Chapter 1
After helping Victor with a legal case, he introduced me to one of his VIP clients who owns a shop on Dong Hu road. Monsieur An is this VIP.He is also from Paris.
The first time I visited Monsieur An at his shop, he needed help renewing his visa. Since Victor is the bridge, Monsieur An was very kind to me. He is a special French gentleman with lots of hair and a happy face at my age. He made joke on his own hair by saying"look at my coli-flowers". I liked him and decided to accompany him to collect an important document from his neighborhood immediately.
When we arrived at the management office of the neighborhood, it was lunch break, so we had extra time to chat together and change our minds a little bit more. After a while, we returned to that office. I immediately knocked on the door and politely applied for that document from the staff inside. Monsieur An liked my efficient attitude. He pays me directly and he introduces me to his HK girlfriend for more business together.
Joy is from HK who is in charge of their back office job. We started our meeting at wagas Donghu Road. Joy asks me several key questions after greeting.I answer her with my experience. Then she turns to Monsieur An by saying “that’s what we need”. Monsieur An was wondering why she made her decision so quickly. He wants to test me more with small jobs first instead of a key part of the back office job. Joy answered that she had done lots of back office jobs for years since they started business in China. She is very clear if I have the ability to handle issues or not during our conversation in Chinese. They are classmates in economics at King`s College London.
We started our cooperation smoothly. First. We changed ideas about differences between my version of legal documents in both Chinese and English and theirs. Then they explain to me details of their operations issues one by one. We always have simple coffee meetings weekly.
Step by step, our friendship starts. Monsieur An kindly invited me to join him for Thai boxing training at his golf club, I did some simple training with Miga in Thailand and Shanghai before. So ITs very naturally to company with Monsieur An inside his cage.I also introduced him to my Thai boxing club which is close to his shop. It’s easy for him to manage shops after training with Thai coaches. For us. Thai boxing is the best way to burn our calories. It saves time because you will be tired very quickly and empty yourself. It releases your pressure. If not. Please imagine that we are inside a restaurant business with pressure and delicious food every day. It’s very easy to get fat.
Monsieur An never drinks inside his shop with me. He believes that he doesn`t want staff to learn from him. Nice professional point as a restaurant owner. One day. He calls me to join a French party, all French there, despite my initial uncertainty about what to do there. He leads me to his friends one by one. He also welcomed me to join him and his visitors Laurent and Gerge as we explored different bars and clubs for various types of alcohol. One memorable night, we took a motorbike to Jin An temple for some late-night food at Burger King. It was such an enriching experience sharing each other’s cultures - it brought back fond memories of Miga.
Also, he plays a Texas card. We kept busy with a Texas card party for a period, similar to the one in the 007 movie, and enjoyed a relaxed atmosphere with a glass of wine during the game - although I always seem to be the first person to leave the table! A French wine friend offers us his meeting room in his office during the weekend. No big money on the table. Winners need to pay for food delivery like pizza or KFC. But we still use newspapers to cover the window of the meeting room like a real thing.
I have to say that Monsieur An opens his door to me for his life in this city. Sometimes it’s similar to our local life. There are not that many differences.Jobs.Friends.Cards and Sports.He also took in several injured stray cats together with Joy.Btw he grew up in Paris with Japanese cartoon like the seven dragon balls.We are the same here in China.Thats a funny point.
About a year later, in my role as a consultant, I have their trust for all the business part. I attended a gathering for their new project in the Xuhui area.