Un monde à entreprendre

Among all the people we had to see in Beijing, Hortense was the first one on the list. She was also the first woman entrepreneur we interviewed so far, and the first one in the cultural industry. Besides, she was also the first European person we had seen speaking a perfect Chinese until that day. You have understood Hortense is a special person (in a good way, of course) and that is only the beginning…

Hortense fell into Asia when she was young. She spent 2 years in Japan followed by 7 years in Hong Kong where she started learning mandarin at school when she was young. She came back to France for her final year of high school and for her graduate studies in Paris. Right after her master degree, and after a few internships in China, she found her first job in China, working for Bongrain as a brand manager for two years. Speaking the language fluently, and loving the country (she is also currently married to a Chinese from Beijing) she could not picture her future at any time outside China. Even though she targeted Shanghai as she made a couple of internship there and really enjoyed the city, she chose to live and work in Beijing, as both the job offer and the company in which she was offered a job were better in Beijing, which made her pick the 2 years contract in Bongrain. As the company was getting restructured at that time, both parties agreed to terminate the cooperation.

As she always knew she wanted to do something related to events management, and with a passion for music, she considered looking in this direction. As many people were asking for help on such kind of projects, she started to help launching some artistic events. The more she was working on these projects, the more her network was growing and the more she then realized that there was some potential from an artistic and an entrepreneurship perspective and therefore recruited one trainee and subsequently 2 or 3 other people quite quickly to help her. A business partner joined her in 2007 while moving into bigger offices. Her friend had already registered a company in Hong Kong, which they decided to use for international clients, while relying on Chinese partner companies for local clients.

Even though the whole process of creating a company may seem quite natural in Hortense’s case, she was never intending to live such a life. Indeed, she worked in 2000 in Hangzhou for an entrepreneur and thought at that time this was a life she did not want as it is far too time consuming. But as she enjoys a lot launching projects, and being in a leader position, she quite inevitably followed this path as it gave her much more freedom. The kind of company she created allowed her to be in between business and arts which is a brand new concept in China. The purpose of the company is to offer artists opportunities to develop, as she needs to feel useful and create things. She provides services such as artistic content for events and incentive, corporate training via artistic methods, conferences on innovation, mediating strategic partnerships (sponsoring)...

4 years after she launched the activities of H!TANG& China Creative Connections, she confessed that she was very frustrated and should stop heading the company in January as she currently works part time for a corporation and expects to work for this corporation full time by that time. Her frustration arises from the feeling that she has not moved forward in the past 4 years as she has not learnt as much as she expected.In her opinion, it is easier to feel that you learn something when someone else is providing you with the knowledge, even though she recognizes that she did learn a lot while creating her own business. Having put the minimum level of financial investment in this company, she had to deal over the last years with unqualified resources (which were obviously cheaper, such as many trainees) and a high turnover among her employees who would leave the company after a few months. As a consequence, she and her partner had to spend most of their time training newcomers and could not focus on sales and more interesting activities. That gives her the feeling that she has been doing the same thing over and over again. The lack of financial investment was due to the fact that it is very hard to raise funds in a cultural industry for one thing, but also because this company was created for pleasure much more than return on investment which is why she did not invest a lot of money in the business. This lack of funds created some limits that she now identifies with the experience that she gained.

Hortense explained to us that she was to create a business again she would probably do it as it made her knowledgeable in many areas as she had to do everything by herself. She would however do things differently, such as hiring more qualified staff that can actually bring knowledge and expertise to the business. The business would have expanded more quickly and she would have had lost far less time in training people on the same tasks. She would finally advise to look for people who have different skills and personalities as these people bring more value to a company, especially in a small structure where having different people with a wide range of skills is required to perform well.

Thank you Hortense for this interesting dinner which finally showed us the “dark side” of entrepreneurship, and good luck with your new challenges!!

Benoit

As we are soon to leave Nepal (meaning we are late on the blog posts…), I will be brief in the description of the China adventures and let the pictures speak for themselves (yes I know that is the easy way of doing it…)

After a great last couple of days in Ulanbataar (including celebrating Thanksgiving with all American Peace Corps in Mongolia… over 120 people !! Thanks for this evening guys, it was very nice meeting all of you!!), we headed to Beijing, China, by train until the boarder, and then by minibus. Nothing extraordinary happened in the train. We had to change roughly 5 times of minibus before actually leaving the border city of Eramai. Like often in Asia, they have this annoying habit to be as late as necessary to fill in the bus completely. That does not explain why we changed so many times of bus, but at least we know partly why we left 3 hours later than scheduled. The journey to Beijing was somehow interesting. My guess is that Jacques Brel never stepped in Inner Mongolia or he would never have dared calling his own country “Le plat pays” (the flat country). This land is so flat it looks like a dusty ocean on which you can spot the horizon line hundreds of kilometers away… We arrived in Beijing at night, after slaloming for a couple of hours between lines of trucks on the highway. That was pretty scary as you can see on the attached video below.

