked her to come in at 5.  I must say, it was a quiet afternoon.  No one came into the shop.  I had not brought my computer.  I had only the cook books to amuse myself.

I did bake the sunflower recipe.  It didn't look much like the book photo!  I did have to improvise some, because the recipe called for a soaker of coarse rye, which I don't have.  So I used some biga from yesterday, and threw in a handful of rye flour.  It is supposed to look like a large doughnut, with a square superimposed on it by pressing down on the dough four lines before baking.  After the fact, I noticed that the instructions direct you to put flour into the lines after you've pressed them, so they won't fill back in.  Mine filled back in.  Also, the center hole I made was way too small, so that it looked like a belly button.  Now, if I can get someone to buy it and let me slice it and take a taste...  But no more foreigners came into the shop after that.

Around 4 I was in the kitchen putting something together for tomorrow, having been inspired by the cookbook to actually, finally, try making french bread.  I heard noises at the front door.  Jeff Wugang, his wife Danny and their daughter came in.  They were on their way to the new Eagle Plaza a block away, for their daughter's dance recital.  They had some time to kill, so we sat and chatted.  It was nice to see them.  I think the last time I had seen Danny was when we all had gathered to eat at a Japanese restaurant near their home.  It was so long ago that Gregg and I were still together.

Of course, I had more recently seen Jeff.  He was the one who had turned me on to the Bali coffee investment plan, and had been with me at the dinner a month ago, with those people.

I sent them home with a few scones.  The scones were dropping off in popularity, and I could see we'd have a lot left over.  I was happy to share them.

At one point in the lonely afternoon, I had to go to the bathroom.  What to do?  I now have a standing order with the German restaurant upstairs to provide them with three 12" ciabatta three times a week.  They were ready to be delivered, and the German restaurant has a nice western toilet.  Problem solved!  I put a note on the 'open' sign saying I'd be back in five minutes.  I took the elevator up to the third floor, and killed two birds with one stone.

I doubt I'd been missed.

Tina arrived at five, and after she went to the toilet, I left.  Time to get back to the five cats.  Did I mention? I had been keeping mama cat and the dark calico at the shop.  Jimmy pointed out the obvious, that the two cats must not be at the bakery when the health inspectors came.