Blustery November

It has been an interesting month so far.  Time hurtles by as I look over my shoulder at yesterday and find last week.

I misplaced my ATM card for the bank where I had my internet account set up.  I shop online with that account.  They froze my account for a waiting period.  Meanwhile, I desperately needed to order some goods online for the shop.

So I went to my other bank, the bank account that is swollen with all this money I had to bring over here.  They gave me a little thumb drive, and then sent the password by mail to the store.  When I finally got a free moment, I tried to install it and use it.  The password didn't work!  I was upset.  OK, I had already resolved the pending payment for the shipment of flour by contacting the farmer and getting his bank account number so that I could do a direct deposit to it.  But there were other supplies running low.

I went to the bank and asked them what was wrong, why didn't it work.  They were very patient with me.  They took me to the computer and tried to make it work.  In the end, they said that password was only valid for five days, so it has expired.  What?!?  But I received it only a few days ago.  I tried arguing with them, but they had the advantage of the computer record on their side.  It had been in my possession for two weeks.

Once we got that sorted out, I searched online for packaging for our new sandwich catering business.  Tina found just the thing.  We tried a hundred the first week.  Then we ordered two hundred.  Our third order was much larger.

There are other packaging issues still pending, however.  These challenges never stop coming at me.

Jolly's

I finally went up to Xin Bei to get my basket back from Johnny at Jolly's Restaurant.  It was in a back room, not that many business cards had been picked up.  As it turns out, his business has been slow continuing right into the fall season.  He wasn't there.  I left him two loaves of multigrain.  I haven't heard back from him.

Networking Mavin

Many months ago, when Lori was still in town and I was still an English teacher, I attended a Salsa Dance Party and Dinner.  A nice looking young man with excellent English taught the salsa.  The event was held at Rose's Tea House downtown, around the corner from Starbuck's and a few doors down from the largest bookstore in town.  It is not a Chinese style tea house, but Victorian style.

This man's name is Ron Leung, and I noticed that he is active on our Facebook group, 'Changzhou ex pats'.  Then in June he started another e-network, a Changzhou group on meetup.com.

By email he invited me to be a sponsor of the Meetup group homepage.  So I did.  I offered a 25% discount on the first purchase by anyone mentioning their membership to Meetup.

He came once when I wasn't here, and my staff remarked on him.  Handsome, Asian but maybe not Chinese, fluent in both Chinese and English.  Finally he came while I was in the bakery.  We chatted a  long time.  He is from Singapore.  As the FB group seems to serve a useful function as a social network, maybe Meetup group could serve more as a business network.  There are a number of us doing business here, after all.

Some time later he called and invited me to meet Kelly, the owner of Rose's Tea House.  He asked me to bring along some samples.  I did.  There was another ex pat woman there, as well.  We sat and had tea and my samples.  It was a very fruitful discussion.  They made me see that just being Asian wasn't that much of an advantage for a businessman in Changzhou.  They, too, met obstacles similar to my own; they felt like outsiders.  Kelly is from Taiwan.

We talked about a lot of things.  I mentioned my idea about talking with the bakery in Xin Bei about giving me space in their display counters.  Kelly knew this family, as they were also Taiwanese.  She said I could forget that idea, since this family company has its own factory; they wouldn't be wanting to share shelf space and help market my goods.

The Kelly connection is still blooming one petal at a time.  More about that later.

Bakery Blog

I kept the blog up sporadically.  What is the quote about faith?  Believing in what you cannot see?  My spirits flag when I put energy into something without any visible returns.  But I still think it's worthwhile, so I'll resume when my strength returns.

What strength, you ask?  I had a bought with the stomach flu, and was down for the count for a good three days.  I'm back at work now, but feverish, achy, and just plain tired.

The blog site does keep records of hits, however, and I did notice over 300 hits last time I looked.  That's got to mean something, doesn't it?  Or maybe Chinese people randomly searching for English to read.

The sandwich account mushroomed and then deflated again.  These customers have no idea the obstacles they've thrown my way.  I can't blame them for opting out of the roast beef day.  It's taking me an awful long time to figure out how to roast a Chinese beef to the point of tender.  I'll keep trying, though.  A few weeks ago they ordered 26 sandwiches on the roast beef day.  This week it is down to 8.

When it came time to send the invoice, we ran into more obstacles.  The school accountant requires a 'fa piao'.  This is usually translated to 'receipt', but that is such a flat word for it.  I typed out the invoice, printed it, and stamped it with my official stamp issued by the government.  No good.

Tina and I, and Candice my volunteer CPA had long consultations.  This fa piao was something that the tax office issues.  It is pre-printed sheets in a pad with rmb amounts on it.  Think 'traveler's checks'.  If your profits are such-and-such you can have so many rmb worth of fa piao.  You tear them out to equal the amount of purchase.  Books of denominations.  100, 50, 10, 5.  Tina went back to this office quite a few times.  On the first day she had to take Xiao Lan with her, because the business license is in her name.  This was towards the end of the moment, and she discovered it was important to get the books before the end of the month.  You could get just a set amount each month.  Optimist that she is, she was hoping we would continue to sell to the school at such volumes that one month's issuance wouldn't be enough to receipt two months of sales.  Ha!

That first day, they were gone about six hours.  I was in the store alone, and had to spend a lot of that in the kitchen.  I needed to finish the Jagerwirt Restaurant's ciabatta order, and I needed to start a sponge for the next day's sandwich loaves.  Meanwhile, on this particular mid week afternoon we happened to be busy, which is unusual.  It must have been Tuesday, because Peter wasn't there either.

In the long run, we did get the proper papers.  We printed the invoice, added the appropriate stamps and included the right amount of fa piao to cover the entire month, or three weeks of it anyway.  But for all their insistence, and assurance that once they had it they would pay us, payment has not come.

Marketing

I was bemoaning my lack of a good marketing plan on the FB ex pat group.  Scott Altman responded.  He is a fellow Long Islander.  He shares the family name of my nemesis at Corpus Christi school so many years ago.  George Altman got to sit next to me in third grade because Sister Agnes seated us alphabetically.  This blonde Adonis would forget to bring his history book to school.   Sister passed the task of reading down the rows, each child taking a turn.  George loved to hold his strong hand over the page so I wouldn't be able to see.  My name would be called out to read, but I couldn't.  I'd get scolded, blush furiously, and he'd chuckle with dark delight.

Scott and I started to communicate through the FB page because we were paisanos, lantsmen.  It's been the better part of the year, but I haven't met him yet face to face.  He owns a few stores in town, selling mattresses.  He shares the year between the two continents, apparently.  I thought he'd be back in country long before this.

He responded to my moan by saying: be of good cheer.  Soon I will be there, and I will put it all right for you.  Well, that's not a direct quote, but you get the idea.  His FB pic has him as a dapper young (young) man.

So there you have an update.  Sorry it's been so long in the coming.  Hope the next entry will be shorter in length as well as sooner in time.