SHENZHEN, CHINA
2017-08-15, 18:45, JASON
STAY: Intercontinental Hotel
My brother is an engineer. I have no idea what he actually does, but he does go on business trips in China. When he does, he gets free hotels. He happened to have a business trip in Shenzhen, so Thorin and I tagged along.
I fly into HK from Taiwan and meet my brother in the airport. We cab over from Hong Kong to the Shenzhen border and I pay close attention to the architecture and nature. Cruising along the coastline, I see the skyline slowly light up against the dusky sun. There's a bridge whose cables are lit up; it reminds me strangely of San Francisco. The signs are all in English and Traditional Chinese. As we get closer to the north, and closer to the Shenzhen border, the vegetation changes and there's dense, tall trees that line the roads. It's a different kind of tree than in Singapore, not the deep green tropical brush, but rather a fainter, autumnal tree. Maybe a Eucalyptus. I don't know, I'm not a botanist. As we head even closer to the border, we start seeing random clusters of Chinese families on the side of the road, looking for a taxi to take them up to (presumably) the border. I pay special attention because in just one month I'll be moving to Hong Kong.
We drop off at the border control building. There's loads of people crossing the border; I hear Mandarin and Cantonese. It's not pushy or shovey like one would imagine in their presumptions of China, but it's moving at a steady pace with occasional turbulence around the corners. An auntie squeezing past here, a small child blocking the path. From the hallway connecting Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China, it gets more Chinese. That kind of big, massive marble hallway structurally designed just to house the amount of people passing through. Chinese guards are posted at the entrance. My brother and I hustle into the foreigner line -- considerably shorter than the e-Gates -- and wait in line. When the immigration officer sees me, she looks twice. I bet she's thinking I don't look like I do in my passport picture (bad hair day, 2010.. college days..). Her left lip creases slightly and smiles as she flips through my passport. In it is my UK visa for when I studied there. 2013, not bad hair day, but I was heavier back then. Her lip creases again, and I ask her in Chinese, "What's so funny?" while I return a smile. Big. Mistake.
She maintains her sense of humor, but begins to question me. Where am I from, is this my first time at the Shenzhen crossing, what am I doing in Shenzhen. I answer her in Mandarin. She then asks me if I have a Chinese name since I sound like I'm from Taiwan. Of course I do. She asks me to write it down on the immigration card (what?) and I don't refuse. I write it in 行書 style, a half-cursive script, and she looks at it and blatantly blurts 什麼啊? in a condescending tone -- "What is this???" I apologize for it and clarify my name, and then she lets me pass. The moral of this story is, use my US passport privilege to just speak English. When you expose yourself in Chinese, it gives them an opportunity to attack. "Welcome to China" she says.
From the Futien (福田口) border to the hotel, we have to take a cab. We flag one down and he begins to drive us. We tell him where to go, and we're off. Along the way, I pay attention to his accent. Heavy Rs, with quite a bit of grit to it. The Chinese with strong accents naturally have a hearty character to their voice without doing much. It's not really by nature of being a hearty character, but just the carefreeness, and perhaps roughness, that the voice carries with it. I ask him where he's from and he seems disengaged and mumbles "Hubei" under his breath and then focuses on his driving. His phone is clipped onto a holder hanging from the windshield and throughout the drive he's leaving WeChat messages to his friend. His second phone is clipped on the right, with a navigation system taking us to the Intercontinental.
If one takes a flag-down cab in China, there's a chance he'll be scammed. We pass a toll booth that costs five RMB. I know he'll probably ask for that on the way out. As we approach the hotel, he makes this weird left turn and u-turns in the opposite direction. It's a bit weird, but fine, so he rejoins the freeway in the right direction. But, he then makes the same U-turn again and then begins feigning ignorance. "Eh? Why does the GPS keep making me go this way?" I ask him in a weird rhetorical way, "Is your GPS working correctly? It's pointing us in the wrong direction." He keeps making "eh?" and "Ai!" sounds in his charming accent. I decide to try to ask for a discount on the way out since he clearly did that to get a few bucks. As we head out, I said that he should give us a discount. He says it's not his fault that the GPS brought us that way or wasn't clear with the path. I said I don't care about his GPS, that's his phone and his problem, and we should get a discount. He tries to be gracious in not counting the 5 RMB toll booth (what was previously a surcharge was now a bargaining chip). I reply yeah, that should be a discount, and you should give us more. My brother hands him the money and he doesn't respond to my last request. When he gives the change, he doesn't give a discount, although he's true to his word about not counting the toll. I don't say anything else. He feigns ignorance one more time in not hearing me. I just let out a "cheh!" noise and then walk out of the cab and we pick up our luggage. It's a bit annoying, but the fare had he not looped us around would be 40 RMB. The fare after looping us was 60 RMB. 20 RMB is about 3 USD. Forget the principle of the matter, or even the actual dollar quantum. We all have to make a living.
