Made in China

Some years ago I worked in China. The company I was with had an office in Guangzhou, which is relatively near Hong Kong and Macau.

The people in the office – all of whom I remember with some affection, were wonderful people. Were it not for them my sanity would now be in question (yes, yes. I hear you!!).

There were people like Raymond who risked his all going to the Muslim Quarter with me to translate so that we could have halal meat in the house. He also tried to kill me by making me climb interminable stairs to the top of an observation tower in the garden of memorial to Dr. Sun Yat Sen!

It is a long, long climb to the top!

Richard Lim(?), Michael He, Tracy Zhang, Anna Guan, May Tong and the Manageress, ‘Whisky’ Vicky Chen were all wonderful people to work with.

They did have an odd quirk that I could not dispel. They had their lunch from noon until one o’clock. The ‘lunch’ hour, from one until two, was spent sleeping because that was their ‘own time’!

China, on the other hand…

There was never a problem finding a toilet. Just follow your nose. I am certain that you could catch terrible diseases just thinking about their toilets!

At a karaoke night (I abhor karaoke), I needed to go to the toilet at some point. A security guard followed me into the toilet and stood by my side waiting for me to return to the karaoke room. She was quite attractive but not really who you want observing you at such a time!

The public parks had two prices, one for the locals and another – much higher, price for foreigners who had to show their passport, of course.

The hotels were thronged with prostitutes. Even the biggest and poshest hotel in Guangzhou, the Garden Hotel, was not immune to their predations.

 The Garden Hotel in Guangzhou

But…

The main problem was buying anything that was vaguely technical. Food we could get from various sources including a market fairly near where we lived who sold the most amazing ‘Fuji’ apples and all manner of vegetables and live fish. The fish were mostly Tilapia that were cheap and tasty; they killed them and cleaned the one that you chose in the pond.

Fresh taufoo? Superb. Hot and steaming and delicious. It arrived  on wooden racks to be served on banana leaves or a small saucer.

Technical items?

No.

I bought a dozen bulbs for my torch (US: flashlight) in the vain hope that one of them may last longer than a few seconds. Not one survived.

It was cold for a long time. Then a warm breeze announced the start of spring and that brought instant flooding from condensation in the house. Time to buy a heater before black mould eats everything!

The heater was an infra-red tube mounted vertically. In this way the coil inside the glass infra-red tube was almost a straight piece of wire at the top that gradually became a spiral until it was just a compressed lump at the bottom. A compressed, white-hot lump!

The control was at the top. It was made of plastic! Guess what! Heat rises, does it not? Plastic melts!

Now comes the crunch.

When anything ceases to function in China you go to the person from whom you purchased said item and tell him that you need it repaired.

(NB: I am not being misogynostic, it is always a ‘him’.)

This person will then explain that it is their job to sell that item.

You explain that you want it repaired.

He tells you he does not do repairs, “Sell only-ah’.

You ask who does the repairing.

He shrugs.

You say that you want to see the manager.

He will now panic and cease to function. You are now talking to the equivalent of a wall.

The best you get from them is, “Better buy new-ah.”

Telling him that it is new is irrelevant to them. The answer is that you buy a new item – problem solved-ah!

It is for this reason that I studiously avoid purchasing anything that is made in China unless it is under the direct control of a foreigner.

There are many more stories that could be told about my year in the People’s Republic of China but, possibly, a veil is best drawn over most of them!