by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)
Don't worry!
Though we have not updated it in a while, don't forget to read about our Chinese and Taiwanese exploits. Will update that blog eventually...there are some good stories is in progress.
Thanks!
Steve
Showing posts with label shenzhen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shenzhen. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Monday, December 10, 2012
Its not Like I Want All the Coke in China...
by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)
Longhua, Shenzhen, PRC: The first thing I do when I get to my hotel in China is find a store where I can hoard some Coca-Cola. This is a critical for me since I do not drink tea, good coffee can be hard to find, and bottled water is...well, just water.
Typically, after eating lunch each day, on the walk back to the office, I would purchase my afternoon Coke. Its hard for people that have never been to Longhua to visualize, but our campus is so large, there are portable grocery stores at strategic corners around the campus. The stores are "portable" in the sense that they are tents, but they are fully equipped with refrigerators, freezers, and sell everything one would need to survive a boring Longhua afternoon.
So, for the first couple of days, Sara and Eagle would wait for me while I went in to buy my Coke. Each day there was a full supply in the reefer. I dropped down my 3 RMB (US$0.50) on the counter for my 600 ml bottle and it was back to work we went.
Suddenly, one day, I went in to the store and there was not one Coke. I started to freak out. How can there be not one Coke? As I said, every day the reefer was completely packed. Where in one afternoon did all those Coke's go? Eagle and Sara ran some Mandarin interference for me and were told that the store near the main entrance to campus probably had some Cokes. So, off we walked.
The main entrance to the campus is an incredibly busy spot. Buses, bikes, cars, taxis, rickshaws, pedestrians, mongrel dogs...if it can move, it will be kicking up dirt and dust in this area. Also, street vendors selling everything from bootleg DVDs to "Pineapples on a Stick" line the street.
I made it over to store, walked towards the reefers in the back and...again...there was not one Coke! Where did all the Coke's go in one night? Was there some rave I missed? Geeze, it was a miserable afternoon!
Longhua, Shenzhen, PRC: The first thing I do when I get to my hotel in China is find a store where I can hoard some Coca-Cola. This is a critical for me since I do not drink tea, good coffee can be hard to find, and bottled water is...well, just water.
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| The Real Thing - Chinese Style! |
So, for the first couple of days, Sara and Eagle would wait for me while I went in to buy my Coke. Each day there was a full supply in the reefer. I dropped down my 3 RMB (US$0.50) on the counter for my 600 ml bottle and it was back to work we went.
Suddenly, one day, I went in to the store and there was not one Coke. I started to freak out. How can there be not one Coke? As I said, every day the reefer was completely packed. Where in one afternoon did all those Coke's go? Eagle and Sara ran some Mandarin interference for me and were told that the store near the main entrance to campus probably had some Cokes. So, off we walked.
The main entrance to the campus is an incredibly busy spot. Buses, bikes, cars, taxis, rickshaws, pedestrians, mongrel dogs...if it can move, it will be kicking up dirt and dust in this area. Also, street vendors selling everything from bootleg DVDs to "Pineapples on a Stick" line the street.
I made it over to store, walked towards the reefers in the back and...again...there was not one Coke! Where did all the Coke's go in one night? Was there some rave I missed? Geeze, it was a miserable afternoon!
Thursday, September 20, 2012
"One Country, Two Systems..." or... Why is she sitting back there all alone?
by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)
Under the principle of "one country, two systems", Hong Kong has a different and separate political and economic system from mainland China (PRC) and these differences will continue until at least 2047. Generally, this means absolutely nothing to the average American.
However...
March 8, 2008: Hong Kong/Shenzhen: My job interviews in the PRC were over. I was back in HK and set to spend a few days doing touristy things. Today, I was scheduled to take a full day tour from Hong Kong to Guangzhou in Guangdong province, PRC. A van picked me up at HK's Marco Polo Hotel (yes, I splurged for the Victoria Harbor view) and then others at other HK hotels in the Tsim Sha Tsui tourist area. The tour included English speakers only.
Our tour guide was a young HK lady and she escorted us to the high-speed ferry terminal for the ride across HK Harbor to Shekou in Shenzhen. During the ferry ride, she gave us each a PRC one day tourist visa to allow us entrance into the PRC for the tour.
We all got on the same line at customs in Shenzhen, and almost everyone went through without a hitch. Of course, I had the hitch. The PRC custom agent checked my passport and day visa and then looked-up, saying something in Mandarin to our HK tour guide.
She came over to me and said "You have a multiple entry/exit visa." Multiple visit visas take precedence over the tourist day visa and so I was on the wrong line. Embarrased for slowing down my tourmates, I got on the other line (there really was no other line; just a guard standing there by his podium) and had my passport instantly stamped as I was allowed entry back into the PRC.
