Somehow two weeks have passed in what feels like one and I wonder where life is going, the answer no doubt lying in the increasing amount of email, travel and concentration on the company; finding myself on Xmas eve in Beijing realising that this western tradition is becoming a part of Chinese popular culture. Last week I went to Shanghai and understood finally why Chinese appear to have an inbuilt anxiety below the surface ppearance of inscrutability. Considered to be the New York of the East, Shanghai lays 1 ½ hours flight from Beijing. On Monday morning Ben and I headed for the China Banker’s Club on Pudong by subway at 0800 to avoid the traffic. The platform was awash with a shoal of office workers flapping and gasping their gills on the trains which carry them into the mainstream of Shanghai working life on Puxi, west of the river. We let 5 trains pass before heading to take a taxi. 30 minutes of waiting for a taxi had us back on the platform which looked like a fish market after the main catch has been sold. In the hyper human race that is Shanghai there are attendants on the platform shoveling passengers onto the train, tucking coat tails through closed carriage doors. A sign on the platform instructs people not to jump onto the rails, as if a sign would be enough to sooth the suicidal commuter. In a nation of 1.4 billion there is an apprehension that if you don’t fight you will be left behind. If you don’t fight to get on, one of your choices is to jump instead, but that too will be frowned upon by the authorities. Finally after 11 months of arriving China I feel as though I am getting my affairs with all the authorities in order. I abandoned my plans for administering our own social welfare payments and tax submissions, wishing only that I had done this at the outset. It is an indication of my own anxiety about there not being enough money to go around, that I have elected to save money where thrift has proven to be costly. I read once that people and companies find a level at which they are comfortable – and going beyond that is difficult and the reason why an entrepreneur is often not good at expanding a business beyond their immediate sphere of influence. In order to expand I have been thinking a lot about the financial part of the business, but it has finally dawned on me that it is not the money but the people that I need – a simple realization which had me pouring through the resumes of people that applied for jobs with EASTWEST. I always wonder how people decide what jobs for which they should apply, or even if they do decide or simply hit the send button on anything available that day. Sifting resumes is like panning for gold – the glittering personality is embedded deep in silt and I pray that the cost of extraction is worthwhile. I am not the only person praying this Xmas eve in China. A timely report in the China Daily notes that over 40 million copies of the Bible have been distributed in China since the 1980’s, over 2.5 printed million annually. The first bible appeared 1,500 years ago and was translated into Chinese by Robert Morrison (1782-1834) in 1815 in Macau. Xmas services are being held in the few churches but also in consecrated offices, in which I personally find it hard to feel very spiritual. Meanwhile the Chinese retailers have discovered the purchasing pull of Santa and impotence of the parents who become enslaved to their children’s Christmas demands. Shops have cardboard Santas and fake Xmas trees are sold on street corners, although I noticed that the British High Commissioner’s residence has a real needle dropping tree. While kids in Beijing will not have a white Xmas, more of a grey one actually, the Shunde district government of Foshan, Guangdong province in southern China, has applied to enter the Guinness Book of Records for a 20m high snowman, endowed with a Pinocchio proud 1.5m nose. In Hangzhou, Santa Claus will be handing out gifts to singles at a party held in a cave once inhabited by Yuelao, the spirit of marriage. Offices are still open on Xmas day and Boxing Day, which does dampen the spirit of the season, but most expatriates have left town and we are at the beginning of the Asian humped holiday season. As Xmas and New Year wind down there is a period of 5 weeks before Chinese New Year, which starts 18th February. I have arranged to hold a ‘waifs & strays’ Xmas lunch with my friend Russ and 10 others – we have bought a turkey and will find a work around the fact that we couldn’t buy most of the normal ingredients that one would find on the Xmas table, including Crackers, Paxo gravy and stuffing. I spent today buying more furniture in Gaobeidian and enjoying being on Chaoyang Lu watching Beijing go about its business. Sitting here on the eve of Xmas thinking about how such a western tradition is making its way into popular culture, I wonder if Santa is thinking about the opportunities that lie in China – a great place to outsource Santa’s helpers, but also a place to beware of the uncomfortably small chimneys in the hutong. Note: Santa photo from "SpicedFish", a Shanghai-based Flickr contributor.