[Decades Club] 20 Years in China Propelled Laurianne Gidrol's Career

By the time this Decades Club is published, Laurianne Gidrol will be in Nigeria, helping to open Wellington College there. This made this Decades Club, not just a profile, but a farewell for someone who we could say was "Made in Shanghai". The premise of Decades Club has always been "those who have seen the city transform, and who have been transformed by it". And as you'll see, China, and specifically Shanghai, transformed Laurianne starting in her 20s, and launched her career to now opening international schools on other continents.

Many of you probably know her. Probably first and foremost, as the "Foodie of Foodies." Literally every chef worth knowing has her WeChat. She's usually a regular somewhere before it's on Dianping. She's also been Marketing & Admissions for Wellington Shanghai since 2013, and she's watched the Qiantan neighborhood materialise out of a dirt lot around her – Wellington was the first building in. Did I mention she's a foodie?

When I asked Laurianne where she wanted to do the interview, she said "oh, where would you like?" I said it could be anywhere... our offices, her home, or somewhere she'd miss the most.

A beat.

"What about Mr & Mrs Bund?"

I made the reservation. Everyone started with salads.

She looks out at Pudong, which is now fifty buildings thick and which in 2003 was basically the Jinmao Tower and the Pearl Tower.

She looks out of MMB's windows..."You wanted afternoon tea, you went to Jinmao you know. That was it back then. That was the landmark. In another 10 years people won't even remember it. And as a student back then, if you wanted a Friday night out, you'd save up to go to this one Italian place… What was it...? Da Marco! That was the only place in town where you could go and feel like you were going out. And now?" She gestures around the M&M Bund dining room. "Now you can do this every single day."

A woman stops at our table. A former Chinese teacher at Wellington, it turns out.

Laurianne lights up.

"I remember you! You used to be the Chinese teacher at Wellington. I thought I recognised you but I wasn't sure." A small flurry of catch-up. A hug. "You are one of the great talents at Wellington – so many languages. Have a lovely weekend. Bye bye."

She turns back, slightly dazzled.

"Sorry, where were we?"

This is what lunch with Laurianne is like. Everywhere you go in Shanghai, someone will know her.

The Arrival, 2003

CNS: Why China? People were going the other direction in 2003, it was SARS around that time.

Laurianne: So, my mum is partly to blame for all of this. You see, I was studying political science in Lyon, because I was planning to do foreign affairs. We had an option at the institute to pick up a third language in the evenings. Arabic, Japanese, or Chinese. My mum said: "Japanese is just a small island. Arabic, I'm not sure. But China. China is going to be the next big thing." I don't know how she knew. I really don't.

I had a cousin already here. I'd done a year of Mandarin. And that was the first year Lyon had set up an exchange with a partner in Shanghai – they needed three students. I put my hand up.

CNS: And your first day?

Laurianne: Disaster. We paid 250 RMB for a taxi from the airport to Hongkou and we got completely taopi'd – scammed, we didn't know any better. Nobody picked us up. We didn't speak the language. Coming from Europe, you just think, okay, well, this must be how it works.

Then I got to the university – Shanghai International Studies University in Hongkou – and found out that unlike France, where you pay rent monthly, here you paid the whole semester upfront. I didn't have anywhere near that kind of cash. No card that could handle it. So I called my cousin – and I mean, someone I hadn't really spoken to in years, a distant cousin. I said: I need help. His wife showed up with 10,000 RMB in a bag. You remember those bags with 10,000 in notes. She went to the bank, withdrew it, walked it over, paid my rent in cash. I still remember her saying: don't worry, just wait a moment, I need to go to the bank. She just did it.

CNS: Welcome to China in 2003!

Laurianne: (laughs) It got stranger for me. My first proper outing was walking to the Carrefour in Hongkou. I spent about three hours in there. Everything in Chinese, no bilingual labels, nothing. I genuinely could not tell if I was buying milk or shampoo. I came out with a few things I hoped were right. And then outside, I bumped into this American woman who'd been in Shanghai two weeks and hadn't seen another foreigner in Hongkou the entire time. It was summer, no students around. When she saw me she basically ran over.

And you know, my English at the time – you know French people, we can read, we can write, but speaking English for us is another thing! She was going full American speed and I was doing my best. That's how we became friends. First non-French friend I ever made.

The Shanghai she landed in had Line 1, Line 2, and Line 3. It had the Jinmao Tower alone on the Pudong skyline, the only thing that counted as a landmark over there. No Didi. No WeChat. No delivery apps. Coffee was not a thing.

"Could you get coffee in 2003?" she asks. "No! And now there are 6,000 coffee shops in Shanghai alone, and people finding their own beans, roasting them. It changed so much. It's not a static city, is it? It's a city that moves all the time. I go back to my hometown and I'm looking at it – what has changed since I left? Nothing. Here I go on holiday for two weeks, I come back and I'm like, where was that building? "

She did a year at SISU, fell hard, went home to Lyon to finish a Master's with a China focus, then came back to Beijing for eight years. Her twenties, basically. It was, she says, the best possible place to do them.

