Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady (Part 10)
By Emily Ho
Editor’s Note: The author runs an ice-cream parlor on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island. When time allows, she draws caricatures and writes. The following are semi-autobiographical anecdotes blending fact and fiction.
Entrepreneur
The word “entrepreneur”, as applied to Emily, means a lot. At the ice-cream-shop, she performs the following duties:
-- CEO
-- director
-- proprietor
-- owner
-- manager
-- boss
-- adventurer
-- ambassador
-- public-relations person
-- audit-and-finance executive
-- merchandiser
-- interior designer
-- image consultant
-- marketing executive
-- human-resources manager
-- cashier
-- waitress
-- training officer
-- promotions co-ordinator
-- quality-controller/taster
-- security guard
-- childcare worker
-- babysitter
-- painter
-- technician
-- carpenter
-- delivery person
-- agent for central intelligence (among Lamma people)
-- creditor (if regular customers forget their wallets)
-- psychiatrist (if a customer falls out of love)
-- social worker (if she has a teenage helper), and
-- cleaner.
Actually, this long list never ends. New situations, challenges and duties often arise, all thanks to just one ice-cream shop.
‘Face’ Versus ‘Reality’
Emily puts “cleaner” at the bottom of her work list because most shop-owners think it isn’t “prestigious” to do the cleaning yourself. Most Chinese people believe it offers them “no face”.
But Emily’s an exception. She feels alright (although not delighted) to clean the ice-cream shop, including sweeping and mopping the floor. That’s because she regards the shop as almost like a baby. Most parents bathe their own newborns.
Another shop-owner once urged Emily not to clean the floor herself, but to ask her helper or boyfriend to do it. As the proprietor, she’d damage her image by doing the cleaning.
Then being without a helper or a boyfriend, Emily lacked such options. When cleaning, she used to think: “If you don’t have enough money, why worry about image?”
Not everyone thinks like Emily. Her indigenous landlord once asked why she didn’t hire a Filipina domestic helper to clean, like most Hong Kong families do. Emily dismissed the idea because it’s illegal to ask a domestic helper to work in a shop too. Above all, Emily considers herself a law-abiding citizen. Probably she’s the only Hong Kong resident who never has bought a pirated CD or DVD.
Actually, if Emily had the money to hire domestic helpers (their wages might be higher than Emily’s), then she really wouldn’t need to work eight to 10 hours every day of the week.
Coming soon:
Village Gossip Runs Rampant
(more Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady)
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