Shaking up the Flower Park, the evening after the competition win. I am not allowed to busk in the park, the first time I got through one song before the grumpy park policeman told me to move on, then the nice park policeman said OK to a spot near where this video was taken, but the grumpy one turned up and told me to move again, so I moved onto the normally quiet footpath across the fence. The nice guy put some money in my case, but along came grumpy again. Having experienced no resistance so far he tried again to shoo me away, but Ive learned an odd thing about China; the person with the loudest voice is assumed to have the power, so I got loud and pointed at him and across the fence, showing him the line where his power ended, and pointed at the footpath saying you are there and I am here, and he smiled and even shook my hand later when he saw that old and young all enjoying the fun. Its not like NZ where raising the voice means theres a fight coming. All Chinese understand this, its not considered rude. Last night I had a difficult meeting with Mr Wang, Ive confirmed a very well paid show on a night he has an unconfirmed show, 3 weeks away. With Sophia translating for about half an hour he tried to get me to cancel, I stayed calm, but he began to raise his voice. Sophia and I had already discussed his style of last minute gigs, which is fine if Im street performing, but will work less well as we start to confirm pubs and parties. As he got louder, she warmed up nicely in response and he began to realise that Xu Xiao Ni is more than my assistant, fiercely advocating that he start to confirm shows himself. We might have a problem with my manager, too early to be sure, but he told us to cancel the holiday to Malapascua island next week, and is currently learning who is the boss and who is the manager. When he mentioned breach of contract Sophia went at him, telling him that its clearly stated in the contract that as long as I inform him of time off he may not interfere. For 10 minutes I was out of the conversation as she accused him of not working hard enough and basing his strategy on me being always available, that the two of us are now approaching bars and unless he kicks ass he will find this happening more and more. She explained how I used a wall planner in NZ, and expect to work 6 weeks ahead, he replied that Chinese do not work that way. She named some big stars and retorted that in general musicians who have bar gigs in Shanghai will need to know a few weeks out if someone has a private party, that he has not provided me with enough work so now we are just going out and finding it ourselves, that my career is my life, and for the large commission he asked for he must also win the competition as best manager. Shake him up baby!
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 22:40:09 +0000
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