After exiting the customs building and ferry terminal we were introduced to our new tour guide, who explained why we now had a new tour guide even when we had a perfectly fine old tourguide.
Our Hong Kong guide was not allowed to work in the PRC, so she was replaced with an official (government issued) PRC tour guide. The HK tour guide had to pretty much sit in the back of the tour van the entire day and say nothing. I cannot absolutely recall, but I seem to remember that she was not even allowed to have lunch with us.
The difference between the two tour guides could not have been any more obvious. The HK guide spoke a much smoother and natural English. The PRC guide, though speaking an entirely understandable English, was rigid and reading from a memorized script.
For the drive from Shenzhen to Gaungzhou, the tour van took the new modern toll highway. While it was a modern highway, bicyclists and wheel barrow pushers still used the shoulders.
At the end of the day, when the Guangzhou tour was over, it was time to return to HK. We were told that we would be taking the Guangdong Through Train from Guangzhou East rail station directly back to HK. The PRC tourguide kept repeating how lucky we were to be taking the train. She went on about how her and and the van driver not only had to drive back to Shenzhen, they were not allowed to take the modern highway, due to the toll costs. They were forced to take the "Old Canton Road" ("Canton" being the old name for Guangzhou), which would be a substantially longer and more uncomfortable trip.
Under the principle of "one country, two systems", Hong Kong has a different and separate political and economic system from mainland China (PRC) and these differences will continue until at least 2047. Generally, this means absolutely nothing to the average American.
However...
***
March 8, 2008: Hong Kong/Shenzhen: My job interviews in the PRC were over. I was back in HK and set to spend a few days doing touristy things. Today, I was scheduled to take a full day tour from Hong Kong to Guangzhou in Guangdong province, PRC. A van picked me up at HK's Marco Polo Hotel (yes, I splurged for the Victoria Harbor view) and then others at other HK hotels in the Tsim Sha Tsui tourist area. The tour included English speakers only.
 |
| View of Hong Kong Island across Victoria Harbor from upper floor room of Marco Polo Hotel (hand-held) |
Our tour guide was a young HK lady and she escorted us to the high-speed ferry terminal for the ride across HK Harbor to Shekou in Shenzhen. During the ferry ride, she gave us each a PRC one day tourist visa to allow us entrance into the PRC for the tour.
We all got on the same line at customs in Shenzhen, and almost everyone went through without a hitch. Of course, I had the hitch. The PRC custom agent checked my passport and day visa and then looked-up, saying something in Mandarin to our HK tour guide.
She came over to me and said "You have a multiple entry/exit visa." Multiple visit visas take precedence over the tourist day visa and so I was on the wrong line. Embarrased for slowing down my tourmates, I got on the other line (there really was no other line; just a guard standing there by his podium) and had my passport instantly stamped as I was allowed entry back into the PRC.
After exiting the customs building and ferry terminal we were introduced to our new tour guide, who explained why we now had a new tour guide even when we had a perfectly fine old tourguide.
Our Hong Kong guide was not allowed to work in the PRC, so she was replaced with an official (government issued) PRC tour guide. The HK tour guide had to pretty much sit in the back of the tour van the entire day and say nothing. I cannot absolutely recall, but I seem to remember that she was not even allowed to have lunch with us.
The difference between the two tour guides could not have been any more obvious. The HK guide spoke a much smoother and natural English. The PRC guide, though speaking an entirely understandable English, was rigid and reading from a memorized script.
 |
| Official PRC-issued tour guide |
At the end of the day, when the Guangzhou tour was over, it was time to return to HK. We were told that we would be taking the Guangdong Through Train from Guangzhou East rail station directly back to HK. The PRC tourguide kept repeating how lucky we were to be taking the train. She went on about how her and and the van driver not only had to drive back to Shenzhen, they were not allowed to take the modern highway, due to the toll costs. They were forced to take the "Old Canton Road" ("Canton" being the old name for Guangzhou), which would be a substantially longer and more uncomfortable trip.
 |
| New toll plaza on Shenzhen-Guangzhou Highway (National Freeway 106) |
 |
| Wishbone-style Bridge |
 |
| Shenzhen-Guangzhou Highway (National Freeway 106) |
Thursday, September 06, 2012
That is in Shenzhen? Uh...Yeah.
by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)
On my first trip to China (March 2008), after officially visiting Longhua and Shenzhen for my interviews, I took a few days vacation to explore nearby mainland China and Hong Kong. After all, it was not like I was having to take time off from work; I was out of work.
One tour I took was from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, China (more of this in a later post). The tour started with a 50 minute high-speed ferry ride from Kowloon in Hong Kong to Shenzhen Harbor (Shekou), where the tour unfortunately moved on to a short tea sampling. In Shekou, a largely expatriate area, there is a large French cruise liner cemented into the ground called "Sea World".
