Odd Indeed to Arrive

The simple pathway from Shenzhen to Hong Kong, not so simple any more. Walking through is easy.  But considering this cop there and that officer there can no longer be the same benign Hong Kong that people knew from the 90s and the naughts.  On the China side, I note a young kid who looks about as threatening as a software engineer, pulled over randomly for questioning, and wonder.  Odd to be on the MTR and consider the recent videos of thugs charging in and swinging clubs at defenseless people.  I used to be here with my little girls and always felt unquestionably safe.  Parents surely don’t feel safe about their kids just now. 

The subway itself is, completely devoid of anyone of the foreign persuasion.  Some people obviously look like they’re from the mainland.  Others have that indescribable but unmistakable Hong Kong mien.  And then, there’s me.  Me and the people whom you can’t quite tell where they’re from in the greater Chinese universe.  Hong Kong had always been the place to come to and exhale from the pressures of the mainland.  The PRC was chaotic.  Hong Kong was ordered.  Odd indeed to arrive in Hong Kong and wonder about things like safety, after having left the comparatively placid and orderly, predictable mainland. 

Freedoms, certainly worth standing up for.  Freedoms I take for granted.  Freedoms you may not need until you suddenly need them.   Freedoms people in the mainland have not ever really enjoyed.  I look at all the young people on the subway.  Which side are they on? - as the old song says.  The guy beside me has an arm full of tattoos.  He’s with what appears to be his girlfriend.  (Later they kiss!  I was right.)  Which side are they on?  I look at the older people and if things got hot, I don’t know which way anyone would go. 

Across from me everyone is staring up at the screen.  The train is broadcasting some version of the news.  Many eyes turn to consider.  Is it Carrie Lam being grilled in her town hall meeting?  It's too far up behind my shoulders and I cannot see.  I imagine that what is being shown is some bad news of violet protest here in town and I want to check my phone.  Once upon a time the news was necessarily fatuous in Hong Kong, stars and glam and food and conspicuous consumption.  You realize just what a constructed veneer that had been.

Carrie Lam had a thoughtful editorial in the New York Times today.   It was measured, hopeful.  That’s appropriate.  It was well written.  But it isn’t clear that she’s the one who will lead the reconciliation.  It isn’t clear that people are ready to forgive and forget.  If I or someone I loved had been roughed up by the cops I wouldn’t likely forgive so easily either.  If my brother was a cop dodging bricks and petrol bombs I wouldn't have a reflective posture either.  I wonder just how inflammatory this weekend, so close to the National Holiday will end up being.  Hong Kong: my old friend.  You provided a safe, (if expensive), home for my family for three years.  I am here in part today to wish you and all your citizenry well and to wish you a peaceful evolution.

Friday 09/27/19

My Little Blue Dot

The driver speaks with a thick Shanghainese accent.  Yes, he is in fact from Shanghai.  He’s probably my age and has a big smile.  We talk about Beijing and Shanghai and he assumes as Shanghai guys usually do, that I strongly prefer his home town to the capital up north.  I try to be oblique rather than disabuse him of this assumption.  We’ll be together for at least the next hour.

Yet again another enormous tier-one, bank campus.  This particular client has something that’s damn good fit for banks.  Banks are, as they say, where the money is, and these bigger-than-thou campus constructions testify to seemingly limitless largesse.   The clients travelled here separately and arrived late.  My colleague goes out to meet them at the door, as they don’t have any local currency to settle the fare.

Cash seems to be a theme.  Didi’s are OK.  They’re linked to my Amex.  But one and then another ATM is non-cooperative today.  Before the afternoon meeting, we pile out at a mall a few blocks away.  No.  The Shanghai Pudong Bank will not work with an international ATM.  No there are no other ATMs in this mall.  No, the pert little Italian place will not take any foreign cards.  We’d better all pile in to Starbucks, where I know they’ll take a card.  They’ve changed the menu it seems on these chicken wraps are new.  They are dry and stuffed with things like carrots and stringy raw mushrooms that detract rather than add to the taste.

I hadn’t recognized the name of the company we were to visit.  Standing on a corner, trying to read the GPS to see if my little blue dot is moving north or south, we finally discern that we need to continue on straight.  And when I see this building, I realized that it is part of the Shanghai Media Group and that I have visited here many times, with many different companies.  I can’t imagine any of the people inside that I’m to meet though, are the same.

Dinner at Ye Shanghai.  They are kind and allow me to pile in at 4:00PM to take my call in a corner seat, even though our reservation isn’t for ninety minutes later.  I admire the glass they’ve served me a drink in with its small circles bent glass that refract the light.  Calls are becoming difficult.  Zoom is now blocked.  There is a hack, but it doesn’t always work.  And, it now seems that the Astrill VPNs are completely blocked as well.  This is crippling.  Usually you can find a server somewhere, Albania, Macedonia, somewhere that hasn’t been blocked.  But this week seems different.  Perhaps there is a software update to be had that will make a difference. 

Thursday 9/26/19

The View, to the Left

I’m glad there won’t be any issue about arriving late.  We got a DiDi fast enough. The plane wasn’t delayed.  But the 9:20PM traffic down into Shanghai is jammed. I recall my first night in this town, many years ago before there were any such elevated highways.  I had beaucoup luggage and the two gentleman I was with, took one cab and I went by myself in another VW Santana.  The cabbie told me he’d take a shortcut through backstreets.  He bragged to me that the route the other cab was taking would take my colleagues a dreadfully long time and he was right. 

I call the restaurant we’re heading to and confirm that we’ll be “a little late.”  The lady takes it in stride.  “No problem Mr. Fang.”  We loop around off the highway and circle back towards the Bund and, unsurprisingly we come to a complete stop, three blocks away in the traffic of evening revelry, heading east on Guangdong Lv.  I suggest to my colleagues we walk the last two hundred yards and leave the concretized traffic behind.

Walking, once again out on to the porch, at ‘M on the Bund.’  How long has this place been here?  It wasn’t here in 1993.  I don’t think it was in 1996, either.  Likely it was 99’ or that vintage.  (Indeed, 1999.)  The view, to the left which hasn’t changed much since the Japanese invasion and the one to the right which is a living canvas of phallic extremism.  It has the desired effect on the two people I’m with who are considering it or the first time. I take a seat viewing back towards restaurant to allow them outward views to enjoy.

One group, and then another leaves.  Before eleven they tell us the kitchen has closed.  Not long after when we’ve changed our minds and want more, they confirm they had meant what they’d said.  Everyone wants to go home, besides the three of us and eventually we capitulate.  Traffic isn’t a problem by this hour and the hotel isn’t far.  But these Shanghai neophytes have apparently chosen a hotel with a similar name to this one, way across town and there’s no room here at the inn.  I head up to the top floor bar with my old friend who met me here for a night cap and while the view is grand, I haven’t really got any energy left to talk for very long at all. 

Wednesday 09/25/19