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Day 1: Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen—Like New York City on Speed
CathyHuge. Cold. Smoggy. People everywhere. Everyone walking really fast. It’s my first time to Asia. And everyone is so friendly!
After 22 hours of traveling we arrived at the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon. It’s beautiful, but all we really got to see our first night was the inside of our room. We had two hours of sleep, and then it was time to take off! At 5:30 in the morning we were met by Fanny and Michael, our brokers—
Lissa I had to get a cup of coffee. Thank God there was a Starbucks across the street.
CathyIt was really exhausting, the traveling that day. We got on the train and at first I was caught up in the countryside. Being in Asia for the very first time, I was looking out the window at everything flying by, but that train ride went on and on.
Lissa That was two train rides—one to the border with China, and another one to Guangzhou.
CathyThen the driver came and picked us up for another hour-and-a-half ride, so it was a four-hour trek to get to the printing factory in Guangzhou.
Lissa I’ll tell you my impression because I used to work in publishing. This facility was using German presses, and those are really good. So I knew that the quality that was coming out of this factory was going to be good.
CathyAnd what I was impressed with was how absolutely gi-normous this place was. There were hundreds of people just working on one aspect of the manufacturing process: some people were strictly gluing, some people were cutting…
Lissa They made boxes and books and packaging for perfume bottles, and they had a lot of die-cut machines. They took one die-cut machine and used handmade molds and modified it to fit anything they were making.
My other impression of Guangzhou was we had the best food!
CathyFanny and Michael were such great hosts. They took us out to amazing meals. The first one was lunch at a restaurant that specializes in fresh seafood. Every dish they brought out was just delicious! I love spicy food, with my Korean blood, and they had this very rich, spicy, oily seafood dish that was just yummy!
Then we had another long ride and we were driven to—that’s another interesting thing, it’s very common to be picked up by drivers in Hong Kong, I guess because they drive so crazy they don’t trust you to drive. I’d love to have that here, because I fall asleep very easy in cars!
So after that very filling lunch I crashed—
Lissa Kara took good pictures of you with your mouth open—
CathyYeah, and I wouldn’t let you guys show it. We went to a factory that manufactures bags. Five hundred sewing machines on five stories, incredible the merchandise they could just pump out. That was really eye-opening.
From talking to our guides I learned that these people work long hours, they work really hard, but they come from small villages and the money they make at this job they’re so grateful for because they can feed their families.
When we heard they had dormitories because many employees live far away and can only go home on the weekends, we thought that may be sad, but the manager said many of them ask to work seven days a week. The whole thing is they want to make money to save up to go home and open up their own business. And that was inspiring. They’re working hard, they’re paying the price, but that’s their goal, that’s what they want to do.
Lissa I think everything is relative. Our guide said these people feel very lucky to be able to feed their families with these jobs. We may look at the situation and say it’s sad, but that’s because of what we know.
Cathy I have to say that was an experience. We saw one side of business, the manufacturing, and then it was on to experience the retail side.
Lissa And the competition among retailers! Boy, did we experience retail!
CathyShopping in China—what an experience! In the States, you see a price and you go to the counter and pay that price! In China they expect you to bargain—
Lissa Even in some department stores!
CathyFanny took us to Shenzhen, the capital of knockoff bargains. Fanny, who is originally from Hong Kong, and Michael, who still lives there, were coaching us: hold your pocketbook close and beware of pickpockets, and how to bargain…
Lissa And don’t pull your wallet out, keep it in your bag…
CathyI had a habit of pulling my money out—you’re going to get mugged! I think I looked like this innocent puppy dog, because I was like wow! Look at all the stuff!
Lissa We forgot about being hungry.
CathyPeople literally came out of the woodwork and jumped on us to try to drag us to their shop.
Lissa You want Louis Vuitton? You want Gucci? You want Prada? Come! Come!
CathyThe reason we have no pictures is we were afraid Kara would get beaten up for her camera!
So basically Fanny and Michael acted as our bargainers. We’d ask for the price, and they directed us to say ‘No no, too much!’ Then we would walk out and they would go in and bargain for us. It was a little scary but a lot of fun. We walked out with T-shirts and souvenirs, lots of things for our girls.
By this point it was 8:30 at night and we were definitely ready for dinner. We went to a restaurant where we had 10 courses, another authentic Chinese meal, it was so, so delicious! The two dishes that I remember the most were the steamed cucumber with the tiny fish, something I’d never tasted before—
Lissa It was very delicate, and I don’t like fish, and that was really good.
CathyBut the one the three of us enjoyed the most was the dessert, the pumpkin jin doi.
Lissa Pumpkin squash jin doi, never had anything like that, so light and fluffy.
CathyI had two, but I think Lissa and Kara had four. Then Fanny and Michael, they had been telling us all day we were going to get a massage.
Lissa I had asked them. My mom had told me that the Number One thing to do in China is get a massage, because it’s cheap and a fabulous experience. So when we got in the car I asked Fanny, can we get a massage, and she said we know the perfect place, maybe we can work it into the day. But by now it’s like 10 or 11:00.
CathyWow, what an experience! We never again saw a place like this because this was in Shenzhen. Shenzhen massage spas are very glitzy, everything was over the top. The rest of the massage places later on in China were not anything like that, more relaxing and spiritual, but this was Viva Las Vegas meets China. Rows and rows of recliners where you’re not just getting a foot massage, you’re getting entertained, you can get a cocktail, watch TV, I loved it!
Lissa I wanted to do that every single day!
CathyWe saw people having business meetings there, we saw families talking story and eating. Very cool experience!
After our foot massage we were treated to a two-hour body massage, and oh, we all needed that. The surround-sound snoring was pretty funny. I did my snoring in the car, but boy, the girls all did their snoring in the massage room.
Lissa I even woke myself up, I heard myself snoring.
CathyIt was 3:00 in the morning and we had to get over the border and back to Hong Kong. We had to take a cab, then a bus and a cab back to our hotel, it was 5:30 in the morning again, and that was just the first day of our trip.
Lissa Oh my God, Day One was exhausting! Sensory overload too. Looking at manufacturing plants and people and going to Shenzhen and you name it, they can make it, duplicate it, shop after shop after shop with all these things that came out of China, that was mind-boggling. That was probably just one-millionth of all the products from China.
CathyI looked around and no one was leisurely walking or talking. Everyone’s on a mission, going somewhere, doing something. It was like New York City on speed. With noodles!
I was very impressed. Very impressed with the manufacturing, and how huge China really is. And the diversity of people, from homeless and people begging and using their children to beg on the streets, to the divas with the latest hairstyles and handbags, looking glamorous! My impression was our world is so different in some senses, but so much the same. Seeing people with their families, little Chinese kids and babies, very, very different but still very much the same. And every time we saw children we missed our families.
