Zhuang Songlie, or Jimmy Zhuang is the owner of a famous café company based in Beijing, and his business has a very poetic name-Sculpting in Time. 

Two of his current three outlets are situated near university complexes in Beijing, and the other on the beautiful Fragrant Hills in the city's Northwestern outskirts. Though the number of his coffee shops falls far short of competitors like Starbucks, they are never short of customers and are frequented by nearby college students, young people and intellectual types.

A: Life in China visited one of his coffee shops situated by the Beijing Institute of Technology where we talked with Jimmy about his life and work here in Beijing. Shen Ting spills the beans.

The café by the Beijing Institute of Technology is his third to bear the name Sculpting in Time; the name comes from Soviet treatise on cinema by director Andrei Tarkovsky. Jimmy used it to name his coffee shop, because it implies the recording of the passing of time, leaving different traces on one's life.

And just as indicated in the name of the coffee shop, many people have sculpted a certain period of their time here in his café. If you pay a visit you can find traces of different people, especially the young with dreams, who come here for a cup of coffee, or just a cosy rest. Sitting at a wooden table on the second floor, Jimmy smiles and says the spirit of his café is to let people express themselves freely and to give them some creative space.

Ten years ago, Jimmy came to Beijing to study film directing at the Beijing Film Academy, the country's major cradle for movie directors and shining film stars. Armed mostly with a zest for film direction, Jimmy had almost no idea what Beijing would look like before he came here.

"I had never imagined what Beijing would look like before I came here. I watched TV and got to know some news about the mainland. I remembered I saw the trial of the notorious Gang of Four after the Cultural Revolution on TV. And another impressive thing about the mainland was a sea of the blue-those blue uniforms people used to wear in the 80s. But when I came here in 1993, I found it was a different picture. After I graduated from college and got married, and also established my career here in Beijing, I think I have become part of the local society."

Talking about the process of settling into the local environment, Jimmy admits that there were some difficulties and misunderstandings at first. But later, he came to realize it was because of the different backgrounds of him and everyone around him in the mainland. But despite these ordeals, he would like to recall the past ten years in a positive way.

"I have too many things to recall. But there are two basic things that I would like to mention most: One is that at any rate I finished college at the Beijing Film Academy. The second is that I have done something I want, which is to have opened this café. Both are the things I love to do-involving elements of movies and coffee or coffee-shops."

Majoring in film direction at college, Jimmy says he was unsure about his role in life not having gone into movies. But later, he came to look at it more positively.

"I studied movies, so if I can use the logic of movie direction to do something, that's not a such bad thing after all. For instance, when I designed my coffee shop or do other things like organizing competitions, I would bring some movie production skills into play, be it performance, an artsy setting, recording, whatever-all is about looking at a matter in a more comprehensive way. And I found it is fun. I design almost all the coffee shops-the overall layout and nearly everything inside."

Now his coffee shops are already six years old. So is his marriage! His wife, Li Ruofan, is from central China's Hunan Province. They met eight years ago during a trip to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the country's northwest. Falling in love with each other almost at first sight, they also fell in love with the tranquil, beautiful and magnificent natural landscapes of Xinjiang. Combing this love with a passion for coffee, they later decided to open a homely coffee shop with books, music and movies-later to become Sculpting in Time. He once admitted that his coffee shop is their child, getting parental love from both.

His first coffee shop was very small, but quite a cozy warm place to go to have a cup of coffee or reading books or watching movies. As time went by, the special services of the coffee shop and its unique style began to attract more and more customers. Now he has established his own company with three outlets, and he is planning to set up more. In the meantime, being a resident of Beijing for more than ten years, he is also delighted to have witnessed the changes in Beijing during the past decade.

"I have a friend who is from Singapore and had once studied Chinese at the renowned Peking University. He recently came back to Beijing and was totally astonished to see the Zhongguancun Hightech Zone. Within a period of just four years, Zhongguancun is no longer what it used to be. You know, four years ago, it was a Zhongguancun of white poplars. And now it has grown into the country's Silicon Valley. He couldn't recognize it at all, and was completely astounded. He wondered how this place could change so much!"

Although Zhuang Songlie has a happy family, a successful career and many friends here on the mainland, he says homesickness is something that he cannot overcome, living far away from his parents.

"Sometimes, I can be very homesick, missing my parents dearly, and I feel like talking to them now and then."

Jimmy says he can frequently go back to Taiwan for a visit. Just a few weeks ago, he went back to Taiwan to see his parents ahead of the traditional Chinese lunar New Year. But his only headache is that he has to make a stop-over in Tokyo, or Seoul or Hong Kong before boarding a plane taking him home, because there is no-direct flight from Beijing to Taipei for the time being.

Often traveling back and forth across the Taiwan Straits, he occasionally can't help but explain what life is like on the mainland to people back on the island province and vice versa.

"To tell you the truth, people back in my hometown hold some prejudice towards the mainland, for example, they think things are undeveloped and just not satisfactory. But as far as I can, I explain to them why there is such a thing here on the mainland. And I would tell them that if you don't go to see it yourself, say like staying there for five or ten years, you won't know exactly how people there think and behave. For example, I have been here on the mainland for ten years, I gradually got to understand why people here have certain ideas and characteristics. But actually I never intend to explain anything to anyone either from Beijing or Taiwan, because you can never explain completely. The thing is one can never know the truth without probing it personally."

Jimmy says he now has a lot of friends also from Taiwan who are either studying or working here in Beijing. And more and more people from his hometown are coming to the mainland because mainland offers opportunities for their development.

"After all, people across the straits share the same ancestors and have the same roots."

(China Today February 2, 2004)