Shenzhen (stage 2) – Christmas Eve

We were up and out of the hotel by 9, to travel by bus to the stage start in Longgua (a district of Shenzhen, I think). Wilson had decided to stay to try to change his ticket to depart.

The 4 buses carrying all the riders, plus the container truck with the bikes, had a police escort all the way to the start. The drive was interesting – we saw lots of huge apartment buildings where it appeared to be washday on Monday, as every single balcony was hung with rows of drying apparel. It’s funny how the small, common things are sometimes the most fascinating to the foreign eye! The driving (which, incidentally, is on the right side of the road as opposed to the left as in Hong Kong) is much more chaotic and aggressive here in China. Our bus driver wore our ears out with loud, prolonged honking, and had to throw the brakes on violently a few times as cars cut in front of him.

The riders’ area at the start was a barricaded area with a tent for each team. I am getting more and more impressed by the organization of this event; while it’s true that there’s a lot of “Hurry up and wait,” the race organizers are doing a tremendous job of getting people and equipment from one spot to another with a relatively small amount of hassle and almost no error. Also, the rider area was secured by police, and legions of red-jacketed workers with “Longhua volunteers” logos stitched on their caps ran around lugging water, manning the Port-A-Potties, etc. It seems that there’s a huge amount of national, regional, and local pride.

The course was a nearly flat loop of 4 kilometers on the streets of Shenzhen Longhua. Once the racers were off, I wandered around for a bit to explore. I went into a bank to try and change Hong Kong dollars into Chinese yuan. I asked someone for an English-speaking clerk, and was led graciously from one person to another until someone who could help me was found. After so much helpful effort on my behalf I felt bad to change me mind, but the pageful of information I would have had to fill out looked so daunting that I decided to forget the money changing for now. Bigger establishments (like the massage place from last night) accept HK dollars anyway, and it would only be for small stuff that it would be useful to have yuan.

I continued to a big supermarket, thinking of buying some running shoes so I could do some jogging from time to time (there’s no time to go for a ride, and my legs and back are starting to ache from lack of exercise). However, I couldn’t find anything that fit me and had enough support for running. I continued through the department store-like aisles until I found the grocery section. This was a great adventure. The bulk food section had all kinds of mysterious, fascinating things. The rice was in huge, 4-foot plywood cubes. I saw 2-gallon jugs of peanut oil and soy sauce. I saw about a dozen varieties of honey from all kinds of different flowers I’ve never heard of (Matrimony Vine, Blessed Mother something-or-other, etc.). Amazing! The grocery also had live fish, but surprisingly a rather small produce section. Maybe this means that people tend to buy their produce from outdoor markets where it’s fresher.

I bought a kind of Chinese candy apple, which was pieces of fruit on a stick, all covered with a passionfruit-y crunchy candy. Then I wandered back to the race area to see the finish. Our Mengoni guys were doing fine; I saw Eugene covering some moves, and Alberto cruising near the front. (He was trying to get in promising breaks all day, but wasn’t lucky with the ones he picked.) Amaurys won one intermediate sprint, which he went for just to test his legs. He got boxed in the finish, but 3 guys had escaped just a few seconds off the front in the last half lap, so the podium was sealed anyway.

There were huge crowd of people watching the race, which was really cool to see. They were held in place by police tape stretched between cones, but nobody tried to push in to get a better view.

There was a guy selling roasted corn, and another guy (with a wheeled cart onto which was attached a crude brazier made of a metal drum) selling roasted sweet potatoes. We bought some of each (I got charged more than Pollo when I went back a little later to buy more…an interesting phenomenon that we’d already noted in the Dominican Republic, but I was surprised to see here where Pollo’s as much a foreigner as me; maybe it’s a blue-eyed surcharge).

After the guys had recovered for 15 minutes or so and changed their clothes, we got ready to go. There were still a lot of bottles of sports drink provided by the race (it’s called Pocari Sweat, a name that would create a big obstacle to its successful sale in the US, I reckon). I offered them to the crowd, which was staring from behind the barricade in interest at the post-race happenings. At first no one held out his hand to accept the bottled drink, and I wondered if I were offending the crowd by offering it, even if it was sponsor product. But, finally, one smiling face separated itself from the crowd and its owner held out her hand; once the ice was broken, more and more hands came out to accept the sports drink. But how different from anywhere else I’ve been, where there would be shoving and pushing and yelling. The Chinese spectators were mostly silent, and rather unsmiling, but I still got the impression that they were enjoying the spectacle of the race.

