My Maiden Official Visit to
China
By Naveen Badrinarayan
I was on a visit to China on
official purpose. This was my first visit to this country and the itinerary has
been booked to ensure that all my energy was zapped by the time I reach the
point of destination. Well, I needed to go to a place called “Quinzhou” which was
approximately 300kms drive from a place called “Quingdao” pronounced as
“Chingdao” , I got a bad stare when I pronounced it wrongly at the domestic
airport check-in counter. Well, the itinerary was planned as follows:-
Goa-Mumbai; Mumbai –Hongkong;
HongKong –Shanghai; Shanghia-Quingdao; Quingdao –Quinzhou by road. To start with, the Goa-Mumbai journey was
pleasant and I got to take some awesome snaps of the sunset from the plane as I
was in the window seat. The Mumbai Hongkong flight was at 2300 hrs and I again
got a window seat in the mid-section of Cathay Pacific airlines Aircraft, the
seats were quite comfortable to sit, but the journey was about 5-6 hrs and in
the night, so I was wondering how I am going to sit through the whole night, as
I am not used to travelling like this. My seat partner was a lady who was
struggling with her luggage as she entered the plane and she requested the steward
of the plane to help her, and I was really surprised when he too said that he
may not be able to lift the suitcase alone. And then is when I stepped in and
offered my muscular services to lift the “heavy” suitcase of the damsel in distress,
and I noticed that this lady had a strange tattoo on her arm in Sanskrit
something like: “Anugatchami Pravahim”.
As we got comfortable in our own seats and after customary introductions, I
asked her about this tattoo, to which she replied that “Anu” was her name, full
name “AnuPriya” and this tattoo meant “Anu
goes as per the flow”, and she believed in living life that way. She said
that a lot of planning can be done but sometimes the flow takes you in a
particular direction and you just move on regardless of what you plan. I smiled
secretly, because strangely the same thoughts were playing on my mind a while
back and to meet a person who echoed the same sentiments quite close to the
time it was playing in my mind seemed too much of a coincidence, or is it the
“secret” working that what you think in your mind and your vibrations attract
similar people. We started chatting about her job, what she thought about
Mumbai vs Hong Kong where her husband lives. She seemed to like Mumbai a lot,
living in Malad, and said that Hong Kong can never be a place to live, it was
good for business but life is much better at Mumbai because of the friend
circle and the network of friends. I
also met up with a gentleman from Hong Kong named “Ajoy” who was working for a
Technology company, I think he said “I Gates” and we started chatting at the
boarding queue, when I was mentioning that I was not liking the idea of this
kind of business travel where you have to travel the whole night in sitting
position. He also said that he travels to Hong Kong regularly as his wife stays
there and he works at Mumbai, but he manages to travel only once in six months
and I wondered about how he was managing his family life.
Anyways,
on the plane, I managed to toss and turn in my seat throughout the night, the
pillow shifting positions from behind my lower back to behind my head and
sometimes on the side panel of the aircraft from where it used to fall off on
the floor though the gap between the seat and the panel. I was struggling
throughout the night to catch a comfortable position to sleep, and whenever I
used to open my eyes, I used to see this lady (my seat partner) coolly sitting
and watching a movie. She did not sleep the whole night, and when I asked her
in the morning, she simply replied that it was way too uncomfortable to sleep,
so she did not sleep. So the second part
of the itinerary ended at Hong Kong with a dreary eyed self, with my tummy
growling as I had not had my early morning hot milk and therefore my bowels
were creating trouble to move. Sometimes
I wonder why and how we become slaves to our own habit patterns and any change
in lifestyle causes havoc in our systems.
Then at Hong Kong, we had to move
to the other terminal to board the flight to Shanghai, which was a connecting
flight and the boarding passes were already there with us, so that was an easy
part. An amazing thing about China, in spite of the great population, their
systems are all in place and I did not have to stand in a queue for more than
10 minutes anywhere. I was observing the
staff and found them all too be very efficient and attentive, not one person
was lazy or casual, whether the ground staff, the security guys or the
immigration staff. All of them were extremely efficient in performing their
respective duties. The “chalta hai” attitude which is a hallmark of Indian
employees was completely absent here, and I think that is one major reason why
China is doing so well in all fields.
