How to Travel to China On Your Own – Part 3

My first trip to China, Day Three

1) Breakfast at the hotel

I didn’t get enough sleep again as it was stuffy in the room despite the open window. The subtropics are different from Moscow or Belarus, after all! I made up my mind to keep the air conditioner on at night from now on, much as I dislike that contraption…

But that’s not all. I didn’t hear the alarm on my phone at all, even though I had set a 5-minute interval for the snooze alarm. Obviously, the not too loud cock-a-doodle-doo tone chosen by me reminded me of my summer holidays in the countryside. There were a lot of chickens apart from geese and rabbits… As a result, I was happily asleep and woke up as much as one and a half hours later! And that’s considering the fact that we had to be at the bank early! Having brushed my teeth, I rushed to the third floor and, just as on the day of checking in, I began to wander along the maze of the hotel corridors in bewilderment, trying to find the restaurant. Some 10 minutes later I caught the smell of something edible and, encouraged, continued my way hoping that my intuition wouldn’t fail me.

The restaurant turned out to be small – with no more than 30 seats. The manager at the entrance asked for my breakfast certificate, after which he gave me a fork and a knife with a smile. I thanked the manager and began to look round. There were enormous pots and pans with traditional Chinese food on two long self-service tables, with a boiler and a vacuum jug on the right for those who wanted tea or coffee. I did a quick scan of the room and noticed Julia, who was finishing her breakfast. I greeted her and decided not to spend much time choosing my morning meal. Far from everything that was being offered was familiar to me, that’s why I chose noodles, boiled eggs, some greens, a bun and a cup of coffee. After breakfast we headed for the hotel’s entrance.

3) Exchanging currency at the bank

Oh, I will never forget my first visit to a Chinese bank to exchange currency and the process of currency exchange itself!!!

Yet, first things first…

So, at about 8.50 am we left the hotel, turned round the corner and a minute later found ourselves at a Bank of China branch, which was still closed. On both sides of the entrance there were two huge statues of lions (no picture again, sorry). The entrance itself was safely covered with a massive metal shutter. There were approximately 10 other people waiting for the bank to open. Some of them were standing in the shade of the trees; others were right at the entrance. The sun wasn’t strong yet, so we also chose to stand closer to the entrance. On the dot of 9 am, the shutter was raised, the doors opened automatically and we saw bank employees standing in 2 lines shout something in Chinese three times in chorus, bowing every time they shouted it. The synchrony and unusualness of that act was fascinating…

The Chinese waiting outside quickly moved towards the entrance. The bank managers began approaching the clients, asking them questions and helping them get a ticket number. Bottom line, within minutes each customer got a ticket and knew which window they would go to on seeing their number on the queue information display. Amazing! As foreigners, we were approached by a young woman who spoke good English. Having given us our tickets, she led us to a stand with special A4 size application forms which we were to fill out in order to exchange currency. We had to fill out as many as two forms, and sometimes I didn’t know how to do it even though the forms were both in Chinese and English. For example, it was required that the name of the hotel should be written in Chinese. The woman employee helped us out – she entered the necessary information herself after I told her that I was staying at the Lotus Hotel. Julia was faster than me and headed for her window when it was her turn. Some 20 minutes later a bank employee was asking her a lot of clarifying questions, unable to identify a name, a surname or an address etc. in a Russian passport. In the end he scanned the necessary pages and exchanged her currency. I had to wait till another three customers had been served and finally I got to Window 2. Well, I thought, my passport is fine, it is both in Russian and in English, so I should exchange my currency within no more than 10 minutes. Yet, I celebrated too early! The bank employee called out to a manager and showed her my application forms. The woman apologized and said that the rules of the bank require that I should use the pen that was on the stand, not my own. I never understood what the big deal was. Perhaps it was about the wrong color or something. Anyway, I had to fill out the application forms again.

In about 20 minutes I finally returned to the window, relieved to see that everything was alright this time. The bank employee began to scan my passport with a portable scanner. Then he opened a very big box (whose size and design made it resemble a military box), revealing neatly stacked bundles of banknotes. Specially for me the employee wrote the current exchange rate and the total sum on a sheet of paper, after which he exchanged my currency. A few seconds later I became the fortunate possessor of 632 Yuan and almost hopped my way out of the bank. Who would have thought that the procedure would take me one hour and twenty minutes…

2) The great trip to the exhibition

The previous evening Maxim had shown us in what direction we should go to get to the exhibition. Our reference point was a tall dark building with a red flower. It was early morning, the sun wasn’t strong yet. Thinking that a 20-minute walk wouldn’t kill anyone, we briskly walked to the exhibition. We reached a crossroads where a new glass building with a lot of non-coplanar angles was being constructed, turned left and walked down a long street towards our reference point. The cars were surprisingly few, and we didn’t meet more than 30 people, at most. On the left rose enormous majestic buildings. Some of them were still being built, but the others looked completed. At that point I noticed that the road was going up and the building with a red flower seemed to be left below. I somehow decided that if we continued walking down that street, we would get lost, so we changed our direction and took to the right, finding ourselves in a street that ran parallel. There we descended into a very clean subway and crossed to the other side of the street.

