Simon Zhou
Wine importer
How long have you been in Shanghai?
Since 2005, but I was originally from Shanghai. Between 1990 and 2005, I lived in Christchurch, New Zealand.
What do you do for a living?
I started a wine-import business. I am the sales director at Ruby Red Fine Wines.
How do you spend your free time?
Exploring new eating and drinking places, learning the guqin (a traditional Chinese instrument), and tea tasting. China is experiencing rapid growth. Have you witnessed a lot of changes? More than you can imagine – from the people to the buildings to the culture.
Do you have a favourite spot you would recommend to first-time visitors?
Tian Zi Fang is a great place to hang out, with cafes and small boutique shops in a traditional area. Walk around the back streets of Shanghai, discover new places to eat, and meet people with great stories.
Richard Xavia
Developer and entrepreneur,
Hamilton House
How long have you been in Shanghai?
Seven years in China – three years at the Shanghai restaurant Three on the Bund, two years in Beijing and then four years here creating and launching Hamilton House.
Where do you live?
I live in the Bund; it’s full of Art Deco-style buildings.
Where do you work?
Hamilton House, a French restaurant just off the Bund. It’s in a reinforced concrete heritage architecture building opposite the Shanghai Metropole hotel on Fuzhou Road – a busy, tree-lined street.
What was the building like?
Hamilton House started as a derelict space in May 2007, and was up and running in September of that year, with a clientele of both Chinese and Westerners. In 2008, the restaurant was voted on CondÈ Nast Traveller’s Hot List.
Hannah Churchill
Architect
How did you come to be here?
My husband came over for work during the Olympic period and I joined him a year later. I have been here a year and a half.
What is the best part of your job?
Getting to work on bigger and crazier stuff than you would ever do at home.
What part of the city do you live in?
The French Concession. It’s a great place to live. Very green in the summer with its tree-lined streets. It’s got a good mix of culture – Chinatown vs 1930s colonial.
How do you spend your free time?
Eating, drinking and shopping with a bit of sport (touch rugby) on the side. Socialising with friends is a big part of my life here. Shanghai is great for new bars and restaurants and the shopping is pretty good. Lots of little boutiques.
How have you found it adapting to the culture?
It took a while to feel settled. The language is not so easy to pick up. You need a lot of patience, which I don’t have. It can be frustrating at times getting used to how things are done here. When I first arrived, the whole city was under construction for the Expo. Everything has had a lick of paint and they have put in about 10 new subway lines.
Richard Williams
Spa manager, The Peninsula
What is the best part of your job?
Working for one of the best hotel groups in the world. Helping to create wonderful journeys for people, whether it’s sitting down in my Asian tea lounge or having a thermal treatment.
Where do you live?
My apartment is this gargantuan Art Deco monster originally called The Embankment, on Suzhou Creek. I can be eating xiao long bao – steamed dumplings – as well as market fruits and vegetables on the street right at the apartment entrance, or be at work in seven minutes or at Mr & Mrs Bund in 10.
What
do you do in your free time?
I cycle on Suzhou Creek, which has stunning sights. As well there are visits to restaurants, finding antiques in the French Concession or having two-hour massages for less than 200 yuan ($32).
What about adapting to the culture?
The language issues are huge. GPS on my phone has been the taxi saviour, but I have had rows with drivers. The hardness, compared to the ‘softness’ of Thai culture, for example, is very in your face. Privacy becomes so sacred, as you can imagine, with 20 million people.
What has changed since you arrived?
The mere swiftness to raise Shanghai up for the Expo. It was a construction site 12 months ago – grey and dusty everywhere. The transformation was huge.
Daniel Smith
Cheesemaker
How long have you been in Shanghai?
Four years now – one year with Fonterra and three with Ambrosia (both dairy companies), which presented a fantastic opportunity to design, build and run our own cheese factory.
How did you come to be here?
Being a dairy man, China is where the market growth is, and after some exposure to life in Europe and Melbourne, New Zealand wasn’t so fulfilling anymore.
What is the best part of your job?
The Cheese Factory is an hour out of Shanghai, focusing on fresh products such as sour cream, yoghurt, cottage cheese, and some new niche products like Sichuan Pepper Cheese. Presenting our cheeses to people – and their enthusiasm when they find out it’s made here in Shanghai.
What part of the city do you live in?
I live in Minhang, 30 minutes from the city centre. It’s quiet and we have a house and a garden. It’s new, nicely developed, there are free bikes for locals, a new mall and it’s only five minutes from the Metro.
How have you found it adapting to the culture?
I have failed miserably to grasp the language, but my wife is Chinese so help is a phone call away. I can speak about cheesemaking, taxi directions and not much else. The people are very friendly and helpful.
How long do you think you might stay?
I will be here a while, at least another five years. We want our children to be bilingual.
Jamie Cornell
Shop manager
How long have you been in Shanghai?
Three and half years, but
it feels like yesterday. My sister Bobbie called me at the end of 2006 with news that she had a little Shikumen-style 1930s home. It sounded nostalgic, an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.
What do you do for a living?
I operate Nuzi, a New Zealand concept store filled with gifts, art, furniture, iconic goodies. What is the best part of your job? We get to meet a wide spectrum of people from all over the world – and being surrounded by all my favourite things.
What part of the city do you live in?
Tai Kang Lu. There has been phenomenal change on a daily basis. Shanghai was recently made over for the Expo, and we have an instant new city. People’s attitudes and cultural identity, consumer culture, interest in Western culture, and fashion have all changed. The local style takes some time to notice, but it’s fasinating to observe.
What is your favourite thing to do in the city?
Dining at one of the gazillions of fantastic restaurants with friends; riding around the French Concession on a post-revolutionary-era bike; Tai Kang Lu with
its shopping, cafes and restaurants set
in a charming 1930s Shikumen village;
and our Nuzi home.