Then in 2013, a connection – a word she prefers over guanxi, because guanxi feels too formal – brought her south again.

Beijing Twenties, Shanghai Thirties

CNS: You basically had a sandwich experience. Shanghai, Beijing, back to Shanghai.

Laurianne: I did my 20s in Beijing and my 30s-plus in Shanghai. I would never switch them. Beijing is culture, arts, music. Everything underground. And when you're in your 20s, you want to try everything. I was at 798 all the time because we had friends there. Yugong Yishan, Gongti before the Olympics, everything changing, everything booming.

And the foreigners in Beijing, they are rooted. They're not come-and-go. They're so involved in the culture, so involved in the city. Shanghai – because of the more commercial side – has a lot more movement. People are here for two, three, four years and then they leave. There aren't that many people who've been here for twenty years. All my close friends have been here twenty years, so you really need to find that group.

CNS: How did Wellington happen?

Laurianne: A friend from the English-speaking media world in Beijing said: I want to introduce you to Joy, she's opening a school in Shanghai and I think you two should talk. Joy is the chair, the founder of the group. She needed someone for marketing and admissions. We talked, and things moved quickly. This is where connection really mattered. I don't always love the word guanxi – it sounds too formal – but you live through connections in China, isn't it? By March 2013 I was working for Wellington Shanghai. Initially from Tianjin – long story. By August I'd moved to Shanghai permanently.

CNS: What did Wellington look like in 2013?

Laurianne: It didn't look like anything. That was the point. They took me to the site – Qiantan, in Pudong – and it was a piece of land. Just dirt. The Oriental Sports Center was there, the media building was there, and everything else was nothing. I was told: this is where Wellington will be, and this entire area will be a new neighborhood.

For the first year I worked out of a small founding office of the Lujiazui Group, who were the developer behind Qiantan. You could look out and see the vision on paper, but putting that together with the empty land was… a stretch. Wellington was the first project. First piece of land. No Didi. Pizza delivery was about the only food option. Taxis were almost impossible to find.

But the Lujiazui Group chairman would come by and ask us: What do you need? What would make you actually want to live here? Cafés, restaurants, parks. He was genuinely listening. And you watch, over 10 years, all of it appear. NYU moves in. The Oriental Sports Center becomes a destination. Families start living there because you don't really need to leave. We grew up alongside it.

Ghost Bars - The Places That Left a Mark

Every city has its ghosts. Laurianne names a few over the plates and I find I'm nodding at all of them, which is a particular pleasure of doing these interviews with people who've been here long enough.

Laurianne: The Hyatt on the Bund brunch. That was my perfect Sunday. Genuinely adult-friendly, no children. Very intimate, small number of covers, food was excellent. You'd walk in and find two or three tables of people you knew, but nobody was making a fuss. It just was. It's open again, but they didn't bring it back. Not the same, anyway. And they got rid of the jacuzzi on the top floor! And then there was the W Shanghai, when it opened.

CNS: And W was a whole other thing. The opening GM at the time, Christian I think, ran that place like it wasn't a hotel at all. It was a destination.

Laurianne: Oh yes exactly. One drink, listening to music, then coming back. So many afternoons there around the pool. More like a modern living experience – parties, music, all of it together. W is still there, but not the same.

And Napa. The wine bar at Bund 22. The couple behind it is now in Singapore with a Michelin star, which tells you everything. Most underrated restaurant in Shanghai when it was open. Incredible food, and a full room-sized wine cellar downstairs... perfect for a date. By the way, the owners of Napa, are still my friends. They now run the fabulous Cellar to Table restaurant here in Shanghai. It's the only place in Shanghai that you can have over 200 bottles of wine BY THE GLASS on the menu.

And then... there was my birthday in 2004. My boyfriend and I went as students to M on the Bund, it was an expensive dinner for us, a real treat. We were on the terrace in May, facing the Pudong skyline. At that time there were maybe two or three buildings over there. I'll remember that evening for the rest of my life.

CNS: You apparently also used to practise Mandarin at what is now IAPM.

Laurianne: (laughs) Yes – and this will mean something to people who were here. IAPM used to be a big imitation market. That whole block. Xiangyang Market was nearby. Every weekend I'd go there and practice what I'd been studying Monday to Friday. First few times, the vendors wouldn't even look at me. Then after six or seven goes you'd pop the price you wanted and feel like an absolute genius. That is how I actually learned Mandarin. Walking around the fake market, trying to buy things.

Then walking along Nanjing East Road – the tea ceremony scams, the art gallery scams where they lock the doors until you pay, well China has really cleaned that up because thankfully you don't see that anymore.

We had to go get a friend out of one of those once. There was a lot happening we were very naive about.

Yannick

CNS: Tell us about, perhaps, one of your strongest memories in Shanghai.

Laurianne goes quiet for a moment.

