"Many Chinese people who request a butler from us don't really know how to use one. They may have an idea, from Downton Abbey or whatever, and they think it's a fancy idea to have a butler, but they just don't know how to use them," Kaufmann said.
Kaufmann mentions some clients who use a butler like a waiter - having them stand at the entrance to the home, opening doors, and serving tea, dinner and lunch, and that's about it. "That's just a waste of such a great resource of what a butler is," he said.
This is why apart from courses for future butlers, the academy is also teaching its clients about how a butler can be used, so that they will get the most value out of their investment, he said.
In the meantime, the demand for butlers is developing in the country's second- and third-tier cities. Ren Lei, a trainee at Meiyu Home Services from Zhucheng, a county-level city in Shandong Province, said he was sent here by his boss who asked him to bring what he learned back to Zhucheng's own butler school. "There might not be as many rich people in third-tier cities as in Beijing, but people there are also looking for high-quality home services. I hope what I learn here will help me set a new standard for home services in Zhucheng," he said.
Upstairs, downstairs
Being a butler means one gets to observe, live in and manage - at least to some extent - the houses of China's wealthiest people. This can be a mind-boggling experience for new butlers, who mostly come from small cities or rural counties.
Yang Xuping, director of Meiyu's training department and a former butler, said she was shocked when she first learned how loose her employers were with their cash, back when her career had just started.
"Some employers spent several thousand yuan on children's clothing when they went shopping. It was more than my whole month's salary back then," she said.
Yang enjoys the eye-opening aspect of serving the rich. "Some of the clients' houses are like exhibition halls," she commented. She used to work in a house that was over 2,000 square meters in area, equipped with a swimming pool, and has inspected houses decorated with indoor aquariums, limited edition home appliances and bespoke leather sofa sets that cost up to one million yuan. Rooms filled with vintage wines, antiques and walk-in closets full of designer clothes are common in the homes of the wealthy people.
Liu Yang said during butler training courses, she often takes promising students to Beijing's high-end shopping malls to familiarize themselves with luxury brands and their logos.
"When an employer asks for her Armani coat, they have to at least understand what she's talking about," she said.
Having been in the industry for almost a decade, Yang Xuping now talks about the profession in a calm, reserved manner, but her expression changes when she recalls her days as a butler.
"Compared with being an instructor, I enjoy working as a butler more. It offers me a sense of fulfillment," she said. After she worked for two years as a butler, Liu Yang appointed her to be an instructor for the company and help train future butlers to satisfy the growing number of requests the company receives.
Lines that cannot be crossed
But the job also comes with strict rules that must be followed. Yang said it's important that butlers know the limits of what they can do.
"The clients may treat you as one of their family, but you must have a practical sense of who you are," Yang said. She described a dinner scene as an example. "Although our code of conduct prefers us not to, the client family sometimes insists that we have dinner with them. And they're each having a sea cucumber. What do we do? We have to keep away from these delicacies. We don't eat what we're not in a position to eat, and we don't say what we're not in a position to say."
There are also certain places in the house that even butlers can't enter.
"For example, we usually keep away from rooms where antiques are housed, or rooms where clients worship Buddhas. There are also other very specific household rules - in one family, the client made it a rule that the door to the bedroom and the door to the worshipping room should never be open at the same time."
Kaufmann mentions loyalty and discretion being particularly important for butlers in China. While this is a universal creed, he says Chinese clients voice this concern to them more often, probably because the role of the butler is still not very well known in the country.
"As a butler you know a lot about your employer. It's very important that your employer can trust you, that you're not going to talk about who you work for, and what is going on in the house and all that," he said.