In a park at Shekou Harbor, is this huge statue. My pictures do not accurately reflect the statue's grand scale, so try looking at this one.
Remarkably, no one in Shenzhen or Longua, China that I showed these pictures to had ever seen the statue, no less know the statue was in Shenzhen. Many commented that the women of the statue did not look "Asian".
Turns out the statue is of the creation godess Nüwa. While many different legends are attached to Nüwa, this statue depicts her role in the upkeep and maintenance of the Wall of Heaven, which if collapsed, would obliterate everything. The statue shows her lifting the stone to fix a hole in the sky.
I especially like the three short lightning rods on the top of the stone Nuwa is lifting (see first picture).
About a year ago, we were asked by, and granted permission to, a 14 year-old girl from Italy writing a book about legendary women of Ancient China to use the picture. I am trying to find out whether that project actually went anywhere.
On my first trip to China (March 2008), after officially visiting Longhua and Shenzhen for my interviews, I took a few days vacation to explore nearby mainland China and Hong Kong. After all, it was not like I was having to take time off from work; I was out of work.
One tour I took was from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, China (more of this in a later post). The tour started with a 50 minute high-speed ferry ride from Kowloon in Hong Kong to Shenzhen Harbor (Shekou), where the tour unfortunately moved on to a short tea sampling. In Shekou, a largely expatriate area, there is a large French cruise liner cemented into the ground called "Sea World".
In a park at Shekou Harbor, is this huge statue. My pictures do not accurately reflect the statue's grand scale, so try looking at this one.
Remarkably, no one in Shenzhen or Longua, China that I showed these pictures to had ever seen the statue, no less know the statue was in Shenzhen. Many commented that the women of the statue did not look "Asian".
Turns out the statue is of the creation godess Nüwa. While many different legends are attached to Nüwa, this statue depicts her role in the upkeep and maintenance of the Wall of Heaven, which if collapsed, would obliterate everything. The statue shows her lifting the stone to fix a hole in the sky.
I especially like the three short lightning rods on the top of the stone Nuwa is lifting (see first picture).
***
About a year ago, we were asked by, and granted permission to, a 14 year-old girl from Italy writing a book about legendary women of Ancient China to use the picture. I am trying to find out whether that project actually went anywhere.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Longhua and The International Symbol for ...
by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)
As I boasted in a prior post, I am a "cultured man of the world." Heck, when you have experienced sitting in your car at a red light in NYC, and watched someone crossing the street who's pants were so shredded up that his butt was totally exposed, it takes a lot to shock you. My bus ride in Wuhan was not as much shocking, as it was horrifying. The swastikas in Taipei were briefly shocking as is the following event I will soon describe.
March 27, 2012: Longhua, China. After a week in Taipai, it was time to go to our main office in Longhua, mainland China.
Longhua is a "suburb" of Shenzhen (pronounced Shen-jen). Shenzhen is a fairly new city located just to the south of Hong Kong. Shenzhen had a population of 352k in 1982. Today, it has a metro population of over 10 million, from which about 60% are migrant workers that leave the city for their small villages and other cities on weekends and holidays. The area is a ghost-town during the Chinese New Year Festivities. Shenzhen's growth (besides for foreigners) is due to the influx of people from all over China. As most of these newcomers speak Mandarin, there is a modern pressure on historically Cantonese-speaking Guandong province, where Shenzhen is located, and Guandong's largest city, Guangzhou (formerly Canton and population almost 13 million) to swtich to Mandarin as their first language.
While Shenzhen at least tries to be a cultural center of south-central China and has downtown restaurants offering such authentic western classics as real brick oven pizza and Irish bangers and mash, Longhua is often disparagingly referred to as "a backwater town" despite its large population and extensive industry. Longhua certainly has a wild-west (east?) air to it.
In Longhua (as in much of China), most drivers are new to "driving". These new drivers don't seem to believe that the pedestrian is always right, are willing to make left turns from far right lanes, and will certainly scare the bejesus out of you whether a passenger or pedestrian. I also get the impression that bus drivers feel the roads are almost exclusively their property. Longhua is also known for its heavy industrial pollution. While Longhua is not quite a company town, if you are at restaurants or stores and mention you work for Foxconn, you will often get a discount. It was in Longhua that I tried goat, which I now have little recollection of, and was going to try turtle, but they were out of turtle that night.
Longhua is where most Iphones come from.
Longhua is also known for its rumors of terrible crime. There are stories of fake buses which pick people up at normal bus stops and then just go off to someplace where all the passengers are robbed. There are also stories of knife attacks to cut-off arms from which bags are hung. Cab drivers are usually in a caged off area from the passenger and rear seats.
