Retirement begins

Post-bakery

                The bakery episode is now ended.  What next?  Now I explore retirement.  What does that mean for someone still intellectually active, physically able?

                I made up my mind that if I was going to continue to live, I must have a life partner.  This seemed a bit unrealistic.  I haven’t found one in all these years.  Why now, particularly when the physical limitations of old age have transformed a once desirable body?  If my partner is a woman, that doesn’t matter.  What are my chances of finding a Chinese like-minded woman? 

                If I moved back to Florida I could post ads, like in Craig’s list, for a housemate of a certain age and financial stability.  It feels like trying to find a good employee at the bakery.  Many come and try out, but the good ones never stay.

                Then along comes this bizarre text message from America. Someone is enquiring if I am the Satina as seen on China TV, under ‘Life of Foreigners in China’.  I say yes.  This person explains that they think their father is the man I was looking for, according to the TV show description. 

                That person, as it turns out, was the daughter of a retired man in Chongqing.  She connected us.  We began communicating.  But over the phone, with my limited Chinese, there was little we could say.  He calls every day, to say ‘good morning,’ and ‘have you eaten?’  After a while this gets tedious.  I like the sound of the voice, however.  Once, Jamie helped translate through a conversation.

                I decided it was time to meet.  If he comes to Changzhou, how would I entertain him?  I am a visitor here myself.  Also, being summertime, my friends are all traveling. 

                I booked a flight to Chongqing, for five days.  He planned my introduction to Chongqing, and himself. 

                The flight to CQ was delayed by typhoon-like weather up north, where the flight originated.  We were in phone contact.  I told him, I have heard no news of when the flight would actually depart, so he should go home and wait.  He stubbornly stood at the airport, clutching a bouquet.

                Just before midnight the plane finally arrived in CQ.  As I headed for the baggage carousel I glimpsed a figure beyond the exit doorway.  A serious-faced many clutching a bouquet of roses and lilies stood facing the door.  The luggage took forever to finally arrive. 

                We recognized each other from our pictures.  He greeted me warmly and took my suitcase handle.  We rode the subway to my hotel.  The pavement was wet, it had been raining all day.  He saw me checked in and settled, and then he left. It was well after midnight.

                We spent two days touring the city, and a third day just relaxing at his apartment.  I was glad for the rest, because he had walked my legs off.  We watched a soccer match, and then a ballet of Romeo and Juliet (his choices).  I got on his computer and found translation software, so we could have some deeper conversations.  He cooked lunch for me.  Chicken soup, unadorned with the famous Chongqing spiciness.

                On the final day, he collected me for my morning flight, and saw me off at the airport.

                He is on a fixed income.  He spent a lot of money on me, for food, a romantic evening harbor boat tour, park entrance fees and transportation.  I would have to wait patiently until his coffers filled again for his flight to Changzhou.

                As the weeks went by, our communications became more sophisticated. He learned to use WeChat, with the translation feature.  I no longer had to try to write in Chinese, fraught with selecting the wrong character and sending gibberish.  I wrote in English, he in Chinese.

                By the time he bought his ticket and fixed the date, four weeks later, I was very eager for his arrival.  ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ I kept hearing in my head.

                I did a careful search for a suitable yet affordable guest house for him.  I would provide the housing.  I worked hard on making my spare room suitable as a bedroom, but the sheer quantity of my ‘junk’ was making it nigh impossible. 

                When my well-publicized attempted relationship with LaoZhu failed, a year earlier, Changzhou online gossip withered my reputation with assertions that ‘it was all a publicity stunt.’

                Xiao Wang has always been more a friend than a journalist.  Reading about me in the first serious photo-journal piece in a small Changzhou newspaper, in January of 2013, he tried my baked goods and liked them.  I got to know him first as a customer.  The TV station is in the same block as the bakery.  Then he asked if he could do a short ‘human interest’ story for his station’s evening newscast.  It was cute, showing me interacting with the community buying supplies for the bakery, baking, and greeting customers. 

                Two years later I was thinking about my future.  I decided that my best bet was to find a Chinese boyfriend.  I asked my repeat customers, with whom I felt comfortable enough, to consider introducing me to their elder widowed friends and relatives.

                Xiao Wang thought it would make a good story.  By this time I had rented the next-door larger space, and it made a nice backdrop for the piece, where I asked the viewers to help find me a ‘gentle hearted man’.  Xiao Wang has a lovely sense of humor, and so the piece was light hearted and very well received.  It led to the other Changzhou station wanting to do a piece, plus another newspaper, plus another writer who wanted to do an in-depth piece (I never knew what happened with the latter’s work, if he sold it independently or what).  All this became a hot topic of discussion on the internet.

                Eventually it caught the attention of a reporter in Beijing, working for CCTV4.  That station was doing a sporadic series on lives of foreigners in China.  Though I can’t be sure, I think that is the one that Linda eventually saw, while living in Brooklyn

                I could not resist assuring XiaoWang that my search had not been a publicity stunt.  I sent him a picture of HuiWen.

                A week later he contacted me, and asked how things were going.  I told him HW was due to arrive in days.  He wanted to meet.  We met at Starbucks, and there were two people with him.  The lady was the reporter in training, and the other guy was the cameraman.  Poor anonymous cameramen, I thought maybe I had worked with him before but couldn’t remember, and never got a chance to ask.

                I knew that Xiao Wang was no longer ‘just’ a journalist.  You see, the station entered his video of my romantic search to a Jiangsu Province-wide competition.  He won first prize.  With that award came a promotion.  Now he trains budding journalists.  He says he has 150 trainees!!!  The two he brought along would be doing the piece.  They don’t speak English, so we did the interview in Chinese.  At one point, Xiao Wang must have felt that they weren’t getting the whole story, so he jumped in and led the interview for a short bit.  We talked about the rumor that it had all been a publicity stunt, and how I felt about that.  That part we did in English.

                We agreed that they would film HWs arrival at Changzhou airport.

                Now, how do I include HW in this?  I don’t want him thinking about it ahead of time, with time to be nervous.  Yet it would be unkind to just spring it on him, a camera trained on him while he exited the secure area, and a microphone stuck in his face.

                I wrote Linda.  I asked her to ask him if he wouldln’t mind being interviewed for the TV spot.  He replied that he did not want that, he did not want to ‘be famous’.  I gently reminded Linda that it was too late now, that she only knew me because of my TV appearance, and it was only right that Xiao Wang should be able to produce the last segment, the end of the search and the beginning of true romance.

                And so he was aware that at some point he would be interviewed.  He took with good humor the work of the TV pair at the airport.  He hugged me warmly, as I gave him his symbolic red rose of love’s declaration. 

                I am not above being an opportunist.  The weather is very hot.  I had bought a special dress for the occasion, which was two-layers thick.  If I said no to the journalists, I’d be traveling for almost two hours in crowded hot buses to get to the airport.  They, on the other hand, would provide an air-conditioned trip there and back.

                On the trip back I thought their questioning of him was a bit intrusive.  I sat quietly, hoping Xiao Wang would make sure in the editing that things didn’t get too personal.

