Little did Jim Spear realise that when he bought a postcard from a Great Wall hawker in the mid-1990s, it would set off a chain of events that, ultimately, would lead to him becoming a property developer, restaurateur and hotelier, employing hundreds.
Spear, a Beijing resident at the time, was taking a friend to see the mainland's top tourist attraction, specifically a section close to Mutianyu village. On the climb back down from the ramparts, Spear, who speaks Putonghua, bought a postcard from a hawker and mentioned casually that he would love to have a house in such a gloriously scenic area. The American businessman politely handed the hawker a name card and thought little more of the encounter until, some weeks later, his wife was puzzled by a phone call from someone claiming to offer information about a village house for lease.
Spear was intrigued by the offer, investigated further and, after much negotiation, agreed to rent a dilapidated property in Mutianyu. He planned to convert it for use as a weekend retreat.
It was the catalyst for a total change of career - and life. Now, some 15 years later, Spear has converted 30 properties to luxury levels of comfort, runs several village restaurants, is about to open a small, eco-friendly hotel and stages peripheral tourism and corporate events. In effect, he has become Mutianyu's chief executive, hiring plumbers, painters, gardeners, chefs and waiters, and ordering vast quantities of fruit and other food from peasant farmers and helping other owners rent out their houses.
Spear is an affable character with the air of a man who can't quite believe his luck - but beneath the avuncular country-farmer appearance of T-shirt, shorts and work boots, there lies a keen corporate mind. He may have stumbled into the venture but long-term success has come about through shrewd deals, astute management and careful book balancing. He has had to deal with peasants and officials looking to make an easy yuan from foreign urbanites, smooth over cultural clashes and avert face-losing scenarios.
'Most of it is not just foreigner and Chinese, it is outsider and local peasant,' explains Spear. 'Rural communities in lots of places share the same characteristics as here. Every tree has an owner. We built our house 15 years ago and the day that we moved in, there was really, really loud banging at the door, so we went out and here was this little wizened old man. It turned out the pear tree outside we thought was ours turned out to be his. We had a Cherokee Jeep parked outside our gate and he said it was compressing the roots of his pear tree. It turned out that if we gave him 100 yuan a year, it wasn't such an issue. My Chinese wife went into histri- onics; she said if she rolled over too easily it would happen again.