The Wandering Monkey

The month of January is Chinese New Year's. It is as big as Christmas back home. People who don't travel all year long take a week off. So it will be a slow month, but we are going to position ourselves for February.

The Shanghai Swings! Social Dance Night has been a big problem. We have been through five bars already, and our current one is not proving satisfactory, either. We need these basic things: a good atmosphere, a suitable dance floor, suitable music, and control over the place for the evening. Our biggest problem has been the bar owners. On two occasions we have been happy with our venues -- old wood construction, wood dance floors, and live bands. And both times the management asked us not to return.

In one case the place had a lot of business already. Older people came there to drink and not dance, so it did not make business sense for them. But in the other case, the bar had almost no business whatsoever. Perhaps four people on a given night. We loved this second place; it had three floors with an open balcony over the dance floor so you could see it from every level. The band was awesome. And we brought in at least 25 people, all of whom bought drinks and food. Yet, for some unfathomable reason the owner asked us not to return. Currently I understand they are back to just a handful of customers a night again.

I have found a lot of local business owners out here are 'vision-driven' or 'ego-driven'. Even though we brought more business to that one bar than they could ever expect to get normally, it did not fit with the owner's vision of her place. Ack.

Anyhow, we have a big advertising and marketing push for February, after Chinese New Year. We are talking with an new excellent bar. We approach them with a formal business plan. The owners are English-speaking foreigners who seem to be happy with our concept so long as we have 20 or more people. With a place like this, I could say we could easily have 20, 30, or 40 students on a night.

All for now.
-J