Meanwhile, some women dressed in ragged clothes were collecting the empty cardboard boxes that the drinks had arrived in, and the empty bottles as well. They looked completely thrilled with this unexpected windfall, and we helped them collect up the “garbage” before we left. This country strikes me as so efficient – light years from the wantonly wasteful United States. I know there are so many negative consequences, environmental and other, of the huge economic boom in China in the last decade, but in lots of ways (at least on the surface, to my ignorant eye) the country seems to be tucking in the loose ends in a remarkably tidy way.

Waiting for the bus to pull out, I snapped photos from the window: a cobbler with his tools spread on a small tarp on the sidewalk; a woman pedaling a tricycle loaded with produce. (We also caught Cacoñema urinating on the street again, which we snapped on camera in our small act of revenge for his jerkiness.)

I was completely exhausted in the bus on the way home…I guess the jet lag works insidiously for a while after sleeping through the night is no longer a big hurdle. But when we got back to the hotel, I didn’t take a nap but instead worked on changing Pollo’s place ticket to return to the U.S. We still don’t have a real plan of what to do when the race is over, but we kind of like flying by the seat of our pants, and I’m sure we’ll work something out. I was frustrated by the slow internet connection, though…we’d been very happy to hear that the hotel offered free Ethernet, but in reality my connection was poor, and it was an exercise in patience to try and make a call on Skype, or upload my photos to the blog.

Pollo came back to the room after cleaning the bikes to tell me he’d seen a coconut stand. So we went down to walk around a bit. The area right outside the hotel was a really lively shopping center, and it was really fun to wander around at dusk when the lights were starting to come on.

There were tiny shops everywhere: really just open-fronted booths stuffed with merchandise: clothing, mostly, and beauty products, and bags, umbrellas, and belts and hair accessories. Pollo bought a “Levi Strauss” belt as he’d forgotten his and his jeans were falling down. Accustomed as I am to shopping in the U.S., I never would have thought to bargain, but to Pollo it was second nature, and he talked the proprietor of the mini-store down 50 yuan.

I went in a shoe store to see the merchandise more closely. Everything looked a lot like what you’d see in an American mall, at least from a distance of a few feet. Once you got closer, though, the extremely inexpensive prices made more sense, as it became clear that everything was a knock-off of brand name shoes. There were Vans look-alikes called “Valens” or something like that. Then there were also ones with real“Vans” labels. Once you picked them up, you could tell that the quality was not as good as the “real deal,” but the resemblance was amazing. It struck me that this is how Chinese manufacturers have become some of the most competitive in the world: start by copying the look of a known brand, and then gradually increase the quality of the copy while retaining the price-consciousness that made the first attempt so cheap.

We saw fake Oakley backpacks, fake Gucci belts…and all at prices that make the tourist with money in his pocket laugh in happy disbelief. Most of the people walking about were very stylish: what I mean is that their style is identical to what you’d see walking around New York. Boots are very big with the women here – almost all of them seem to be wearing either knee boots or smaller ones. The boots I’ve seen for sale, with plastic soles and high heels, don’t look like they’d last more than 10 minutes walking, but all the women here look very fashionable and I haven’t seen any broken heels yet.

There were a lot of people walking around, shopping, eating, and just hanging out. In fact, it struck me that this city – supposedly a rather soulless industrial and business (according to my Eyewitness Travel Guide) – is one of the most vibrant centers of urban life that I’ve ever seen. Even New York City, on a Monday evening at least, doesn’t have the bustle of this little corner of Shenzhen. (Maybe Times Square, but that’s all tourists, and we were the only non-Chinese that I saw here; I assume they live here but could be wrong.)

Even from our room when we finally returned, I could hear music coming up from the street, and see the lights of a small fair (complete with Ferris wheel) a few blocks away. I wonder if some of this extra excitement is due to its being Christmas Eve. When we went to dinner, the PA system (which here in China, thankfully, has been playing unadorned classical music instead of the synthesizer junk we endured in the Sha Tin hotel) was interrupted by a special live performance. A group of about 20 young people dressed in white robes and Santa hats sang “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Their musicality wasn’t amazing, but the intent made me smile…and even tear up a little bit. It’s hard to even remember that it’s Christmas since we’re so caught up in the race and the foreignness of China. But when we wake up tomorrow, it’ll be December 25th.

Wilson left after dinner to catch his taxi back to Hong Kong. He’d succeeded in changing his flight for tomorrow (Christmas Day), but didn’t want to risk delays at the checkpoints and so elected to leave tonight. We’ll miss him – who are we going to tease relentlessly now? Oh…and I forgot to pay up for losing the Scrabble bet…but I’m sure Wilson will remember. I can hear him now in a month, “!Oye chica! !Todavia me debe el dinero del Scrabble!”