Sorry for this long introduction, but it is needed.
Normally I never thought I would create my own blogg. So far I didn’t have a typical live for somebody that grew up in Munich, but on the other hand nothing absolutely extraordinary or of great interest to the public has occurred to me either (I hear a bunch of crazy stories from my other foreigner friends in Asia).
Well, things have changed. After having traded with all sorts of better and lower quality products made in China for 9 years, I decided that enough is enough. No more stress, no more excuses, no more factory visits until 3 in the morning. A year ago my girlfriend and me finally stopped trading and opened a small bar and restaurant in Dongguan. This is the name of the Chinese city in Guangdong province in which we’ve been living already for a few years. The name of the place was called “Heaven” and in order to make it sound better “-Turkish Kebab House”. Now I had an ok bar with Middle East food. I thought that now I would have an easier, trouble free life, but I was mistaken, no not only mistaken, very, very wrong.
The bar next door, the Thirsty Dog Bar, a quiet place with seldom more then 2 customers in it was easily overseen. Stories and rumors about the owners were memories long forgotten. Unfortunately not for long. During the first weeks after having opened Heaven, business was quiet. My friendly neighbors next door were once in the while buying some food from us, I sometimes had a beer over there and things were fine. The little small things that the “louban yau” Maggie (the boss’s wife) were doing to us were easily ignored. “Don’t put the rubbish together with our rubbish!”, “Don’t let your customers use our toilets” “Don’t let your staff come so close to our fences”, no “hello”, no “good bye”. My thoughts were “Never mind, not everybody has had a great education or is of friendly nature”. Then one day there was a lot of noise outside and I saw the next doors boss and my Chinese cook wanting to fight each other. What happened? The louban yau with her rude manors was nagging again and our cook talked back in Cantonese. Here it is important to know, that she comes from Dalian, from another city in another province of China and she doesn’t understand the local dialect. Travis, the boss, then got upset and wanted to fight with the cook. I then went into the bar, apologized for my cook’s behavior and hoped things would be ok again.
There were somehow, same, same, but the business was good and we managed to build up a friendly and regular cliental. Now next doors business wasn’t doing great and Maggie was pregnant. An old friend of theirs and ours decided to become a partner in the Thirsty Dog, so he could improve things. He had his friends play live music twice a week, he hired Philippina waitresses, his friend, an American woman, became the manager, he advertised the place properly, we received the request to prepare an American food menu for them and we told people to go there and there business was flourishing. The bar went from 0 to 100 in less then a month. On the day of the first official party advertised we were a little bit irritated. Our food menu was nowhere seen, but another restaurant was distributing food samples for free. Over the next weeks our printed out menu landed in the rubbish bag and the stocks in the kitchen were purchased for nothing. Never mind, they were still our neighbors and there was no point to fight with them. But things got worse; suddenly they had signs outside of their door where they were advertising Paulaner beer for 30% less then us, although all their drinks were averaged 30% more expensive then us. It was the cheapest beer they had. Until that time we were they only place in town to have it. Next thing happened; we had our fences copied, 1:1. Afterwards we had a governmental complaint our fences had to be removed. We already realized that next door will be a big problem for our bar’s future, but decided that there was no point in doing something back. Now the 4th of July 2007, American Independence Day, had come. Our neighbors bought themselves a nice BBQ set and started grilling outside. Not that bad you might think, but a month later they were still BBQ-ing every night. All smoke blowing over to our direction. Food often also was “forgotten” by the staff. Requests for moving the BBQ to somewhere else were ignored
Now, we decided to fight back. We printed posters advertising our drinks for our regular, cheap prices and putting them out in every direction. Travis reacted with burning plastic in his BBQ set, so that sitting outside was nearly impossible. He also got every customer that was sitting there that night upset and they all swore never to set a food in that place again. The next day dark, black smoke was coming into our direction again. This time ready to shoot back, our new Hong Kong partner send industrial fans to our place. All the black smoke blew back right into their face. From now on relations were very bad. Every day the next door owners would come to their bar showing bad faces. BBQ sets and fans were mounted every day and rumors started spreading.
In late November, we decided to give up the “Heaven” concept, motivated also by water damages that had occurred and to reopen the place under the name of “AQUA” with our new local partner Dennis and with Italian food.
January 11, 2008
Something astonishing happened today. My girlfriend Samantha got kidnapped and was held hostage for two hours. After she convinced the robbers that she was so poor and after they failed to get money out of her credit cards, they finally let her go. They even returned her mobile phone and 100 RMB.
A few days after reopening, one of the next door’s customers approached me and said that it is time for peace. Nothing better could happen and I agreed immediately to sit down and talk with Travis. The result was better then expected, he immediately apologized, and called me buddy and we had a drink together. After the drink I got up, excused myself and walked back to my place. Instantly Travis turns around and tells my local partner to “Fuck you”. A bottle is thrown on the floor and Dennis and Travis separated from each other only by the crowd. An hour later after several more drinks and a bit calmer situation I tried to go over there again and talk to them again. Within no time Maggie starts complaining in her very uncomfortable high frequency voice. After some time, I wanted to make a point. I told them that there is no point for a fight, we have a local partner and we are therefore more powerful. Travis said that he had a Chinese wife and therefore also local. Now I committed my unfortunate mistake (after a few drinks). I told him, that his wife is from nowhere (instead of from here). He exploded, I apologized, table was thrown on the floor and the first real fight started. Minutes later the police was there, Travis almost attacking them to and that was the end of the night.
The next few days every time Maggie walked into her bar, she lifted the middle finger
