Its 16 years since my first visit to China. Its now become a bi–annual visit to the in laws in Fuzhou, a seaboard provincial capital in south east China over looking northern Taiwan. High time for an update to an article that I wrote for New Frontiers (Issue 14) after that first trip. Incidentally, it was probably one of the articles from which New Frontiers got most positive feedback back then. PS For a 2015 update, see isuue 25.

Changes

For a regular visitor, the most striking impression is one of relentless change.

Since 1994, Fuzhou’s population has risen fourfold to about 4 million. What was a fairly dirty, dusty town has become much more modern, old low rise blocks of flats becoming modern high rise apartment blocks. The quarter which hosts the business centre and "western" hotels is probably the least unchanged. They were there in 1994. Elsewhere, across the centre, it is a common sight to see high rise, low rise and building sites in the same view. New build rippling out across the city. In 1994, I felt if one cyclist fell, he’d take out 50 or more fellow cyclists. In 2010, the only time I saw 50 cycles in one view was at the cycle parks still dotted around the city. Scooters and motorised cycles are now the preferred mode of transport for the upwardly mobile generation. Now, my in laws complain about the traffic jams in the city centre. But go 5 miles outside the sprawling suburbs and you’ve a virtually clear road.

My in laws live in what we call "The Little Lane" which intersects the "The Big Lane". 4 years ago "The Little Lane" was a potholed alley way about 3 metres wide, on either side, small dwellings where people eked out a living selling all manner of things, live poultry and fish, vegetables and various forms of stationery included. 2 years ago it had been knocked down. Some dwellings backing onto it as well. The hard core of a new 3 lane road was taking shape. Now, the road is open. At one end, a luxury development of 4 blocks of 25 storey flats has risen and is rapidly nearing completion. Its been marketed as "platinic living" with prices ranging from £200,000 to £1.2m for a top floor penthouse. At the other end, the road is restricted to 2 lanes, the owner of some old dwellings have refused to move, so the road reduces in width.

Across the city, similar developments have, and continue to occur. They allow new young yuppies to move in but force out many of the elder residents who can’t afford to buy a new, almost certainly larger, property, at new build prices. At 30 times annual average middle class earnings, you can see why and also wonder just how sustainable the prices will be.

Xiamen

The highlight of my trip was a 4 day stay at a 5 star seaside hotel in Xiamen, about 200 miles south of Fuzhou. We took the new high speed train. It appeared to be a brand new track and stations for almost the entire journey. The train touched 155 mph. We stopped about 5 times, each station appeared almost identical, big, new, built on the outskirts of the town and surrounded by old, low rise dwellings. No doubt in five years time, they will all have been replaced by high rise apartments and sprawling towns.

At each station, the platform was marked where the doors would open, orderly queues waited to board the train, many people taking photos before boarding, their first sight of a bullet train.

We stopped at an impressive hotel, unfortunately it was in the middle of nowhere with only the beach to explore. During our stay we visited the motor free island of Gulangyu and various temples.

We joined hordes of families and friends pursuing China’s most popular hobby. Tourism. New found wealth and freedom means that visit any beauty spot and you’ll be amongst the masses.

I had an embarrassing moment on the boat trip across to the island. On board, being a captive westerner, I was requested to be photographed with various Chinese people. One girl, or so I thought, asked for a photo with me and a toddler of about 3 she was with. I said something to her which implied the man who took the photo was her husband, it turned out she was his daughter. Acute embarrassment on my part, however we laughed it off and her father invited me and my family for lunch on the island.

I’d visited Xiamen in October 1999 when we’d stayed at the university. My overwhelming memory of the university was the sports complex. Gravel running track being used by about 200 students for general keep fit activities and infield hosted 4 soccer games involving upwards of 120 more students. Beyond the track, a ramshackle area of gymnastic bars and beams. Now, in mid summer, the new synthetic track and infield were deserted and the gym area replaced by Pepsi sponsored basketball pitches.

White Gruel

For my in laws, the highlight of the hotel’s breakfast menu translated as "white gruel", watery rice to me. I can eat most things Chinese these days, but watery rice is still a no, no.

Over the years. The local diet seems to have changed from being predominantly local produce from the sea (fish, crabs, shell fish etc.) to be much more meat based. Ginseng which was widely used in cooking and as a herbal drink back in1994 was rarely seem in 2010.

The Curious Case Of Two Dumped Full Coke Bottles

The night before we had departed for Xiamen, my mother in law had a disagreement with her I live in maid, employed for the summer at a cost of 2,300 yuan (£220) per month. Whilst we were away, she wanted to travel up country to attend a funeral of an elderly friend. My mother in law wasn’t keen, fearing she would bring back bad luck and / or might catch something. She said she wouldn’t, but mother in law felt she would. So, on our return from Xiaman, mother in law hatched a plan.. As soon as the maid returned, a story was spun, that father in law needed a couple of large bottles of coke for an event at his former work. Without entering the flat, the maid was asked to go to the shops and buy 2 large bottles of coke and put them straight into the ground floor store, without bringing them into the flat, thus transferring any bad luck to the coke. When the maid wasn’t looking, the coke was dumped.