Chinese cities are anonymous. They're like replicated silos. Since the land is so big, getting around is considerably more difficult than by walking. Around our area, 華僑城, called Overseas Chinese Town (OCT from now on), there's not much going on at first. My brother and I walk outside and there's the MRT station. We see some random people walking around in business suits coming back from work, and then we see some aunties taking care of children in an open area. There's a scatter of young kids too, probably all mid twenties, hanging around. Most of the food places are closed except for a McDonalds so my brother and I walk in. We get a Matcha flavored ice cream and a basic McChicken, and to my left there is a business meeting going on between a family of people. Among the group there is a little girl, playing with her Happy Meal toy while the adults discuss away, all in their business attire.
Chinese cities are constructed so efficiently, that any time needed for a city to develop 'flavor' or 'culture' doesn't have time to set in. These culturally, hollow silos become a kind of city all in their own via that process. In doing so, the genesis of Chinese cities, albeit nonstandard, produce culture. Shenzhen was Deng Xiaoping's experiment city. After the Cultural Revolution, he opened up China and picked Shenzhen as one of his special Economic Zones which would not be under regulation like other Chinese cities (aka, be more capitalist). It's no coincidence that Shenzhen is located right next to Hong Kong, and has its own stock exchange and vibrant start-up culture. It's no coincidence that it has drawn international attention and foreign investment since its conception in 1980. The Chinese have a way of moving slowly but surely, and at a steady pace. It's a pragmatic, tactical strategy for global development. Shenzhen -- one of the "Special Economic Zones" -- naturally became a migrant town. The cab driver who tricked us was from Hebei. When we checked in, I heard a heavy northern Chinese accent, and the cleaning lady on our floor was from Sichuan. I like that image, the quick construction of the city and population from various peoples in China. The lady who worked at the McDonalds was from somewhere else, I couldn't place her accent.
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When Thorin arrived the next day, we took a stroll around OCT and took some pictures. There's a nice local wet-market (selling raw meats, fish) and some food stalls. In true Shenzhen fashion, the Chongqing food stall (Southwest China) is next to the Dongbei (Northeast) food stall. All around OCT, there are the Chinese version of Deliveroos and UberEats people sitting around, waiting for business. What's quite popular in Shenzhen are also "food streets." In our mind, these would be outdoor markets with people selling local street foods. However, when we reached one via the MRT, what it was, was instead a small underground mall with food from various parts of China. It was sanitized version of a food street, but we were also pleasantly surprised that it wasn't what it was. I also liked that. Something about Chinese cities kept us on our feet. If not, they at least challenged what I understood about food streets. All around are these Uber Eats people as well, and they're waiting in the lines, waiting to make deliveries, and whizzing by the narrow hallways to get to where they need in order to get money.
At night, after my brother finishes work, we go to 白石, Baishi (white rock), which is another food street. This time, we know what to expect. But, (again) to our surprise, it actually is a more legitimate food street. There are no street stalls or anything -- everything's tucked into restaurants -- but the food is cheap and it's absolutely buzzing. Down the main street, you have a selection of Southern Chinese, Western Chinese, and all kinds of Eastern Chinese (Shanghai, Jiangsu) food. If you turn down the odd road, you'll see some actual small food stalls selling various pastries and snacks. By chance, we tuck down a small alley populated only by air conditioning units and a massive array of wires. When we come out the other end, we come across some smaller restaurants as well as some outdoor seating tables. We sit down and look at the menu. The lady serving us is dressed up. She has a lace shirt hanging over a tanktop shirt, with her bosom pushed out and on display. Her make up is drawn on neatly, and she sports a nice head of freshly dyed blonde hair. She smiles at us and is friendly, not too pushy with our food order, but gently encouraging for us to consume more. We discuss for a bit, and decide to order the goose, some beers, and some raw veggies. The goose takes about 40 minutes to prepare, and the cook -- a man of few words -- does it for us right in front of us. He lights the pot on fire and lets it stew for a bit while he's stood on the side having a smoke. This happens for about 20 minutes. Afterwards, he jumps in and opens the pot, stirs it, explains to us what to do, and goes back to looking at his phone. He tell us to wait a bit more. And then 20 minutes later, it's ready.
