money player

"Bean sprouts?" Dujuan asked in surprise.

“Yes, sprouts are very popular in Paris, and they are very expensive.”

"The French actually like to eat bean sprouts?" Dujuan found it unbelievable.

Xian Yaowen chuckled and said, "You are wrong. It is mainly because Chinese people living in Paris like to eat bean sprouts. Since bean products are not on the French menu, the restaurant owners here more than 20 years ago were clever. They cut off the sprout heads and roots and left only a section of the stem, which they named Jade. The French had never seen it before, so the restaurant could brag about it as much as it wanted. Thus, bean sprouts had a high starting point in Paris.

This is true for bean sprouts, and bamboo shoots are similar.”

Xian Yaowen hugged Du Juan and whispered, "Have you met Jane Patchett?"

"She has been coming to rehearse every day in recent days."

Xian Yaowen nodded slightly, "You models are all tall ones picked from short ones. Compared with other models, your foundation is relatively poor. I predict that the process of soaring to the sky and then fading away will be very fast, which means you won't be able to keep this modeling job for long.

After this press conference, the Grammy model team will not return to Hong Kong and will stay in Paris.

As for you, I have prepared a position for you, the general manager of Kenwalker, but you are not qualified for this position yet, and you have a lot to learn and accumulate. I will help you arrange a study plan, and you have one year to continue learning.

You are my close friend, and you have no right to say "you have a poor foundation and cannot learn". Even if you don't sleep for a year, you have to learn for me according to the progress I set.

Do you understand? "

Du Juan did not reply, but gave Xian Yaowen a determined look.

Xian Yaowen squeezed Du Juan's hand and continued, "After the office space and training grounds here are ready, Grammy will start recruiting a large number of newcomers. Women from the Netherlands, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Norway are all relatively tall, and newcomers will mainly come from them.

In addition to recruiting newcomers, we also need to absorb mature models, famous or not, as long as they meet the Grammy requirements.

Moving and expansion, these two things are enough to keep you busy for half a year. You have five days to consider what to do and what kind of people to hire. After five days, come to me to discuss your difficulties and needs in detail.

Things need to be done and you are responsible for them. These two points are certain. So, if you don’t understand, you don’t understand. If you can’t do something, you can’t do it. Don’t let your mind wander. You are almost a blank sheet of paper. Before you fill it up with strokes, it is not your responsibility to consider everything. First learn how to do things, then think about how to be a person.”

Du Juan smiled and said, "Sir, I will do as you say."

Xian Yaowen chuckled and said, "Some things will change naturally as time goes by and your realm improves. Nothing is permanent. Swear less, deny less, insist more, affirm more, and remember your original intention."

Du Juan shook his head, "I don't quite understand."

"You'll understand later. Have you ever thought about a man?"

"I haven't thought about it. I don't want to."

"Don't suppress your thoughts when you have them. A man may not have any good qualities, but if you don't think about the bad things about him, life will lose a lot of fun. I won't say much, you can adjust yourself slowly."

Xian Yaowen paused and said, "I met Yan Rushuang in Lion City a few days ago. When she was trying to seize the property, she was one step behind and was kicked out. I took her in and prepared to train her to be my close friend.

As for her, she has the nature of a wolf, and may not be tamed. If something happens in the future, I will be ruthless, so don't blame me then."

"If that's the case, she asked for it. I won't blame you, sir."

"Okay." Xian Yaowen nodded and looked at the other models. "I found each of them myself. I won't treat them like treasures or straw. If they can't keep their jobs as models, I will find them new jobs."

Holding Dujuan, he came to a wooden box in a corner and sat down, lighting up his cigar and cigarette.

Xian Yaowen said calmly: "Chinese food first entered the West during the period of selling piglets, the American Gold Rush and the construction of the Central Railroad. It is said that food is the most important thing for the people. Chinese people want to eat hometown food wherever they go. Some smart people even make a fortune by cooking hometown food.

The secret is that when making underwear, which is close-fitting clothing, it is not good to do too much marketing on the clothes themselves, otherwise the promotional slogans will inevitably contain sexual innuendos and obscene words, which will easily lead to boycotts and cause unnecessary trouble.

The best way is to promote people. Whether the clothes are good-looking or not can be seen from the effect of wearing them, without too many words. It is for this reason that there is a Grammy model team, and the number of people needs to continue to grow.

The main job of Grammy models in the future will naturally be to walk on the runway and take photos to promote clothes, but this is only the positive part that can be talked about. Apart from this, the models are carefully selected. In terms of appearance, they are all women among women, and their income is not bad, which is not something that ordinary men can dream of.

In the future, the men who will have affairs with models will only be rich people, politicians, and male celebrities. This fact can lead to a conclusion - models wearing secrets attract the attention of high-quality men, and you can do the same by wearing secrets. "

Xian Yaowen pointed to the button on his suit that was still fastened and said, "It's very uncomfortable, but I can't unbutton it. There's no table in front of me, and it's not nice to have my collar open.

