35. Suburban Adventures. By Felix Kraemer

35. Suburban Adventures. By Felix Kraemer

Hi there! I am Felix from Germany and my China adventure began 10 years ago.

In 2012, I was invited by a professor from Xiamen University to teach design workshops here for second year students. When I came to China first, I travelled with my German friend David. We traveled through China for a good four weeks, and then we landed in Xiamen where we stayed.

10 years ago, Xiamen was kind of blooming, in the sense that it was seen as a very creative, and a little bit romantic place. There were couples traveling to Xiamen to walk along the beach. In the Zengcuo’an area, there were lots of indie concerts from small Chinese bands, and then paddle boarding started. There was a small beach resort there called Daring Duck, which had water sports facilities, a restaurant, a bar, and cozy areas to chill. That business was just starting, so we could go sailing and paddle boarding, and chill near Huangdao Road, with all those picturesque palm trees.

As for my name — as you may know — many foreigners adopt a Chinese name so that it is easier to blend in with the locals. Some foreign names have translations or transliterations into Chinese. Sometimes, if they don’t, it’s usually language teachers or local friends who help foreigners choose a name. For David it was easy, but that was not the case for me. The story behind my Chinese name goes like this: people couldn’t pronounce Felix, and there is no name that has a similar meaning to Felix (from Latin, “the lucky one, the happy one”). I was with my wife, May, and we used a phone app where you put in all your data, when you were born, and it will spit out a few names suggestions. There was a list of around 40 names or so, so we chose the one that was close to the original meaning. And I thought it was kind of cool that people call me 达乐, meaning “happy.” Then, I adopted my wife’s family name 韩 (Han).

I met my wife May at a bar I had opened with my friend. It was called Amoy Brau, and it was located on Daxue Road near the University campus. She came with a friend of hers. She doesn’t even drink beer, or alcohol for that matter. I cooked some Western dishes for her, and somehow we ended up together. Probably because she was helping a great deal setting up Fat Fat Beer Horse brewery at the time, and we spent a lot of time together. I love that she’s a very natural girl. She accepts me for who I am, and that’s actually the point.

Currently, we live in Xiang’an district, a more rural area of Xiamen, on the inland. We moved here because I had had enough of working in a bar. There was too much drinking involved, and too much of the same kind of vibe all the time… Then I was kind of free, and an Italian friend of mine, Lisa, who lived in Xiang’an campus, had rented an old house and opened some kind of café. I helped her to decorate it a little bit, and that’s how I learned there were some old houses available for rent, and that there were international and local students in that area.

Then, a local friend said to me: “Hey, let’s have a few beers in Xiang’an district. I have an old house there that can be rented out,” and I thought that it sounded like a good plan.

I spent a night in the old stone house and I thought it was so relaxing, and so cool. So I asked May, my wife, “What do you think, should we go to the countryside and experiment a little bit? Maybe open a bar or a restaurant?” And May said, “Sounds good to me, I work online so I’m fine with that.” I did a bit of research about what students here would like to eat and they said as long as there’s cheese on it, it’s all good. So I thought, pizza sounds good. There’s lots of cheese on it. Then I started doing research about pizza, like which flours and what cheese to use. I bought some stuff, and actually, the house I was renting already had a kitchen built, with an oven, so it was perfect.

Then, step by step, I bought more things, and people started coming. In the first year, we had so many international students. We had Thai students coming often, so I asked them to teach us how to cook their local delicacies, to cater to the international students. The idea was to build a place for everyone to feel welcome in Xiang’an. A home away from home, which is still our slogan.

Every month, the Yellow Stone House got better and better, so it gave me confidence that I’m doing the right thing. Now, the international students are basically gone, and I’ve realized that I have to make more dishes to cater to both international and local friends. We have turned into a family restaurant. Lots of people from the surrounding area come with their kids, who love spaghetti, sausage, pork knuckle, and all our other specialties. This is how we built our home in Xiamen and a quite successful restaurant in Xiang’an district.

 

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