Clever Magazine: Issue # 1 "Hong Kong Journal " (www.clevemag.com)

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Hong Kong Journal: Day trip to Shenzhen
By Tom Beall

Tom Beall is a manager in the computer and telecommunications industry. He has spent many years in the Pacific Rim for business and pleasure. During his travels he has recorded some of the interesting sights and experiences from that area, some of which will be shared in Clever. He currently lives with his wife and two Rhodesian Ridgebacks in the mountains of Colorado and works for MCI.

While visiting Hong Kong, we decided to take a short excursion into communist China, called the Peoples Republic of China or the PRC. A one-day pass cost $60 US but it was worth the money to see what some of China is like. There were six Americans and our guide TK Im in our group. We left Kowloon, the other side of the harbor from Hong Kong, on the train and traveled through an area of Hong Kong called the "New territories". This is an area that was mostly empty ten years ago, but is now crowded with homes, factories and businesses. A modern six-lane highway also connects Hong Kong with Shenzhen, the goal of our day trip into the PRC. The train was modern and clean with a fair number of passengers aboard.

We arrived at the Shenzhen station and spent the next 40 minutes going through Hong Kong immigration and customs, and then PRC immigration and customs. TK Im was our guide but since he had never been through the customs area we went to, he couldn't advise us regarding what forms we had to fill out. After waiting in line the first time and then being handed forms we could have found at counters against the wall, filling them out and waiting in line again, we learned our lesson. For the next set of customs inspectors, we hit the counters and filled 'em out first.

We were cautioned to be polite to the guys in the uniforms with the red stars on their caps and never, never, never take their picture if we wanted to be home in time for Christmas 1999. TK even suggested that they might just shoot us if we irritated them sufficiently. We finally made it through customs and proceeded into Shenzhen proper. We walked into the shopping area expecting to find great bargains. There weren't any. Apparently it's too close to Hong Kong. The city is very modern and there was lots of new construction going on. Although a little more cluttered and dirtier than Hong Kong, nothing would make it stand out from a less affluent area of Hong Kong.

Of note, however, was the place we found ourselves and eventually had our dinner. On route to Food Street we were accosted by a small group of little girls, probably five to seven years old, trying to sell us single roses. The roses were quite lovely and wrapped with Baby Breath in see-through plastic. The price was $10 Hong Kong, which was about $1.35 US. Not a bargain. The little girls were cute, but boy were they tenacious. They pretended to not understand no in English, Chinese, Japanese or sign language! Even shaking your head produced nothing more than a reiteration of their plea to buy. One very tiny one latched on to a member of our party by putting her little fingers through his sweater and tugging while asking him to buy. A block or so later she wrapped her arms around his leg and was drug along one step at a time.

He finally bought a flower, but they just ran off, got another one and came back to pester us some more. Our guide, TK said to ignore them, but that was not an easy task to ignore cute little girls with such pleading looks hanging onto our clothes begging us to buy their flowers. They finally took off and left us when we approached a corner with uniformed guards standing around. Apparently their efforts are not condoned by the officials.

Now Food Street was a real treat. This was a street that by Chinese standards would be fairly wide, but was narrowed by all of the vendors with their cages full of creatures and tanks full of all sorts of fish, eels, clams, crabs and spiny lobsters. The water creatures were all alive and ready to be eaten by passing diners. The cages also contained live delicacies for the discerning Chinese palate. Critters like chickens, mongooses, rabbits, ducks, hedgehogs and of course, snakes. SNAKES! We watched as a vendor grabbed one from a cage, cut off its head and peeled the skin away while the snake was still writhing around! I looked at several snakes thinking they would all be the same kind. Wrong! There were a number of different varieties, including cobras! They were not much more than three or four feet long, but that's certainly big enough for me. TK said that since they don't eat the head, where the fangs and poison lives, they are quite safe and tasty. Yummy!

We had a very good meal that did not consist of snake and we came away quite satisfied for about $40 US for all six of us. That was the best bargain of the day. I didn't ask what was in some of the dishes because I figured it was probably better not to know. I wouldn't mind someday, trying some of the more exotic fare, including snake. We eat rattlesnake in the US, so why not. And then I remembered something else that TK told us: "If it moves, the Chinese will eat it."

Dinner over, we left the cafe and headed back to the station. Food Street is the only place where we were regularly accosted by vendors to buy their wares. You constantly heard "Gwailow" (foreigner), over and over again. The vendors were insistent but very polite. We just had no use for live snakes or single red roses!

(Tom will be back in up-coming issues of Clever.)