Chapter 14
When I arrived at the entrance, that light box was super broken.
Lucas said that some unpleasant people broke our light box. We were quite concerned. Who did that to us and what did they want? After discussing, we decided to call the police and ask our landlord for help because we were running the business under the landlord’s license.
Shortly afterwards, the police officer arrived at the door of our shop. We invited him into the shop, and everyone gave him a greeting. The police officer briefly asked about the basic situation and made a record, and then agreed that we would bring our ID documents to the police station the next day.
Lucas and I went there the next day. After arriving at the police station as requested, the police officer verified our documents and took us into the monitoring and management room. Inside the police station, we saw on the police surveillance that around 2:00 in the morning, the community security guard on duty broke the light box of our restaurant.
Lucas was swearing, and we were all shocked. Then I informed everyone of what had happened, especially the landlord, Mr. Feng.
The landlord of the Spanish ZACA market was Mr. Feng, a Chinese Canadian. He was an approximately 80-year-old gentleman and also the developer of the community who did business with Deng’s family of China. It was said that he had a military background too. The landlady was Yvone.3rd wife of Mr.Feng,a very nice Shanghainese lady and the property manager was his brother-in-law Jack.
Lucas told me that Mr.Feng was asshole to have a such young lady.There were not that much happy time for them left.I didn`t get his point at that time.
Mr. Feng informed us that his company had some problems with the neighborhood committee. Suddenly, we understood why we were in trouble. Mr. Feng also told us that they would do their best to assist us in resolving this issue and he would compensate for our loss of the light box.
The problem was not only about the light box but also related to the neighborhood committee. Soon, their security team began to check our clients strictly when they passed the main entrance of our company. We felt that our landlord was unable to do anything for us and we might be shut down in this way due to the loss of clients.
At that moment, no solutions were offered by other partners. Everyone kept silcence during the board meeting.Lucas calmed down and then informed me that his father was the consul general of a Nordic country in Shanghai.
Lucas had to seek help from his consul reasonably to protect the merchant’s legal rights in China then I followed up to explain our situations to secretary of consul general.She agreed to send a letter.What kind of letter?I was doulting.
His consul sent a letter to the Shanghai Foreign Affairs Office, then the Shanghai Foreign Affairs Office sent a letter to the Jing’an Government. Subsequently, the Jing’an Government sent a letter to the Jing’an Police Bureau. Finally, the Jing’an Police Bureau sent a letter to the police station in our area. Wow! It`s so complicated.
The letter from the consulate was an excellent solution. This time, we got a new police officer who contacted me directly with a friendly attitude and expressed a desire to meet us as soon as possible. We agreed right away.
Soon, The new officer came for a visit with his notebook. After a few hours of meeting, he promised us to do a balanced job and then left.