February 2001

You are standing there before me with bags in both hands. Suitcases, heavy, full of things from times past and promises of the future. I see you there my friend, and I think, I would like to give you this gift. When I first saw it, this thing of beauty, I thought of you. It fits your personality, it fits your style. You would like it.

I offer it to you with a smile, here, a present. But your hands are full. You look at it. You look at the bag in your right hand, then at the bag in your left hand. You hesitate. And then you make up your mind. Slowly – and ever so gently – you put down one of the bags to reach for the gift. There. In order to receive my present, you had to let go of something.

This month, I let go of that’s Shanghai. I held it in my hands and saw my history written there. I looked at my fingerprints on it’s pages: the late nights and early dawns at the computer putting its graphics together when only 4 of us made up the entire staff. I relived the 4 a.m. Lawson runs after 16 straight hours at the office when I would be getting breakfast, or was it lunch, or dinner? Forgotten names on early covers evoked strategy sessions when the very life of the magazine was threatened – and the three partners huddled like stricken parents waiting for the doctor’s verdict of their sick child. I saw the stories I crafted and the events I reported on.

Like a parent measuring the growth of a young child by noting the height on the wall, I could track the growth of that’s Shanghai with its special issues. Here is the one when Fortune 500 came into town. That was the one when we held our first food festival. My life in Shanghai too was defined by the magazine. This was the restaurant where we held our first sales meeting. That was the place where I first thought of leaving the magazine.

I looked at it, I weighed it in my hands, and then I let it go. In letting go, I free my hands to take the next gift that life has to offer.

Those of you who read this column in the September issue knows how hard it was for me to close my restaurant in Guangzhou. That was the first letting go. Today, those of you who live in Shanghai can see a new creation that became possible only after I let Kathleen’s in Guangzhou go. That was the gift.

The gift I will hold after that’s Shanghai is not yet in my hands. I don’t know what it will be. I can only imagine that it will be far more than I can hope, better than I can dream. For my fantasies are limited by my own experience and a limited perspective from one pair of eyes. Life, as I’ve come to live it, has it’s own agendas and surprises. Its gifts are far richer than I can ever wish for.

My one favorite sentence as a writer is not even a classic but a cliché, “one door closes, another door opens.” I have an image of a corridor full of doors on both sides. All of them opening and closing at random. Any given time I am walking out one of these. As I close one door behind me, there are endless others opening up in front. I have but to go through one. The corridor is never confining. It is only the luxury of so many choices that makes me hesitate.

Along with letting the magazine go, I will also take a break from writing this column. If the editor still lets me, maybe you will still see traces of my pen (or email address) from time to time as the inspiration hit. But this back page will be given over to other gifts for you. Enjoy it.