Teddy Lee is one of the most respected people in Yokohama’s Chinatown. A Yokohama native who graduated from Yokohama International School (YIS), he is the CEO of an extensive family business that includes Rose Hotel Yokohama, the Chungking Szechwan Chinese Restaurant group, and also a line of related packaged food products which are sold nationwide via its online shop. As if running such a complex business weren’t enough, from 2013, he served three two-year terms as chairman of Chinatown Development Association. Somehow, he still finds time for family and playing guitar. These days, however, his thoughts are occupied with how to navigate the changes brought on by the pandemic. In our recent interview, he cites lessons from the past for forging ahead.
Let’s start from the beginning. How did you arrive at this position in your business?
I actually wasn’t interested in the hotel business. After I graduated from YIS, I went to the National Taiwan University where I earned a B.S. in naval architecture engineering. The family business, meanwhile, started out as our Chinese restaurant, which my mother and father launched 61 years ago. They decided to branch into the hotel business, and the year I graduated from university, the hotel was under construction. I wanted to go into ship building, but the industry at that time was in collapse and my parents asked me to come back to help out with the hotel business. That’s how I started. It was originally a Holiday Inn Yokohama, but when the hotel turned 23, we didn’t renew the franchise license and rebranded it Rose Hotel Yokohama. Why rose? The Yokohama City flower is the rose and nobody had registered it as a brand yet. So I own and manage both the hotel and Chungking restaurant, as well as the food packaging business related to the restaurant, which sells dim sum, mooncakes, cup noodles, things like that. We wanted to go into online business and market our brand nationwide. That’s working out well in this pandemic.
Which is harder, running the hotel or restaurant?
Oh the hotel is rough! First of all, the investment is big. Payroll is big. The size of the hotel business is much bigger than the restaurant. The restaurant isn’t 24-hours either.
Your hotel is rather famous. Have you had any famous encounters there?
The former Taiwanese president came and stayed with us. We’ve also had lots of artists who’ve performed at our hotel: Ray Charles, Roberta Flack, artists like that from the golden days.
And you still have performances?
We do. We have Friday night jazz concerts. We restarted again in August after closing for four months due to the pandemic. This particular jazz series all started with one of Prime Minister Abe’s initiatives where he didn’t want people working so late on Fridays. So we launched this Friday evening event. I play some guitar, too, and I asked my sensei, local artist Shiiya Brown, if he and his friends in town could do some gigs. We’ve been doing this for over two years now.
Wow! What a small world! Brown was my guitar sensei, too. He’s wonderful and we’ve previously featured him in the Seasider. Are these shows open to the general public?
Yes, and there’s no table charge, either. We just want locals and hotel guests to enjoy food and drinks with the music. It’s been popular. In September, it will be every Friday from 6pm to 9pm–three 40-minute shows.
Otherwise, Chinatown is a bit quiet these days?
Not a bit. It’s very quiet (laughter).
So the pandemic has been devastating for Chinatown. How are you holding together?
Over 90% of visitors to Chinatown are actually domestic. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, traveling has mostly ceased. Most of our clients now are from within the Kanto metropolitan area. But local guests have always been the ones we treasure. We had a similar experience after the March 11th, 2011 Tohoku earthquake. For a few months, there was nobody, but after Golden Week, locals started returning. They really help local restaurants and businesses. That’s how we got through it. Since then, I’ve been telling all our staff to really connect with local guests–people from Kanagawa, for example. They’re the ones that are going to come back. Inbound tourists come and go. I think we’ve been doing it right. All our room guests are people from Kanagawa, Tokyo, maybe Saitama at the farthest.
So what’s the future of Chinatown the next three to four months?
That’s a good question. We just have to hang on. There will be closures of restaurants–that’s sadly happening right now. As you know, the government subsidy will finish at the end of September, and they haven’t decided if they are going to extend it. Rent is tough. If you don’t own the restaurant building, you have to pay rent. That can be negotiable, but the government is only subsidizing a part of the rent. It’s not enough to last. It’s a disaster for small businesses.
What about 2021? Or the prospect of the Olympics?
Well, we didn’t plan on the Olympics bringing a lot of benefits to Yokohama anyway. Softball was to be hosted here at the stadium and we had fully booked our rooms on those days. There were going to be some soccer matches, too, but everything else was in Tokyo so it didn’t matter much to us. Now, it’s more about living in a world with the coronavirus. We are just going to have to work with this present situation. The vaccine is a key solution, but we don’t know when that’s coming. It’s very hard right now. We can’t see the future.
So what can people do to help?
We all have to get through this. We want visitors to come back to Yokohama’s Chinatown to enjoy all that we have to offer. There’s a keyword right now: microtourism. We target local clients and appeal to them to enjoy our local food and other riches. They don’t need to travel. People can stay close to home–the 20 to 30km range. We don’t envision international clients. That’s not the market we have to engage in. Locals are already here.
Thank you, Teddy, and good luck! (Good luck with the guitar, too)