The building that was our reference point was still visible on the horizon, so it seemed that we hadn’t got lost our way yet.

At first everything looked perfect – beautiful scenery, huge buildings, a busy well-kept multi-lane road on the right, a park with lovely trees on the left. A nice place, in a word. I was once again surprised to see how clean the city was.

About 15 minutes later we saw a fence that was 3 meters high and stretched from the park to the road, and here weird things began to happen… In order to circumvent the fenced area we had to follow a young Chinese man right into the road and walk another 300 meters. As it turned out, the fenced area was a construction site. There was a street, though, too – not paved yet, but with road kerbs in place. It was as muddy as in Moscow there – pure clay around. In a word, we bravely walked on the road kerbs hoping that we wouldn’t end up falling into the mud. The worst thing was that we’d lost sight of the building which was our reference point. Yet, the very direction in which we were moving was clear to us. Our attempt to talk to a foreman who was engaged in a lively discussion with some workers was unsuccessful – the guy didn’t speak English and was saying something in Chinese. So, after exchanging a few polite smiles we walked on. Soon we passed the construction area and going through a narrow gate we found ourselves in the city centre. We could easily see that it was a posh area. The exterior of the hotels and other buildings was impressive. There were high-end cars everywhere. In a word, the centre of Shenzhen was living its own life.

3) The visit to the CHINA HIGH-TECH FAIR

We were lucky to find a student who showed us the way to the exhibition centre and actually accompanied us to it. Thanking him and showing our passports to a security guard, we finally set foot on the premises of Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center (it is there that the CHINA HIGH TECH FAIR exhibition was being held). After the vigorous morning walk all I wanted to do was return to the hotel and take a cold shower. It was humid. Besides, most of the buildings around were made of glass, and there were quite a lot of fountains scattered around the exhibition centre, so the city centre caused ambivalent feelings. After we confirmed our pre-registration via the exhibition web site, we were given out special forms with our visiting cards stapled to them. The administrators directed us to a row of one-floor buildings where we went to get our badges. There they scanned our passports, took our photos with a small camera and a minute later we were issued with new badges.

On going through the last security post we came to the entrance to the pavilions. There was a huge crowd of people managed by polite policemen. I must say, they were doing it skillfully, so we didn’t have to wait long to get in. Lo and behold! There were air conditioners! I recovered my interest to what was going around within minutes and began taking pictures with my smartphone. My first trip to China, my first visit to a trade exhibition – I simply had to save those moments!

I must admit that I didn’t prepare for the visit to the exhibition. As I mentioned in the first article, for the sake of integrity of the experiment everything was to be as if I didn’t know anything. That’s why I excelled in doing things the way they SHOULDN’T be done. J Naturally, planning my visit to the exhibition was out of the question. (Getting ahead of my story, I have to say that there’s nothing to do at a trade exhibition if you aren’t prepared for it. And you’re unlikely to succeed in it on your own. That’s why it’s better to visit a Chinese exhibition with competent experts in that area).

Julia was looking for new business partners in several areas, that’s why she wanted to study the latest offers from the leading Chinese companies. I only had one problem to solve, but I failed to do it within one day – the exhibition was on a slightly different subject.

Going down, in a matter of minutes Julia found a very interesting solution which could help her business a lot. She had a rather long discussion with managers of the company. Meanwhile, I was walking about the pavilion trying not to lose sight of her. (Not having a Chinese SIM-card was, indeed, more than inconvenient.)