I also liked that image, the fact that they couldn't be bothered to cook it in the back and so they'd done it right in front of us. We had a full fucking goose, and we saw all parts of the preparation, aside from the meat preparation. We downed a few local beers. At our nearby table, a table of men with their shirts either lifted up to right under the breast or shirtless, were chatting. Further out, random children were doing the random things that children do. There parents seemed nowhere in sight. There was something weird about it -- the cross section of people that were there. There weren't families eating together, but clusters of people that I had no idea how they were related. But, there we were, two Asian guys and one white guy. We were also a strange pairing (in China), but amidst the Shenzhen scene, we blended in. No one batted an eyelid. Thorin spoke some Chinese and, still, no reaction. The total bill for three people was 168 RMB - approximately 25 US Dollars. It was a good meal.
In a faux-city like Shenzhen, what is there for entertainment? 锦绣中华民俗村, Splended China Folk Village. The park consists of two parts: the people part (China Folk Village), and the landscape part (Splendid China). The former is a collection and caracaturization of the 56 ethnic groups in China, and the latter is a scale-down miniature park, displaying famous Chinese landmarks in the (easy) consumption form of amusement park. As with many spots in China, you go in assuming you be there for about X hours, and instead stay for Y hours, much longer than X, because of how big it is. But, I mean I should have seen that coming. How am I supposed to ingest all 56 ethnic groups of China only in X time? It was foolish of me to think that was possible.
The China Folk Village is laid out into clusters of ethnic groups. There's one path throughout the park and along the way for each group, there is a building of the traditional ethnic folk, and probalby one or two people wearing the traditional costumes. When they walk around, it's a bit strange. For a few seconds it almost feels as if you are wandering in some ethnic village. But, when you zoom out, you realize where you are -- there are 55 more ethnic groups out there to see. There is a small description of what the ethnic group do for clothing, for food, etc. It's a very watered down description that's generic. After visiting the place, all I remember is that a lot of the ethnic minority groups really "enjoy hot soups" among other foods (vegetables). All of them have scheduled performances at some minute past the hour, and are supposed to give you some insight into the cultural practices of the ethnic minorities. We had the joy of sitting in on one group's performance which consisted of some hunting ritual, and then inviting two participating members in to learn how the ritual was done.
Afterwards, we went to sit and have a meal of supposed Beijing food. The waiters were all there trying to get us to sit down and order some food, the first sign that it may not be good (I'm convinced that touters need to do this either because their food is either more expensive, not as good, or both). What it turned out to be was just overpriced amusement park food that didn't taste of much. However, I can't really say I've ever had amusement park Chinese food until that day. So, I took it for what it was -- an experience. X hours for us was 2 hours, and we ended up spending about 5 hours at this park -- our Y. So, by the time we had gone to Splendid China, the collection of Chinese monuments, we were exhausted. It was about 32 degrees of bright, nonstop sun, too. Still, we went, and saw things like the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, a miniature collection of Terracotta Warriors, etc. Some gardens, some caves. My favorite exhibit was a small garden of trees that were given and planted by various developing countries in Africa and the Pacific.
I know, based on the description it sounds awful. Both the Ethnic Village and the Chinese Landscape Park. But, the fact that this sort of thing even exists must say something interesting about how the Chinese consume culture, and how they appreciate culture. First, I've heard many Chinese folks say that "China has 56 ethnic groups" as if this was rote memorized at some point in the education system. They're proud of it, and will attest that although these people have their own culture, they are still ultimately Chinese -- a reference I assume to their nationality, although to the layman it may mean ethnically, which is not the case here. Second, it says something about what the Chinese are willing to go pay and see. For domestic Chinese folk, it may be the only chance they get to see these ethnic groups due to mobility and money. Same goes for their famous landmarks that they've heard so much about growing up. And, I do have to say, as a theme it's very interesting. Amusement parks in the U.S. are just roller coasters, or have some fantasy to them, such as the Harry Potter World or Disney (Dollywood is an exception). Content wise, I'd say that Chinese has an upper hand here. They've managed to display and commercialize their people to an amusement park form. And, to give them credit, the ethnic folks at the Ethnic Village were actually authentic ethnic people. I had the chance to talk to three of them and all of them were bona-fide ethnic folk from a specific region. It felt a bit like a zoo, peering into culture that way. The clusters of ethnic villages, the performances, the authentic ethnic people. When I thought about it more though, the only missing ethnic group of the 56 was the Han ethnic group, of which a majority Chinese folk belong to. By nature of having millions of Han Chinese folk buy into the park, it actually completes the display of 56 ethnic groups in China. We (Han folk) are part of the zoo. And, we are no different than the animals from which we stared at and absorbed 'culture.'
