Chapter 2
After several weeks, Mr. Oliva invited me to become his partner in order to waive my consulting fee, a strategic decision on his part. I had previously overlooked the advice from his Spanish neighbor regarding the importance of location for success, as well as the recent lesson on dealing with local private landlords. Despite this, I was enticed by the bustling nature of his first restaurant and foolishly opted for a risky investment in further ventures instead of continuing to charge a consulting fee, due to my limited resources at that time.
Following Chinese tradition, I sought assistance from my acquaintances Mr. M and Mr. Yu. They assisted us in arranging a simple meeting and introduced us to an officer at the police call center in the Jin An area who became our new contact. Mr. M is dedicated to supporting youth initiatives and we are fortunate to have their backing.
With help from several property agents, we opened our second sushi U restaurant at Yang Ping road cross Wu Ding road after identifying suitable locations. Another local landlord, Mr. Huangyi, appeared calculating when he met Oliva and me; something I could discern directly through his demeanor. The following day he unexpectedly raised his monthly quote from 40k to 55k during lunch at Marriott Hotel in tomorrow square - a situation that left me feeling uneasy."o oppose this trap but Oliva told me to stay calm and did a fast calculation himself. I wanted to do a double check on the location especially for the connector of the exhaust system. The landlord opened the door of the shop next door which also belonged to him and showed us one dark hole on top of one wall which he claimed was for the exhaust system. I asked him to write in the contract promises about having a real hole for the restaurant’s exhaust system. We felt that it should be okay next…
We signed the lease at that new high price. I believe in Oliva because he has a strong finance background and experience from working at an international chain book shop at Chinese airports. He also successfully launched the first sushi U shop. Meanwhile, he runs a successful sushi business from a corner of a local vegetable market as a legend, and he succeeded in bringing French style sushi rolls to the Expo Shanghai Cambodia pavilion, even helping his Italian neighbor next door there. Our adventure begins…
One day, Olivia came to me and said, "Ken, now you are my partner. Please help me because my ex Italian partner cheated me by hiding the last payment for our sushi business cooperation in the Cambodia Pavilion. He is running a bad operation next to my spot but I saved him. I should get paid monthly, except he didn’t pay me last month. I have already pushed hundreds of times with no chance. I know his local company name and location. I’m sure that he doesn’t pay tax under legal way because of my finance background. Please help me report him."I don’t want him to feel disappointed as a partner so I go to the tax bureau for him at Xing Qiao road of Huangpu area.When I arrive there, I have no idea what to do next.I just search out which tax officer his ex Italian partner belongs to.The tax officer is one nice lady and she offers me a glass of water during my explanation for the intention of visiting.She wants more evidence then I call Olivia to check if he has any but he doesn’t have any.Then we give up.What a crazy experience! How does a foreigner know this part? It’s a good question with lovely experience…