We focused on familiarizing ourselves with the companies represented in Pavilion ??, that’s why we were not in a hurry. The pavilion turned out to be very big, so we had to do quite a lot of walking. Unsurprisingly, I became hungry very soon. I spotted a small table between two stands where a girl was offering something tasty. Chinese guys would stop at the table, talk to the girl and she would fill their miniature glasses with some beverage from a thermos flask. I thought, “Come what may”, and made up my mind to give it a go. Sadly, the girl didn’t speak English, but nevertheless offered me a small glass. I thanked her, accepted the glass whereas she looked at me attentively. I was a bit embarrassed, then I drank the beverage in one draught and only then did I realize that there was something special in the glass, something peculiarly Chinese… Yes, it’s hard to describe the taste. Neither medicine nor herbal tea – something in between… Recherché, in a word. Yet, I obviously passed the test with flying colours because the girl gave me an encouraging smile. I wasn’t in the mood for a second glass, though, so I decided to be more patient and wait for lunch time.

In the slide show you will see a few photos taken at the exhibition. I might be mistaken, but I had the impression that as many as 1/3 of the offers dealt with the subjects of “a smart home” and “a smart city”. I wasn’t really interested in those at the moment, but took a couple of business cards just in case… The offers presented by those companies were too fascinating to ignore.

Special mention should be made of the security level provided at the exhibition. There were a great number of policemen and security guards patrolling every pavilion.

By the way, a curious thing happened to me there. While Julia was talking to representatives of a company, I took my smartphone out of my bag and began taking pictures. Suddenly, someone slowly patted me on the shoulder. To my surprise, when I turned round I saw a policeman. He pointed to my unzipped bag (looks like I had forgotten to zip it after taking out the phone). Then he shook his head and wagged his finger reproachfully. Like, “no good. Be careful.” I thanked him wholeheartedly in English, zipping the bag. He smiled and continued his way.

And one more observation relating to policemen. Almost all the guys who were patrolling the area were somehow much taller than their fellow countrymen. I’m not sure, but maybe they select the tallest ones for the police force in China?

Meanwhile, we finished with that pavilion and decided to move on to Pavilion 5, where we were supposed to meet numerous representatives of Chinese scientific circles (the Chinese Academy of Sciences, universities, research units).

Apart from the main issue, I was interested in another one, which I was lucky to solve. Walking about the pavilion, we heard loud Chinese music. Coming closer, to our surprise we saw two Chinese girls dancing. There was a big crowd of visitors watching them. Soon the performance was over, but I managed to take a picture of the show after struggling through the crowd to get closer to the dancers.

It turned out that in that peculiar way China Telecom, a major Chinese company, was attracting attention. The music faded away; those who wanted to be photographed with the girls stepped aside, and managers of the company appeared. Great job! The style was really striking… Those who wanted to talk to the company representatives came up to the managers, and I noticed that one of the representatives remained alone. He looked different from the other managers – like someone of a higher rank, if I may put it like this. After a moment’s consideration, I quickly approached him and began asking him questions. My intuition didn’t fail me. The guy turned out to be КЕМ? and easily answered all my questions in very good English. Briefly, I was interested in cloud computing and data security levels. On receiving an exhaustive answer, I asked him for a business card, thanked him for his help and continued exploring the pavilion together with Julia.

I won’t bore you with all the details. We were collecting business cards and catalogues and even found some interesting solutions in related fields. There are two things that I’d like to mention specifically. First – I came across a very funny stand. I somehow decided that the bearded guy next to Einstein was our Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. When I was showing the photos at work on returning to Russia, my comment regarding the stand raised a storm of laughter. It turned out that I was “slightly” mistaken – the bearded scholar was Karl Marx.

Another stand that gathered a lot of visitors attracted attention by demonstrating a light bulb which was giving off light without any wires connected to it, as if suspended in the air. A very unusual product. Most likely they used magnetic induction to make it work. I made up my mind to take a picture of the bulb.

Actually, that was the end of our visit to the Shenzhen HIGH TECH FAIR, as the other pavilions didn’t interest us. That’s why we headed for the exit. It was terribly humid outside. The sun was strong and the sunlight was reflected off the enormous mirrored buildings; cars were driving out of the underground car park; the visitors were streaming out from the pavilions into the street. I was yet again surprised to see such a lot of new cars in Shenzhen, most of them being German.

The whole area around the exhibition center was sealed off, and not just by regular policemen, but also by special police units. For example, along the perimeter of the exhibition center, close to the fence, there were several special forces units. The guys had automatic guns and were in full gear, with the word SWAT on their uniform. There was a van with dogs (the poor German Shepherd dogs were having a hard time despite the air conditioner). Also, there were a few armoured vehicles parked outside, one of which I even took a photo of. Interestingly, taxi drivers were not allowed to stop along the street where police cars and special purpose vehicles were parked. So our attempt to hail a taxi right at the entrance to the exhibition center was an epic fail, and other visitors had as much luck with it as we did.

