Yesterday, the Chinese government declared that tomorrow, Sunday, would be a national day of mourning. All entertainment events (and if the last few days of mourning are anything to go by, all entertainment) have been cancelled. We have an event tomorrow. Fortunately it is not one of our own and is being paid for by someone else. Unfortunately, the event has to be cancelled, resulting in committed money being lost.
I understand, and commend the fact that the Chinese government is encouraging its citizens to spare thoughts and time for the victims of all the recent natural disasters, particularly the flooding in West China. We genuinely hope that the national day of mourning will draw attention to the plights of those affected and will raise money and charitable donations of food and shelter for the most needy.
But the cancellation of our event got us to thinking – what if we had had a big, self funded festival on this weekend? What if we had pledged multi-million RMB to putting on a two day event and flown in artists, committed sponsors and suppliers etc. to the cause. Well, we would have had to say goodbye to that money, in the process putting our company out of business. I wonder if the Chinese government is compensating any businesses like ours for losses incurred due to cancellation tomorrow. We imagine not.
In a country of huge population and geographical extremes, natural disasters will continue to wreak havoc on a regular basis. There will be many more days of mourning then, putting businesses at risk continuously. Are we being harsh, selfish? Or does the lack of flexibility in these announcements (why did they only give us 48 hours notice??) cause the business community serious harm? Perhaps rather than causing businesses to lose money, it would be better to have a national day of giving, asking businesses to contribute money to the various charitable causes.
Nobody said private business in this country was easy…..