                I thought we would have to drop off his luggage at the hotel, and then come to my apartment.  But as it turned out, he brought just one small backpack, so we came directly to the apartment.  Later on I would take him on my ebike to the guest house.

                My bilingual friends were all out of town.  Sonja is probably in Jilin with her family.  Siok-Eong and Mark were visiting family in Malaysia until the end of the month.  Christel and Steffen would arrive a few days after HWs arrival, but they are not bilingual.  Jamie is still in town, and happy to serve as a translator.

                I thought of Lucy and her husband.  I met him only once, and would like to get to know him.  He is a bookworm, a gold mine of Chinese history and culture.  He does not speak English however.

                Meanwhile, HW and I are trying to get to know each other, while enduring temperatures hovering around 100 degrees.  At least the humidity has left the 88% range, standing around 64%.  Even so, this is the kind of weather where you dip in and out of the shower all day, unless you sit in an air conditioned room all day.

                On our first night alone, we walked to the Italian restaurant, Monkey King.  He is staying very near that location, which is also across from Yancheng Park.  We had plain pizza with garlic, and linguini with shrimp and pesto.  I ordered us two glasses of pinot grigio.  The bill was over 200 rmb, but I didn’t care.  My gesture of welcome.

                The next day we just hung around the house.  We watched TV, movies, chatted, played with the dog and cat.  I ate leftover dal, and he bought take-away pulled noodles.  We cooked a simple meal of egg plant, and cucumber

                On Saturday I had an 8 a.m. appointment at the dentist.  The previous night as I walked him halfway home, I told him I’d like him to come with me, and have his teeth looked at.  He said, no, no, his teeth were fine.  I said they needed attention.  His breath stinks.  He protested that it was because of all the garlic we at that day.  I gently disagreed.

                He came of age during the pioneering age of the revolution, where men were tough, life was rough, and it was all for the better good of building a new China.  Dental hygiene was the least of their cares.

                On the third day we went to the dentist.  I had a root canal done.  His cleaning took longer than my root canal.  Afterwards the dental assistant told me he wasn’t finished, and needed to come back for more.  I made an appointment for the following Monday.

                We went back to the hotel.  By then I was already feeling tired.  His room has twin beds.  I thought I’d lay on one, he’d lay on the other, and we’d chat and nap.  I lay down, and he sat on the side of the bed with me.  We talked.  One thing led to another.  We kissed.  Sparks flew.

After that we walked arm and arm around the retro Old China buildings outside the Park gates, looking for a place to eat.  The area has grown up a lot since I first visited it.  They no longer have a family-style small noodle shop.  Everything is expensive there now.  We wound up finding a pulled noodle place down from his guest house.  We came back to the flat and I opened the translation software. 

                I put a light-hearted Chinese movie on the TV, and took a nap on the couch.  He was sitting on my favorite chair (not using the foot rest) and wound up falling asleep too.

                We cooked and ate in.

                We spent the evening playing cards, with much laughter.

                I have paid his room through Sunday night.  We decided that Monday he would move in.  No need to prepare the spare room.

Transgender

Transgender

Suddenly this concept is popping up wherever I look.

There is the Oscar nominated film, the Danish Girl.  My good friend Cal revealed to me that he is transgender. North Carolina passes a law around transgenders and public toilets.

I cannot give this topic a superficial pass.  Suddenly this condition is ascending to claims on constitutional rights.  I have to ask myself, where has this issue been all my life?

I was certainly aware of transvestites, men who like to dress in women’s clothing.  There were plenty portrayed in movies as being prostitutes, flirting with men.

In grammar school there was a boy who was in my dance class.  He was more sensitive, gentler than other boys.  He grew up, got married, and raised a family.

Another boy, handsome, Italian, slight build, flamboyant and a hairdresser to boot, appeared at the 20-year high school reunion with his wife on his arm.  I would not have predicted that.

There were what we called dykes.  Females with masculine preferences for dress and demeanor.

How did we come from that, to a state where a mother says she knows her three year old son is transgender?

Our culture is becoming more and more fractured, with everyone indulging their individuality at the cost of a cohesive society.  Why suddenly do they claim special rights and privileges, special concessions to their preferences.  I don’t get it.  As someone famously once said, ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’

I look at my own life through these newly ground lenses.  I never played with dolls.  In our day, the name given to girls like me was tomboy.  No one ever called me a dyke.  I played nice with boys, when forced to, like having a crush in high school, and needing a date for prom night.  None of this ever came to anything.

Years and years ago when I was in the workforce, I had the sense that I was a man in a woman’s body.  I was independent, self-reliant.  I didn’t know how to pick up boys.  Boys sensed no pheromones from me.  Of course, I did live through the sixties when men suddenly had permission to screw anything that moved on two legs, and women were persuaded to think this brought them ‘hip’ status. 

It didn’t help that I was raised in a home without open displays of affection.  My mother was indoctrinated into the child-raising philosophy of the time, that to give too much attention to a child is to spoil them, give them an over inflated ego.  She took it to the extreme, closer to the ‘cold bitch’ side of the spectrum.  Once I discovered sex I had a spell of insatiability for physical intimacy.  But before long I was able to distinguish between the biological act of sex, and genuine affection and love based on mutual respect and admiration.  In fact, I found that latter to be extremely rare, though I held onto the possibility that it might be more than an urban legend.  I got tired of pretending that I was finding love in each encounter, when in fact I was being used as a dumping ground for male sweat and sperm.

While traveling alone around the world I gradually found my balance.  I developed a sense that I could do anything a guy could do, and often better.  I did not relate with the women whom I met traveling, who seemed to require a male counterpart to help make her decisions.  I did occasionally run into the rare couple who absolutely did complement each other, and I did envy them.  You never know a book by its cover, but they had the appearance of being best friends.

I did encounter women to whom I was attracted.  That is, their femininity and grace made the sun shine a little brighter for me.  And then there were the other women like me, such as the famous Miss Jones. 

We met on a Greek Island, and met again on a kibbutz.  I had already started to meditate, so we would meditate together.  Her energy helped me find my center, and my meditation improved.  Then we went our separate ways, only to meet again in Nepal.  I had heard of this American who ran a café in Kathmandu.  My colleagues at the monastery would visit her shop when they were in town.  It was a meeting place, also a place to dump the shopping while you go out for dinner, that sort of thing.  When eventually I had the opportunity to go into town with these people, she and I rediscovered each other to mutual delight. 

I think of her, when I see how my bakery in China has served a similar purpose in its short life.

Would my life have been easier if I taped my breasts and walked around in men’s clothing and hairstyle?  That seems weird to me.  I would have complicated my life even more.  The only possible advantage I could imagine would be if women were then attracted to me.  But in fact, I think my personality is a put off to men and women alike, so I doubt that would have been the result.

I speculate as to how different my experience is to someone calling themselves transgender.  I guess I will never know.  As I said, I didn’t play with dolls.  I played cowboys and Indians.  I dug out dirt to make runways and villages for what is now called matchbox cars and trucks, together with the neighborhood boys.  I climbed trees, played stick ball (when the cruel neighbor kids weren’t ostracizing me, for whatever reason of the moment).  I flew with the wind on my bicycle, exploring the town, visiting the far flung kids from my school class.  Alone, always alone.