The Hong Kong to Shanghai flight
was for about 3 hrs and it was not all that interesting except that i watched
“2 states” movie for the second time and I kind of found a lot of similarities
between self and the male protagonist in terms of his aspirations of becoming a
writer, and that is why I am writing this story too. I love writing about my
experiences and about the feelings that I go through, it gives me some kind of
innate pleasure and I can sit and write my thoughts for hours together without
feeling tired, so I am just letting the flow take me: “naveengatchami
Pravahim” is it? I liked that tattoo
very much really; it is time I also did some tattooing and ear piercing as I
have always wanted to do something freaky after shedding my uniform, having led
a much disciplined way of life for about 25 years in the Indian Navy. We reached Shanghai at about 1145 hrs and
the next domestic flight was at 1905 hrs, so there was a lot of time. I thought
it would be possible to do a little bit of sightseeing, but the ground staff in
the domestic check-in counter warned us that the sub-way / metro was way too
crowded and if we went out, we would definitely get delayed as any place is too
far off from the airport. I did not want to believe this guy, and my temptations
took me to the travel counter, where I noticed a separate counter for “MAGLEV”
and a round ticket was being sold, and I learnt that this train which runs on
magnetic levitation principle, runs to Longyang station and back every fifteen
minutes, so I decided to experience the 300Km/hr speed and the
Maglev train of Shanghai.
It was a nice experience to see
the sights of Shanghai highways and the various industries. I would like to
mention here that I did notice a very unnatural way of development; I noticed
many houses were reduced to rubble and a lot of undeveloped land with rubble of
broken down houses was visible. It looked eerie to me and I wondered if some
people had been evicted from their poor homes to ensure that Shanghai looked
good as a business capital. I did not get a good feeling while looking at the
sprawling buildings and highways and artificially grown trees on the entire
landscape. China seems to be extremely
rich at least in the airport where you see so many people wearing the best of
dresses and travelling on flights in large numbers, with state of art security
systems and uniformed personnel alertly and actively functioning, but somewhere
deep down I have this feeling that there is a darker side to this story of
glory. I am not saying that development is not good, only it should not be at
the cost of increasing the inequality between the rich and poor. Development
has to be all inclusive and should attempt to reduce the gap between the ultra
rich and the poverty stricken. The only way that this can be done is by laying emphasis
on the Primary Goods viz. agricultural products and making agriculture and
forests productive and profitable. If secondary goods like real estate,
machinery, clothes etc. are the only emphasis and a balance is not struck, the
day is not far when the primary goods would be depleted to that extent that we
would not be able to further exploit it for the secondary goods. The day is
inevitable, it is only a question of time and this greed for paper money will
lead to devastation.
Visit to QuingDao & Quinzhou. Stay in the hotel at Quingdao, typical as in any
international five star hotel, comfortable and spacious, I really wonder why so
much of luxury, but after a hectic travel schedule, such comfort is a pleasure
as it allows one to recuperate and be ready for work. So all I remember is
taking a nice warm shower and crashing to bed after a glass of hot chocolate
from room service. Next day morning at
about 0930 hrs, we commenced our road trip to this place called “Quinzhou”,
where the factory of this company I was visiting is, and I must say, though
Quingdao is an international destination, Quinzhou is much more historical and
beautiful. It was not the right season to visit Quinzhou as this place is well
known for its flowers and fruit trees. After work, on the first day, I had the
opportunity of visiting the old city of Quinzhou, it was really beautiful with
stone paved roads, buildings made of stone with ancient sculptures outside. The
lighting of the entire street and the buildings with a waterfront (I think a
canal or a lake) was really making this place resemble a European tourist spot
with amazing views. It was pretty cold, temperatures ranging somewhere close to
-4/-5 degrees Celsius. I decided to go
for a run the next morning and was wondering how I would be able to cope with
the cold conditions. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to step out and since I
was not carrying any track pants, I wore trousers, jackets on top and stepped
out into the unforgiving cold morning. I ran fast and turned into a beautiful
stone paved road which extends for about 4K and could feel my thumb tip
freezing and becoming numb. I quickly clenched my fist and hid my thumb and
started running a bit faster hoping to get more warmth. After about 15 minutes,
I was sweating and I realised that my body was warm enough and I started feeling
comfortable except that I had a running nose, which I kept clearing as I ran. I
noticed that many people were up and about, some of them on two wheelers-
electrical bikes, and looked as if they had already started going to their
offices. On the way back, I entered into a garden where I saw a group of people
practicing “Tai-Chi” and then I also saw
two TT tables in the open and people playing TT.I was immediately attracted as
TT was my first love, and I played a game of TT there with an old man. I was
feeling great to have started the morning so well.