Go North

Incidentally, the new train also goes north of Fuzhou to Fuding where my mother in law was raised. The train there takes one hour. I visited Fuding for the first time 4 years ago when a new motorway opened reducing the journey to 2 hours, previously, my wife had said we couldn’t visit as the journey involved a 12 hours bus journey over mountain passes.

River Cruise

Another highlight was supposed to be a trip to the outskirts of Fuzhou to visit some friends of my in laws who live by the river for a cruise. Got there, impressive house, but the cruise boat turned out to be a 2 man paddle boat. Something had got lost in the translation.

Under the glaring sun, I got a bit of sunstroke from having to take both children for a paddle around the lake. That was my worst incident of sickness since my first trip and knocked me out for a couple of days. My mother in law, a retired doctor, knew the medicine to get me quickly up and about.

Westerners

During my 3 weeks in Fuzhou, I saw 4 western people, plus about 20 in the Xiamen hotel. We are still rather exotic out there. Many boys / men will proffer a "Hello, how are you", but my mandarin isn’t too good and their English isn’t much better, so many conversations soon petered out.

The girls would generally notice me and look at the ground, the more adventurous would check out the size of my feet.

I did meet a mid 20s man who spoke text book English and took me to his internet café. He let me use his connection and bought me a coke, he was very nervous, he’d never spoken to a westerner before and was afraid he’d make a grammatical error or wouldn’t know an English word that he wanted to use. At first, he was literally shaking with nerves. His English? Word perfect.

Meanwhile, back at my in laws , the grounds contained a children’s play area where we bumped into a neighbour, a 21 year student who’d been employed (live in at 700 yuan per month) to look after a 7 year old during the school summer holidays. Again, she spoke perfect English. She would come across with her charge and chatted with me and my children. Happily sat on the grass, wearing a low cut top, she’d lean forward to chat and looking down from my seat on the park bench, I could see all she had, she was quite oblivious to what she was revealing.

These were rare cases, at least in my experience, of every day Chinese people who spoke good English. Go to a big hotel and the front desk will speak good English. Go into most shops and the staff will have limited English. One exception seems to be McDonalds and KFC, where most staff spoke English. We walked past KFC on a few occasions, most times a couple of assistants were outside conducting English lessons for young children, guess who got roped into helping!

Mind Your Language

With my linguistic skills, shopping can present a challenge, although I did once manage to get an assistant to successfully direct me towards men’s swimming trunks, Incidentally one aspect of selling in the trendy shops and boutiques which I hadn’t previously noticed was the heavily discounted prices. Goods would be individually priced but the shop would display a notice saying a discount applied across all goods (or departments),typically, you’d pay 50 – 70% of the label price. For someone not understanding the lingo, its slightly confusing until one of the many assistants comes across with a calculator and taps out the actual price.

Money

The currency is largely unchanged, using the chinese yuan. There are no new value notes and the design on all notes is unchanged since my first visit in 1994. Nowadays there are 10 yuan to the pound (there were 14 when I first visited). The yuan is divided into jiao, the one jiao note is still available and is now worth one penny. In 1994, the jiao was divided into 10 feng, but they no longer existed. One my first trip, one incident caused much merriment for a few seconds. Wanting to use a public toilet, I was charged 2 feng, the attendant denoting the amount by raising 2 fingers in what we’d consider an offensive manner. I could have had 7 pees for one penny.

Now, a meal in a good restaurant or hotel would cost no more than £15 per person and would include plentiful food and alcohol, A McDonald’s meal (for the children) is less than £2.50. Taxi fares have increased by one yuan in 16 years. Now they’re 9 yuan for the first 3 kilometres and jiao increments over that. The one yuan rise being to cover rising petrol prices. Taxi drivers have just started to round the jiao to the nearest yuan.

I had a chuckle and brain teaser when visiting the bank to exchange money. One queue was labelled "Green Channel For The Distress Relieving Remittance", if you know what that’s for, then answers on a £50 note to the usual address.

Fashion

Being a hot climate, dress is invariably informal and light. One worrying trend is the sleeveless tops worn by many women. One awful sight was one woman preening her hair with both hands and revealing the hairiest armpits I’ve ever seen, she probably had more hair on her armpits than down below. And it wasn’t an isolated occurrence.

I saw many tee shirts, many emblazoned with slogans written English, one said "Listen To Your Hear" (sic). One toddler was in full Chelsea kit, but altogether the numbers of western football shirts I saw was probably less than 10 plus one England cricket Vodafone top.

Change, No Change

Whilst the country is rapidly changing, every time I go back, there are masses of new infrastructure. But the people don’t change anywhere nearly as quickly.

Elsewhere, with the yuan now having the ability to float freely, its likely that the exchange rate wouldn’t be as quite attractive on my next visit. Maybe bad for me, maybe bad for China as I’ve already heard mutterings that foreign investment is beginning to question just how cheap China really is.

One thing is certain many building sites will be top quality apartments and many old dwellings will be building sites.