This was all excellent preparation for the long and adventurous life I led, taking me around the world, learning languages, absorbing cultures, and having many careers.  This life was well-suited to someone who has given up romantic dreams of idyllic love.  The romance was in the travels, the possibilities that lie just around the corner.  Had I been a dependent woman, waiting for my identity and security to be provided by a male, I would have been stopped in my tricks thousands of miles and decades ago.

I feel bad for people who are not confident in expressing themselves.  For that poor little boy who likes to dress up as a girl and play with dolls, that he should have to be stigmatized for the rest of his life by his mother telling him his gender roll was confused, I feel for him.  Why must everything be so black and white.  Why cannot I be both male and female, in whatever body God gave me?  Why do I have to choose one or the other?  From talking to my transgender and gay (or should I say LTGBQ) friends, I feel that the real problem is a lack of tolerance in our relationships.  If a guy wants to wear ruffles and laces to work, why can’t he?  Why must he be gossiped about, judged wanting in masculinity?  If a woman chooses a mannishly short haircut and is given to wearing three-piece suits, what’s the problem?  Why must we treat these people differently, to where they develop a chip on their shoulder, and feel the need to run from civilized society and develop a subculture?

My cousin, when here four children were under ten years old, came home and found her husband in flagrante with a man in the basement.  Did she have to get hysterical?  Did she have to treat him like he was a felon who should never be near his children again?  For the rest of her life, does she have to go ballistic whenever they need to have a conversation?  He did not go on to develop a stable relationship with a man.  She forced the breakup of the marriage, and her children to grow up without a father, for what?  I admit I am not walking in their shoes.  Maybe I would not feature being penetrated by a tool that had been dunked in shit.  Or maybe, just maybe, enlightened people could find a way around such traumas and let their friendship go deeper.  We are all flawed human beings.  Can’t we make a better effort at loving each other unconditionally, accepting our flaws and theirs, and just get on with life?

Why do we have to fragment our society into smaller and smaller peer groups, and then demand special treatment because our decisions stand in the way of our sharing the rights and responsibilities of the society we have chosen to leave?  Many States have passed laws given gay couples legal rights, such that if one of them were hospitalized the other would have the right to be treated as family; they can be on each other’s medical insurance.  Why must they go a step further, and demand the right to shatter the milleniums-old established institution of marriage?

Truly, our culture is on the brink of extinction, no less than our planet as we know it.  Young people can’t see it, they are caught up in the moment.  Like not seeing the forest for the trees, they are blind to what is happening.  We old people are marginalized, so clearly our perspective is quaint and irrelevant.

There is nothing new under the sun.  When we have to develop a whole new vocabulary to describe what has been going on forever, we are ascending a tower of babel.

Expansion and Contraction

Summer 2014

The business is going well.  We have three full-time employees, myself, and a few part-timers.  Xiao Lan has become a strength.  She reliably makes the lemon cakes and brownies, can make the muffins and in a pinch, can shepherd the bread through the baking.

We have gone through a number of bakers.  Peter lasted one year, then came ‘Jean’.  She was also from the Xuzhou district, as was Peter, and had also worked for the bakery chain 85°.

Jean was temperamental.  She was gentle but sensitive, an introvert.  At first I thought she didn’t have the strength to handle the stresses that tight schedules and multitasking demand.  I had that talk with her, put her on notice, and she rallied.  She proved me wrong.  But in the end she still preferred baking cakes to bread.  My extroverted nature also wore her down.  She left after six months, to get married and move to Nanjing.  This was an arranged marriage, by parents who decided she was too old to hold off for Mr. Right.

Next came Julie, Zhang Yu Ling.  A mother of two, ages 3 and 8.  I don’t know what her work history was.  Rachel and Xiao Lan interviewed her, and gave me to understand that she would not be running off to Xuzhou or somewhere for long holidays.

Julie is the salt of the earth.  A hard worker, a fast talker, alert to her surroundings.  She would do her work and look to alleviate me from my hard chores.  She was the one who would remember to water the plants.  She quickly learned to make very good bread.  I tried to always make sure she had a part time assistant to help with the washing up and restocking.  She didn’t always get that, though, and rather gave in to their begging to learn to bake.  Not the bread, but the rest. She was still doing too much of the washing and restocking.

By the second summer business was solid.  We had a solid core of regular, Chinese, customers and new ones were always coming to check things out.  It felt like the walls were growing smaller, as we were buying our food supplies bulk online.  It was getting harder and harder to store the bags of flour, raisins, nuts, chocolate stuffs, milk powder, and packaging for product.

The tea shop, two doors down, became available.  Although business wasn’t so good that I had a lot of extra money in the bank, it was certainly covering all our expenses.  Customers were regularly trying to squeeze into our small space to sit down and have coffee with their goodies.  I felt it was time to expand.  I would have preferred the shop immediately next door, but the knitting shopkeeper seemed impermeable to changes in fortune.  No matter how the business was, she kept the doors open.  I presumed her husband was well-heeled and liked her to keep busy.  They had no children.

I had to borrow money to secure the shop.  Summertime was when my home and shop rents came due.  After paying them, there just wasn’t enough to also pay rent and transfer fee for the new space.  A gentle lady, an old friend to the bakery,  DuoDuo, came and offered the money. 

That was in August, the same month that a young cat perched on the bakery windowsill and screeched for hours until I let her in.  Within 24 hour she went into labor and gave us seven kittens.  DuoDuo is also a great pet lover, so this seemed auspicious to us.

We moved into the new space, keeping the old space just for baking.  The new space has 150 sq meters.  We could sit 20 at tables, and still had a small front room as a salon.

Customers appreciated the space to just sit and visit for a while.  We built up the sandwich business, even advertising on meituan.  We had brunch on Sunday mornings, popular with a small group of foreigners.

All the time, I was trying to find a cook to take over the second kitchen, in the new space.  I wanted to offer suppers of simple meals, and pizza, American style.  Sandwiches, soups, stews.  But I could not find the right person.

We took on a second baker, xiao zhang.  He had 6 years baking experience.  Of course, he preferred the sweet stuff, but I also required him to make breads.  He worked the second shift, 12 – 9, and I wanted him to start complex breads to be made the next day.  [he was not really interested in that, as it turned out]  I thought he could really teach us some stuff, so it was important to hire him.  But he wanted 5,000 rmb.  I persuaded him to accept 4,000.  But then I had to raise Julie’s salary to the same, because she is the lead baker.  This put a heavy burden on our budget.

In the end, he did not pull his weight and after six months he left.

We peaked at a steady gross revenue of 30,000 over the spring months.  All looked good.  I was feeling overworked, and still wanted to find a manager and a good cook. 

Then the construction began for the subway.  There would be two subway stations serving us, at the major intersections north and south of our mall.  Between those intersections the northbound bus had three stops.  Two were eliminated, though the one on our block remained.  Traffic was heavily impacted.  It was then that I learned that a lot of my customers drove to our shop for their breads.  Because they stopped coming. 

