The Wandering Monkey

Here's the status of the swing dance moment in Shanghai:
Yesterday, I saw an informal documentary shot by a friend of mine several months ago. It is called Shanghai Nights, about the night life. I did an interview for it around October. Then, in December the filmer came back to Shanghai shots us at the Roaring 20's Ball at the Paramount. Both are in the documentary which is uploaded to the Shanghai Swings yahoo group. It should be available in one or two days. To see it then,
(select text below and paste into your browser address)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shanghaiswings

You will have to join the group to view the video. It is located in the "Files" link. It is about 20mb, so be patient! It's about 13 minutes long and it gives a good idea of exactly what's been happening.

I have learned about the Chinese holidays: close your business! Over Chinese New Year, I kept the classes and social night open, but it was pointless. Only 1 person showed up. The Chinese also have a May holiday. It lasts for one week, just like Chinese New Year. And we are going to close this time.

Once the holiday is over, we are going to begin new classes. This time, we are going to sign up people for specific classes that begin and start over 4 weeks time. Before we had a 'just drop in' method, which worked while we had so few students. We would customize the class every time. But after a while people stopped coming. They had even pre-paid for their lessons, but they weren't using their pre-paid cards. So this strategy I think will work for this phase of the business.

I am still not turning out a profit living in Shanghai. I need to at least break even as soon as next month. It may be possible. I'm now running all of the business affairs and making the decisions. I hope to make this a viable living soon! But we have so many things going for us now compared to when we started. We've got a good body of students, a regular weekly place to dance, a rented studio, plus coverage in four different magazines, one TV show, and now this documentary. As a dance group, we are known and welcomed in two live-music clubs. And recently, a champion dancer has joined us - the Boogie-Woogie champion of Germany for six year running.

I have contacts with several DJ's and various other media avenues which should allow us to put out our advertising without cost. I have the names of many people who have directly expressed interest, plus contacts with certain social groups which have 100's of members. In theory at this point, everything is possible to make this happen.

My dance partner has graciously allowed me to take over the studio and run the business in the way which I see fit. I had previously been very concerned about this. She had much different ideas of how to promote the business, how to run the classes, and so forth. She will still be involved for performances and to pick up teaching classes and other similar things. From the beginning, she's just been in it for the life experience of it. And it would not have been possible to take it anywhere near as far as fast had she not been there each step of the way.

Only one thing has not been panning out quite as well as I had hoped. We have not heard back for several weeks from the Lindy Hop guru Frankie Manning or the New York City big swing band George Gee. I believe that if we re-approach them with a viable business plan that everything will work out just fine, however. If for any unfortunate reason we cannot get them, we will still go forward. We have contacted arguably the most famous swing camp in the world - the Herrang camp in Sweden. They have agreed to help us in whatever way they can.

Aside from all that, on a personal note I feel pretty good. I am going to move out of my apartment into another one with roommates. My lease is finally up and now I can get out of the contract without having to forfeit my significant deposit (I can't afford to lose that now!) I am making turtle-like but steady progress learning Mandarin. I am going on dates every now and then. And I have taken a 'regular' day job which will ensure me a small amount of cash and proper work-visa status.

I will be living here at least one year into the future.
-J