An initiative of the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World

II

Our first impression of China was of course Hong Kong. We arrived there on the afternoon of the 9th after what was a very long and tiring journey for our Chinese friends. For those who joined the flight in Delhi, though, it was comfortable. Hong Kong is a rich and energetic city, hugely and openly materialistic. It is like the best of modern cities in the world, clean, efficient, and well maintained. It’s a bit expensive, but not very much so like Tokyo or Frankfurt. It has a huge, state of the art airport that is very well connected to the city.

A tour company escorted us on a coach to Shenzhen. Here we passed a couple of check points before entering China. Leaving Hong Kong to enter main land China did present a pretty stark contrast. Yet, the glitter and plushness of Shenzhen soon made up for the difference.

We were whisked to our guest house hotel at the new University. Though located inside the university, such hotels are open to outsiders. They are extremely clean and comfortable, besides being reasonably priced. Toothpaste, tooth brushes, combs, and slippers are complimentary and, just like towels, changed everyday.

After we freshened up, we went down to the private dining room for the first of what were many lavish meals. Siddhartha had warned me about these meals, but what I saw exceeded my expectations. We sat around a round table. The dishes were placed on a platter, which could be rotated. There must have been at least fifteen dishes that evening. Various kind of meat such a chicken, fish, pork, and prawns, besides seasonal vegetables, and some sweet dishes. The Chinese don’t eat dessert, but do have one or two sweet dishes as a part of the meal. Drinks, whether alcoholic or non-alcoholic, are constantly replenished by the waitresses, who serve with a smile even if it’s late at night.

Vegetarians have no problems in China because of the plenty of dishes that are available. Only those habituated to milk and diary produces will miss them. As overcompensation, at Beijing Neeru and Makarand ate two tubs of ice-cream, leaving Gustavo open-mouthed with astonishment. The buffet breakfasts at the Jilin Mansion, Beijing, and at our hotel in Changchun were incredibly lavish. There must have been hundreds of dishes to choose from. To the delight of vegetarians, most of these were meatless.

The Shenzhen University campus is modeled on an American campus. What is more, it also has a golf course and a course in golf management. It is a rich university and the students give the impression of being well-to-do co-eds, dressed smartly, with bright futures.

We drove through the city, checked out a huge bookstore, four floors high, ate at an excellent Indian restaurant, and shopped. Speaking of books, Rajib kept looking for books on China, but found something to his satisfaction only on his last day at Beijing! This particular bookshop was very appropriately called the Ching Fung Book City. There were many English books here, mostly in the technical subjects, priced quite reasonably. That the Chinese are a reading and an eating people became very clear when we saw an optician’s shop placed next to the food outlet inside this book city.

Shopping, to which we gave some attention, became a favourite activity of not just the two ladies in the group, but of Siddalingaiah and Gustavo. The latter picked up the best bargains of the group and is an expert bargainer while the former was compelled to get dozens of gifts, not just for his family but his numerous friends. Makarand bought a vacuum cleaner much to the amusement of the group, but left it at Shenzhen to be picked up on his way back. The others bought suitcases, clothes, and other goods. Rajib came out of the supermarket looking very dashing in his new beige jacket. Later, near the Great Wall, he added a furry Mongolian cap and a heavy walking stick to his accoutrements. This made him look very impressive indeed, like a Mafia don, according to Siddalingaiah.

Siddalingaiah, of course, was the most interesting and amusing of the whole Indian group. He kept everyone in a good mood with his stories, pranks, and jokes. He told me, I must eat well because the extra ten kilos of fat that I have can help me in case I fall ill.

Later, that evening we went to the very impressive Folk Arts Village complex. This was a huge complex, with an auditorium in the middle, designed to highlight China’s fifty-four minorities in their characteristic habitats. We saw a huge diversity there, though it was contrasted by the uniformity among the visitors. All of these were China’s new elite, affluent and mobile. Interestingly, there were very few foreigners visiting the complex. We got an impression of just how self-sufficient China is. Indeed, except Beijing’s Forbidden City and the Great Wall, we saw few foreigners anywhere.

The most interesting thing about the Folk Arts Village was the musical extravaganza that we saw in the evening. It was a really a costume parade of China’s different nationalities, but it was orchestrated to emphasize the imperial grandeur and unity of China as a nation. The costumes were flamboyant, even extravagant. The ladies had headdresses nearly the same height as themselves, with feathers, tiaras, exotic hats, and, in one case, a chandelier! The music was quite trendy, with contemporary beat. The costumes must be some artist’s projection too, because the ethnic enclaves that we saw in the Complex showed simple, rather poor folk, living in very modest dwellings in the countryside. None of them could afford to dress like these gorgeous models. I was dazzled by the whole experience, but could a deeper political intent behind it. This was to assert China’s imperial status. No wonder, the ethnicities represented included Koreans, Thais, Tibetans, Mongolians, Khazaks, Tukmeins, and others who are now independent or semi-independent countries in their own right. After visiting the Forbidden City and the great wall, it became clear to me that this idea of an imperial China is deeply inscribed into the Chinese consciousness. By and large, acts of national consolidation, therefore, are not seen negatively by the Chinese. A strong state and its hegemony are considered desirable qualities for a cohesive social order and general condition of peace.

After staying two nights at Shenzhen, we left for Pudong on the morning of the 11th. Again, we saw a brand new and sparkling airport, immaculately clean. The Chinese collect a fee of 50 yuan from every passenger for the building and upkeep of their airports. No one would grudge them the fee because of the services provided. Our airports in India, by contrast, badly need overhauling.

From the airport in Pudong, we drove straight to the new economic zone, with its skyscrapers. It was a great mystery to me how so much capital had been raised to build these new cities. Rajib and Gustavo explained that the multinationals had sunk in money to enlarge their markets. But whatever the explanation, the magnitude of the development clearly dwarfed anything that I’d seen in the other parts of the world. I wondered if the office buildings were really full and if there was so much business being transacted from them. The landmark of Pudong was an extremely ugly, pink, futuristic TV tower. It looked like a gigantic insect. I(Makarand) was appalled looking at it.