Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [83]
“Remind me to start investing in cranes,” Jack said.
Guangzhou, of course, was huge, another of the mega-cities that China specializes in. Three quarters of the world’s tall building cranes are in China, an unsurprising statistic for anyone who’s been to China, but a source of wonder to first-time visitors like Jack, who’d encountered his first true Chinese city. On our way to the hotel, we passed enormous work sites, construction zones with on-site shanties for the migrant workers. Guangzhou is also a rich city; the per capita GDP is about $10,000, making it one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Like Shenzhen, it was favorably located near Hong Kong. But of course, as elsewhere, an endless layer of pollution hung in the air. We battled our way through mad, crazy drivers until we crossed over a small bridge and found ourselves on Shamian Island.
This island in the middle of Guangzhou had once been a Western outpost. Like lepers, early traders from Europe and the United States had been isolated here on this small sliver of land in the Pearl River, and even today the island retains a Western focus. On every corner, there are statues of American kids engaged in some Rockwellian endeavor—fishing, playing tag, reading a story on Grandma’s lap, and otherwise carrying on like storybook characters circa 1931. It was, frankly, a little creepy.
But then we noticed all the American couples pushing strollers. The American Consulate was on Shamian Island, and this was the last stop for couples adopting Chinese babies. Laundry shops offered free strollers. A shop sign informed passersby that a jade pendant means Mother–Daughter. We counted dozens of new parents. Like so much in China, the scale could be unsettling. But, of course, this was good, this economy of scale in adopted babies. Fate was smiling on these children. Almost all were girls, and China, as we know, is a hard place for girls. So I was pleased to see hundreds of Americans pushing strollers with Chinese babies as we drove past. These children would have lives. They would be taken care of. They would be loved. So this was good.
Still, I’d never seen so many babies in my life. After checking into our hotel, we walked around the neighborhood and watched men console wailing infants and women prepare bottles. Most of these new parents looked to be a bit older. Things had changed in America; women had professions, dreams that needed fulfilling. Life was complicated. But biology had remained the same: tick-tock, tick-tock, and then the buzzer sounded. And so now hopeful parents came to China. And there were so many of them that China could now afford to be picky about where it placed its unwanted babies. There were income standards, of course. And marriage was required. And you couldn’t be fat. There will be no fat parents of Chinese children, the government had declared.
We continued moseying around the island, which was strangely peaceful. We could hear women singing through an open window; boys played soccer on the cobblestone streets as if they were in provincial France. This was hardly the urban China I’d come to know. We wandered through the leafy streets, past the Guangdong Animal By-Products Import and Export Corp., until we reached a table of vendors selling watches, whereupon Jack decided to buy one.
“You’re a brave man,” I noted. “Buying a watch in China is not for the meek.”
“How much for this watch?” Jack said, pointing to a huge, ornate timepiece that claimed to be a Bulgari.
“Four hundred yuan.”
“Okay,” Jack said, reaching for his wallet.
“You know,” I interjected, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that now is when you’re supposed to start bargaining. You’re insulting his culture by agreeing to the first price.”
The vendor, however, didn’t look insulted. Instead, he looked rather annoyed at me.
“Well, I certainly don’t want to insult Chinese