Chapter 69 A FORAY INTO CHINA

Kennedy had not chosen a good time to cross the border. Hundreds of

thousands of people were expected to cross the border each day during the

four day Autumn Festival, the most important holiday in the Chinese

calendar after their New Year. That day the traffic peaked with nearly eight

hundred thousand on the road into or out of Hong Kong.

Pat revelled in the idea of being an anonymous European traveller in the Chinese

throng. He felt it like a unique experience, as though he was some kind of an

adventurer, a modern day Marco Polo, entering a strange and incomprehensible

foreign world. That weekend hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents were

heading for Shenzhen, a Chinese Special Administrative Region, and Canton, and

some eight hundred thousand mainlanders were heading in the opposite direction

to Hong Kong.

Equipped with his passport, visa and an overnight bag Pat had made his way to

the Hung Hom MTR East Rail Line station, a short walk from his hotel, where he

took the metro in the direction of Lo Wu, a journey of about forty minutes.

Kennedy, unlike Fitzwilliams, who would not be seen dead on the underground,

was not averse to using public transport, it offered him a view of the real world, the

world unseen by those who travelled first class or in chauffeur driven limousines.

The MTR surprised him, by its cleanliness, modernity, and apparent efficiency, in

comparison to the antiquated District and suffocating Piccadilly lines he used in

London.

On leaving Hung Hom there were few passengers, but as the distance from downtown Hong Kong increased and the border crossing approached, more and more

passengers piled on, loaded with bags, presents and foodstuffs. He had been

forewarned the trains would be crowded and had waited until ten in the hope the

rush would have died down. His effort was in vain and in spite of the warning he

was surprised by the crowd.

Arriving at the terminus, he was pushed, shoved and elbowed by the crowd as

they piled off the train and rushed along the platform towards the exit. Pat parked

himself to one side as best he could waiting for the bustle to die down; he was out

of luck, looking to his left another train already pulling into the station. Reluctantly

he joined the throng pressing up the stairway to the footbridge that crossed a

muddy stream, which marked the border between Hong Kong and the rest of

China, and in the direction of the frontier control hall.

He was propelled by the crowd towards immigration, where with some effort he

bifurcated to a channel marked foreigners. First came the Hong Kong passport

control for those departing, then that of the Peoples Republic for arrivals. Twenty

hectic minutes he found himself outside, in front of the Railway station in

Shenzhen. He was in China, and for the first time.

Finding his way to the metro station and after puzzling over the route map, he

took the Luobao Line to the Convention and Exhibition Center station, a short walk

from the Ritz-Carlton on Fuhua San Road. If he liked to rub shoulders with the

crowd he did not like sharing their hotels, as for their restaurants his cast iron

stomach was his passport to culinary adventure.

It was midday and being in no particular hurry Kennedy armed with a city guide

headed for the Mixc shopping mall, which seemed a good starting point for his tour

of discovery. The greatest surprise was Shenzhen itself; apart from the absence of

hills, it was not that different from Hong Kong, newer and brasher, with gridiron

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planning, though with less foreign faces. The pavements were broad and thronged

with people going about their daily business. A closer inspection told him they

were for the most part different from those of Hong Kong, less stylish, more

uncertain of the world around them.

He paused, there was a metal cage on the ground, like a bird cage, but box

shaped, it required a double-take to confirm it contained a very large rat. Its owner

accosted the passers-by with a continuous stream of incomprehensible spiel. In his

hand he held a plastic wire and what looked like a table lamp switch. Seeing

Kennedy’s curiosity he pointed at the rat, then pressed the button, the rodent leapt

violently into the air, as the crowd continued on its way as if nothing had

happened. The panhandler’s trick was to send an electric shock through the animal

in an effort to draw the attention of the indifferent crowd.

Kennedy paused, not knowing whether to be amused or shocked, then continued

his visit marvelling at the roads, traffic, office towers, apartment buildings and

hotels that recalled the familiar images of Shanghai. The giant Mixc shopping mall

in itself was essentially no different from those he had seen in the Hong Kong;

luxury boutiques as far as the eye could see: Cartier, Dior, Louis Vuiton, Prada,

Tiffany & Co and Balenciaga, amidst an incomprehensible kaleidoscope of

Chinese signs, no doubt encouraging shoppers to spend.

How could those millions ― and millions there were ― buy Vuiton handbags

and the like? Shenzhen with a population of eight million had already surpassed

Hong Kong in numbers, a staggering transformation, considering it had been a

small, poor, village, when Mao departed for his Communist heaven. There was no

visible trace of the global financial crisis, and if there was a Chinese bubble in the

making, it was definitely not visible in the Mixc Shopping Mall; the doomsters’

predictions of a Chinese slowdown for 2011 seemed greatly exaggerated.

If anything, Kennedy was a realist when it came to money and everything he had

seen up to now belied the imminent eventuality of a crunch of any kind in China.