That wasn't it. The best amusement park out there was supposedly "Window to the World" - 世界之窗 - which was like Splendid China, but a condensated miniature park of the world's landscapes. We clearly did not have enough time for that, so we went in at night and bought the night price ticket to watch the performance and look at the pretty, lit up Eiffel-Tower which anchored the park. We thought the night view would've been pretty what with the lights and all. The performance looked pretty good, so we took a seat. Rain started pouring. Immediately, our view of the stage became that of umbrellas. As the rain was coming down more heavily and we had 30 minutes to go, we decided to duck into the park and do some sight-seeing beforehand.
We walk about 5 minutes into the park, and see a small hall of people that look pretty rowdy. It almost appears as a food court or something, so we take a look at the sign, and it appropriately says "Caesar's Palace." We head in thinking we'll get something to eat, but instead go in to find that Caesar's Palace was in fact hosting an international beer festival with a performance coming up soon. Beer girls try to tout me some Pabst Blue Ribbon beer (PBR), which in Southern California was known as the ultimate hipster drink. You could buy the stuff and get smashed at at the cheap price of 2 USD per pitcher, and maybe a bit of your dignity. I insisted that I wanted to try a local, Chinese beer ("Why would you want that? It's an international beer festival!"). We settle for a bottle of special Qingdao beer, and sit down, awaiting the performance.
There's a kid at the next table over, can't be more than 7 or 8, who's downing a small glass of what looks like Carlberg. A boy ahead of the pack, with such a sophisticated taste. Right next to us, sharing a table, are three guys who can't be more than 14 or 15. I ask them out of curiosity how old they are without trying to sound too judgy, and they shyly reply "Uh... 17." So, they were probably 15. They chatted away mercilessly in Cantonese and drank the local, cheap beer. When I asked them about how the taste is, as we were considering buying some, they offered us one of their bottles. I politely refused -- how could I take a bottle of their beer? Drinking while 15, and cheap beer at that is a growing up experience. But, before the performance finished, they had left, and they'd left the bottle of beer untouched. I couldn't let it go to waste.
The performance was an odd mix of first a music performance, then a DJ set, and then finally two MCs who were hosting a live show. Because this was Window to the World, neither of any of these was an ordinary performance. In fact, even before we'd sat down, I had asked the beer girls what the performance entailed, and they couldn't even give me a straight answer. "Um.. it's... just a bunch of things. It's really 鬧, nao." Nao is loosely translated to rowdy.
The music performers were people from China, and two people from Africa (black Africans). The Chinese folk sang about 3 songs, and at the end the Africans sang one song, but all were on stage for the entire performance. At this point, what started off as one Qingdao beer ended up being our ordering couple of bottles of that cheap Chinese Beer that the young kids next to us were drinking. So, while the music started going, so did we. I was being obnoxious, and the beer girls found it mildly amusing -- they entertained my crassness. A few young girls who had clearly done some make up had also taken a seat next to us and were enjoying not only the music performance but my brother, Thorin, and me being loud. When the performance was over, the two black folks walked by our table and I -- feeling loose -- asked them where they were from and they said, "South Africa."
The next act, the DJ set, consisted of a white girl wearing a Chicago Bulls Jersey standing on stage playing electronic music for about half an hour. There wasn't really anything special, except for the fact that maybe it was a white girl with a Bulls jersey. She introduced the two MCs and they came out wearing similar suits. They looked like twins. I couldn't even tell you what the show as about, really, but all I can remember is that they would say something, everyone would laugh, and then they would down a bottle of beer on stage. They did that about three times, trying to get the crowd more pumped for the night. At this point, we were off our faces. What was bottles of beer ended up being pitchers. But, it was a great time, not only for us, but for the children at the table next to us -- one of them had passed out.
I never knew Caesar's Palace could be so fun.
What happened next was us going back to the original Eiffel Tower, and then walking around it in a drunken state. We took a few pictures (they came out all blurry, look below). That was an oddly sobering experience, climbing the Chinese Eiffel Tower and taking pictures of random things that caught my eye. The Arc de Triomphe was about 100 meters away so we visited that as well. In the end, we maybe only peeked through the peephole of the Window to the World, but I'll never forget my time there and the company. We made it as far as Ancient Rome, had a quick roundabout trip to France, all while in the comforts of Shenzhen, China.
