A Sorjourn into China

One of the more recent benefits to my job in Hong Kong is the acquisition of a multi entry visa into China. I will visit Shanghai several times in the next few months and obviously make the most of my visit to that fast changing city. But meanwhile I thought I would hop across the border between Hong Kong and Shenzan and see how the other half live. Despite Hong Kong technically belonging to China it is a still a separate administrative region (SAR) and visas are required to enter the mainland, even for Hong Kong residents.

Shenzan is a new town. It has grown in less than thirty years from a small agricultural town to a metropolis and model city for the People's Democratic Republic. I can only assume that the Chinese saw the separation of Hong Kong from Great Britain as inevitable and the far sighted central committee thought fit to develop the border area for easy trade access to the west and therefore the expansion of China. In 1992 Deng Xiaoping, who was responsible for bringing China out of the woes of the Cultural Revolution into its present day economic force, made a famous speech in Shenzan where he declared 'Poverty is not Socialism; to get rich is glorious'. Deng died in 1997 at the grand old age of 92, which was a little to soon to see his prediction come true, at least for some. I think there are several million living in China today who either wish for the old days, or wonder where why they didn't make it on the band waggon.

Anyway it is still China so yesterday I decided to have a little adventure and set the alarm for an early start. I caught the bus to the MTR railway at Tseun Wan where I boarded the train to Prince Edward and changed to the Kwun Tong line for the short hop to Kowloon Tong. Here the East Rail line goes to the border at either Lo Wo or Huanggang. I choose Lo Wo for no particular reason. The journey took just over two hours, and I have since found out there is a quicker way from the Gold Coast by going to Tuen Mun and catching mini bus to Sheung Shui, but that is for next time.

I love border crossings, especially new ones, where there is unpredictability of the outcome. I knew this time wouldn't be an issue because I had the visa, a valid passport and hundreds of others seemed to be doing the same thing! Nevertheless I was cautious and watched what everybody was doing. First step was to leave Hong Kong and I am always impressed with the way the Hong Kong Residents Card works. It leaves the UK in the 20th century of technology, and whilst the British Government agonise and debate the rights and wrongs of ID cards, Hong Kong have a great success with their card and finger print identity that processes you out of the country in seconds. That was the easy bit done.

There followed what is best described as a convergence of people into a relatively narrow passageway towards the Chinese border. I think normally this 'funnel' would adequately cope with hundreds of people at a time, but the emergence of pig flu has brought with it an extra step in the no man's land between the countries. Since a case of swine fever was confirmed in Hong Kong on Friday, there has been a proliferation in the use of face masks. Personally I doubt whether the masks are effective in preventing germs spreading from the wearer, nor are they any use in preventing the wearer from inhaling the annoying and lethal bug H1N1. Nevertheless the face mask is almost part of the national costume in Hong Kong and the pig cold is a fantastic excuse to dig out the old mask and wear it with pride. However, wearing a mask or not, everybody was required to fill out a declaration that we weren't feeling dizzy, had a runny nose or had fainted in the last seven days. We had to enter name, address and phone number and sign it. How this stops the spread of the bugs I don't know, but the Hong Kong citizens met the challenge with gusto and chaotic scenes broke out as the realisation dawned on each departing passenger that the form was compulsory. The problem was a shortage of pens. There was either a big group with one pen between, a small group who each had a pen but were in a hurry, or individuals like me who didn't either have a pen or knew anybody who could lend me one. The good news was the authorities recognised the issue and set up a line where the penless could get assistance, the bad news was the queue stretched further back than they anticipated and almost stopped people from coming out of the Hong Kong border control points. For a moment the air was tense as the 'jobs worth' border control clerk shouted at the queue and queue shouted back. All of this was in Chinese and of course I was blissfully above whatever was going on.

Twenty minutes later I joined the throng of queues waiting to hand the form into the other border control guards whose task it was to collect the useless declarations. Fortunately the lines moved quickly enough but it was interesting to watch how the Chinese deal with queues. As a patient Englishman I am happy to join a queue on two conditions; one, it is moving quickly enough, two, everybody takes their turn and doesn't jump in front of me. Especially me! Sadly this last rule is lost on all Chinese who will wriggle and worm their way through to the front whilst somehow I end up further back from where I started. I have learnt to join them, and the great thing is nobody cares, especially the old ladies. Give as good as you get and progress blossoms like a daffodil in Spring time.

The border guard had a problem with my useless form. It isn't so useless after all, because he questioned where I had been in the last seven days. When I said Hong Kong he looked at me with that border guard disbelieving look in his eye. Carefully watching if his right hand was moving towards his Smith and Wesson Magnum firearm I quickly produced my ID card and I was through.

Next hurdle to clear was passing through the Chinese border. More immigration cards and more queues specially set up for 'Foreigners'. After the form filling, with pens provided this time, and another line, in which the queue jumpers from India showed off their perfected technique, I was declared 'fit for purpose' and the formalities were completed. I walked straight up to empty booth marked 'Special Needs', well by this time I thought I 'needed something special', and the lovely Chinese police lady stamped my passport and at last I was in!

