I had to make a trip to Shanghai. Although I have friends there, I try to avoid the city if at all possible. I lived in Shanghai for seven years and it was quite enough. But the tourist season is about to start and our coffee machine needed servicing. ("No, it doesn't," claimed my wife Joanna. "It isn't broken yet.")
I drove our Great Wall diesel jeep along the newest of the three highways that cross the plain from our mountains almost to the coast. This road stops in a field some 50km short of the city, so that you have to switch to the second newest highway, which brings you into Shanghai beside the old airport.
The coffee machine shop was downtown—and downtown was unrecognisable. I drove like a true yokel, stopping well short of junctions to puzzle over the lanes. I mouthed Chinese apologies at taxi drivers, who signalled back that they didn't understand English. Yet it is only six months since I was last in Shanghai.
At last I found the shop. The engineer gave me a ten-minute bollocking for not bringing the machine in for three years.
Then I met some friends for dinner. One of them, an American, was still suffering from the weekend. "Was it Sunday already yesterday?" he asked. We kept it sensible: just wine and one bottle of whisky between the three of us, and bed by 1am.
Shanghai has changed completely since I left it four years ago. Yet my friends are still doing exactly the same thing: working like mad and partying like crazy. Plus ça change.
Town flat, country house
My family has spent most of the winter in our new "town flat," in Wukang, where my daughter Isabel goes to school, near the foot of the mountain. Everyone from the village is also in town for the winter—they either have a place of their own or stay with family. I think the migration is a cop-out, and made plain my reluctance to Joanna. I came to Moganshan to get away from Chinese urban life, and in my opinion one of the best times of the year—and the most peaceful—is deep winter. If we are lucky we get completely cut off for a few weeks by the snow and ice.
But Joanna showed me the heating bills from last winter. We made a compromise: during the week I would spend two nights on my own on the mountain and get some writing done.
Then Joanna explained that she needed the car for the school run, so I would have to bicycle up the mountain and back again.
Fine… I would keep up my fitness training. My friends and I are already planning another triathlon this year.
Then I only had to work out how to get my laptop and the dog up the mountain to keep me company. Joanna drove them if she could; otherwise they travelled by taxi.
Now it is March the weather is milder and the family is preparing to move up all together. Although I will be pleased to have us all here again, I will miss the peace and quiet. I will also miss the town flat's hot baths, underfloor heating, satellite television, nearby restaurants and five-minute school runs.
Urban life does have its benefits.
You just can't get the staff
The newly-serviced coffee machine makes a mean espresso. The ice machine is being fixed because, as Joanna pointed out, it really was broken. Our mini bacon factory is stepping up production. We are prepared for the year's business. The warm-up starts with Easter and the Qingming festival in April, then the tourist season proper kicks off with the May holiday. After that we won't stop working until October.
I am confident that we'll cope, except for one huge unresolved problem. We need staff.
Staff retention is a never-ending challenge for a seasonal weekend business in a remote tourist resort.
Last year we had a nice chap from Changzhou as a manager, but he departed with the last of the visitors in December. So did the local chef, who had been a real find. We were left with the cleaning lady, who has more initiative than your average cleaning lady, but can only do so much.
I tried to persuade the chef to return, but he wants to move on in life, to paint cars for his sister's boyfriend. It looks like I'll be training someone up from scratch again.
As for a manager, I will advertise in Shanghai. As before, I will be bombarded by applications from out-of-work Filipino bar staff who only work in teams of four and expect visas and a nice apartment in their package. After I've explained that we are on the mountain Moganshan, not the Moganshan Road in Shanghai, they will suddenly lose all enthusiasm.
While I was drafting the job advert I started chatting to a couple of English girls who were enjoying a winter retreat. I read out the text of the advertisement to them. When I came to the part that said "ideal for an adventurous foreign student of Chinese language looking for immersion in the country, or a youngish China hand looking for a break from the rat race," one of them shot up her hand. "That's me!" she shouted.
I hope it'll be that easy.
