I’m home for Christmas and the New Year, arriving back in Birmingham at lunchtime. I’ve been on the road since Thursday morning, as I have been visiting suppliers near Shanghai. Hence, for the first time I have ventured outside of Canton, in order to see other parts of the country. The first trip on Thursday morning was from Guangzhou to Wuxi (Wushi). We flew with Shenzen Airline and the flight took two hours. I nodded off, missing the spaghetti bolognaise breakfast. The flight went well though, from what I remember. The staff were pleasant and spoke English.
We were picked up from the airport by our supplier and driven in a leather seated people carrier to the centre of Wuxi. The city is on the mighty Lake Tai, the third largest lake in China, with a surface area of 2250km2. Wuxi is in Jiangsu Province, and it is a national tourist area because of the lake and its surrounding beauty. I can’t account for this as it was a very grey day, and bitterly cold. There was a mist in the air, which may be pollution. It was the type of heavy chill that permeates through your skin, into the bones;, into your soul almost. It was the coldest I have ever been.
The suppliers took us straight to lunch, via the lake. Tai was settled on by small fishing boats and not much else. There were no pleasure boats or sailing boats visible on a Thursday morning. It was too grey and misty to see anything, and we didn’t want to hang around because of the chill. There was also another very large Buddha (88m high) somewhere in the mist.
We had a typically big lunch, washed down with Mai Tai, beer and the best Chinese wine I’ve tasted: 1992 vintage Great Wall red, very much unlike the cooking sherry stuff, normally served. Oz Clark and his mate with the long hair, would have each had a “lefter”, out of surprise. The meal was hosted by the supplier’s MD, an intelligent and capable woman in her late fifties, who professed not to speak English. She commented on how good looking I was and noted the different colour shades of my hair. I was asked if I deliberately dyed it grey. At this stage during lunch (drinking), I honestly couldn’t remember.
The food was different to Cantonese, sweeter in fact, and less stir-fry and steamed dishes. We had beef and peppers in black bean sauce, BBQ ribs, tofu, vegetables in garlic, roast duck, stuffed dates, a massive grilled fish out of Lake Tai, fried noodles. Fried rice was served last, as a filler. Fried rice is not seen as proper food in restaurants. It’s a poor man’s filler, and some establishments don’t even serve it!
We toured the factory that afternoon for a few hours and then we were met by another driver from a different supplier company. He drove us the two hours south, from Wuxi to Hangzhou. Hangzhou is in Zhejiang Province, has a population of four million people and lies about 180 km south of Shanghai. On the way down, we past Suzhou, a very major city just outside of the Shanghai metropolis – with its tall skyscrapers lighting up the dark, with their digital graphics and strobes. The motorways were busy, but not congested. The surrounding standard of driving was good, although our driver had obviously passed his test somewhere near Munich, preferring to hug the bumper of the car in front. Nevertheless, I felt safer on the motorways here, than on the suburban roads of Guangdong.
We were taken straight for a meal that evening; another banquet. Dinner was hosted by the owner of the company we were visiting the next day. He was a pleasant man, who turned out to be a local ex-party boss. So he was obviously connected, but he did seem genuinely decent, in terms of his temper, body language and so on. We had another huge northern meal, washed down with a crate of Heineken Export, heavy passive smoking, tofu, the best roast lamb I’ve ever had, crab, prawns. We were then taken to our hotel, the gloriously sounding “Quintessential New Century Hotel”, complete with the largest artificial tree anywhere in the world. They must have brought the whole of Woolworth’s bankrupt stock to decorate it. It was quintessentially crap, and I loved it. It was one of the moments when I was proud to be Chinese.
Slept well in a cigarette smoke-filled room. I was on my own, but it was seeping in from somewhere. A good room up to Travelodge standard at least with a nice shower. We checked out at 7.30am and our ex-party host took us for breakfast to a noodle soup bar. We could have been somewhere in the Bull Ring, circa early eighties. It had that sought of grey, grubby feel to it. Like the Rag Market little side shops used to be. The place was full of customers. Our host orders us a big bowlful each. Mine was a steaming mix of noodles, chopped veggies, beef and pork pieces. It cost RMB10 (£1), which is expensive, if you only earn £30 a week. It was really terrific; with a savoury like a fresh pot-noodle. I think these northerners have the edge over the Cantonese Morning Tea.
On we went to the factory, which was an hour away, giving me time to observe the local landscape. If you’ve ever been around rural Belgium or Holland, it’s nothing really like that, but I can’t think of a better comparison. There’s more space in between house; more houses than apartments. The houses have a less grandiose/ostentatious design than in the south. There are larger gardens and vegetable plots, and most seem to have some sort of workshop as well, which out host said were the family small businesses, linked to textiles, usually wool spinners.
Every town had buildings going up. There are construction cranes for miles around, new roads, bypasses and underpasses being built everywhere. We completed a factory tour (a good factory by western standards) and were then taken for a third large meal of hairy crabs, dog, Beijing Duck, noodle soup and about 20 fags wafting past. We were taken to Hangzhou Airport (size of Manchester Airport I guess) and had a three hour delay. We passed time in Starbucks watching a daytime soap set in a Chinese Tango School. It was all sideways glances and close-ups. The serving staff were transfixed by the big love story and the whole shop came to a halt. We eventually flew back on China East Airline to Guangzhou, where I had a five hour wait to board to Dubai.
I’ve had a great vist, rounding sixteen months of coming to China. I’m a better man for travelling, and I’m getting to know myself better, along with a sense of becoming a little more independant, grown-up, resiliant, philosophical. But hopefully without losing the essential character that knocked my wife bandy all those years ago. Happy new year to you xxx.
