Free The Hotel on the Roof of the World by Alec le Sueur Page B

out immediately and had decided not to take the customary rest to acclimatise. ‘We can rest when we come back,’ joked Dave as he charged off to the headquarters of the Tibet Mountaineering Association to check on the final arrangements.
    It is said that a successful climb on Everest is as much to do with luck as mountaineering skills, and while no one was questioning Greg and Dave’s capabilities, their luck was certainly running very thin.
    Dave returned an hour later with the news that the Chinese Mountaineering Association had forgotten to inform their Tibetan counterparts, the Tibet Mountaineering Association (TMA), of the delay with the permit. Quite understandably, the TMA had assumed that the climb was cancelled and had already been out partying with the fully paid-up deposit and proceeds from the sale of the equipment that Greg and Dave had sent in advance.
    The porters had all been sent back to their villages. Tang Chong, the manager of TMA, had decided that there was only one thing for it; the TMA would hold a banquet for Greg and Dave (naturally to be charged to the Canadians’ expenses at a later date), in order to honour their arrival in Lhasa and cover up any bad feelings that may have been caused. Tang Chong had promised that the expedition would start off in ‘a few days’, when he had recovered the equipment and found new porters.
    â€˜It is always like this when you deal with those people,’ said a friendly Tibetan voice in perfect English. The words had come from the smartest Tibetan I had met so far who was now walking towards us across the lobby. A stocky man in his early fifties with a winning smile, a good suit and well-groomed hair that all seemed to be growing upwards.
    He looked at Greg and Dave. His smile disappeared as he spoke to them. ‘Go away and deal with it yourselves, it is not our problem.’
    Well, perhaps not quite as friendly as I had first thought. Greg and Dave, exhausted from their day of frustration, didn’t bother to answer. They trudged off to their rooms to make phone calls.
    Harry rushed across the lobby to introduce me to the Tibetan.
    â€˜Alec, here is Mr Jig Me,’ he whispered urgently in my ear as Jig Me glared behind us at the reception desk. ‘You know, the DGM. Head of Party A. ’
    â€˜I know who you are,’ said Mr Jig Me, turning to face me. ‘Welcome to our hotel. Tashi delai .’
    He walked over to a receptionist and shouted at her in Tibetan. The lobby cleared of all the local staff who did not have a good reason to be there.
    As Jig Me disappeared down the corridor Harry explained the bizarre system of management that exists in all the foreign hotels of Communist countries. ‘There is a Party A and a Party B . We are Party B ; the foreigners. They are Party A ; the locals. They watch us all the time. They know who we are, where we are, what we are doing, who we are with and even what we are doing with who we are with.’
    The words of warning of the Vice President in Hong Kong echoed through my mind.
    Although I had been cautioned of the Big Brother aspect of Party A, no one had told me about the Party system of management. It is not commonly encountered in management text books and nothing in my training or past experience had prepared me for Communist management – Party style.
    Party B managers are not permitted to make decisions without the consent of Party A managers, and Party A managers may not take any decisions without permission from Party B. Each Party is dependent on the other and tied down by mind-boggling bureaucracy and endless rounds of meetings.
    Party A control their side of hotel through a series of assistants, officially called ‘deputies’, who are assigned to each of the expatriate managers. Every week the deputies report to the head of what is known in local Communist terms as the unit . The head of the Lhasa hotel unit being Mr Jig Me: Commander in Chief of