While returning back , we drove
from Quingzhou to Quindao and my host was unwell, so I offered to drive his
car, an automatic transmission Volkswagen Passat( left hand drive), and I got a
feel of the Chinese highways. It was a good experience for me, I did not drive
too fast, was maintaining a speed of 100-110 kph and drove for about 100 kms,
and handed over the wheel as soon as we reached the city limits, lest I got
arrested for driving without an international driving license. On the way we
had lunch at a local Chinese restaurant overlooking a beautiful lake. Chinese
are great hosts, they overfeed you and most of the times, the food gets wasted,
but I was told that it is always like that. I told my host to order less in
order to do justice. So he ordered a dish made of tomatoes and eggs, and
another dish of “eggplant” which is not my preferred vegetable, but I just kept
quiet and decided to have it gracefully as a decent guest. I was surprised when
the dish arrived, the eggplant dish looked like French fries and as I tasted
it, it was having a tangy taste and was crisp. I loved the taste. I almost
finished the entire plate. We also had a plate of steamed rice noodles each and
we were feeling very heavily fed.
I reached back to Quingdao and
checked into the Crown Plaza hotel, and as I entered my room, I realized that
my official mobile phone was missing. I tried calling my host and checked his
car but was unable to find the phone. I thought I might have left it in the
restaurant on the way, my host knew the owners of the restaurant and called
them up, but with unsuccessful results. I was feeling very bad that on my first
official trip, I was irresponsible enough to have lost my official phone.
Nevertheless, I immediately mailed to my office administration that I had lost
the mobile phone. I was about to crash for the night when the phone rang in the
hotel and I was surprised as it was about 2230 hrs. It was my host and he had
come to the hotel as he had found the phone below the driver seat, I think it
must have fallen from my pocket when I was driving the car. I was very relieved
and thankful to my host.
The return journey was quite
uneventful except that the domestic travel in China was as good as or even
better than the international travel. I did not have to wait anywhere for more
than 5 -10 minutes, and as I entered the Mumbai international customs
clearance, the long serpentine queue was a sore to my eyes. To add to the sore,
I found a number of people forming double and triple queues and trying to break
the line. A lady tried talking sense to one gentleman who had casually walked
with his trolley and joined laterally into the line in front of an old couple,
but he was not ready to budge and continued moving ahead shamelessly. I wonder
why people from India have to behave in this manner. Is it because our systems
are inefficient and everyone feels that their personal time is more important
than the other’s time, and rules are meant to be broken? While I agree that the
number of manual checkings and systems in India are not yet efficient enough,
patience is a virtue that needs to be ingrained in each individual. Respect for
other people’s time and courtesies are another thing which needs to be
ingrained, especially when we are travelling internationally and are exposed to
the international systems. Even a country like China with a larger population
than ours has managed to make their systems efficient and people are very well behaved
there. So we cannot just blame our population, there is more to this.
Chinese have a tremendous sense
of discipline, commitment and energy at work and it is something that India has
to learn. While this comes from a fear of losing their jobs, this kind of
competitive spirit is healthy for a country’s well-being. Sometimes I feel
democracy is being murdered by our citizens when we don’t respect our own
country’s rules and blatantly blame government and public agencies for their
inefficiencies. If we ourselves don’t follow rules, how do we expect our
government to do anything worthwhile? After all, people like us only are
sitting on those positions of authority and responsibility. So the good things that we Indians must learn
from the Chinese is the integrity and sense of commitment to their work, but at
the same time, we must retain our spiritual essence and respect mother nature,
not getting swayed by greed for paper money. It is only by a combination of
these two values that India can change and grow to much greater heights than
what China is today. However much advancement in technology happens, when
nature unleashes its power, nothing stands before it. Therefore we must learn
to respect nature and look after our primary goods with utmost care and
respect. Only then will this great “Hindu” land remain blessed.
Secondly, Indians take more pride
in calling themselves Punjabis or Tamilians or Goans than Indians. Why do we
have so much of fragmentation in our societies, while we are culturally
diverse, we need to develop a sense of national unity and relate to each other,
irrespective of which state we belong to. I have been asked innumerable times in
Goa: “Where are you from?”, Since I do not have any ancestral property and have
been all over India, I always reply proudly that “I am an Indian”, but they are
not satisfied. They want to know, which place or state I belong to. What is to be said if I do not have a state to
name as my own, am I not permitted to live freely in any place I desire in
India, do I really have to be a domicile of a state to enjoy the public
services of any place in India? Why are these rules made to differentiate
between people from two states? Why can’t it be more open and let each person
decide where he/she wants to live freely as an Indian? I am ready to learn
different languages and eat the kind of food that people eat in different
places, so why can’t I be accepted as a Goan as long as I am living in Goa?
Unless we develop unity in our rich diversity, we cannot grow as a country as
we will never develop respect for a nation and always be short sighted in our
approach. We have to stop forming “tribes” and be open to changes and mixed
cultures. By the way, in my travelling experience all over India, I find
tremendous similarities in various places in the way people live and eat
etc. so it is really not a big deal to
accept an “outsider” as your own. So I request the Goans to consider me also as
a Goan at least as long as I live here.
