Shenzen

As I mentioned before I finally paid a visit to Mainland China. I visited the city of Shenzen which is just on the other side of the border from Hong Kong with a bunch of other internationals (including quite a few girls from UQ). Shenzen is apparantly the wealthiest city in China (one of the first cites where foreign companies were allowed to invest) and it looks like it. Massess of faceless concrete highrises, wide planned roads and people and industry moving at a million miles an hour. It is one of China's biggest manufacturing bases and is leading the way in China's rapid industrialization...but to most Hong Kongers (and me) it is just an extended shopping mall.

And what a mall it is. Just near the border crossing there is one particualar shopping centre that is just six floors of knock-off handbags (probably from the same factory that makes the genuine article!!), shoes, fake watches, clothes, tailors, copy DVDs, massage parlours and extremely cheap Dim Sum.

But it is hard work. Shopkeepers try and charge westeners extremely high prices and you could spend up to twenty minutes haggling them down to a deccent price. Men stalk you constantly trying to sell you DVDs. People physically pull you towards their shops. It can be very terrifying, especially if you are by yourself. But in the end you have to accept it as it is and indulge in the lawlessness. It ends up being quite fun. At the end of the day so as I did and treat yourself to a good foot massage (a whole hour for 30RMB). In the end it was a fantastic day trip as well as a good insight in how dynamic China's economy is. Everywhere people are working incredibly hard, eager to do business and just have a good sense of optimism.