Perhaps their banking system was flawed, perhaps there was a mass of bad debt out

there, but given the country’s massive reserves and its single party government, its

leaders would ensure that the right levers were pulled. Deep down Pat, like many

of those who succeeded in life, was an authoritarian and could not help admiring a

system that was unfettered by the kind of endless squabbling of politicians back

home, which inevitably led to the kind of situation in which Britain and many other

Western countries found themselves in.

Kennedy did not linger any longer than was necessary to grasp the message and

after consulting his guide headed for the Hong Fa Temple. That evening after a

visit to Shekou where he ate a reasonably good steak he returned to his hotel for an

early night.

The next morning Pat took a taxi to the Shenzhen Railway Station. There, a highspeed shuttle service departed every ten or fifteen minutes; destination Canton’s

Guangzhou East Station. He was shown aboard the train by a neatly uniformed

hostess and took his place in the first class wagon. Opposite him was a Chinese girl

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engrossed in her iPhone.

As the train pulled out of the station, the girl looked up and was almost surprised

seeing Kennedy, the only European in the wagon. She smiled and placed her phone

on the pull down table.

‘Are you going to Guangzhou?’

‘Yes, Guangzhou East,’ he replied mangling Canton’s Chinese name.

There was a pause.

‘How long does it take?’ pursued Kennedy.

‘About one hour. Where are you from?’

‘Ireland.’

‘Oh. Aierlan.’

Kennedy nodded. The girl was attractive, dressed in a light grey costume, with a

Vuiton brief case and handbag on the seat beside her.

‘Are you on business?’

‘Yes, two or three days, then Shanghai.’

‘I see. What’s your business?’

She doesn’t beat about the bush, thought Kennedy, a little surprised by her

directness.

‘Banking.’

‘Oh.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m going home. To see my family for the Autumn Festival holiday.’

‘Your husband?’

‘No my parents. They live in Guangzhou.’

Kennedy glanced out the window as the dreary landscape marked by factories and

housing developments flew past.

‘What do you do?’ asked Kennedy.

‘I work for a law firm in Hong Kong. We help foreign firms with Chinese

business law.’

‘Is it a good business?’

‘Very good. Chinese law is complicated.

They continued to chat and the girl presented Kennedy with her business card.

‘Lili is my first name, Wu is my family name.’

Kennedy obliged with his own card.

‘Pat Kennedy,’ she said reading his name aloud. ‘INI Banking Group. That’s in

London.’

‘Yes. London, Moscow, Amsterdam, Dublin….’

‘Where are you staying in Guangzhou?’

‘I'm booked at the White Swan Hotel.’

‘That’s nice. Is it your first visit?’

‘Yes, my first visit to China.’

‘Huanying, huanying. That means welcome,’ said Lili.

‘Is it in the centre?

‘There are many centres in Guangzhou. But the White Swan is on the banks of

the Pearl River.’

The hotel was situated in an historic area of the city on an exclusive, which had

once been the home to rich merchants.

‘Where do you live?’

‘In a district called Ersha Dao,’ she replied. Then seeing his blank look added,

‘On the Pearl River, not too far from Shamian Island.’

It meant nothing to Pat.

‘Do you know anybody in Guangzhou?’

‘No. To be honest I’m discovering China.’

‘Oh,’ she said perplexed, wondering why a City banker like Kennedy knew

nothing about her country and what he was doing travelling alone.

Before she could continue the speaker system her train of thought was interrupted

by the announcement they would be arriving in Guangzhou in five minutes.

Kennedy checked his watch surprised at how fast the time had gone. Looking

outside he saw they were already travelling through the suburbs of the city.

‘Are you taking a taxi?’

‘No I’ll take the underground.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, the city is big and complicated. Take a taxi. I’ll show you

where.’

Kennedy nodded in approval.

Lili was quite tall compared to many the girls he had seen in Hong Kong. She

was attractive in a way he was not used to and her directness intrigued him. It was

a pity he couldn’t talk with her more.

She guided him through the crowd and quickly put him in a taxi with instructions

to the driver.

‘Zaijian,’ she said. Then after a pause added: ‘If you’d like me to show you the

city tomorrow I’ll can you a call?’

Kennedy nodded approvingly and waved goodbye as the taxi pulled out in the

traffic.

As Lili had told him the hotel was situated on the banks of the Pearl River and

from his twenty fourth floor suite he had a splendid view over the river and the

south of the sprawling city.

After lunch a quick lunch in the coffee shop he set out for to explore. The hotel

was situated on Shamian Island, clearly a very exclusive residential district dating

from pre-revolutionary days, and visibly it had recovered its past status. The

weather was fine as he strolled along the tree lined streets past elegant town

houses, an obviously very smart restaurant and one or two fashionable boutiques.

Arriving at a river or canal that defined the northern limit of the island, he crossed

a stone bridge to a broad nondescript traffic laden avenue. He checked his map

whilst waiting for the red light, then crossed entering what was obviously a more

ordinary residential area where the architecture consisted of irregular, grimy

unremarkable, rather run-down, buildings and a busy street market.

