Guanxi?

"Do you have guanxi with __________?" <-- This is a commonly asked question in the business world here in China. The term 'Guanxi' (pronounced gw-on-she) literally translates to mean 'relationship.' And when used around here, often refers to a network of people that you have established a strong connection with, which can be used to help you accomplish various tasks. It's all about relationships if you want to get things done and find a lot of success, especially in this country. It's absolutely necessary to build a network and utilize it to minimize risk and frustration. A 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' kind of mentality goes a very long way here.

Unfortunately, the guanxi of my boss and all of her contacts was not strong enough to keep Closed Door standing, sometimes it helps to know people in the government, and that guanxi just didn't exist for her quite yet, maybe in the future. But her readily available connections do seem to be helping her to build out the other six ventures that she is involved in here in Shanghai :-) Things are looking very good for the future of 3 Dumplings, Iiiit! Cafe, Cantina Agave, Boxing Cat Brewery, Boxing Cat Bakery, and the Alchemist. It's a bummer that I haven't been able to work more with the Alchemist molecular martini bar, as it's business concept very much intrigues me, but I'm quite happy with the other projects I've been working on.

My own personal guanxi has been growing wider and wider everyday here in Shanghai, and I am beginning to use it more consciously in my daily life. For example, my boss wants me to go into Shanghai food markets and catalog anything and everything that western tourists might find 'out of the ordinary' ...which is a lot, from my perspective! So, I have decided to utilize my Mandarin tutor, Linda, to help me accomplish this task. In the food markets around here, no one speaks English, and if I want to actually get things done and find success in cataloging the many diverse foods that look unfamiliar to me, then I will need some assistance. And my tutor provides me with the perfect opportunity to do this. Here's the game plan: upon finding a food that seems very culturally specific to this region, we take a picture of it and Linda tells me what it's called in Chinese or asks what it is if she doesn't know, and we also figure out how to write it. (It helps to have Linda for this because she knows how to write the 'pin yin' romanization of Mandarin words, which then allows me to understand how to pronounce them correctly) Then, we have to figure out how to translate/explain what it is in English such that I can easily create a tour guide training booklet teaching our 3 Dumplings guides what they should be saying to tourists.

I suggested the idea to her this afternoon during my lesson, and she loved it. #1, it's an opportunity for us to take our 'classroom' outside of the apartment and use it in the real world, and #2, Linda loves teaching me all about the culture of Shanghai and China so the thought of showing me new foods that I have never seen really excites her. We're meeting at a local market tomorrow at 11am...wish me luck.

I'm going to try to take a picture of Linda and I at the market, so that you guys can put a name to a face and see who I keep referring to!

It'd be nice if I were a bit more aware of foods and produce just in general. I feel as though there are many foods which are popular in the U.S. that I am quite clueless about. I have a feeling that I may end up cataloging things that are pretty common for westerners, but are just things that I don't know a squat about. :-)

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PMM