The first days were spent walking in the streets of Beijing, visiting temples and parks and taking advantage of the charming huttongs of the city. As I already came in June to visit, I let Yann visit the most touristic places while I interviewed entrepreneurs. I could walk for weeks in the street of Beijing. I enjoy so much this city that I think I could live there without difficulties if it wasn’t for the pollution (we will come back on this problem later). I do not have words how good I feel in these small streets, smelling good food and taking advantage of the peaceful life which contrasts so much with the huge city of Beijing.

Pekin

As we did not really know where to go next, we trusted our instincts (i.e. Google ;-))and booked 2 train tickets to Pingyao and Xi’an which are both two old cities which have the particularities to have old battlements around the ancient city.

We stayed a couple of days in Pingyao, taking advantage of the first day to visit the Wang Family Courtyard located around 40 Kms from the city with an Australian and a Chinese guy with whom who spent most of our time. This courtyard is one of the most impressive set of buildings I have visited in Asia, as it is in very good condition for one thing, but also because it is in a much more sober style than the usual dragon/multi color style that can be found almost anywhere and is usually poorly refurbished. Definitely a must do in the area. In the afternoon we went to an ancient castle which far less enjoyable, expect for the fact that we could visit some kind of labyrinth located around 25 m under ground level as a defense system for the city. We then spent the whole evening trying to spot the best value for money meal in the city which we finally found, receiving a gigantic pot of noodle soup for 1 EUR (we thought it would be for four people until each of us received the same pot…). During the second day, we remained in the old city to visit as many museums and temples as possible (19 in total!! As far as I remember, we got tired after 10…). These museums were surprisingly less impressive than the old city in itself, which is well protected from cars and motorcycles… which did not protect us from the worst pollution we experienced so far! At least for me… I felt even more than in Beijing and I did not believe that was possible until that point. My throat was itchy all the time, and it was almost impossible not to cough from time to time…)

Pinyou

Xi’an was our next destination. The city is known to be one of the oldest of China, and one of the new big industrial centers of China. You may have heard of this city before as this is the largest city close to the Terra Cotta army built by Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China (once you see the pictures, you will know ;-)). First thing first, we spent our first afternoon at this Terra Cotta museum after a quick nap at the very well located Bell tower youth hostel (right in front of the beautiful Bell Tower). We found there (quite luckily I must say) Fabian who was sleeping in our dormitory 2 hours ago! As he was looking for a guide, we decided to share the fees and had a very pleasant afternoon in the museum, receiving detailed explanations on how one emperor decided to use thousands and thousands of prisoners to build for himself 6.000 unique Terra Cotta soldiers that would protect him when he would die. Despite the cruelty of the Emperor (death sentence was sometimes summoned if he did not like one statue), it is also desperately sad to look at the poor peasant who (un)fortunately (for him) discovered the archeological site in 1974 and is now “kindly requested” to sit every single day of his life to sign autographs in the shop located at the exit of the museum. As we had not walked for quite a few days and were very hungry for fresh non polluted (for China standards at least), we woke up early on the next morning and took a bus to Huashan, on the sacred mountain of China, in which I had a big feeling of déjà-vu as we had to climb stairs up and down for roughly 7 hours (I had done the same thing in the yellow mountains located 6 hours from Shanghai in June 2010. This first time was more painful as it had lasted for two days, but I must confess I like climbing as much as I hate stairs). It was sometimes so steep that we more like rock climbing than simply climbing stairs up. As there was also a lot of wind on that day, following the path on the crest was pretty disturbing, especially for Yann who is subject to vertigo. Although the wind was not so convenient from a climbing perspective, it offered us a perfect clear blue sky, which made the efforts worth it as the view was absolutely fantastic from the two summits we had time to climb (around 2.000 meters high). In order to rest a bit after this exhausting day (did I tell you how much I hate stairs?), we finally discovered the city of Xi’an on the last day, spending mostly time at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, a perfect spot to read under the sun. Light music, the sound of water arising from the fountain, a nice park close by and people spending quietly their afternoon… perfect mix to finish with these 3 days in this city which appeared at first as quite cold and revealed its charms on the last day.

Xian

From that point on, we split for a few days with Yann, who decided to return to Beijing in order to complete his visit with the Forbidden City before taking his flight to Kathmandu. Meanwhile, I would take a 48 hours train to Shenzhen, before spending a couple of days in Hong Kong, which was one the main Asian cities I never took time to visit before.