Clothes appeared because primitive people needed to keep warm, just like the Eskimos living in extremely cold areas. If they didn't have warm clothes, they would freeze to death. As for the further function of covering the body and shaming, it was not important to them.

The Eskimos still retain a very primitive tribal way of survival. They follow their prey as they migrate, rarely come into contact with the outside world, and all their marriages and reproductions take place within the tribe. The probability of giving birth to mentally retarded or disabled children is very high.

Therefore, once the Eskimos come into contact with men from outside, they will invite the men to their homes to have sex with their wives in order to improve their bloodline.”

Du Juan was surprised and asked, "Are Eskimos so casual?"

Xian Yaowen waved his hands, "This has nothing to do with being casual, it's just for the reproduction of the tribe, it's a sacred survival issue. If you look closely, it's more sacred than borrowing seeds or adopting children. There are three unfilial acts: not having descendants, and the worst is not having descendants. Most of the time, it's actually for the sake of face.

We won’t go into this topic in depth today, we can expand on it next time. Let’s get back to clothes.”

Taking a puff of cigar, Xian Yaowen continued: "Everyone has a desire for beauty. When a person's living standard reaches a certain stage, having enough food and clothing can be easily achieved, and the role of clothes in keeping warm will be ignored, while the role of beautification will be more valued.

Especially you women, you can endure the heat and cold to be beautiful, and you can pay a lot to have money to buy beautiful clothes.

Based on the analysis of the existing information, in the next ten years, cheongsam will still be the main popular clothing for women in Chinese communities outside the mainland, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Macau. At the same time, as the influence of other popular clothing increases, perhaps one day, cheongsam will eventually withdraw from the mainstream.

When we entered the 18th century, the development speed of Western civilization was obviously faster than that of Eastern civilization. Many of the items we use in our daily lives began with the word "foreign". Based on the principle of "taking what is useful", our cultural knowledge and aesthetics were all influenced by the West.

Take clothes for example, shirts, suits, and many others that I will not list one by one, they are all imported from the West. We have unknowingly integrated into the Western clothing culture, just like King Wuling of Zhao's wearing of the Hu clothing and riding and shooting. Our clothing has become westernized.

No matter how well Mei Lanfang dressed up as a woman, and no matter how much his fans praised him as being more feminine than a woman, he was still not a woman.

This is true for opera and also for Westernized clothing. No matter how Westernized Orientals become, they can never understand Western clothing better than Westerners. Therefore, the future of popular clothing culture is most likely to be guided by the West.

The same goes for your cosmetics for women."

After a pause, Xian Yaowen continued, "In the East, Japan was the first and most thorough Westernizer. The Korean War also gave Japan an opportunity for economic growth. In a few years, Japan will have a good chance of leading the trend of Western-style commodity culture.

Based on this analysis, before Japanese products enter the four places mentioned above in large numbers, there will be a period when there is a market but no goods. This period is the period of huge profits for the informal business model. As long as you are able to get some Japanese products, you can increase the price and sell them abroad. Seize the opportunity and make a fortune. It is not difficult to make enough money to eat and drink for the rest of your life.

The same thing applies if we change "Eastern" to "Western".

This is one of the new jobs I plan to bring to them. When there are signs of success, someone will bring them into the industry and someone will guide them to do it.”

Xian Yaowen took a few puffs of his cigar slowly, leaving time for Du Juan to digest it. Then, he continued, "As I said before, Chinese food was introduced to the United States during the gold rush. The people who opened Chinese restaurants were the smarter Chinese workers among the gold miners. Most of them were not chefs, and at most they were people who could cook decently.

Not to mention the major cuisines... well, it's mainly because the signature dishes of Cantonese cuisine are not cooked properly, and even the home-cooked dishes are a mess. This leads to the fact that the seeds sown by Chinese food in the United States are bad, and it will not bloom any good flowers, let alone bear good fruits.

From the very beginning, the main consumers of Chinese food in the United States were Chinese workers and workers of other ethnic groups. They pursued cheapness and large quantities. To put it bluntly, the initial positioning of Chinese food in the United States was food for the lower class.

The chef who is not a cook has a quick mind. In order to make Chinese food suit the tastes of non-Chinese and to save costs, he invented the method of cooking chop suey. After Li Hongzhang's visit to the United States, in order to promote chop suey, he named it Li Hongzhang Chop Suey.

They succeeded. Li Hongzhang's offal was served in prestigious places and eaten by the upper class, so Chinese food became dog meat, which completely ruined his chance of being served at banquets.

In other words, Chinese food is considered to be very low-grade food in the eyes of Americans, and it is difficult to reverse this image unless all current Chinese restaurants in the United States are closed, Chinese food disappears from the United States for a few years, and then everything starts over again.

