A Chinese teacher, a housekeeper and a visitor from Holland

Wednesday evening … just came back from Jz School. This is the music school I’ve joined last Saturday. It’s a 10 minute walk from my home and I can use a piano and a bass-amp, which I totally great. I want to make an effort to go there a lot and improve my music skills, which is a necessity if you want to be accepted in the music scene in Shanghai. Most musicians I’ve met are (semi)-professionals and way out off my league, so I feel an urge to improve my skills. Coming Saturday I will play with my music group and I wish to make a good impression. So I’ll try to go to Jz again before Saturday.

Further everything is quite fine. I’ve got a housekeeper since today, she will clean my house every Wednesday, so don’t have to worry about that anymore. It’s the same housekeeper as Michiel and Rosalie have - a very nice Chinese woman. I was working at home today to open the door and welcome her in my house. Since I had no cleaning stuff we had to buy it and that was maybe the highlight of this quite busy and hard working day. The shopping with her was just a lot of fun. So don't get me wrong, today was actually a really great day (now I start to think of it). I love to work, so don’t feel sorry for me. I’m just totally tired now and not fit to check one of the local bars in my street (haven’t seen any of them yet). Because I just moved to Shanghai I feel I never want to take time to rest. However, my body really is in need of at least some quiet nights a week, so I have to accept that, and take it easy once in a while (which I find difficult).

Next to a housekeeper I’ve got a Chinese teacher now. I’m not sure about her teaching skills for the long term, but for now she’s fine. I had my first lesson yesterday evening. My Chinese language skills are improving everyday. With the help of my hands, smile and endless repetition I actually can explain some people some extremely basics things (which I feel is amazing). My secret weapon in learning Chinese is Chinesepod.com – the greatest website on the planet for me right now. I listen to their Chinese lessons everyday (a lot!!!).

Yesterday Raffi, my ex-colleague from New Venture, was in Shanghai. We had a drink at a nice Western style bar Cotton’s, that’s just a 5 minute walk from my home. I could impress her and her friend with my few Chinese sentences, which I used in the taxi and the restaurant. It was very nice to see her. We had two tasty cocktails – I didn’t join for a night clubbing. I have to be responsible an think about my work, which is going better and better. Monday and Tuesday I’ve had some appointments and everyday I get a clearer picture of where we can go with de Baak. The office-situation with ASI is still 'under construction' and there have to be made some serious decisions back in the Netherlands, before I can join this office. I hope they can be made quickly, because I would love to have an office here. Right now I use the Starbucks as my office (if I need to escape the house).

Back to Raffi! My first 'visitor' from Holland here in Shanghai. I’ve been only gone for two weeks, but when I was talking to her it felt as if I’ve been away for months. But probably if I would return, I would find not much change back in NL … But it feels like a while since I left Holland. These last 2,5 weeks have been quite intense and I feel I really need to take it a little easy, so I'll be on my way to bed. Actually I didn’t sleep very well the last few days, since my house is super noisy at night and I’m used to the quietness of the Laagte Kadijk in Amsterdam. I think / hope I will get used to this noise very quickly and sleep like a beautiful rose in this house, that already starts to feel a little like home. Shanghai definitely starts to feel like home. I’m totally tired, but also very happy to have this beautiful experience here in China.