Joseph spent the first two days in Shanghai on his own, doing the kind of things that most tourists do; visiting famous landmarks, buying cheap copies of name brand clothing at the silk market, and eating overpriced food at restaurants with English menus. He found, to his surprise, that except for the language on the signs, China was remarkably similar to Europe. Just a few days later he had to revise that statement to say that a small part of central Shanghai is remarkably similar to some major European cities. On the third day he met his first Chinese client.
Miss Huang wanted to visit West Lake in Hangzhou which was apparently very famous in China, even though Joseph had never heard of it before. He had however seen pictures of it in brochures at the hotel and thought it looked nice, so he was happy he would get paid to see it. As instructed, Joseph spent nearly the entire time walking a couple of steps behind Miss Huang while they visited various bridges, parks and temples around the lake. He tried his best not to stray too far from her while also managing to snap a few photos of famous landmarks. It was a bright, sunny day and except for a brief stop for lunch, they spent the whole day outdoors. Despite having the cloud hovering over his head, Joseph still felt hot and sweaty in the humid environment and by the end of the day he was exhausted. He could only imagine what it would be like if the sun was beating down on him the whole time.
The next day Joseph tried to check his social media accounts and only then did he realize that both Twitter and Instagram are banned in China. He did some research on how to get around the block but instead found Sina Weibo, the Chinese alternative to Twitter. Within 30 minutes he had registered an account. On a whim he made a search for Miss Huang and quickly found her. He noticed she had made a sort of impromptu review of his service. She loved having the cloud with her but she was less pleased with Joseph himself; according to her, he wasn’t service minded enough and she really disliked that he asked for extra money to cover the train ticket as they never agreed on that beforehand. Joseph, who had never worked in service before, realized that she was right, if he wanted to make his clients happy he needed to improve. He spent the next hour creating a written agreement clearly stating his terms of service, including a promise to always keep the desired distance from his clients and never stray too far. He posted this to his Sina Weibo profile and sent it out to the clients who had already booked. A few of them wanted to cancel the booking but most of them agreed.
His next client was far easier than Miss Huang. Mrs. Zhang was trying to help her son find a wife, and would spend every saturday standing in one of Shanghai’s most popular parks, showing her son’s photo to every young woman passing by – like an offline dating app, Joseph mused when he read her email. That Saturday he met Mrs. Zhang in the park, found a nearby bench where he could sit, and spent the next hours reading his book or simply watching people pass by, while Mrs. Zhang did her thing – seemingly without much success.
After Mrs. Zhange came Miss Chen and her boyfriend. They were planning to go hiking and wanted Joseph’s cloud with them on the parts of the trail that were out in the open. It was a relatively short and easy trail but Joseph, who wasn’t much of an outdoorsman, came ill prepared. He was wearing his regular clothes and sneakers, and only brought a small bottle of water which he finished far too quickly. Joseph managed, just barely, to keep up on the exposed sections, so when they came back down, Miss Chen and her boyfriend were satisfied. Joseph, on the other hand, was tired and sweaty, his feet were sore and he had a headache from dehydration. He collected his payment then slumped into a Taxi that took him back to his hotel.
He figured there might be more clients planning on hiking so the next day he started preparing. He bought a backpack that came with a special water bladder so you could drink directly from a tube attached to the shoulder strap. He invested in some hiking boots, as well as a set of proper hiking clothes. He then made a big announcement on his Sina Weibo page that he was offering his cloud service for hikers.
Little by little the word spread about Joseph’s service and soon enough he was known all over the Chinese internet as 工具雲人, which he found out roughly translates as “handy cloud man”. He spent that summer traveling all over China, providing clients with shade whenever they needed it. He didn’t earn much from his service but enough to cover his expenses and make a small profit, and since he was able to travel so much and see lots of new places, he really didn’t mind. By the end of the summer however, the amount of bookings started to dwindle; as the weather became colder and the sun less fierce people apparently had less need for his service. By the end of September he was no longer able to cover his expenses and was forced to move back home.
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