When she comes back, she's talking about Yannick. Who was – and I realise this is becoming a pattern today – the result of a cold WeChat message. 2013, she'd just moved back from Beijing, knew nobody in Shanghai. WeChat had only just started doing groups. She spotted a stranger who seemed to go out and like football, added him, and typed out something like: Hi, I'm new, I don't know anybody, would you like to meet up?

"And I was like –" she does a small anxious wait-face – "and he gave this massive yes. Just come join us. When I got there he called me and said, by the way, we're doing this, I'm going to this event, do you want to come? That's how I got my circle. The friendliness of people when you're new to a city – it's a gift. You don't think you belong, and then very quickly people make you feel like you do."

They had a standing tradition. January 6, every year, the four of them, Laurianne, Yannick, and two others, would share a Galette des Rois at someone's apartment. Champagne. A Sunday afternoon, quiet. The small rituals expats build.

In May 2020, Yannick passed away in Shanghai. She was the one who handled the paperwork, because she was the only one in the circle who spoke French. It was a whirlwind of visits. The Embassy. The consulate. Then a 3am phone call. She walked out of her apartment with only her passport and went straight to the police. The next day the whole morning at the station, then to the embassy. COVID meant Yannick's family couldn't come to Shanghai, so the cremation was arranged here and the ashes were sent home. Two months of paperwork and translations.

"Every time I walk along Fuxing Road and pass that police station, I think of him," she says. "I try not to linger too long."

She pauses.

"People come and go. You know that going in. You get used to it, and it doesn't stop the experience, it doesn't make you want to leave the city. But you learn that it's not farewell, it's 'see you on the other side'. And you keep those relationships going. That's the gift of having lived here. In Shanghai, you get to choose your family."

"We are family"

CNS: You said that word a lot ... family.

Laurianne: Because we are family. As an expat in Shanghai, your close people are your family. The family you choose. You don't need hundreds of people. You have a handful, and you stand by them like family.

My best friend calls me his "Swiss sister." I'm the young auntie to his children because I've watched them grow up. I met him and his wife through InterNations – this was back in 2013, they were still running – at a food dinner. A Chinese woman, a Hong Kong American guy, at a table at some dinner. That's it. And now his son is getting married next year. I'm coming back for the wedding. I went to his youngest's graduation in France. I am part of the family. That's what this place gives you – the opportunity to connect with people at that depth.

Favorite Shanghai memory

CNS: One memory.

Laurianne: Getting a table of 10 at Ultraviolet for my birthday. It was my second time there. You start at Mr & Mrs Bund, you're taken to a hidden room, and you don't leave until dinner is done. It's not a restaurant really – it's an immersive thing. Food, wine pairings, music, imagery, everything mixed. Three, four hours.

What I loved about that night is what it represents. You take people from totally different backgrounds, sit them at one table, and they become friends just by loving the same thing. Doesn't matter what nationality, what work, how old you are. If you are passionate about the same thing, you find a ground. I have friends twenty years older than me and friends twenty years younger. That dinner was just a perfect example of what this place can be. People still message me about it.

Oh, and yes yes, food was always a big part of my Shanghai life. I know it's not one memory, but being part of the social club Beefsteak & Burgundy Club. It was originally a dining club started in Australia, but they have chapters all over the world, Shanghai having a few. B&B was a massive part of my life in Shanghai, organizing all of those monthly dinners for all those lovely ladies.

That's Shanghai, isn't it? Oh look, dessert has arrived.

Twelve Years at One Place

CNS: International school people move every three, four years. You stayed twelve.

Laurianne: Purpose. The shared values. What Joy created is a genuinely strong community where people are cared for, where they're allowed to be innovative, where they're allowed to make things happen. And there was always something at stake. We were the youngest international school – Harrow came after us – and we had to prove being young didn't mean being less. We had to bring ourselves up alongside SAS and Dulwich very quickly. Going from 300 students to 1,600 in 10 years, alongside Qiantan growing from nothing – that's something I'll always be proud of.

We built a community too. Friends of Wellington have been doing monthly dinners across the city for years now – 30 to 40 people, always a new restaurant. Last one was at Madame Ching. That keeps going.

I'm not leaving the brand. I'm just leaving Shanghai. By a couple thousand kilometres.

Advice for Someone Who Just Got the Contract

Say yes. There's no question.

Download WeChat and Alipay – you can survive anything with those two. Learn some survival Mandarin. Even just enough to break the first barrier. The little things make such a difference. Chinese people are friendly and open. They'll give you credit for trying. Don't be scared of making mistakes – people don't judge. They appreciate the effort."

And please don't stay in your expat circle. Two or three years is long enough to actually immerse. Please do it. Chinese people are friendly and open and they will welcome you into their world.

"Shanghai is a very easy place to live, apart from the language, you have everything you'd have in any major Western capital. I'm going somewhere slightly less easy next. But I've had twenty years of being shown that if you show up and stay curious, it works out, doesn't it?"