Busan Journal, China Adventure, Part III: Shenzhen

The New China: Buildings, Food, and our Kids

Between Hong Kong and Shenzhen lies a border that is like national borders everywhere. Access to Hong Kong or access to "the mainland" from Hong Kong is managed efficiently this way.  Hong Kong can remain the international city it has always been, and China can maintain control over who gets to enter or leave its own space.  It appears to be mutually advantageous. Fears in the west about what would happen to Hong Kong once the British turned over management to China a little more than a decade ago largely failed to play out.

With visas in hand, we left Hong Kong with Edward in a van driven by a family friend as dusk settled into darkness. We saw very little except for lights.  The highway we traveled had all the charm of an American interstate.  Nevertheless, once we had passed beyond the border station where our newly issued visas were examined, we felt suddenly overwhelmed.  It was a true can-you-believe-it experience.  We are actually in China! Imagine that!!!

I had had a similar feeling in 2004 when a group of us, middle-aged men and our teen-aged basketball-playing sons, had traveled to Russia to help the Wesleyan Church in Vladimir.  The teenagers were suitably impressed, I suppose, but for those of us who grew up during the black and white days of the Cold War, being in Russia was almost too much to take in.

China was even more unimaginable -- if that is possible.

Yet there we were.  China!

We were met in Shenzhen by Edward's parents, who put us up in the Elite Hotel, near their apartment building. We ate the first of a series of grand meals, with real Chinese food -- not the fake Chinese food we Americans are so fond of.

Apart from eating, our first morning in Shenzhen was spent visiting the cultural center near the city hall.  Shenzhen is a new city, a modern city.  Since it has been built from the ground up in the last three decades, all the buildings are recent and spectacular.

The Shenzhen City Hall is built with a flowing roof to suggest an eagle in flight. Across this wet plaza a young couple posed for photographers, in a scene that could have come from any city in America.

The cultural center itself houses many attractions, from stores to a library to performance halls.  A bronze statue of Pavarotti welcomes visitors to the complex.

We stopped in the midst of the plaza to have our picture taken with Edward's mother and father.

Edward's mother made sure we were well taken care of.  She led Donna by the hand everywhere we went. It was, I think, good insurance for my wife, a woman who tends to be navigationally at risk.

We visited a very large bookstore with scores of people sitting on the floor reading. Nearby was a library with a huge map of the city in the foyer.

Edward agreed to explain its geography. Well, he explained the geography without prompting; but what he actually agreed to do for me was to pose for a picture.

In a passage between buildings we found a street musician playing haunting traditional melodies on an electrified erhu.  Like the little girl, I am drawn to performances of this kind, but I am not bold enough to stand as close as she was. 

In the performance center itself I found many things to catch my attention, including a fascinating ceiling made of hundreds of glass panes and dozens of angles.

Apparently, I was unaware that my photography interests were pushing us off schedule.  When I finally did catch on, we zipped back to the hotel where we were surprised to find a number of former Houghton Academy students waiting to greet us.

Seeing Yujia, Simba, Yi, and Syan coming toward us on the sidewalk made us feel just like old times in Houghton.  If it had not been for the tropical air, we might have thought we were home.

We were not going to see the Great Wall or the ancient cities, but we were able to see what we had come for -- our kids!

Busan Journal, China Adventure, Hong Kong

Hong Kong and the Real China

It all happened so fast, both our trip to China and our twenty-two hours in Hong Kong, that it remains just a tad blurry in my mind.

Edward, whose name (when he is not posing as an American) is Zhang Zhijie, guided us through the necessary steps for an expedited visa, shepherded us to the hotel, and got up early the next morning to show us some sights in Hong Kong before the visas were ready and we would leave for Shenzhen.
Hong Kong is well-known for its hi-rise buildings.  We were expecting a few looks from way up. Still, the view from our hotel room was somewhere between overwhelming and dizzying.

Street level was no less awe-inspiring for country folks like us, even after four months in London and four more in Busan, a city of 3.7 million.

We were more than a bit surprised by the laundry hanging out above the streets. What happens if you fumble Dad's favorite shirt or fail to pin Mom's floral unmentionables as you try to attach them to the line?  What is the word for the sudden fear that rises into your throat as the lost garment flutters into traffic below?

Mist and rain made it difficult to get better pictures of this laundry phenomenon.

The British influence from its 99 year "lease" of Hong Kong were visible in many things, from the English place names on signs to the double decker buses and the Victoria Park, a huge tropical garden that we wandered through after the early deluge forced us to delay our visit to the Walk of Stars.

On a future visit to Hong Kong, preferably in a cooler, drier season, I would like to tour the gardens again to look more closely at the gigantic trees and bushes and flowers that do not grow in our more temperate climate.

Eventually the showers ended for the day and Edward took us from the Victoria Park to Hong Kong's famous Avenue of Stars, where we found someone willing to take a picture of the three of us.

Further down the Avenue of Stars we came across both a coffee shop, which are common in Korea but hard to find in China, and the Hong Kong Dragon Boat races.

The dragon boats resemble sculls, although they are paddled like canoes. A drummer in the bow sets the pace for the crew. Sad to say, as the humidity was exceptionally high from the morning downpours and as we have an exceptional intolerance of humidity, we opted for a half hour in the air conditioned coffee shop rather than a seat on the bleachers to watch the races.

We did spend a few minutes watching another race, a single boat we found at a small pond in Victoria Park being operated by remote control. The man with the boat simply flung it into the water and raced it back and forth from one stone edge to the other.  The boat flew along the water so fast and the man with the controls waited so long to turn the boat, I kept expecting it to crash before it turned.

