The Wandering Monkey

Well, well, well.
We have been growing. The swing dance online group today has 49 members. Our students are helping, too, by referring people and pitching in with things like translation into Mandarin. Our core group of dancers is about 12 regular people. New ones show up every now and then, and we have had another visitor from San Francisco. This one was Brendon, and he works with Intel. Tonight is his last night and we are going to hit the town.

We have secured a good venue, finally. Beginning in the first Wednesday in March, we will be at a place called Sasha's. It is a relatively well-known place which used to be the home of a very rich Chinese family. They are under new management, and I have talked with them and they agree to let us use their third floor so long as we bring in about 20 people a night. I don't think this will be any problem!

We are also going to appear in a coupon book called Enjoy the best of Shanghai. It is a book of the 200 best experiences that Shanghai has to offer. I met one of the organizers several months ago, and he approached me about this just recently. We have delivered all of the materials and graphics and the book will be out in February.

Our website, www.shanghaiswings.com, is still not operational, but one of our students has put us in contact with a designer who will do a single-page site for free. Most of our online presence is through our yahoo group. We have a photo album, post board, and calendar.

So, with all of this we are looking to March as a good new beginning point. I am working now with my dance partner to figure out how to divide teaching responsibilities. We have not had any shows recently, but we may have some more now that she is back.

My old dance partner back in the U.S. is considering moving to Shanghai (hello!). I don't know when or if this would happen, but she has an instructor position open and waiting for her!

So, as for me personally, I have been doing OK. I am looking for a good job opportunity, something part time. I have learned a little more Mandarin, but still I'm not really fluent. I have met one of my neighbors, who speaks English, and I run into her pretty frequently. I spend a lot of time at the local Internet cafe. I know the people here and the owner, too.

Soon I will have two friends in Iraq. One friend from high school is there now, and another friend from California is going within a few weeks. I worry about them every time I read the news. I hope the situation there calms down soon (yeah, me and everyone else).

I am going to be folding the Jimbo Corporation, which I formed when I moved to California. I need to straighten out some final business and pay taxes and open fees. How long have I had it? I think about 5 years. It's ok with me, I don't really feel too attached to it. But once it is gone I am kind of committing to a new career direction. The swing dancing this is very good, but it's not going to be a living. You could not buy a house or anything like that. But I think it will be a really good way to meet people and find some new jobs that I might like.

I guess I feel pretty much at home here now. I definitely feel better than when I was still hanging on in San Francisco. It's a wonderful city but my time there was finished. I feel there is a future now. Don't know what it is, though!

-J