From leaving the apartment to entering China it took three hours, the last hour spent travelling all of fifty yards!

So what do I do now in this wonderful city of mainland China. On leaving the border control I found myself in a huge pedestrian esplanade leading into the main part of the town. I was approached by the usual touts wanting to take me a shopping experience, and other things I will leave to your imagination. But I was intent on seeing as much as possible. I didn't have a map so I relied on the position of the sun and the small hills to west of the station as my landmark.

Just 30 years ago Shenzan was a small agricultural town

To be honest there isn't all that much to see in terms of tourist sights like museums, buildings and so on. I was interested in looking at the differences in life between this town and Hong Kong. The way people go about their business, prices, what is for sale? Where people live, what they eat, how they deal with pollution, waste, traffic. There was a lot to look at.

Downtown Shenzan

Definitely prices are cheaper and I splashed out on and Adidas running T shirt for 2GBP. It is obvious everybody loves shopping and the markets were heaving with humanity. I grew weary of that and found a street cafe where I lunched on generous helpings of rice, fish, beef and two veg for the equivalent of 80 pence in the UK. It was tasty too!

Universal shopping

There is hardly anything in English so looking at shops to try and work out what it is can be hard work. Asking for directions is useless so I found myself constantly remembering where I thought I was in relation to the station. That didn't work either, so I gave up and opened my mind.

This 'free the mind' approach led me into a working class estate where I was made welcome enough, but it was obvious not many foreigners ventured in these parts. It was a bit of an eye opener with many fairly tall apartment blocks about twenty stories high but barely a gap to walk through between them. What struck me was that the windows from one building were about one metre away from the building opposite. Washing was hanging from many windows adding to the black and dingy atmosphere. In many of these alley ways were temporary kitchens and right in the middle of these blocks I found small shops selling household items. It was a dark world and reminded me of the 'City of Darkness' that was once Kowloon City in Hong Kong. (Note: I am compiling a blog on this fascinating lost city for Hong Kong, but if you google 'City of Darkness' you will get a feel for the subject). The streets were over flowing with life, from children playing, men playing cards, women chatting. There were shops everywhere selling everything from clapped out computers to engineering spares; from bakeries to clothes shops. None of them looked particularly inviting but I noticed an abundance of hairdressers. Asia has a fascination for its hair but Shenzen must have the highest ratio of hairdressing salons per head of population (forgive the pun).

Back to back living in Shenzan

I think you can judge differences between cultures through the simple act of a haircut. When I am in the mood I like to put my trust in a local barber just for the fun of it. I have had haircuts in many countries from rural Laos and Thailand to The USA, Canada and as of yesterday, China.

I decided on a fairly decent looking shop in the middle of the estate. They couldn't speak English, but it was fairly obvious what I wanted. I was seated in the chair and a small towel tucked into my T shirt. A girl of twenty something was assigned to wash my head and giggled at the foreigner and his foreign hair, or in my case lack of it. I had a shampoo where lots of soap was lathered up on my scalp and water sparsely added, in what is called a dry shampoo. This went on for ten minutes with a sublime scalp massage. I transferred to the sink and when the shampoo was washed out I was ready for a cut. The male barber executed the style exactly as I wanted it, despite no English being understood (a number 2 razor cut to make me look mean and tough). After that another rinse was followed by a towel dry, and that was it. I had no idea how much this luxury experience was going to cost, so imagine my surprise when the cashier charged me 15 yuan - the equivalent to 1.50GBP. Now that's what I call value for money. I was made very welcome and there were lots of 'bye byes' as I left. The saving on Hong Kong prices nearly paid for my trip!

I wandered round aimlessly observing life, and although I only saw a handful of westerners, there was no animosity directed to me and I wasn't challenged or made to feel uncomfortable. There is no reason to, but sometimes this type of voyeurism can be met with antagonism.

After all the walking I succumbed to my first ever foot massage, and I instantly decided I had missed out on this for far too long. I will revisit next time I go to Shenzen. It cost the equivalent of 3GBP for over an hour's intensive pounding and pummeling on my tired legs. I had earned this from the tough walk on Friday and the day's wandering round this city. As hit the streets again my legs were rejuvenated and I made my way to the border, which actually was a bit harder then planned; mainly because my most important navigational aid, the sun, was hidden by a sudden onset of thick cloud. Luckily I met someone who could speak English and he was delighted to strike up a conversation and, actually be understood as well as giving important instructions about my route. He got left and right mixed up, but with some animated sign language we overcame that mistake and I am sure he will remember right from left next time.

The return back to Hong Kong was less hectic than the arrival, but I still had to fill in the useless form for Hong Kong's obsession with pig bugs.

It took two hours to get back to Gold Coast but I had enjoyed a excellent day out. Next week I am going to Shanghai. It is a hard job but someone has to do it.