Been there, doing that

British restaurant entrepreneur helps turn a ramshackle alley into a thriving business scene

Restaurateur Will Yorke says finding good English-speaking staff in China's service industry is an unceasing endeavor. [Feng Yongbin / China Daily]

Education was the last thing on Will Yorke's mind when he first came to China as a student in 1997. But the 36-year-old Briton did learn an important lesson - Beijing is a land of bizarre opportunity.

"Opportunities come wherever you are, but for me they came easier in China, often by chance," Yorke says.

The former carbon-trading, kungfu teaching Disc Jockey (DJ) - though friends say they've never seen him do them all at once - finally settled down as a restaurateur in 2006 after opening Vineyard Caf European restaurant and blazing the trail for one of the capital's up-and-coming streets.

Much before he could claim success, Yorke was exploring one of China's rapidly maturing cities and accruing a vast array of quirky titles.

After a one-year stint at the Renmin University of China in 1997 - the reason behind Yorke's initial jump across the pond - the vagabond returned to London where he quickly became bored.

"I wasn't inspired by the whole concept in England, I was more interested in Asia. I didn't have what I'd call a 'vocational' job where I could work as soon as I graduated and wasn't interested in finding something in an office," he says.

Left with a working knowledge of Mandarin, the bank account of a student and no real desire to get a "traditional" job back home, Yorke returned to China in 1999 following a phone call from a friend offering him a well-paid DJ position.

The idea of entering Beijing's fledgling party circle as a DJ earning 13,000 yuan (1,413 euros) a month during an era when karaoke bars were still the only real form of entertainment was a cool alternative to anything else he had going on, Yorke says.

But the job ended after a month, with the company unable to sustain business.

Undeterred, Yorke pulled together friends from his university days and formed his own DJ company, becoming one of the first to plant the seeds for the Beijing's now vibrant clubbing community.

"There wasn't anything like it in the city at that time. At first it was pretty basic, we'd go to the few bars in the city and deck them out with a sound system and some simple decorations," he says.

"But it was difficult because the Chinese didn't really have a clue what we were doing. We'd start to play our music and everyone would just stand around not really knowing what to do with themselves or how to react."

For five years, Yorke spent his weekends getting wild and banging out bass-ridden tracks for groups of mostly clueless Chinese club-goers.

While his weekend job remained stable, the jobs he held during the workweek positions were numerous and diverse at best.

With his first side-gig as a stage production manager for a local music festival, Yorke began acting as a liaison for Western acts performing in China.