A DAY IN SHENZHEN, CHINA

The Frieda Kahlo knock-offs mentioned in the posting below are seen here. I had the paintings altered to look more like my niece Didi. I did intend to gift them to her but decided I loved them too much and so she's not getting them yet! That's what wills are for!




THIS IS PART FOUR OF A SET OF POSTINGS

After a two-hour long train trip (with no smoking carriage, damn 'em!) from Guangzhou I arrived in Shenzhen. (Since I have been to Shenzhen many, many times there will undoubtedly be a mass of future posts in here on the subject, I'll only skim with this one.)

1) Amazingly, for once Shenzhen was great. Sure, the usual sharks were out and the gorgeous carved greenstone statue of Kwan Yin I bought in Lowu turned out to be painted plaster, but it didn't cost that much, so ... lesson learned!

2) I braved the pickpockets and caught the Metro, where, all by myself and without them having a single direction in English, I ended up where I wanted to be: in Dongman having a late lunch in some nice outdoor cafe. I felt so proud of myself!

3) In crowded Dongman - which is less "Paris" than I was lead to believe - more like Mainland's Mong Kok - I saw lots of police brutality and public beatings and children as young as three getting hauled along, feet almost off the ground, dragged by the ears by two policemen each, one per ear, but these kiddies had a look of resignation which meant they were used to it and I had so many winsy-small littlies trying to sneak into my own bag to take my purse, I decided they were all undoubtedly long-term pickpockets for some sino-Fagin gang, so I let everything police-brutality-ish pass without interferring.

4) After late lunch, and having once again to retrieve my decoy purse from someone who looked too young to be out alone but still eminantly old enough to have his hand twisted and slapped, I caught a taxi to Dafen to pick up my commissioned Freida Kahlos.

This time the taxi dropped me off in a different place so I had to spent several most pleasant hours trying to get my bearings. It really is a gorgeous village. Tres arty and Bohemian. Oh, and I saw kids as young as eight painting the backgrounds of commissioned paintings, but I was fine with that. It's undoubtedly how they'll learn.

And I chatted with lots and lots of artists and wandered through a great many shops and there were so many wonderful paintings and I wanted so many of them, but decided since Annie was my friend I'd buy only from her, but when I finally found her shop, the price she told me for everything was three times as high as the last time we were there, so I didn't buy, and realised I should get over any idea that Annie is my friend and treat her as just another Shenzhen-shark!

But I did end up commissioning lots of new paintings because I simply couldn't help myself and those prices were still the same, and, by the time I came out of the shop, it was seriously dark and I desperately didn't want to be roaming the streets alone looking for a taxi - I guess I was still shaken up from being attacked the night before! - so I stopped off at Oil Painting Cafe - the same place as last time - and told the nice man there - the same guy as last time and he remembered me too - that I didn't want to walk the streets alone so he kindly stopped some passing Cantonese-speaking Hungarians and asked them to accompany me to get a taxi and they turned out to live in Shenzhen and had a car so I got taken all the way back to Lowu. Gosh, they were nice and I enjoyed them so much even if we couldn't talk, having no language in common.

5) Back in Lowu I couldn't find the Left Luggage where I'd checked in my bags, so spent several hours simply wandering, searching for it, and, yeah, yeah, doing lots of shopping, and eating, and having facials and massages - yes, I know it was only a few days since I'd last had all this done but Chinese massage is like Chinese food; half an hour later you feel like more! - and then accidently leaving my Freida Kahlos everyplace and constantly having to retrace steps to find them, and losing my way there too, but, all in all, it was one of those times when getting lost means finding lots of good new stuff and meeting lots of lovely people so is worth every second.

6) Realised from my luggage stub that this Left Luggage closed at 10.30 pm, and it was almost that time, and then I realised all the writing was in Cantonese and it struck me that I was truly an idiot and all I had to do was wave this stub around and ask people, and sure enough, within minutes I was where I was meant to be, collecting my bags.

7) Loaded down with stupid amounts of stuff, with nothing on wheels, having to struggle with shoulder-breaking-heavy bags draped all over my body, Freida Kahlo paintings knocking against everyone around me, kicking other bags ahead of me, I had to fight through the usual throng of 10,000 to pass all the way through Chinese and HK Immigration.

Why is there never a liveried chauffeur around when you need one?

OTHER MOST IMPORTANT IMFORMATION:
1) WHEN YOU VISIT SHENZHEN BE SURE TO BRING AN ENORMOUS WHEELED SUITCASE WITH YOU; PREFERABLY THE SIZE OF A SMALL CAR
2) SHENZHEN IS SO CHEAP YOU KICK YOURSELF FOR ANY MONEY YOU'VE EVER SPENT ANYWHERE ELSE ON EARTH. JUST REMEMBER YOU THEN HAVE TO CARRY IT.
3) SCRATCH THE BOTTOM OF ANY CARVED STONE STATURE BEFORE YOU BUY IT.

So there you go; my jaunting in China. It really was fun, and, like I said in Part One, the major thing I learned is that, sure, China can be really creepy but then there are lots of other times when it isn't!

Denise