He wandered through the market stopping at the stalls overflowing with

vegetables, fish, meat and unidentifiable foodstuffs. Then after a left and right he

found himself facing a down-town Holiday Inn next to a clamorous arcade, which

led to what was obviously one of the main shopping areas of Guangzhou, quite

unlike the centre of Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Two or three storey buildings, shops

and eateries of all kinds one after the other, but no flash Kowloon style brand name

boutiques, although he noted many of the more popular brands, such as Adidas and

Benetton, in the windows. A dense crowd of shoppers moved in all directions,

carrying bags, eating carry-outs and sipping sodas. He was a head taller than most,

surrounded by a sea of uniform black heads.

Arriving in a large crowded plaza, where giant screens flashed familiar publicity

spots and newscasts, he spotted a McDonalds, a KFC and other well-known

American fast-food outlets. The façades of the buildings were covered by a wall of

neon lights and illuminations, flashing in a chaotic competition to transmit their

incomprehensible messages to the army of passing consumers.

He found himself in a parallel world; it was a kind of Piccadilly Circus or Times

Square, but at the same time totally different. He went into the McDonalds, joined

the queue of exclusively young people and ordered in English, pointing to pictures

set meals. He sat down to eat and rest his feet. The customers were very young,

totally Westernised in their clothes, fashionably dressed-down, as would one would

expect in a London fast-food outlet, and with the reserve of those gathered at a

watering hole.

Kennedy made his way back to the hotel and flopped down on his. He, like so

many others before him, was dazed by the crowds, the continual movement and the

difference. Hong Kong should have prepared him for his meeting with China, but it

had not, it was too Western. His mind had been prepared for the difference and the

crowds, but what he had not anticipated was the scale and how it was repeated,

first Hong Kong, then Shenzhen and now Guangzhou.

If he drew a circle, less than one hundred miles in diameter around the Pearl

River Delta, not that much bigger than Massachusetts, it would contain Hong

Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Macau, Foshan, Dongguan and other cities. A

megapolis of fifty five million people ― China’s leading economic powerhouse. A

quick check on Wikipedia showed that the GDP of the Province of Guangdong was

well over half of India’s. He wondered how many more cities like those of

Guangdong’s were scattered across China; maybe hundreds.

The economic power of Southern China was nothing new. In the sixteenth

century the Portuguese had described Canton as rich in agriculture and fisheries,

producers of rope, cotton, silks and pearls, possessing iron ore deposits for the

manufacture of pots, nails, arms and metal hardware. Labour was skilled and

abundant, with merchants exporting a profusion of manufactured goods under the

watchful eyes of what was then the world’s most structured system of

administration controlled by powerful mandarins.

Kennedy had travelled across Europe, Russia, the USA, the Caribbean and South

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America, all different yet the same. In China the feeling was that of another world,

a parallel world, the same yet so different.

He dozed off and slept for an hour or more. When he awoke it was dusk and the

lights of the city twinkled beyond the broad river, where boats and barges glided

slowly past transporting their cargoes to and from the South China Sea fifty miles

to the south.

He sat on the edge of the bed, zapped on the television as he wondered what to do

next. His mobile buzzed, he picked it up and checked the number, no name

appeared.

‘Pat Kennedy.’

‘Hello. I hope I’m not disturbing you. It’s Lili. We met on the train.’

‘Oh yes. Hello Lili.’

‘I was wondering what you planned to do tomorrow. Perhaps I could show you

some of the sights of Guangzhou?’

The surprise was complete, then Pat found his voice.

‘Well, I’ve got nothing special planned apart from a little sight-seeing. Yes, that

would be very nice.’

‘Fine, I’ll meet you in the hotel lobby at say eleven. How does that sound?’

‘Great.’

‘So, I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good evening,’ she said and rang off.

Kennedy's pleasure was immense; tomorrow he would have a guide and a pretty

one at that. He bounded off the bed, suddenly feeling hungry. It was time to shower

and explore the hotel’s eating facilities.

Almost two years had passed since the G20 summit in London was convened to

resolve the crisis. ‘Both banks and governments have problems,’ Gordon Brown

had proclaimed. On that point at least he was right, as for finding a solution; he like

every other leader had miserably failed. In the cacophony of proposal and counterproposals, each and every nation with its own specific conundrum, only China

emerged untouched, its exports quickly resuming their brash pre-crisis level.

As far back as Francis could remember, the trade balance between European

nations and China had been, year in year out, hugely in favour of the Chinese. Ever

since China had embarked on its own peculiar version of capitalism and

mercantilism, not one single European leader had raised his voice against the

manifestly grotesque imbalance.

On the other hand, as the crisis grew, China had few qualms when it came to

looking after its own interests. Diversifying its reserves, estimated at two trillion

dollars, by investing in leading US businesses and spreading its risk through a

basket of currencies and triple A euro debt. The country’s sovereign wealth fund,

China Investment Corporation, was buying assets in the UK in a big way,

acquiring infrastructure, utilities, property and businesses.