About Kathleen Lau   I came to China in the early 90s much like many of those early ex-pats - with no clear idea of why I came, and only the lure of adventure keeping me here. I was awed by the vastness of this country, the density of its population and finally cowed by speed of which it was moving into the 21st century. I chose Guangzhou as my first city of residence. Shopping for food I recognized meant paying US$4 for a stick of butter at the Garden Hotel Deli. Good coffee could not be found and bad coffee cost US$5 a cup and you had to put up with stiff hotel service. To make my first salad, I rinsed the vegetables with tap water and added tofu from the wet market, uncooked. I was sick for three days. I missed eating the food I liked, using the products I knew, and reading English. To pass the time and earn enough to pay rent, I taught English. Students in those days were working professionals who worked in joint-venture companies (colleges had not begun bringing in native English teachers). Instead of questions about language, they asked about American culture. Foreign TV programming had only just started coming into the mainland and pirated American movies barely existed. I thought the best way to illustrate American culture was to open a coffee shop. In 1996, I opened the first privately-owned American/western cafe in Guangzhou. It was called Kathleen's. But my Chinese students did not drink coffee (nor any other Cantonese I knew!), so I added a home stove and put spaghetti on the menu. My lunch rush was five little boys from the apartment upstairs who managed to cough up the 10rmb for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The challenge was cutting it into five equal parts. Soon, even they stopped coming. Then one day, Marylin walked through the door. She was one of the Canadian teachers of an exclusive grammar school preparing Chinese 8-year olds for a future at Harvard - the first of its kind. She liked the coffee and spread the word. Kathleen's did not succeed in bringing coffee to the Chinese masses, but it did become the expat oasis of its time. Foreign managers and top executives running international firms would drop in. In time, they started to ask questions about where to find turkeys for Thanksgiving, how to get an English speaking piano teacher, or is there a good dental clinic. I decided to collect all of this information and print it up. In June 1997, I wrote Clueless in Guangzhou from my living room. It was the in-house "newsletter" for Kathleen's. I printed 3,000 copies of the first issue. Within a year, we were printing 10,000 copies per issue. By 1998, many of my clients were moving their offices to Shanghai. So in early 1998, I came to Shanghai to see what the commotion was all about. The team for Clueless in Guangzhou published the first issue of our Shanghai magazine in July, 1998. We called this magazine iSH - in Shanghai. After a few issues we changed the name to that's Shanghai. Many of Kathleen's Guangzhou clients had also moved to Shanghai. And so in 1999, Kathleen's Mao Ming was opened. In 2000, KABB (Kathleen's American Bistro Bar) at Xintiandi also opened. Changing priorities convinced me to sell all my interests in those restaurants and magazines to my business partners. In 2001 I left China for a break (see February 2001 "My Space" stories in this site). After two years, my first book, Riding the Dragon: A Practical Guide to Living in Shanghai was published. In February 2004, Kathleen's 5 was opened in the rooftop of the historic Shanghai Art Museum. It is the biggest project I have ever done. In many ways, my personal growth have mirrored that of Shanghai's. Being a part of this city's spectacular and speedy climb - from an undeveloped city with no street lights to having the newest infrastructure of any international city - have allowed me to stretch my own horizons. As, I am sure, it has been the case for you. For all who have set foot in this city, for a day or a lifetime, we are fellow travelers, sharing the 15 minutes of fame with one the China's most stunning achievements. Enjoy the moment.