There was a large chain supermarket across the street from us, in the MoiYi mall.  A large chain appliance store, Gome, was next to that.  Those two packed up and moved away.  Just south of us there was a large chain high-end Mall department store called Golden Eagle.  It closed, all the vendors failed to renew their rental contracts.

You get the picture.  Road construction can bring commerce to its knees.

And so our sales plummeted. 

I was getting deeper and deeper into red ink.

DuoDuo called in her loan.

We had one last bash, a Thanksgiving Dinner with about 18 guests.  It was a success, and great fun.  But after that I had to make a bitter decision.

In January I called in a contractor to build a second story in the original bakery.  Then I started moving stuff out of the Café and back into the bakery.  I put up the larger space for rent.

The landlord was willing to take it back.  I had paid rent until April.  If he got a tenant, he would refund some rent money.  But then I realized that if I found a renter myself, I could get back some of my investment through the Chinese tradition of a Transfer Fee.  I had paid 26,000 transfer fee when I took the café space from the tea shop.  It had a toilet, and two rooms in the back served by a hallway across the back.  The wood paneling on the wall, all the cabinet space, was valuable to me and in reasonably good condition.  I thought it attractive, although later critics would say it was inappropriate for a coffee shop.  I thought I was getting a good deal at 26,000 rmb.  I tried to negotiate them down unsuccessfully.  When it was my turn to sell, I came up at the wrong end of the stick.

By the time the new renters took over, and negotiated my transfer fee down to a mere 20,000 rmb, there was not much rent due back to me.  But at least my financial obligation was unloaded.

It had been stressful, exhausting, to staff the café.  Mostly college students applied for the work, the training was ongoing, the turnover frequent.

This brings me back to Grandma’s Nook’s roots.  With the addition of the loft I had also partitioned the bakery to allow just a small shop area in front.  I did not put much effort into decorating it.  By then I was broke and burned out.

One day Craig came to visit us.  He was opening an Australian themed café bar in Xin Bei.  He casually mentioned that I should have a cabinet along the wall for my product.  It was a ‘duh’ moment.

My health deteriorated in February.  I suffered from severe edema.  Through complicated circumstances, my medical care was sporadic, not consistent.  It took many, many weeks to finally heal.  During that time I made the decision to retire, for real.  Meanwhile, I did not have the strength to spend much time in the bakery.  This apparently upset Julie greatly.  Perhaps she did not believe the extent of my illness, or perhaps she thought I should have hired temporary help.  I don't know, because she refused to share her thoughts with me.  She would always say, 'it's none of my business, you are the owner.'  This frustrated me endlessly.

I could not bear the thought of the bakery and its unique products going extinct.  For one, I myself still needed the bread for my own consumption.  So I discreetly advertised the business for sale.  Not only the shop, but the business.

One of those who spoke up was the baker, Julie.  I felt she did not have the business acumen to make a success of it.  She also didn’t have the capital.  In fairness I tried to have the conversation with her.  But by then, for some reason, her respect for me had severely disintegrated and we could not have a conversation.  Every word from her mouth was scorched with anger.  I said if she really wanted to make a go of it I would defer the transfer fee, but she’d have to step up production in the following months in order to have enough money to also pay the rent.  Then she said she had money for that.  I thought, wait, either you have money or you don’t.  My fee comes first.  But I held my tongue.  We talked a little about the plans.  I asked if she would try to open the upstairs for customer table.  She was saying she would buy sweet goods from other shops to expand the product line.  But what about the bread, I wanted to know.  She said she didn’t agree with my business model.  I tried to tell her that she had to agree, we needed to talk it out, because I wasn’t just turning over the shop, but the business. 

It went downhill from there.  Since we couldn’t agree, I kept looking for a buyer.  She had already spread the word that she was buying it, and so now she lost face and became even more derisive of me.  One guy came to talk.  After he left saying he'd come in the following week to observe and learn before we signed a contract, I asked Julie if she would stay on to help him as baker.  She said she would not.  She turned in her one-month notice.  So there it was.  Two years of training that I had invested in her, and she was going to walk away.

Then Peter stepped up, my first baker/apprentice.  He wanted to take over the business.  He couldn’t do it right away, but in a couple of months.  He was still living in Xuzhou, and planning his wedding.  Eventually he and his bride moved back to Changzhou, and took over the business.  I promised I would help him as much or as little as he would like.  He asked Julie to stay on until he could move back here.  She told him 'yes', but after a month she left anyway.  I was then the sole person in the bakery, for about three weeks.  Somehow I survived, risking closing the business on days I could not cope (still recuperating from the illness).  Peter finally arrived, and said he would take it over from here.  Go, he said, rest.

And so I looked around me, beginning to think in terms of being retired.  What shape would that take?  The most pressing need was to improve my physical condition.  All the stress over the previous year had contributed to my putting back the weight I had lost two years earlier.  I was too heavy.  Clothes didn’t fit, or fit very snuggly.  I am tired all the time.  So job #1 is to begin walking

I am happy that the new Catholic Church in QingFeng park has agreed to offer mass in English each week.  So this is a new page in my life, having a church family again.

The future is open.  I have considered and discarded thoughts about returning to the States.  I have a good and affordable life here.  Can’t see any benefits in returning to the States.  The Chinese puzzle at this, assuming my family would want me back into their fold.  Not so.  I feel more taken care of here than I ever would in the States.  I enjoy minor celebrity, thanks to media coverage over the years of this eccentric energetic old foreign lady who decided on a change of career instead of retiring.  My apartment complex has a delightful large garden with car-free paths for walking with the dog and cat.  My life is good.  That is, as long as I have access to good bread.

physical therapy

Since I broke my arm in February the healing has progressed nicely, but by August I did not yet have 100% range of motion in the shoulder.  Since my thumb still causes me great pain three years after that ebike accident, I decided I should be more careful this time and do the physical therapy program advised by my doctor.

I am supposed to go to the hospital every day for ten days for treatment.  Treatment is in two stages.  First, a heat pad that emits pulses is put on the shoulder, for half an hour.  I am laying down, and it is the one time in my busy day when I can truly relax.

Next I go to another room where they hook me up to a machine that gives electrical shocks to my shoulder, again in pulses.  After three treatments I could swing my arm overhead.  I kept going back for more.  I think I just like this chance to take an afternoon nap.  Each treatment costs about $5 US.

Around treatment no. 6 I again raised with the therapist the pain in my thumb.  Previously he said there was nothing to be done.  This time I said I thought maybe acupuncture could help.  Instead, when we got to the electric pulse machine, he swaddled my thumb joint in warm wired cloth and set up a pulse rhythm there, too.

I have only two more treatments to go.  Clearly, I have been so busy that I have not done these sessions in consecutive days.  I skip a day, maybe two.  Not by choice, but I've been frantically busy. Still, I can feel improvement in the joint.

If the doctor recommends a series of treatments for the thumb, maybe they could be administered sitting up.  I would tell him it is best administered lying down.  Let the naps continue!

