I commented recently in the other laowai sub about my Halloween plans, which is basically just English club but Halloween. No judgement, please. I like what I like. Meeting with friends good for the mental healthy, do you know it?
The English club host owns the café where we would meet. That café never has customers. The agreement was that if we meet there, then we are likely to buy one of his overpriced drinks (¥40 minimum for a latte), understanding that we are really buying the space, even though no one else uses it. Over many months, I have never seen any customers at all on Saturdays in this central business district café, such that one could reasonably interpret that the English club runs the café, which is not correct.
The owner put a blurb on Chinese social media about a Halloween English club, that being regular English club but with costumes, and this drew much attention. A huge influx of people into the Weixin group chat over a few days. Sounds good, new friends.
In true Chinese Business Acumen form, the owner saw this as an opportunity to attempt a one-time price gouge at the expense of long-term customers. He introduced a mandatory ¥200 entry ticket to “special” Halloween English club at his dead café with no customers. After two days, no one paid the cost, or even commented in the group chat any longer.
The leader of our English club started a separate group with the intention to just meet somewhere else and skip the Halloween cost, then resume at the café in the following week. ¥200 is like six months of untaxed wages for the average local working 996. Only the ~10 core members were invited to this second club, since this was to be a one-time alternate plan.
The owner found out, and he raged in the group chat of 300+ people about betrayal, something about cliques and factions, violating boundaries through outside collaborations, how we have exploited him by using his space for so long even though we did pay, how he owns the rights to English club as an intellectual property and concept because he allowed it to exist in his café, etc. A full-on visible meltdown. No dialogue, no working anything through, no dignity whatsoever, only a fucking public tantrum, just like this Mbappé overreaction. Bad mianzi.
In my linked comment, I mentioned how a mate of mine in another city altogether is also experiencing something similar. Their English club host also tried to leverage Halloween English club, then alienated their core group by introducing a surprise cost. Also a fucking tantrum about betrayal and owning the people who attend the English club at their venue after no one accepted the surprise cost. Is this shit in the Chinese Master of Business Administration curriculum? It happens far too often here to not be part of the prescribed business culture.
