I
called for a DiDi while I was
still talking with the person who’d come to visit me at noon. I needed to be at the next place by one. The guy needed to circle around the block and
then, then he figured out where I was and waved to me from the corner. I’ve had some excruciating problems with my
phone of late: the touch pad isn’t receptive and so I need to press deeply with
my thumbs into various points of the glass real estate to activate any engagement
and get the Wechat to close and the DiDi to open. This results in touches often registering a
few seconds after I’ve moved on and indeed my driver points out to me that this
has indeed happened: “Hey, you just cancelled the trip.” “I did?”
“Yeah, you did.” “Now what?” he asks. “Cash” I tell him. “I’ll settle with you in
cash.”
When it comes time
to do this, he doesn’t have change, and I don’t have anything other than
one-hundred-yuan notes and some U.S. dollars and Brazilian real in my wallet. “No. I don’t have enough Wechat money.” Why I didn’t just pay him one-hundred RMB and
take Wechat money back, doesn’t occur to me.
He does the conversion wrong on precisely what value to assign to twenty
U.S. dollars and I reject the notion of giving him one the Andrew Jackson as
its still worth a lot more than the pink Mao one-hundred note. The real
might be closer but he’d never understand what it was. Eventually he concedes defeat and accepts
twenty two kuai which, all things considered,
isn’t too far off.
Entering a
building on the Bund I proceed up to the elevator, luggage in-tow and take in a
remarkable hallway with a commanding fresco at the far wall. I’m running late but wonder just what this
building was? I find out later this, Bund
22 is a former Swire building, and later home to the Fenghua Pen Company. Pens used to mean something. Up on the fifth floor I plow into El Willy the
Spanish restaurant where I am to meet this delegation visiting Brazilian
financiers. I see my colleague who
gestures me to the table, but not before I can marvel at yet another remarkable
view of the famous curve of the Bund from this angle and the imposing
skyscrapers across the water.
Soon I’m sharing a
thing or two about Zheng He and Henry the Navigator with this group who are finishing
their lunch. The lunch looks good and I
let the waitress who’s bringing desert know I’d like a helping of their bacalao
and a soda water, if she would. It’s a
grand setting and I think I rise up to the challenge and manage to have these gents
craning their neck away from the food and away from the view towards the tale I
have to tell.
During the Q&A
one inquisitive gentleman questions my thesis and wonders what will happen to
countries who fall into debt with China.
I acknowledge China’s questionable dealings with Ecuador to the
Brazilian northwest and the damn China built which the Ecuadorians are now in spiraling
debt to pay for. I draw their attention
to the view outside the window and remind them that each of these buildings built
in what was then a, Concession were built by foreign investors, who enjoyed
daunting economic power, but in the end, each and every building was lost to
their host country who expropriated them all.
Our Chinese friends I suspect are rather familiar with the risks of
expropriation in far away lands.
Monday, 04/08/19
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