We are suffering from a rare commercial problem. We need competition. The Lodge, our coffee shop, is now in its fourth year of operation and is still the only western-style establishment in Moganshan. It is hard to keep our (mainly foreign) clientele happy because we simply don't have room to accommodate them all. We could expand, of course, but then we would have more wasted space in the off season. And besides, a key attraction of the Lodge is the cosy, homely atmosphere.
This year, business is already looking too good. The first April weekend of the tourist season, the grave sweeping festival, we did more business than we had done during the whole of the month before. We were packed every night, the staff worked 14-hour days, we used up all our supplies and still we could have done more. We had to disappoint many potential customers by turning them away. If there was an alternative that I could direct our overflow to, then I could at least be helpful, if not hospitable.
Or perhaps I should respond differently. The modern-day foreigner in China seems to expect everything on a plate, to five-star international standards and to pay for it with Visa. I often have to tell them it's not possible, explaining "Welcome to China."
That April weekend I said more than once to the queues, "Anyone want to set up a coffee shop? I'll introduce you to people and the venues, and you'll be more than welcome."
"When can we have breakfast?" they replied.
Brand Nouveau Riche
Mr Guo has done well. He is in the electrical component business. We have known each other for some time but he has only now invited me to visit his home in Hangzhou, our nearest city, 37 miles away. But the reason for the delay was obvious. Mr Guo has finally bought the brand new place he has been saving up for and he wanted to show it off to me.
He invited me to have a cup of tea before he took me through the rooms. We sat at a marble tea table which had a fitted spout for boiling water built into it. The cups were laid out in a recessed warming pan, also in the table top. At the far end of the long room was a flat-screen television faced by a throne-like set of sofa and chairs, the woodwork painted gold, the cushions white leather. I tried a chair for comfort. When I sat back, my feet left the floor and I am over 6ft tall. In a corner stood a brand new, ornate grandfather clock, also in white and gold.
The master bedroom was furnished in similar opulent style, with more gold and white. In Guo's teenage son's bedroom a glass computer desk clashed with yet another luxurious bed. The kitchen was plain, like an unused laboratory compared to the rest of the apartment, the bathroom likewise. The sum effect was something like Louis XIV meets an NHS hospital.
I am not going criticise a man's taste, although I didn't like Mr Guo's. But it was impossible not to mourn the absence of any personal or family touch whatsoever. This "out with the old, in with the new" attitude is prevalent in China. It continues to confuse me that a country so proud of its long history is so eager to dump the recent past into the dustbin at the same time. Mr Guo's apartment was saying: "My family were poor, I was poor. Now I am rich. The past, as from yesterday, is forgotten."
My path is also a bamboo plantation
This year is a bamboo growing year: the shoots may not be dug up for food. Guards are patrolling the hillsides and banners have been strung up on the stone walls: "Everyone is responsible for protecting shoots and growing bamboo. By order of the Forestry Department." On alternate years, the shoots can be harvested.
This year's bamboo will grow—at a rate of four inches a day— until it reaches its full height of about 40ft. Then the feathery tops will be sliced off and turned into chopsticks and brooms. After five years, the whole plant will be chopped down and become anything from a floorboard to a scaffolding pole.
Bamboo is a valuable commodity. The annual crop brings in over 1m yuan for the local government. I once argued with the government chief that he should make a choice for Moganshan. I explained, with what I thought was perfect logic, that the bamboo obstructs the views that could make the mountain an even more appealing and profitable resort. "So what's it to be, bamboo farm or tourist resort?" I asked him.
"Both," he replied.
I like the view from our house unobstructed, so in growing years I put on my heaviest pair of boots, metaphorically blindfold myself, and go out for a stomp. The bamboo shoots that would, in a few weeks, have blackened our windows rarely survive. Two years ago, I had a fierce argument with a guard when he caught me kicking a shoot that was growing through our path.
"Illegal!" he shouted.
"But this is the path to our house."
"No it's not. It's a bamboo plantation!"
Bamboo can grow through floors. This year, maybe a shoot will sprout under the chair of the forestry department chief.
