The Jenny Zhu Show - A Charming Café in Shanghai

besides Shanghai dailect, can the interviewee also speak Mandarin Chinese?

Is F&B "French Bistro" ?

What made him decide to open a French restaurant rather than an Italian restaurant or American restaurant?

@zhuimia

Is F&B "French Bistro" ?

I assume your question is serious and it raises a good point - way too much jargon.  People who do not use these words feel alienated.  It's 'food and beverage' by the way. I counted about seven or eight words and expressions in his chat that would not be understood by many native English speakers. I don't know what commanding/demanding means.   

BTW I heard a word I have never heard before in my life: CREPP.  :-)  RJ will be on my case suggesting that I am joking, but no, I have never in all my years heard it pronounced that way.  If it is the French then I will have to bow to authentic pronunciation.   

Your question about whether he can speak Standard Chinese is not crazy.  I used to go and talk to a Chinese shop owner near me in Sydney and her twenty year old daughter, born in Sydney, claims to 'not understand a word' of Standard Chinese.  She was never sent to Chinese school.  But she understands Shanghaihua because that is what she hears all the time at home.    

@Zhumia, I believe Charles is most comfortable using English or Shanghaihua, but he can also speak Mandarin.

Charles is a friend of a few of us in the ChinesePod office, so it's great to see him making a success of this venture, especially considering all the hard work that was involved at the start. 

Oh, and to anyone in Shanghai who might be considering a visit to Voila!, I can personally recommend the gelato and homemade hummous!

Hi bodawei,

Your comment on the crêpe reminded me of a funny little misunderstanding I had with my American cousin who had no idea what we were talking about when we suggested making crêpes (也就是"crepp") for breakfast. Only after we had practically finished making them it dawned on him: "oh, CRAPES"! (which in turn probably no French speaking person would understand)

That's interesting. Crepe is probably pronounced both ways, but I checked a couple of American English dictionaries, and both identified "crape" as the English pronunciation. Neither mentioned the more francophone version as an option. The British English dictionary that I checked listed only "crepp".

I was also stumped by f&b. Now that it's been explained, I'm still not certain what qualifies as a "food and beverage" store. Just restaurants, or also groceries? While I was listening I thought it must be "something & breakfast" since that seemed to be the kind of restaurant being described.

For 咖啡馆 (kāfēigǔan), Jenny suggested "café" as a translation. I've always understood there to be a significant difference between a café and a coffee shop. Can 咖啡馆 refer to either?

another question I have about the interviewee is: he mentioned he doesn't smoke, but still carries a pack of cigarettes for when he wants to meet/talk to people. Don't the people get offended when he offers them a cigarette but refuses to smoke with them? And if they don't, doesn't he feel bad as a person for putting cigarettes in people's mouths but not smoking, himself, because he knows how unhealthy it is, given that he is so health minded. Doesn't that mentality go against his vision of "being healthy" by eating right and drinking fresh pure juice?

bodawei,

A crêpe (English pronunciation: /ˈkreɪp/, French: [kʀɛp];

actually, I also pronounce it crepe. I always liked crepe suzettes but having been raised in a hungarian family, we called them "palacinta".

Thanks RJ (and others); I can rely on poddies to keep me on the straight and narrow.  Still strikes me as funny (I'm Australian remember) - we love a laugh about pretentious sounding pronunciations.  

@zhuimia

My experience with 'cigarettes' is as follows - early 2000s handing round a ciggie was still common.  In 2004 I came to China for a few weeks and noted that it was perfectly fine to refuse a cigarette saying 'it's not good for my health.' Discussions about health followed - people I met were apparently quite health conscious.  I was here for a year from mid-2006 and I came to the conclusion that smoking a cigarette was no longer an essential part of doing business. Switch to the present - I've been here about four months and I have been offered a cigarette once.  (And this is the wild West.)  There are of course still plenty of smokers but pressing cigarettes on someone is a dying tradition ('scuse the pun.)     

谢谢 Bodawei, that's a great answer re social smoking.
I've wanted to know about that too.