The train journey was, as expected, marvelous. I did not have as much time as expected to read as I was often “disturbed” by Chinese people who are always very curious about foreigners and willing to practice their English. I spent most of my time playing with a 3 years old called Shishi while talking to her mum (one of the few English speakers of the train). I also enjoyed the company of a few students who taught me some cards game and showed my pictures to the nice couple of grandparents who were sleeping below me and were very impressed by the fact that I was travelling alone at 24. As I did not bring enough noodle soups with me, I could try quite a few different kinds of local food on the way, such as corn buns or various kinds of biscuits which were all delicious (I would not say the same for the boiled egg I was offered by a very nice stranger who stared at me during the whole time I was chewing his present. The egg looked (and tasted!) expired by at least one week…). This journey represents one more reason to like trains. And one more reason to love China.

After fighting a little while to understand where I was in Shenzhen and where I was supposed to stay, I was welcomed by an Israeli couchsurfer who was staying at my host (Vikiiiiiiiiiiiiii from Hungary) in Shenzhen and the crazy cat that lives there. I was then taken to lunch by Viki and a couple of her Russian friends to a very friendly but odd lunch which mainly consisted of complaints of people who could not stand China and Chinese people from Shenzhen any more after spending months in this city. Even if it was not the best introduction to Shenzhen, I guess I understood what they meant after spending a few hours there. This huge, almost brand new city seems to have no soul and is filled with people who only live for money. Everything is clean, organized, and people dressed in suits looked much more distant than what I experienced before in China. I therefore asked for the direction of the highest hill around in order to escape from all of this. From there, I could barely see the New territories of Hong Kong, and even struggled to have clear view on Shenzhen itself. Once again in China, pollution had stricken, mainly thanks to the gigantic industrial region which is located in the Guangdong area. Needless to say, I did not really appreciate Shenzhen, except for the fact that I had a really nice time with Viki who is not only a very easy going and interesting person, but also a great cook who succeeded in making me actually like a dish full of vegetables…

In Hong Kong I was kindly hosted by a friend from my boarding school in Marseille (Sébastien) and his girlfriend Julie, who live in a cozy apartment in the city center. Unfortunately, Sébastien had just gone through a couple of surgeries and was therefore stuck at home. Having a few hours to spend before dinner, I quickly reached the main spot on which one can attend every evening to the 8 pm show which illuminates all the main buildings of Central (one the main islands of Hong Kong where is located the biggest skyscrapers and Victoria Peak). As you will see in the album, most of the pictures have been taken by night, either during this evening or on the ferry between the two main islands, as this is at night that Hong Kong truly reveals its impressive architecture (especially during Xmas time as the Xmas decoration are a spectacle in themselves). Learning from my dear hosts that there were some great opportunities to go trekking in Hong Kong (something I would never have guessed otherwise), I decided to take a metro on the next morning to reach the island of Lantau to perform a few hours trek aiming to the Biggest Buddha of XXX (I leave this part empty as I am getting quite tired with this biggest Buddha thing. Almost anywhere I have been in Asia, it was always claimed that the local Buddha was the biggest or the tallest of something particular (outside, inside, standing, lying down, etc.) which is why I simply give up). It was quite funny to see almost all people going up by cable car (one of the Chinese specialties when it comes to climbing mountains –there was one in Huashan, and in the yellow mountains as well) while I was fighting to find the path (the stairs…) heading up. The walk was very pleasant despite a strong wind in the afternoon. Back in Central, I randomly walked in the streets until I found a free exhibition on photography! I could not have dreamt of something better as I was desperately looking for a photography exhibition for weeks and this one was both focusing on the old Hong Kong and more recent shots by famous local artists. I have spent 2 wonderful hours in the former detention center hosting the exhibition, contemplating incredible shots of this amazing city which is probably my best souvenir of Hong Kong. I could not miss the opportunity to admire the view from the Victoria Peak which is the most famous thing to do in Hong Kong, and despite the fact that I had not eaten that day (it was 7 pm and I had already walked 15 kilometers) I started to climb up to the Peak! As usual, my dear friend the pollution screwed my evening by bringing a terrible fog on the city… the view was nice but overall very disappointing compared to what I had been described earlier. I spent the last day before taking my flight in the old Hong Kong, which felt more like China than the new parts of the city as you can find markets and smaller restaurants which are much more typical. 3 streets were more entertaining than others: goldfish street, flower street and chest net street. These streets have a kind of dedicated business specialty (i.e. in one street you would find only goldfish shops, on the other one only flower shops) which gives a very unique feeling in each of them…

Shenzhen - Hong Kong

At that time I had to rush a bit to take the bus (equipped with wifi!!!) which took me to the airport in order to fly to Kathmandu, Nepal for some real trekking (I’m done with stairs ;-))

Benoit

PS: The title of this post clearly expresses that pollution is one of the biggest challenge that China is facing and will have to fight with more strength and effort. The impact on the living environment is a real disaster as it is most of the time impossible to see nearby buildings which are hidden by the fog in Beijing or other over-polluted cities of China. Considering the impact on my throat and my eyes after only a few days in this country, I can barely imagine the consequences for people living there. This is a shame as China is a lovely country, full of culture, which is more than worth discovering… The interview of Julien and his blog will provide more light on the topic soon.