Serendipity

Serendipity

Progress in developing the new rented space is slow.  The main problems are the lack of funds and the lack of a clone.  I am overwhelmed with work.  This is a limiting factor, to state the obvious.

I have vague notions of using all the shelf space to display items for sale, items that foreigners find it hard to find.  But that would mean wholesale bulk purchases, which requires large cash reserves.  Then there is the pickiness of the foreigner.  If I carry mustard, and it’s not the kind of mustard the foreigner prefers, will they walk away empty handed?

Expat A: “Mustard?  Here in Changzhou?  Well, there’s Metro.”

Newcomer: “But what about Grandma’s Nook?  I hear they have imported stuff.”

Expat A: “Oh, they only have Gulden’s Spicy Brown; you have to go to Metro to find German Dijon.”

Newcomer: “is that the store an hour away on the bus? But Grandma’s is a ten minute walk.”

Expat A: “Well, if you want Dijon, which is what I always use at home in *pickacountry*….”

Another idea floating in my brain is to create a deli.  Imported cheeses, cold cuts, sausages, salads.

DuoDuo (dwo dwo), also known as Louisa, has been coming around for coffee since back in the day that Tina worked for me.  They would talk up a storm, they became fast friends.  After Tina left we didn’t see that much of her. 

In those days, once she walked in and gave me a message from my vet who, it turns out, is also her vet.  That was when the cat-on-a-string had a litter of kittens in my home.  The vet said that the next spay or neuter is on the house.  You know, like buy four and get one free.

To share a vet is to have a special bond.  We discovered that we both had a deep love of animals.  It took some months after Tina left for Louisa to start coming back, but she did.  One time she brought her boyfriend to sit and have coffee.  It was like she wanted another opinion about him. 

Louisa is tall and thin.  Black rimmed glasses hide her eyes on a long thin face.  She dresses conservatively, Town and Country style.  There is a gentle air about her, in her voice, in the way she carries herself.

When I put the VIP sign up in June, to try to raise enough money to pay the rent, she approached me. “I’d like to help,” she said.  She offered me ten thousand yuan.  She said she could make that twenty if needed, she could ask her sister.

I took the ten, while I was waiting for my funds to arrive from the States.  I returned the money a week or two later.

One day I was delivering an order to a German customer at a complex less than a kilometer from my shop.  As I was riding along the store fronts looking for the access door to the complex, I saw DuoDuo.  I stopped, we chatted.  She waved vaguely towards the stores and said her office was on the third floor above these shops.  These storefronts are usually two or three stories.  I had been hoping to run into her, because I was ready to ask for an investor.  I was stumped how to go forward with the new shop without an infusion of cash.  And so I asked her.  Would she be able to help.

A few days later she came to the shop.  Could I use 20,000 or maybe 30,000?  This was coming not just from her, but from her mysterious family.  They want to invest in my business.  Who are these people?  Have I ever seen them in my store?  I remember one time a woman, older than Louisa, said over the counter ‘My father is obsessed with you, I don’t know what that’s about.”  Could this have been Louisa’s sister, referring to their Dad?  I never found out.  This time DuoDuo phrased it to mean an investment.

This led to a series of talks.  She and her fiancé came the next Sunday, we sat down in the empty salon, and we discussed the serious matter of giving and receiving money. 

On what terms am I receiving this money?  Is it a loan?  Is it an investment?  What is my obligation?

After some back and forth it became clear this was not a loan.  They wanted to be part of the business, backers. 

“We can offer you 20,000 yuan.  It would be more, but my father is taking care of my wedding in October. “

This is the first I’ve heard of the wedding.  You would think she would have mentioned that earlier.

“That would be a very timely sum.  I am most grateful.  Now, what are the terms of this investment? “

She looked at him, he looked at her, she looked at me, I looked at him, between us was a benevolent cloud of unknowing.

“We’ll figure it out.”

And that is how we left it.

A day or two later she came in with the 20,000.  She apologized that it was so little, but she said her father would send another 30,000 after the wedding.

My jaw virtually hit the ground.  My eyes popped out on springs, boing.  Fireworks came out of my head, pop pop pop.

We discussed the structural modifications that would make this almost perfect environment better.  The sink space needed to be expanded, the wash room was too large, wasting space.  The electric outlets were clustered on one wall in each room.

She said, we have workmen at our place right now, we are doing some remodeling.  We can send some to you tomorrow to begin work.

The next day, two men came and started knocking down the wall between the sink and the wash room.  I took a break from baking to check it out.  She told me I needed to give them 300 rmb.  I asked if they would start the new wall tomorrow.  She said no, that would require other skilled labor. As these two dusty men were carrying out the debris, she extended her hand towards one of them and said, ‘this is my father.’  He nodded and smiled as he carried a load of smashed drywall past me.

Later in the week she brought a contractor in.  We walked around the place and discussed what needed to be done. 

Days went by.  Weeks, even.  She came by for coffee, and said that she had called the contractor, who told her he was waiting for her call.  She told him she thought they had agreed he would call her when he was free.  At any rate, it took another week before he actually showed up.

In two days he and his team had built a new wall and frame, built a cabinet for the new expanded sink area, laid a raised floor that extended out from the bathroom to the hall so that the wider sink area was all on one level, and left the café floor an utter mess with powder from plaster and cement and dusty shoes. 

We are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays in August, and this was Tuesday, the second day of work.  They were clearing away the trash, he the contractor was doing his best to wipe up the debris from the floor.  The security guard caught my eye and pointed to the wooden scraps leaning against the trash can.  He said this stuff could not be discarded here, it had to go to the large trash bin that was a bit of a walk away.  This brought to my attention two lovely pieces of veneered wood, left over from the cabinet making.  I brought them back into the store, and suggested that maybe the contractor, whose specialty was apparently wood work, that they be used to make a shelf in the cabinet he made.  He looked a little chagrined, scratched his head, but in the end assented.  In the blink of an eye, my new cabinet had a shelf in it.  Nice.

The only thing lacking was a slab of faux marble for the counter top.  I fussed over a chunk of wasted space behind the cabinet where the wall jutted out, but in the end could find no way to make use of it.  I fretted on it for a while, jealous of every square meter I was paying rent on, but in the end there seemed no easy way to access it.  Sigh.  The counter top will be laid, covering it forever.

I fed Mother Goose, cleaned up her litter box, and went home.  I would have to return later, to begin the bread for the next day.

I had a 12:30 appointment with Emily Wells, a Taiwan lawyer friend.  She and her British husband, the headmaster at the international k-12 school (OIC) had a six month old son, Jack, who would come along.  She had arranged a meeting with an investor friend.  We had clarified that my business was too small for his company to invest in, but I wanted his advice on how to determine the terms of Louisa’s investment.

