September 2000

There is an alley in Guangzhou that is hidden among the high rises and bustle of the richest area in town. Across from the Friendship Store, that bastion of high-priced labels all over China, this unassuming path looks like a dead-end at first glance. But if you had walked down this path in ’96, and turned left at the phone stall that stood there, you could have seen that it continued for some ways. You might not have gone any further than the first cluster of garbage barrows with the stench of decaying food. Or the vermin that grew fat off table scraps might have given you caused to turn back. Those who were brave enough to hurry past these strange sentinels to make the next right would have been rewarded by the sight of a single neon sign, Kathleen’s.

The workman who installed it didn’t read English and having lost the orientation of the letters, tilted the “h” so that it read like a “r.” And so Kathreen’s lit up the doors that welcomed those errant wanderers who persevered down this blind path.

I had built this restaurant not knowing what I was getting myself into. The will it took to make it work remade me in the process. We evolved together, Kathleen’s American Cafe & Bar and I.

It started out as a coffee shop with a home-made counter and chairs. I didn’t read Chinese and lost the rental contract shortly after we opened. Those early months, my “regulars” were the assorted bureau inspectors who would come in multiple numbers and served summons and fines more consistently than the mail carrier. My stomach would knot up each time I saw a uniform walk through the door. “What now?” became my silent prayer.

To save cost, a “second floor” nook was created for a mattress and a dresser. The shower was a drain on kitchen floor with a water-heater over it. I had to wait until the last guest had gone, post a waitress as a guard, before going in to showering among the fryers and the grill. I lived there for ten months.

No one knew the restaurant existed for the first few month. Our lunch crowd was five 7-year old boys who lived in the building upstairs. They would all come and order one peanut-butter sandwich because in 1996, one didn’t see many sandwiches or peanut butter in Guangzhou. My challenge was how to cut it into five even pieces.

Mariam, an American who taught English in one of the local schools found me on a lark. She was thrilled to get a cup of freshly-brewed coffee and passed the tip on to friends. Soon I had a steady stream of teachers who brought in more friends. By then, I could boast a good day with takings of 600 RMB. Someone asked for a beer so a fridge was added. Someone else asked for a hot meal and grilled cheese sandwiches were added. Chefs from the city’s 5-star hotels would stop by to check out this home-made operation they had heard about. One ended up teaching my kitchen guys how to make ground beef for hamburgers and dough for pizza. I found the recipes for pesto sauce and herbal salad dressing from a book.

By the year’s end, Kathleen’s had become an oasis for the small foreign community who yearned for a place with homey food and familiar conversation. The locals came to experience authentic American cooking. We had couches by the window and current magazines by the armload.

From the local amusement park that brought in acts from all over the world, I managed to wrangle a few of them to perform on their days off. So we were the first Cafe & Bar in Guangzhou to showcase a South American Band playing music from the Andes. There were dancers from Tahiti, a troupe from Russia, contortionist from Jamaica and our own lip sync contests made up of clients.

The HASH met there faithfully and the various consulates organized parties. There were the American Consulate Thanksgiving Party and the Canadian Consulate Christmas Party. There too were the British Chamber meetings and Australian Melbourne Cup celebrations. Aspiring musicians who worked as managers and business owners by day would jam away on their sax and guitars at nights. A Nike manager, an Australian diplomat, a German engineer . . . they all came to create their special brand of music at Kathleen’s.

We were a family.

I left Guangzhou two years ago for Shanghai’s wider streets. Like a long-distance relationship, we drifted from a close intimacy to cool monthly visits. At first friends kept in touch, updating me on what’s new around town on every visit. Then most of those familiar faces moved on as well.

Like the baton in a relay race, Kathleen’s address was being passed to another generation of foreign managers and Cantonese diners. But my attention was being pulled elsewhere. The trial departure from Guangzhou had turned into a committed move away. Kathleen’s Mao Ming in Shanghai was creating a family of it’s own.

Last month I made the decision to close Kathleen’s in Guangzhou.

“Closed” in this case is more than a sign on the door. How does one say goodbye to an embodiment of a memory? Here is the pretty bottle I picked up at the ’97 trade fair; used to hold our herbal dressing. There is the mural that has kept guests guessing through the years, “just who is that person?” This is the CD a guest left me so that I could play his favorite songs for diners who will take over his spot. There are old menu covers where we used to have pictures of the staff. Most of them are still with me, asking me to reconsider.

I walk through the doors and I’m greeted by ghosts. Spirits of old friends and the sound of the laughter they left behind. Their stories mixes with mine and the words all get jumbled up in my head, “How long have you been here?” “Where do you call home now?”

Like hungry ghosts they clamor to be fed. They want to be nourished by memories of what used to be. They want to take up space in my future so they will not fade with time. But my path is taking me elsewhere and to travel lightly, I have to let Kathleen’s Guangzhou go.

I have a fantasy that I’m singing in the giant Karoke in the sky. The video is a montage of Kathleen’s Guangzhou – it’s customers and staff through the years. The words that appear on the bottom is a song from a movie I saw years ago that I don’t even remember the name of . . .

“I have a dream of my own
and it’s mine and mine alone . . .
it’s been my friend since I was just a girl.
It has a life, it has a heart,
it has a soul and it’s a part
of everything this woman gives the world.
It’s a big dream . . . big enough to share
Like a rainbow hanging in the air . . .”

To everyone who has ever walked through the doors of Kathleen’s Guangzhou, thank you for making this part of my dream come true.