Best King Prawns ever Dank 'Guānxì'

Saturday, 07.04.2018

We spent the day searching for a new place to live for the next two years. Unfortunately, we haven't found one yet, at least not in terms of housing. However, we were successful in finding a place to eat. On Trip Advisor, we came across a Malaysian restaurant called 'Penang Station 1'. Malaysia? I only know it from Formula 1, can they cook too? That's what I thought, and I think the rest of the Muhsens did too (maybe except for the Formula 1 part). So, off we went. This time, no experiments, just straight down the main street. Here, we discovered a lively, colorful, and diverse Kunshan, very different from what I had imagined. There were smaller and larger parks and green areas, many shops, including a guitar store that I still need to check out! People were dancing to Chinese folk music on the square with the Confucius statue. That's common here and can be seen almost everywhere. We decided to replace the CD with one from Slayer at least once in the next two years. How the Chinese react to this and whether we could run away fast enough will be revealed in this blog at the appropriate time.

Anyway, it took longer than expected to get to the large shopping center at No. 300. We thought the restaurant would be on one of the floors, but it wasn't. It was interesting to ask one of the employees. He didn't speak English and had too strong of an accent for us to understand his Chinese answer 😇. He then went to the receptionist of an English school for children (there is one in every large shopping palace here), but she was too engrossed in her mobile game to give us a proper answer. I don't want to say that it was her English, after all, she works in an English school. It was probably just too late. Meanwhile, my wife was so hungry that she was ready to go to one of those food stalls here in the supermarket. In situations like this (late in the evening, children hungry, wife hungry, everyone tired), you have to weigh carefully when to abandon the mission. Nevertheless, I decided to continue the search. The colleague then asked a few other colleagues and found out where our desired destination was and led the way.

So, we reached 'Penang Station 1'. A small place with three or four tables and colorful decorations from all over the world. It was not busy as the holiday weekend had just ended. Chi, the chef, welcomed us personally. Chi looks like a 'Punk Royal' with a mohawk haircut, wearing shorts and Chuck Taylors. He wears a face mask. However, he had pulled it down in the restaurant so that it only hung around his neck. Chi is Chinese, and his wife is from Malaysia. They met in England, and Chi opened the restaurant for her. He assured us that they regularly fly to Malaysia to get fresh ingredients. By the way, the next day, they would fly to his wife's hometown with the entire staff to celebrate the restaurant's fourth anniversary. Chi took care of us like I have rarely experienced in a restaurant. First, he asked about our preferences, whether seafood or meat, allergies, etc. I had read about his prawns, and as it turned out, that's the chef's specialty. Prawns cooked in butter and milk, served with fried butter foam! A dream! The Malaysians can cook. The sweet chicken with pineapple, the vegetables, and the shrimp egg noodles all had a taste that we had never experienced before.

As I said, there wasn't much going on, so we started talking to Chi. He has been around a bit in his (relatively short) life and has brought something back from everywhere. There's hardware hanging on his walls (license plates, movie posters, etc.), as well as views and wisdom. Part of his family lives in the United States. I mentioned that his attentive service, working hours, and the diligence of many Chinese people reminded me of the USA. It seems that you can achieve something in China through hard work. However, he replied that you primarily need one thing: 'Guānxì', which means relationship. Without 'Guānxì' with the government, you won't get a lease in a good location, or only for one year, and so on. We learned quite a bit about business practices in China. We are curious how much 'Guānxì' we will still need and be able to build.

By the way, there was a cat running around in Chi's restaurant, 'Mr. Underware'. Chi feeds and rescues stray cats, and not to cook them, as some readers might think! The tip went into the box provided for him. I would say we already have some 'Guānxì' with 'Mr. Underware'.