The Treasure Hotel is where we are put up when we visit Longhua.
When I was there, they had a very young bellman/doorman to help you with your bags. He wore a uniform out of an earlier era, with the round box-type hat. If this would have been NY or LA, you would have thought the uniform very corny, if not ridiculous.
As I boasted in a prior post, I am a "cultured man of the world." Heck, when you have experienced sitting in your car at a red light in NYC, and watched someone crossing the street who's pants were so shredded up that his butt was totally exposed, it takes a lot to shock you. My bus ride in Wuhan was not as much shocking, as it was horrifying. The swastikas in Taipei were briefly shocking as is the following event I will soon describe.
***
March 27, 2012: Longhua, China. After a week in Taipai, it was time to go to our main office in Longhua, mainland China.
Longhua is a "suburb" of Shenzhen (pronounced Shen-jen). Shenzhen is a fairly new city located just to the south of Hong Kong. Shenzhen had a population of 352k in 1982. Today, it has a metro population of over 10 million, from which about 60% are migrant workers that leave the city for their small villages and other cities on weekends and holidays. The area is a ghost-town during the Chinese New Year Festivities. Shenzhen's growth (besides for foreigners) is due to the influx of people from all over China. As most of these newcomers speak Mandarin, there is a modern pressure on historically Cantonese-speaking Guandong province, where Shenzhen is located, and Guandong's largest city, Guangzhou (formerly Canton and population almost 13 million) to swtich to Mandarin as their first language.
While Shenzhen at least tries to be a cultural center of south-central China and has downtown restaurants offering such authentic western classics as real brick oven pizza and Irish bangers and mash, Longhua is often disparagingly referred to as "a backwater town" despite its large population and extensive industry. Longhua certainly has a wild-west (east?) air to it.
In Longhua (as in much of China), most drivers are new to "driving". These new drivers don't seem to believe that the pedestrian is always right, are willing to make left turns from far right lanes, and will certainly scare the bejesus out of you whether a passenger or pedestrian. I also get the impression that bus drivers feel the roads are almost exclusively their property. Longhua is also known for its heavy industrial pollution. While Longhua is not quite a company town, if you are at restaurants or stores and mention you work for Foxconn, you will often get a discount. It was in Longhua that I tried goat, which I now have little recollection of, and was going to try turtle, but they were out of turtle that night.
Longhua is where most Iphones come from.
Longhua is also known for its rumors of terrible crime. There are stories of fake buses which pick people up at normal bus stops and then just go off to someplace where all the passengers are robbed. There are also stories of knife attacks to cut-off arms from which bags are hung. Cab drivers are usually in a caged off area from the passenger and rear seats.
The Treasure Hotel is where we are put up when we visit Longhua.
 |
| Treasure Hotel, Longhua, China |
 |
| View from the hotel entrance of the lightrail station to Shenzhen |
When I was there, they had a very young bellman/doorman to help you with your bags. He wore a uniform out of an earlier era, with the round box-type hat. If this would have been NY or LA, you would have thought the uniform very corny, if not ridiculous.
Against Longhua's terrible reputation for crime that I mentioned above, the hotel's internal security was quite sophisticated. Not only did you need your key card to unlock the elevator to take you to your floor, you could only go to your floor. So, if you were on one floor and a friend on another, you would have to meet the friend in the lobby or arrange some other common meeting place to get to their room. Furthermore, uniformed guards roam the street and parking areas near the hotel.
***
Anyway and for the punchline to this story, the bellboy carried up my bag and brought it into my room. Since you do not tip and I could not speak with the guy due to language, I just stared out the window while I expected him to walk out. However, he seemed to be trying to say something, so I looked at him. It was at this time that I saw something I have never seen anywhere in the world, including prostitution-crazy Amsterdam.
With a young giggly-nervous laugh, he made a circle with the fingers on one hand and then put his pointer finger from his other hand through the tight circle. It took me a few moments, but I realized he was asking me if I wanted a prostitute (hopefully that was a symbol for female prostitute). His signal was not as blatant and obvious as this one. I said no, without even thinking if I actually wanted one. I was just in complete shock and regret I will never have any grand-sons to tell that story.
With a young giggly-nervous laugh, he made a circle with the fingers on one hand and then put his pointer finger from his other hand through the tight circle. It took me a few moments, but I realized he was asking me if I wanted a prostitute (hopefully that was a symbol for female prostitute). His signal was not as blatant and obvious as this one. I said no, without even thinking if I actually wanted one. I was just in complete shock and regret I will never have any grand-sons to tell that story.
Sara, my translator and assistant, did not get such an offer from the bellboy.
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