PS: This post was not so short after all…

Five minutes after my interview with Julien and Ines (summary under review), I was in a library buying a book that I had seen there a couple of days ago (www.hutong-school.com) which is the moment Jérémie decided to call me to inform me that he had one hour and a half of free time… right now! This was an opportunity I could not miss and I therefore jumped in a taxi and let Jérémie give directions to the taxi driver over the phone… 30 minutes later, we were sitting in a restaurant where he could grab a quick lunch while I was having my first hot chocolate since we left Europe (and it was a good one!).

Jérémie graduated from a Bachelor degree in law and as his aspirations changed a bit as he wanted to become a diplomat, he followed a master degree from the IEP (political sciences) in Aix en Provence. During his studies, he made an internship at the French embassy in Beijing where he discovered the hutongs. After completing his master degree in France, he registered to a university in Beijing in order to learn the Chinese language and gave him the opportunity to meet businessmen in China. One of the first thing he had to do was to find an accommodation. As he had only budgeted 2.000 EUR for the whole year, he decided not to rent an apartment, but to rent a whole courtyard which he then refurbished and divided into 9 apartments that he sub-rented (keeping one for himself). That allowed him not only to pay for his rent but also to make an extra margin. Considering the profit he made, he decided to rent a second courtyard immediately after he finished the first one to do the same thing. He did not see at that time this activity as a business on its own, but more as a way to have a bit of revenues. In 2005, with 3 friends and 10.000 EUR, Jérémie creates the Hutong School, a unique type of school in Beijing which provides not only Chinese lessons, but also accommodation, traineeships and a 24 hours assistance to people who register to the program. It offers high value added journeys in Beijing not only to learn Chinese but also to discover China. Considering his experience in real estate, Jérémie was in charge of finding the proper place for the school. He found a well located building with a top floor made of 4 apartments which could be linked, which is what the Hutong School has done, taking three fourth of the building for accommodations and the remaining part for offices.

None of the founder of the Hutong School launched this project with an entrepreneurship spirit. They were all young and were happy to develop this school as a good place to work in, with a cool attitude and an opportunity to spend time with people from around the world. In 2009, Jérémie took one year off to Japan (as his wife is Japanase) which offered him some time to think and consider the actual business capabilities of the Hutong School. Before that, the positioning on the market wasn't clearly identified. When he came back to China, he therefore decided to focus on the Hutong School project with a clear vision in mind. Since then, he has launched a restructuring of the school which is now expanding fast. At the same time he launched the Hutong School, Jérémie developed as a side business the renovation of courtyards. He kept in mind the idea of protecting the cultural heritage of Beijing and is now renovating these courtyards for expatriate people (mainly journalists), which allows him to increase his profit margin while focusing on quality work from a protection of the original architecture of the courtyards. With growing demand, this side business has become an important part of Jeremie's activity, and together with his old friend Matt, Jérémie has created a company called China Courtyards to support it.

Currently, Jérémie has the feeling that even if he started these two activities five years ago, he is currently heading two brand new start up, as he only sees now their true potential. This is the reason why he says that if he had to do it again, he would start creating businesses sooner, and in a much better prepared way, with a true business view on his activities. Now that he had the opportunity to taje a step back when he was in Japan, he understood that to him, entrepreneurship is the only possible way as this is the way of freedom. He regrets that during his studies in France, he was never told that creating a business represents a meaningful alternative to usual corporations, as it may have lead him to chose this path before. Even though he is realistic and knows business can go bankrupt one day, he strongly hopes that he will be able to do this during his whole life, as now his work also is his passion. He said:”I do not spend 8 hours a day working but 16 hours doing what I like most”.

Jérémie recommends that one should do what he likes to do as this is the best way to become good at something. Doing what someone likes best will allow him to understand where opportunities and profitability may arise from, even if it is most of the time hard to see it. There is a part of passion in companies which makes liking one’s job compulsory in order to be able to have enough energy and support creativity. Jérémie also advises not be afraid to ask for advices from people with more experience as this may avoid big mistakes and can help in saving a lot of time and money. More experienced people are usually very keen on sharing their knowledge and help younger people which is something a new entrepreneur should consider. The last thing is said is to consider money as a tool and not more than this, which is a kind of logic that one needs to understand to aim large. He said that people should target as big as possible in order to be big one day.

We concluded the visit by going to his brand new office in which he was supposed to move in a few days after the meeting (cf picture!). Thank you Jérémie for your precious time and good luck with moving everything in your offices!