Working overtime and living with a beautiful Angel

Before I’m meeting my neighbors for a Saturday night drink, I’ll quickly give you all an update. Last week has been great and consisted of lots of work for De Baak and spending time with Angie. I really started to get the working rhythm on the roll. Monday I met Jacco the CEO of Webpower (www.webpower.nl). He told me all about his start in China. Everything went wrong, the almost pulled the plug after a 14 month struggle. The decision was made to give it one more change – and now China is the most profitable country for Webpower (and this all happened in 3 years). I found it a nice and inspiring story to hear. Further it is great material for my (new) project here which is focusing on Dutch starting entrepreneurs. This week I wrote the business concept for the project and it really gives me the feeling it will be successful. Next week I’ll present it at the Consulate (which will partner in the project). So let’s see where it will go.

This second period in China is totally different from the first. In the first period I had to get myself and my life together here, no I have to get my ‘act’ (work) together. But I feel that I’ve come into a position where I really can get some things done. However creating the results keeps me off the street. This week I worked far over my normal hours (1.5 week in one) – Monday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night and Saturday morning too.

However next to all this working there is a big change in my life. I have a girlfriend and she’s even living in my house. Angie arrived from Beijing to Shanghai last Tuesday. I met her in Beijing in January, when I was arranging the program for The New Manager-trip of de Baak. Angie finished university in Beijing and want to get a job in Shanghai. It is going well, she already did 3 interview in here first five days in SH (China speed). Angie is a beautiful and smart 22-year-old girl. She was born in the province of Guizhou in the West of China. She never left China in her entire life and sees everything from a Chinese perspective. But she manages to fascinate my mind with her cleverness and cute appearance. She gives me a very good feeling, and really promotes my working activities – ‘Work hard is good’. So far we managed to avoid cross-cultural-conflicts and we get our relationship started very smoothly and happy. Step by step!

The Chinese language is totally back on track. Started my lessons again last monday and with Angie I’m going in a speed I haven't experienced before. Learning Chinese is like a puzzle. Once you put the first pieces in right place it gets easier and easier. I start to feel so confident about Chinese that I’m even thinking about joining Angie in her ambition to learn French. Of course I’ll have to keep on developing my Chinese (for the years to come), but now I'm on the level where the language not totally alien anymore. It really starts to make sense to me, so the learning process becomes also more natural and easy.

Music is also going great. Today we had a rehearsal, which was definitely the best so far. A new French guitarist joined my jazz band and we’re also getting on the next level here. Next Thursday we'll have a gig and we’ve never been so ready. Like Chinese I feel music is also like a puzzle, it’s just matter of putting down the little pieces (of course this means keep on going). As you can read all is going great here in the Far East. My eyes are quite heavy on this Saturday evening, but it's all worth it.