对不起，F&B is 'food and beverage'，餐饮/cān yǐn.

Should have cleared that up.

@zhuima,

Re smoking, it is still very relevant for certain crowds (generational to a large degree). For example, the contract workers who were decorating my apartment, I bought food, drinks for them but cigarettes were their favorite gift by far. It was a way of showing appreciation and care (how ironic).  

Oh, another thing about crepes, it is uncannily similar to Shandong breakfast pancakes/山东煎饼/shān dōng jiān bǐng. From the technique of making it to the texture and taste, they are lost cousins.

I like the 煎饼果子jiānbǐng guǒzi in Tianjin and Beijing, it has also a crêpe style pancake. I have never tried the Shandong breakfast pancakes yet...

persimone,

煎饼果子jiānbǐng guǒzi  and 山东煎饼/shān dōng jiān bǐng are practically the same. There is a man making them outside our office. It's delicious, but slack on hygiene. 

The 煎饼果子jiānbǐng guǒzi in Tianjin and Beijing have a crispy thin thing inside called 薄脆 báocuì (which I don’t like, also sometimes because of hygiene), the Shandong style one looks better!

I would never pronounce Crepe 'crape' and I am from the UK.

I did once look at a sign, on the way home from the pub once and say "What the hell is a 'Bag El'?"

I love toasted bagels, I was just inebriated.

Unrelatedly - did everyone see the Mobius Bagel?

http://www.georgehart.com/bagel/bagel.html

Loving Maths and Bagels, this to me is the greatest breakthrough this year.

Thanks for the show! I didn't get FnB at the beginning, but I sort of gathered it from context.

And one last thing - Beijing 大饼 (dàbǐng) are delicious! But they seem quite a distant cousin of the crepe!

Cheerio!

Do bosses in China really go around handing our cigarettes?

Is everyone here an anticigarette Nazi?  You know throughout history humans have put smoke into their lungs.  Crying about this Chinese cigarette culture is rather laughable.

Jenny!  You mentioned some nonbusiness shows coming up?  Soon?  Later?

Calm down quasifrog - I don't notice any 'crying about this Chinese cigarette culture'. Certainly not at such a volume as to induce laughter.  While you were bent double you may have missed the point of the posts?  That is, that the once ubiquitous habit of passing out ciggies is in decline.  Pretty much dead in many lines of work in my experience.  Plenty of people still smoke; that is not at issue.  No crying.  

My province (2008) produced 829,000 tons of tobacco leaves, and 340 billion cigarettes (to the closest billion).  That is 260 cigarettes per person per year if every man, woman and child smoked (and there were no exports.)  I hope that the export trade is healthy.   

And, quasifrog, throughout history people have decried the practice.

Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.
- King James I of England, (1566-1625) A Counter-blaste to Tobacco (1604). 
The passage was written shortly after Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to England from the Americas

I felt no need to comment on smoking in this post before. It seemed to me just a discussion about the state of business in China, nothing more. But your "throughout history" argument does not do much for me.

@quasifrog,

I have a jazz singer and a magazine editor coming up in 2 weeks. Very interesting people.

I love these interviews, specially because it puts in perspective all the challenges faced by foreigners that open businesses in China and also the rewarding experience itself!

I must admit, it's great to get these kind of insights from an expat point of view. I want someone organizes expat social gathering or networking events or even activities. Is there such a perons out there that does such a thing?

F&I, I think you coined a new acronym, Food and Identity.

(Very late reply) @ Shanghaichanges,  i believe there was a Cpod gathering not too long ago. I think I saw some pics on Chinesepod's facebook. Also check ShanghaiExpat.com

I just heard this interview with Charles and I must say congratulations! I know a lot of people who just want to quit their jobs and start a business like a café but who are too afraid to take that risk.

@juzi and shanghaichanges,

Yes we had a Cpod meet-up in the beginning of November at Malones. There are indeed some photos on our facebook page, so if you have access take a look!

We'll be having another meet-up in the beginning of January - keep an eye out on the website as I'll be posting the details very soon! :)

I love these shows! Very informative for those who dream of entrepreneurship in China.