They were almost an hour late.  I was able to get a head start on the bread I was making, and begin the sponge that we would use over the next few days.  Xiao Lan and Julie had been resisting my efforts to have the bread shaped into loaves at night and baked in the morning.  They insisted on stopping before the shaping, and leaving the bulk dough in the fridge for the next day.  They said the loaves rose too much and would then fall, and it was a mess; it just didn’t work.   I was going to see for myself whether this method I’d read about could really work.  After Emily left the dough would be ready to be shaped, and I would seal it well in the fridge.  Instead of using the lids for the pans, I would cover them with well-oiled plastic wrap and encase them in a garbage bag.  The next morning I came in at 6:30 and sure enough, the loaves had risen perfectly and were ready to be popped into the oven.  I was a little nervous about baking cold dough, but it worked perfectly.  I just needed to add five minutes to the baking time.

The young man with Emily spoke English.  I had assumed she would be needed to translate.  There were times when Chinese was needed for clarification and confirmation, but it was easy to speak with him.  We tossed around a lot of ideas on how to evaluate their contribution in terms of the larger picture of my investment in the business.  We considered not only the money I’d put in, but my sweat equity and my ‘intellectual property’ , my term not theirs.

In the end, I decided on offering them a ten percent interest in the business, and giving them the revenue from the first franchise.  The latter would pay back in full whatever investment, current and future, they made.  Chinese entrepreneurs love franchises.  They prefer a proven commodity over creating something new, and risky.  Admittedly, it would be a long uphill climb before that day would come.  It might be a stretch to say that Changzhou could support more than one deli, or even one for that matter.  But time would tell.

The Second First-Sunday Brunch

The Second First-Sunday Brunch

Once again I arrived at the bakery at 4 a.m.  I had no idea how many people had made reservations.  I’ve been having a hard time getting onto Facebook.  The last time I looked, a few days ago, there was one confirmation.  On Friday a German gal at the High Tea said she was coming with six people.

I had asked Julie, our current baker, to come an hour earlier than usual.  She said no with her eyes, but nodded yes.

A Chinese guy, John,  had come recently to the shop looking for part time work.  I asked him to begin this Sunday morning, arriving at 9 a.m.

Although Han Dan and I have not been having joyous WeChats lately, because she put her price at 5,500 rmb a month, I had promised her 100 rmb for this Sunday and so she came punctually, a few minutes before nine.  Around 7:30 Randy had come by to slice the bacon I had bought from him.  Without a word he climbed back on his bike and left, never to return this day.  Last month he was a major supporter, but now he seems to have lost interest in the bakery’s well-being.

Nine o’clock arrived.  It was time to start setting up the dining room, and begin making coffee.

Han Dan did her best to spruce the place up, shifting tables, putting on table cloths, setting up the cutlery, setting out the dishes, putting labels into the little holders to place on the buffet table.  I glanced frequently at the clock and at the door.  Nine-ten, 9:20, 9:50, but still no John.

During the month as money came into the till I slowly made purchases.  Thursday, on a marathon ebike ride that took me to the east side of the city to the wholesale commodity market, after unsuccessfully trying to buy salt sellers, I headed west across FeiLong Rd towards Metro.  On the way I recognized a new word I had just learned on Google Translate, pifa.  This means wholesale.  I detoured through this warren of alleyways lined with stalls, and finally stopped at a drinks place.  There I found dark beer and white wine and incredibly cheap prices.  Although I had bought enough of the sparkling drink online, I had to buy two more from this place just because it was so cheap.  I was worried about loading the case of dark beer (bought for my personal consumption) on my bike, knowing I would still have Metro purchases to deal with. (I was sorely tempted to buy a case of Blue Nun Reisling at 60 rmb/bottle, but as rare and desirable as it was, I knew it was impractical.)  Then the salesman told me he would deliver tomorrow afternoon, no charge.  He was eager to point out that he would deliver even smaller purchases, no problem.  Next  I went to Metro and bought about 16 juice glasses, at 5 rmb each.  They have a waist, so they can be stacked up.  I did not have money to buy taller glasses; I had reordered our plastic tall cups we use for Smoothies, and those would have to do for water or whatever.  During that same trip to Metro  I also stocked up on cheeses.  I bought 3 kg of Gouda, a couple small packets of a very sharp cheddar, a box of Philadelphia cream cheese altho I already had some NZ cream cheese from Taobao.  I picked up a couple boxes of camembert, which I erroneously referred to as Brie on the name card.  I wonder if anyone noticed.

 Just a few days before the event, I managed to go online and find fruit juice.  I bought 12 liters of orange juice and 6 of peach juice.  I also bought the sparkling champagne-like drink that Randy had introduced us to.  I stocked up on that one, and once again made the strawberry cocktail, using the strawberries we had bought in season and froze.

Sunday.  First thing in the door at 4 a.m. was to heat up the oven for the brotchen, which sits overnight in the fridge.  Next was to make the bagels dough, since once Julie helped me shape them they would need to go in the fridge for six hours.  That’s cutting it close, the earliest I could bake them was 11:00.

I had freshly-made puff pastry in the freezer, so I cut up a couple of apples and made a filling with raisins and nuts.  I then used frozen apples and strawberries to create two kinds of toppings for the waffles.  I planned to make apple turnovers and ‘bear claws’.  As it turned out, the bagels and the pastries got to the oven only after all the guests had gone.  The toppings sat ignored on the bakery countertop until after all the waffles had been eaten.

We filled the shelf with fresh multigrain bread, anticipating that people would come over from the annex to the bakery to pay, and also pick up a loaf to take home.  These later went into the freezer, demonstrating how totally unpredictable people can be.

On Saturday I had cut up the Gouda, making packages of 200 gms each weighed and labeled.  People are always asking me where to buy cheese. I thought I’d help them out.  Once again, unpredictably, no one took up the offer.

Before Julie arrived I filled the three small pie crusts with quiche; two spinach quiche, and one with the fresh salami Randy made a couple weeks ago.

I assigned someone to chop and dice the red and yellow peppers, and the mushroom. (what’s its name?  the one with the thick stem, it comes out of the ground in an eggshell)  I sautéed onions, and all of this along with some sliced chicken sausage would go into the omelets. (The sautéed onions sat on a shelf above the fry pan, unnoticed, although I reminded the helper to include the onions with the peppers and mushroom.)

John finally arrived at ten.  I set him to cooking bacon on the griddle.  The previous day we had experienced an interruption in the power flow, just in the one wall that held a plug in the kitchen, which we used for our small mixers and blenders and such, and on the reverse side of that wall facing into the bakery the one special strong plug for the griddle.  Now on Sunday this became a serious problem.  The griddle kept going on and off, as John tried to cook the bacon.  I was also using that griddle to make the omelets.  Meanwhile, we were trying to boil the water for the coffee, as I was using the French Press rather than the drip machine. 

We managed to make a few cups of good coffee, but after that we could not get the water to boil.  I tasked others to use alternative methods, but no one quite got the idea of adding 90°C water to fresh ground coffee.  I didn’t have time to micromanage this.  So a few people got good coffee, but the second cup might have been like tepid dishwater.  Ugh!

Libby said she would come early to help me.  The first guests arrived about 9:45; Libby arrived about 10:30.  The coffee pot was still empty when the first guests arrived.

I made a good waffle batter, folding in the egg whites.  I set up the three appliances on the buffet table with name cards identifying their purpose.  I had the waffle iron, a toaster, and a griddle for grilled cheese sandwiches, or egg muffins (which never came to fruition although its label was out there for all to see). I did put one cheese sandwich on the griddle, but then walked away from it.  The cheese melted out all over the griddle by the time someone noticed it.

