Shenzhen

Riding the Kowloon-Canton Railway north through the New Territories to the border with mainland China, I realized that not all of Hong Kong is so incredibly urban and dense. There were actually what looked like suburbs and single family homes in the northern parts of Hong Kong. At the border everyone disembarks and spends the next hour or so in immigration. The family behind me in line looked  Indian. I tried to make small talk, and when I mentioned India the father said "Do I look like I'm from India?!" as if he were astonished. Turns out they're from Australia. "Look," he said to me, pointing at a dark-skinned Indian further back in line..."THAT'S an Indian!"

Once in China I didn't get a good initial look around because it was pouring rain. I wanted to go straight to the hostel and ditch my backpack before exploring. I hoped on the bus that my book told me to take. I was  proud of myself for following along with the bus route by comparing the Chinese characters on the map with the ones outside at the bus stops. An hour later, after driving down a very wide and well-landscaped boulevard lined with tall office and apartment buildings, we got to the theme park district which is where my hostel supposedly was. Turns out I could have gotten there in half the time by taking the new subway!

I wandered around for an hour searching for the elusive youth hostel. It was my first day in mainland China and I was utterly and hopelessly lost. No one spoke a word of English to help me, and even if they had, they probably wouldn't have been able to help, since I concluded that the hostel didn't exist. Eventually, I found a Wal-Mart. In the Wal-Mart I found an American man named Gordon. Gordon offered to show me a "cheap" hotel. Well, it might be cheap by a businessman's standards, but at 300 Yuan ($38) it was hardly cheap by Chinese standards. But I didn't seem to have any other options so I booked a room there. My first night in mainland China would be my most expensive.

In retrospect I didn't really "see" Shenzhen, even though I was there for two days. Shenzhen is a huge city in its own right, and a rival to Hong Kong. It is one of the richest cities in China. It is a new city with little history. My time there was restricted to an area full of theme parks, resorts, luxury hotels, a Wal-Mart supercenter, and a community of Western expats, like Gordon.

One of the theme parks is China in miniature. I didn't go to that one. I went to "Window of the World", which is the whole world in miniature. You walk between countries and continents and see the famous landmarks of the world. Some are actually quite impressive, such as the 1:2 scale Eiffel Tower, while others are more pitiful (1:15 scale Notre Dame). It was pouring rain so there weren't many tourists, and those who were there were all Chinese except for me. In addition to world landmarks, they had "culture" shows featuring dancing by the various peoples of the world, all starring Chinese dancers. In the "African" culture show, for instance, the Chinese dancers were from the southwest and had darker skin. The whole place was rather silly but fun nonetheless.

I also went to Happy Valley theme park. This is more of a traditional theme park with thrill rides and themed areas. They had a "Western" style town (as in the American "West") and a whole themed area based on some vague notion of a romanticized Tibet called "Shangri-La Woods". I figured that said something about the Chinese view of Tibet if it could be turned into an amusement park attraction.

There's a lot more going on in Shenzhen than I had a chance to see. Most of it is probably in factories and board rooms. I did, however, become friends with Gordon, meeting him two nights in a row over coffee and dinner, and thus got a beter idea of what life is like for Americans doing business in China. Gordon has an interesting job. He's an industrial designer, and he is training employees at Lenovo (the Chinese company which just took over IBM's laptop division) to "think outside the box", not just in terms of product design but also along lines of culture, philosophy, globalization, history. He says that Chinese schools don't teach students to think outside the box, so pope like him are brought in. Gordon's teaching method goes far beyond just design. He takes his students on field trips all around the world to gain a global perspective. On the second night I got to meet his protégés over a big, family-style meal.