I don't know whether the boys sitting on the wall behind him were his sons, but I found myself watching them as they watched the boat flash back and forth with its dramatic rooster tail.

Mid-afternoon we took a taxi to another part of the city, where the travel agency promised to return our visas and passports.  They were not ready yet.  They were on the way.  It would be an hour.  Or two.  A little bit longer.

But it was OK -- Edward did not seem concerned. We just needed an air-conditioned place to pass the time.

Eventually, we just got into the van that Edward's father had sent to take us to Shenzhen since it was waiting and the airconditioner was running.  Then with passports and visas in hand, Edward popped out of the crowd on the sidewalk, climbed into the van, and we took off, winding our way out of Hong Kong in the fading afternoon toward Shenzhen and the real China.

Busan Journal, China Adventure, Part 2

 Busan to Shanghai to Hong Kong

It's a simple matter really.  You book a flight, you get on the plane, and you go. So, with our newly returned passports in hand and Alien Registration cards we did not need, we were ready for our trip. To China!

At Gimpo, the Busan airport, we reached our gate far earlier than we expected. Security was fairly straight-foward and efficient, so we did not have to stand in any long lines or take off our shoes and so forth. Even with our language limitations, it was easier than O'Hare.

Aside from the pure joy of going to China and the relief of finally seeing Edward in Hong Kong, our day was memorable for two unexpected events.

The Gimpo terminal itself is huge, with departure gates along one side, shops along the other, and a wide center "aisle." We found our gate near a little display of traditional Korean life (more of less) and then dragged our carry-on bags across the aisle to buy lunch.

With lunch in hand, we looked around for a place to sit. The center aisle was dominated by a big screen TV broadcasting what appeared to be an ice hockey game.  The benches in front of the TV would accommodate probably sixty people, but they were empty. I suggested we go over to watch hockey while we ate.

Years ago, when we were dating, we went to a lot of hockey games. In person, ice hockey is about as engaging a sport as I can imagine.  When it is well-played, it is fast, graceful, and visceral. To see, oh, let's say, a player like Bobby Orr take the puck from behind his own net and rush the length of the ice, weaving in and out of opponents to shoot or set up a shot on goal is about as breathtaking as a sport gets. For the record, we did see Bobby Orr make some of his famous rushes forty years ago at the Oakland Colliseum.

The game on the TV was the 7th game of the Stanley Cup Finals, just after the 3rd period face-off.  Boston Bruins, our old home team, verses Vancouver. Boston was leading by a goal. Boston had not won the Stanley Cup since, well, since Bobby Orr was on the team.

This was the kind of coincidence that would raise suspicion if it appeared as fiction. Nevertheless.

Two things came immediately to my mind.  One is that I had not followed American sports at all since we left New York in February, so I did not even know the Stanley Cup was in progress, let along that the Bruins were playing.  Second is that the Bruins have had disappointing teams for a number of years recently, so how was I to know they had a good team this year?

We were the only people in that airport, apparently, with any interest in this game; but we were glued.  We finished our lunch.  Then, as if scripted, the game ended, followed within minutes by our boarding call. The Bruins won. We did not need to watch the on-ice celebrations. We tossed our empty lunch bag and got on the plane.

The second unexpected event occurred after we landed in Shanghai to change planes for a connecting flight to Hong Kong.  We deplaned, followed the crowd through customs, and then approached an airline counter with two red-uniformed airline agents.

As I recall, it was a big room with nothing in it except a customer counter and these two female agents.  No signs, not even in Chinese.  I handed my tickets to one of the agents, who glanced at them, tore them in half, and dropped the pieces into a waste basket behind the counter.

"Flight canceled," she said.

We were stunned. 

OK, the flight is canceled, but what do we do now? When a flight is canceled, something else is supposed to happen.  A new flight, for example. A procedure to follow or a different counter to visit.  Words of regret or explanation.

Apparently, however, "flight canceled" was the only English these agents could come up with.  Even after a Stanley Cup victory, this was a deflating experience.

After several attempts to explain our plight to someone, to anyone, actually, who could help us out, we found ourselves on another floor in another nearly empty room -- the size of a hangar.  We walked past numerous counters with computers and signs but no agents before we came to one that did have agents. From this desk, after another careful and time-consuming examination of our passports, we were sent to yet another floor and another series of counters where other passengers with our particular predicament had gathered. 

Unlike us, they had apparently understood the directions and went straight to this gathering point for the bus ride to a second airport and a new flight to Hong Kong. We felt fortunate to have stumbled upon the right spot in time to catch the bus without actually understanding any of the directions given to us.

To compound matters, we were not able to call Edward to tell him our flight had been changed.  Our phone would not connect us to his number. And Edward faced a similar problem. When he arrived at the airport in Hong Kong, all he could learn was that the flight had been canceled.  We were not listed as passengers on flights arriving from our original airport in Shanghai, so he was not even sure we were coming.

Much to our relief, when we finally proceeded through the gates into the waiting area in Hong Kong, there was Edward, smiling and waving.  It was so good to see him, and not just because he ended our hours of uncertain and hesitant wandering and wondering what lay beyond the next set of swinging doors. Edward is a prince of a young man, as the saying goes. He is friendly, kind, generous, helpful, hardworking, funny, and many other good things.  He is enough to make even former home-stay parents proud.

And his translation skills aren't too shabby either.  Shay shay.