The waffles mostly burned, though HanDan did manage to rescue a couple of good ones.  Batter was spewed out all over the machine and its drip plate.

There was plenty of bread, of rye bread and whole wheat, for people to toast.  Cheeses and condiments were set out.  There was fresh fruit. 

I took time to carefully snip the grape clusters to leave little spines for people to pick up small clusters.  But while they were in a bowl in the kitchen and my back was turned, Julie came along and plucked all the grapes off the spines.  I then sent her off to buy more fruit.  She sliced up bananas, unevenly, not thinking about how they turned brown quickly.  She had bought a couple of peaches, which she peeled and clumsily sliced into random slices.  She arrayed these on a dish.  That was my embarrassing fruit plate.  She had also bought a watermelon, but ran out of time I guess.  There it sat for a couple of days, in its plastic bag on the floor.

I never got to make milk tea.  The basket of brotchen I set out went quickly, while at the last brunch they sat uneaten.  I should have made twice or thrice the quantity.

People came.  Alexandra and her five guests, Tillman and his four guests, a table of two Chinese ladies and their children, Lindsey and Blake, Libby and Jason, filled the annex to overflowing. There was a table of people whose names I do not know, from a company called Heller.   A new guy, Edgar Espinoza, arrived after 11.  This is the person who had sent me a message via FB asking if I could cash money for him. He was having trouble getting cash from his American bank, having forgotten his debit card password or something.  He apparently had read on Facebook that I have a business, and assumed I was rich.  This gave me a good laugh.

It was a disaster.  After all the lessons we learned last month, about assigning workers to specific work stations and tasks, we simply didn’t have enough workers to carry this out.

People were gracious, complimenting me on the good food.

Earlier in the week Randy had persuaded me to lower the price of the buffet, from 138 per person to 115.  He said the Rexroth people declared it too expensive.  I told him that mean they wouldn’t come at any price, but I asked my friends, and Libby and Emily agreed my price was too high.  We grossed somewhere over 2,000 rmb.  I can’t be certain, because during the meal workmen arrived with two sacks of flour and a load of plastic cookie jars.  I was embarrassed, not having enough cash to pay them.  I asked Tillman to advance me enough, I think I needed 300 rmb.  So perhaps the total intake was 2,300.  XiaoLan was manning the cash register, she and Han Dan were writing down the name and amounts for each guest.

With that money I was finally able to pay XiaoLan the 800 rmb that her pay envelope had been shorted.

The next day we were notified that our electricity account was about empty, so the rest went to pay up kitchen electricity for the month.

My first instinct is to cancel the next scheduled Brunch.  It will be a holiday weekend, many people will be traveling.

But my next thought is, the college kids will be back in town.  Maybe I could find about five of them to come for the next event and be servers.

The following thought was flitting around my brain on this Sunday morning, a thought too obvious yet unrealized.  I need to lay out a detailed plan and time schedule in order to make this event run smoothly.  That in itself is a lot of work, and I’ve been just too busy.  But I need to take the time this month to do just that.

If I advertise better, and limit the number of reservations and give a deadline for them, I will raise the price back to 138.  If only I can actually set out the buffet I planned, it would be worth it to any guest.  Or so I believe.  Only I know the expense in purchases, time and effort that goes into it.  And so I believe this is the true value of it, but only if it is done correctly.

Losing Momentum

May I have your permission to kvetch for just a little?

I'm getting tired of this.  It is all so overwhelming.  I wear too many hats, I fear I do no task completely well, but all half-baked and some not even tepid.  The latter refers to bookkeeping and cost accounting.

I decided to do more of the Sunday brunches, because people seemed to so enjoy the last one.  But here we are four days away from the next, and one person has signed up for it (it is RSVP).

Meanwhile, I run myself ragged trying to anticipate what I will need, like fruit juice, salt and pepper shakers for each table, more savory items beyond the scope of the bakery menu, and on and on.

Here it is July 30, the day before payday, and I haven't nearly enough to pay my two employees.

I am spending what little money I have on buying all the prep for a Sunday Brunch.

Why?

I am feeling totally overwhelmed.  I took on the new shop, the series of miracles seemed to point the way.  But now the vision is more like a mirage than a miracle.

Han Dan has abandoned me.  She had texted me that she was so eager to work with me, when her own coffee shop closed.  So she came.  She hauled with her a lot of her stuff that she wanted me to buy.  But then she left me, to work in a real estate office.  She came by to pick up a Taobao order that she had shipped to this address, and to pick up some money I owed her.  I told her that I thought I might have an investor, and I was prepared to pay Han Dan whatever she wanted, as long as she helped me set up the new shop.

Finally, a few days later, she texted me that she wants 5500 rmb/month.  Just for reference, this is the same total sum of my current payroll, for Julie and for XiaoLan combined.

I said I couldn't commit to that right now.  The investor has not come up with any money.  I said that if she is making that kind of money, why would she want to quit?  She said indeed, she liked to spend money on clothes and a good time, and so she couldn't work for me for less.

Then I realized that she had the impression that I was rich, and that's why she wanted to work for me.  What a disappointment!  I thought she was a sweet, very intelligent girl with a great personality.  Turns out she just a Material Girl.

I hate owing money.  And now that is where I find myself.  I have not come up with an idea or solid plan for the new space that would earn enough to pay my obligations.

Randy came by today to tell me that he thought the price I was asking for the buffet was too high.  I talked with Libby, and she said that our ladies didn't mind, because they understood I was fund-raising.  So I decided I needed to lower it.

I went on Facebook and reduced the price from 139 to 115 rmb.  I also detailed more of the non baked goods menu items.

A lot of people I know tell me that this Sunday isn't going to work for them, for one reason or another. Some have classes scheduled, others are out of town, and such.   Just bad timing, I guess.

And yet I will go through the effort, nonetheless.

I am tired.  December begins to loom large, as a target date for moving to Florida.

The First 'First Sunday Brunch'

First first Sunday Brunch

We rented the tea shop two doors to the north.  The previous tenant had done a lovely job of wood paneling the whole place, with lots of shelves.  The flooring is cheap linoleum in a gray narrow wood design, but the overall effect is warm and cozy.  The place is L shaped.  There is a room jutting out that has windows on two sides. 

The asking price was ridiculously low, only 26,000 rmb.  There is a hallway cutting the place across the back.  In the back off this hallway are three rooms.  A large bathroom empty but for a western toilet and a  

At one end of the hall, the only sink.
When funds increase, I plan
to move the wall making the
bathroom smaller and the sink area
larger.

urinal, a large store room with one window and only two sets of electric plugs side by side below the window, and the room on end which is  small and  square (maybe 10 feet by 10) with a window and the same electrical setup.  They share an air conditioning unit up high against the ceiling, with a cutout in the wall separating the two rooms.

For many months I’ve felt the need for more space.  We are dreadfully crowded in the bakery, yet more and more people want to come in and sit down.