This is obviously impossible. Although as far as I know, Chinese restaurants in San Francisco and Chicago whose main customers are not Chinese can achieve an annual turnover of $60,000 to $70,000, I am still not optimistic about the future development of Chinese restaurants in the United States. If you want to make money, you can only rely on hard work.

Chinese food in the United States was brought to the United Kingdom by Chinese workers, while Chinese food in the United Kingdom was brought to the United Kingdom by Chinese sailors. In the beginning, the main customers were sailors and prostitutes doing business near the docks, but now even poor British people also patronize Chinese restaurants.

Like the US, the image of Chinese food in the UK is low-class and cheap, but the influence is not deep enough, and there is a chance to change the image. It’s just that the British are entrenched in Hong Kong, and many people have a deep understanding of Chinese food, so it’s not easy to make up stories. ”

Xian Yaowen put the cigar aside and let it go out naturally. “Compared with the United States and the United Kingdom, Chinese cuisine in France started relatively late, but it got off to a good start.

France, especially Paris, is a culinary powerhouse. French cuisine is at the top of Western dining. There has not been a large influx of Chinese people here, except for the fact that many Chinese workers stayed here to settle down and marry French women due to the labor shortage after the First World War.

Many young and middle-aged French people died during World War I. The hard-working Chinese workers found it easy to earn money during France's post-war reconstruction period, and they lived a relatively good life.

In the late 1910s, the trend of studying abroad began, and many Chinese came to Paris to study. The universities in Paris were mainly concentrated in the Fifth District, also known as the Latin Quarter and the Student District.

Most of the students who come to Paris are from wealthy families, and there are not many who come from poor backgrounds. Their consumption level is quite high. Therefore, the Chinese restaurants that mainly serve them and the Chinese workers nearby have a high positioning.

The best Chinese restaurant in the fifth district is Wanhualou, a Cantonese restaurant, followed by Gonghe and Shuangxing, the former is a Shandong restaurant and the latter is a Baoding restaurant. Others include Zhonghualou, Beiyi Hotel and Mengri Hotel opened by the same owner.

Wanhua Tower was expensive and not everyone dared to enter. All the famous writers who studied in France had been guests there, including Chen Yinke, Hu Shi, Zheng Yuxiu, Zheng Zhenduo, etc., as well as Jiang Menglin who came to Paris for business.

The bean sprouts that I mentioned before that are made into high-end dishes are the masterpiece of Wanhualou. Wanhualou is also the benchmark of Chinese cuisine in France. Many Chinese who want to learn cooking or improve their cooking skills will go to Wanhualou.

The main customers of Gonghe and Shuangxing were the Chinese workers from the north at that time. The shops were small and the food was rough, but a meal was not cheap.

I haven't been to these two restaurants. The reviews come from articles published by literati in newspapers. At that time, literati earned hundreds of dollars a month and were naturally particular about food. What they said was rough might not be really that bad.

In short, in the eyes of Parisians, Chinese food is a high-end cuisine that can be compared with French cuisine, and Cantonese cuisine is the representative of them.

The restaurants I mentioned above did not survive World War II. Currently, there is no high-end Chinese restaurant in Paris, but there is no shortage of consumers for high-end Chinese food here. This is the golden age to open high-end Chinese restaurants and establish French Chinese food standards.

The French Chinese Restaurant Association was established. If you want to open a Chinese restaurant in France, you need the association's approval. The association will assess the level of the chefs and make requirements on the restaurant's size, decoration, and service level. Only if the requirements are met can the restaurant open for business. If you dare to open a restaurant secretly, the consequences will be that the store will be smashed at best and expelled from France at worst.

The high-end standards of French Chinese cuisine cannot be undermined by anyone.

Carrying the banner of high-end Chinese cuisine for a generation, the high-end image of Chinese cuisine in France has been consolidated. In this way, opening a Chinese restaurant in France is not only a way to support a family, but also a way to make a fortune. "

Du Juan looked at the other models and asked, "The other new job that Mr. has prepared for them is to open a Chinese restaurant?"

Xian Yaowen laughed and said: "During the gold rush, there was a Jewish businessman named Levi Strauss who did not follow the crowd to pan for gold. Instead, he opened a grocery store and sold duck cloth work pants, which eventually led to the invention of jeans.

The new job I am preparing for is not to open a Chinese restaurant, and promoting high-end Chinese food is not mainly for business considerations. But in the process of opening a Chinese restaurant to become a good business, you need a very good supplier of food ingredients. Everything must be of high standards, so as to nip the possibility of selling inferior food as good ones in the bud.

Being a food supplier is my new job. It is a golden job. As long as I don’t commit suicide, I can pass it on to my son, who can pass it on to his grandson, and so on.”

Xian Yaowen had just finished speaking when Nicole Kennedy, who was taking a break from a rehearsal, came over and said, "Hi, Adam."

"Hey, sweetheart, are you having fun in Paris?"

"Wow, am I in Paris? I thought this was Hong Kong." (End of this chapter)