Gustible - under the rubric of [$_SELF]

I visited China for the first time during the first week of March, 2009. It was a very short, business related trip but I managed to see a tiny part of Shenzhen.

Shenzhen is a large city located in mainland China, a short distance from Hong Kong. Shenzhen is a built city – it has not evolved, it has not grown organically from an ancient settlement. Thirty years ago it was little but a fishing village, as shown in this picture from Newsgd.com

The modern Shenzhen has been purpose built to help China take advantage of the economic powerhouse that is Hong Kong. The city was designated as a Special Economic Zone, and the liberalised economic policies enabled the city to grow in less than thirty years from a fishing village to a metropolis with a population of at least 9 million.

My own experience of Shenzhen impressed me with the sheer scale of the place. The architecture and ambience of the city leads me to describe it as a place to house units of production. Do not misunderstand me – Shenzhen is not unpleasant. The inhabitants do not seem unhappy at all. The streets are wide, I do not find the traffic to be too congested, and above all the city is a lot less noisy than many (if not most) other cities I have visited. (All this from a three day visit….).

Take a look at these pictures:

(I call this one the Shenzhen crotch shot)

Both the pictures were taken from my hotel room (room 1310, Holiday Inn Express, Luohu). Reminds one of a beehive/wine rack/Skynet module kind of thing does it not ? Anyways – a place to store many similar items.

Moving on. Some tips for travelers:

• Taking the ferry from HK airport to Shekou is certainly the easiest way to get from HK to Shenzhen. I paid 220 Hong Kong dollars for the trip – only 30 minutes. You will clear customs once you arrive. Your luggage will follow you, and you will pick it up at the Shekou port.
• Don’t take a car from the port. Walk past and take a taxi. Yes – I know, they don’t speak English. But since you have your hotel name printed out in Chinese (don’t you), just show it to them. They will take you there. For considerably less than the car will. I got taken…
• A taxi in Shenzhen costs 12.5 yuan for meter fall. Thereafter it is 60 cents per 300 meter. (Hope I got this correct…? But it is close enough)
• Look for embarkation area E1 or E2 at Hong Kong airport. The ferry ticket booths are close to them. They take Visa.
• There are two ATMs at the Shekou port – in the embarkation area. Both will give you cash advances against your Visa credit card (also Mastercard).

I managed only to visit Dongmen Commercial Street, and Luohu Commercial City. BOTH are worth a visit. If you arrive by train, you will see Commercial City on your arrival…

But more interesting than Commercial City is Dongmen Commercial Street. Amongst other charms, it boasts the oldest McDonald’s in China. Kultur indeed.
It is worth exploring around Dongmen – good quality clothing, as well as reasonable quality brand counterfeits are to be had at reasonable prices. The crafts market boasts wonderfully entertaining resin artefacts,

and if you want to buy somewhat more valuable items, look for the root carvings in the crafts market – they are truly beautiful – I loved the Buddha figures with the bats roosting on their breasts.
I was most struck by the sheer scale of things in Dongmen – it is not sufficient to have the single floor of a building devoted to a clothing store … all five floors are devoted to clothing. And most illuminating are the four floors devoted exclusively to hairdressing salons. Pictures directly below:

Yes. Four floors of that.
Ah, and lastly – I had the most delectable variation on how Durian is served ever – (caveat – ever, thus far). My understanding (deduced) is that the seed is removed in this variation – the flesh is deeply scored, then carefully and very quickly deep fried – the result is that the fruit is slightly crispy on the outside, but still very juicy inside. Behold:

I do realise that this may be a very common way of serving Durian…nevertheless a delightful first for me.

In summary – I was much impressed by the possibilities that the sheer scale of human endeavour in China represents. The purpose of the trip was a series of meetings at TenCent – a company that certainly thrives on large scale enterprise and confirmed my impression that China is all about scale.

I do not think that the implications of economies of scale where humans are the actual units of production (as opposed to machines), have ever been thoroughly explored. I think that China is engaging in this experiment. I am eagerly awaiting the outcome.