My apartment has been used as a storage place for the bulk purchases, pretty much taking up my spare room.

store room and kitchen on the left,
the main shop through the door on right.
The blank space begs for a fridge,
but it has no electric outlet near.

Now we have this place, and no money left with which to outfit it.  At the same time, Han Dan texted me that she wanted to work with me.  She is a lovely bubbly early twenties lady who opened her own café in the downtown area, near WalMart.  She was giving it up as a lost cause.  I told her I would be very happy to have her work with me.  I knew she would be just the person I’d need to manage the new place, if we would be serving more customers. 

She straight away said that she wanted to give me her furniture.  We hopped on our ebikes and rode from the bakery to her café downtown.  I had wanted to go many times during the year, as she was a faithful customer to buy our brownies and cookies once a month or so.  Yet this was the first time. 

Her furniture consists of three sets of tables and upholstered benches.  She was also giving us three small tables and six chairs.

She walked me through her tiny place and asked what else I might need, to buy.  I told her I had no money, and could only buy if I could have six months to pay it off.  She made a long list of things I could use, and so we agreed.

Now the tea shop has furniture.  The previous owner left behind a very long three-tiered glass display table.  Also a very large freezer, that was too big to fit through the door to the back rooms.  There is also a black  onyx counter, wired under the floor for internet and power, but wires cut.  

The furnishings seem adequate, though not elegant

We inherited this table. It is so large,
Our foods seem so few

HanDan brought with her a POS terminal, a complex computer all in Chinese, of course, that has a lot of powerful functions for keeping tabs on the business.

 With the place looking so good, Randy and I went down to the second hand market near the railroad station and looked at furniture.  I picked out an eclectic set, for which I paid less than 2,000 rmb.

The glassed room would be the ‘salon’;  a comfortable place to sit, drink coffee, work on the internet, nibble on scones or muffins. 

As a trial run, my group of housewife ladies came for the biweekly gathering.  They arrayed themselves in the salon, and drank coffee.  Some ordered grilled cheese sandwiches, which I made on my new whiz bang appliance.  They had a god feel about the place.  It was hot and raining outside, but cool and cozy inside.

We were now ready for a slightly more ambitious dry run, a Sunday morning brunch buffet.

We advertised very little, really.  We published an event on the FB ex pat page, and I sent it out to my WeChat friends.  The rest was word of mouth.

I chose for pricing 138 rmb per person, 209 rmb per couple, kids under 10 free, above 10 half price.

Brotchen

I got to the bakery at 4 a.m. and began baking brotchen and making bear claws.  Fortunately, no one arrived at the designated opening time, as I was nowhere near ready.  People came closer to 10:30 than 9 a.m.

Bagels

We had waffles, bear claws slightly overcooked, cinnamon buns, bagels, English muffins, pumpernickel, Anadama slices, NY deli rye and Multigrain Sourdough, a bread popular with both foreigners and Chinese alike.  I offered a toaster, but it was off on the onyx counter, not on the buffet table.  I thought it interesting that no one used it, and made a note next time to put it on the buffet table.  The waffle iron was on the buffet table, and I periodically made a waffle and offered it.   I made Western omelets, without the ham; and Quiche Lorraine, 

XiaoBai cooking Randy's bacon

with bacon and so on.  Randy made a batch of baked beans and a bowl of SOS, or chipped meat in gravy.  He made biscuits to go with them, which were rather flat (he said his baking powder was too old).  He cooked up some bacon, but did not bring out his griller for sausage links.  I was disappointed about the last.

Bread basket remains, with Anadama
and Multigrain sourdough

When I arrived, shortly after 4 a.m.,  I went to the tea shop to get something from the storeroom.  That’s when I discovered that the power had been turned off by the management office!  When Randy heard this he gave up his griller, leaving it in the car.  But our baker, Julie, saved the day by going to the office at the dot of nine when it opened, and paying them off.  She returned breathless; the power came on immediately.

slightly overbaked bear claws

The usual suspects came, good friends all.  Perhaps around 20 people in all, many arriving at 11:30.  They had a good time, many meeting for the first time, especially the husbands.  Stephanie came with Emilio.  Ricky came and sat with them, thus they didn’t mingle much.  Still, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. 

Theresa came with her Swiss husband and two copper-headed children, and their golden retriever.  It 

Theresa and her son. Both son and daughter
kept coming back for waffles.

brought me cognitive dissonance seeing grown people afraid of the most mild and friendly animal in the world.  They and others used their VIP cards, which thwarted my goal of enhancing my cash flow.  Next time I will include in the flyers and announcements that VIP cards are not valid.

The service was abominable.  People had to ask for water.  The coffee pot stood full, while the foolish adolescent volunteers came to me with alarm, that there was no coffee.   I had bought dishes enough for about 20 people.  The diners were used to leaving a dirty dish behind and getting a clean one at the buffet table. We ran out of dishes.  Randy kept on eye on the kitchen; he organized the volunteers, making a blue tub into a bussing tray, and tried to unlock the bottle neck.  Dishwashing was at the bakery, not the Tea Shop.  At times it seems like there was a bit of Keystone Cops going on, with people chasing each other between the two venues.  

Randy had suggested our offering a ‘champagne’, which upon sampling earlier in the month we discovered was sparkling hard cider.  I planned to mix it with frozen strawberries, but he had not bought any cider.  I 

asked him to run to the store for it, but he said he was out of money.  His pecuniary ways were beginning to get on my nerves.  I gave him money based on what he said it costs, wanting two bottles.  He brought back one.  Later I sent someone else with more money.  They are actually 52 rmb per bottle, not the 35 he said he had paid previously.

I should have had fruit juice, but did not.  I had lots of cut of fruit, however, and some cheeses.

The waffles were a big hit, as were the Western omelets even without ham.  The quiche exhibited only mild interest.

Cinnamon Buns

One and all said it was an enjoyable experience, and wanted to do it again.  I decided then and there that we would do it on the first Sunday of the next two months, and wing it from there.

The next day I sat down with my team of summer volunteers, and Han Dan. There were Chris, XiaoBai and young Jim. We reviewed the experience, and talked about how we could do it better.  I was trying to express the concept of stations, where each person would be responsible for a particular thing (water, coffee, or clearing tables) while also focusing on a particular group of tables.  Han Dan understood what I meant immediately, and explained it to the others.  We all felt we could do a much better job the next time.

That was July 7.  By July 20 all my volunteers were gone, except for young Jim.  Chris needed to attend a class in Shanghai to prepare for her studies abroad in the Fall.  Xiao Bai’s mother insisted that if he hadn’t found a paying job in Changzhou (where his college is) he must return home, to Shanxi Province, for the summer.  Han Dan’s mother also insisted that if I could not pay her better and give her ‘benefits’, she had to come work for relatives.

This photo showed me how bare
the walls looked.  I've now bought
four very inexpensive vases
to 'fill' that space until such time.

The next event is scheduled for August 3.   Han Dan said she thought her work schedule for that day would allow her to come and help, but the August schedule had not yet been published.  .  It is up to the Lord to provide another miracle or two, to find me staff for that event.