4) Returning to the hotel

We had to walk back to the hotel; though, considering our bitter experience, we corrected our itinerary to avoid detours. We walked quite slowly, taking pics along the way. Say what you will, but the centre of Shenzhen is fabulous! We noticed very strange trees along the pavement. Their roots come to the surface and turn into a twisted trunk.

Some 20 minutes later we were at the hotel. Julia told me that her friend with his wife was coming in the evening, and that they had invited us to dinner.

After that we went to our rooms to get ready for the evening meeting and to have some rest from hours of walking. In the meantime I jotted down some notes about what had happened during the day. I did it every day that I spent in China and jokingly called those jottings “traveller’s notes”. It’s very convenient and helps you remember moments not captured in photos.

5) Meeting with friends, dinner and an evening walk about the city

In the evening Luda and Nancy arrived. By the way, Luda is a famous figure in Chinese history, and it’s a male name. Still can’t get used to its pronunciation… Luda and Nancy turned out to be very young people who were recently married. A great couple! Their modestly, politeness and sincere love for each other added to the wonderful impression of the meeting. Unsurprisingly, we connected and became friends very quickly.

Luda invited us to a restaurant which was literally five meters away from the hotel. It was an authentic Chinese restaurant – they didn’t offer forks there at all! Julia and I were the only foreigners in the restaurant that evening. We had a lot of fun at the table again because of my struggling with chopsticks. J But I wasn’t discouraged as I was growing better and better at using them.

When we were talking, a curious fact emerged. It turned out that Luda had been cooperating with Julia in the production of printed circuit boards, but it was the first time they’d met. And Julia had all the way thought that Luda was Lyuda, i.e. a girl. When it became clear that it was not so, everyone burst out laughing again!

In a word, we had a very good time at the restaurant. The food was very tasty, moderately spicy (thanks to our considerate friends), and aplenty again.

After dinner, we went for a walk in the vicinity of the hotel. Luda suggested buying souvenirs at one of the shops. I’ve always had difficulty choosing gifts – haven’t been able to choose the right ones since childhood, because I always think that the gift will prove to be bad. That’s why I normally try to avoid buying gifts or ask my sister to help me with it… Small wonder that I didn’t choose anything at the gift shop again, though there was something that I really liked. When we left the shop, I decided to return. Luda kept me company and helped me choose and buy two bookmarks. I was going to give one bookmark to my father and the other to my brother. Both of them enjoy reading. The only trouble was that there was something written in Chinese on each bookmark. That’s why I asked Luda to translate.

After that we strolled along the evening streets of Shenzhen, took a few commemorative pictures and came to a place with a lot of cafes and restaurants. I just loved the lighting installed on the trees and buildings around. I made a few attempts to photograph it with my smartphone. It came out well, I think.

Luda suggested having something sweet. We dropped in at a small café, engaging in a conversation about life in Russia and China. I couldn’t help noticing, with pleasure, what nice people Luda and Nancy were. They were kind of creating a special atmosphere around them. It was very pleasant to see that their family relationship was based on love, trust and mutual respect. It’s incredible, but the few hours we spent together was enough for us to become friends.

Nancy said that she worked with her husband, helping him to sell printed circuit boards to foreign customers. She speaks very good English, so she often came to our rescue if our dialogue got stuck because one of us didn’t know the necessary word. If Nancy was busy at the moment, Luda used the translator app on his smartphone, so we understood each other perfectly well.

Among other things, Luda solved another serious problem – that of staying in touch. He had bought a new phone with a Chinese SIM-card for Julia. We agreed on leaving the phone at the reception desk after we checked out, and he would pick it up later.

Finally, it was time for us to say good-bye. My new friends had to spend a few hours driving home through the city, that’s why we decided to take a taxi back to the hotel. We said our warm good-byes, after which Luda and Nancy headed home, whereas we returned to the hotel to restore energy and prepare for the next day.

The next point on our agenda was a visit to a factory which produced printed circuit boards. We had to be up very early so as to have time for breakfast at the hotel restaurant (which started at 7.30 am). At 8 am a female manager who lived nearby was to pick us up. Why so early? As almost all the factories are located out of town, we needed to get to the place before the traffic in Shenzhen got heavy. After all, it’s a city with a population of about 10 million people (or 12 million, according to some sources).

Remembering my bitter experience, I left the air conditioner on for the night, hoping to get a good sleep after a hard day. It was a futile hope, as it turned out…

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