The last two weeks I’ve been working so many hours that I sometimes get a little crazy (and definitely tired). Since Harry left to Holland I felt the pressure on me to deliver some good results for his coming stay (already next week). On the 16th of November we will ‘officially’ launch the Dutch Chinese Entrepreneurship Program in Shanghai during the ‘Business diner’ with Frank Heemskerk. I still had to make all the promotional material to be able to put it in the market. Yesterday I finally finished the ‘Programmakaart’ and the coming week we will print the flyer (the result is satisfying). Next to this I wrote a new strategy document for De Baak Shanghai (on Harry´s request). Also we will have four events during Harry’s November stay (everyday one). All these had to be organised and I have to make sure there will be enough people to make it successful. Next to the practical organisation, we have to close a few deals next week concerning Baak-activities and products in China (this needs thoughtful preparation of course). All these things combined together made the last 16 days to so full of work that I feel quite exhausted from time to time. I get a better understanding now of business men who tell that leading a company is comparable to top sport.Next to the working pressure the roof in the living room came down last Sund
ay evening. I came home and it was a total mess. Dirt and rocks everywhere! It was a miracle that nothing broke (except for the CD-driver of the computer and a glass). Last Friday I had workers over to fix the roof (I escaped to the office), but the house still feels like an construction site. I am happy to leave the place next month. My time here at the Gao’an Lu comes to an end. I enter phase two on my stay in China. The Gao’an Lu formed a good beginning, but all good things come to an end one day and make space for better/other things.I don´t know how I can still find the energy and motivation to learn Chinese and do my music, but I do. This must mean I am really driven on both things. Last week I visited an Australian guitar player and he give me a copy of The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine. These 600 pages are all you need to know and be able to do, to call yourself a ‘player’. I am at page 10 now, so getting there. My Chinese is also going well – speaking was already quite good, but now I am starting to read simple stories in Chinese characters, and my phone texting skills are really improving – Angie is complementing me on my progress.
The thing that suffers the most is my ‘social’ life. There is very limited time to hang out with other people. I spend half the evenings behind the computer, and even in the weekend I am still busy with work, but last weekend I didn’t work and enjoyed a nice Halloween party in Bar Rouge (one of the hippest places in Shanghai). Bar Rouge has a great terrace with beautiful view on LuiJaiZui (the image with the TV-tower which everybody knows from Shanghai). I enjoyed it and still felt it was a special thing to be living and working in such a huge city on the other side of the world.
