LO WU BORDER CROSSING - 2008

Undoubtedly one day I'll get around to posting my letters about my first visits to Mainland China, five years ago, when things were very, very different, but this posting is one about crossing the LoWu border these days.

It's so cool. All automatic and quick. Not like in the past, when you had to line up behind 10,000 other people and spend several hours shuffling forward, inch by desperate inch. These days, HK-side, you just stick your HKID card into a slot, put your thumb where you're told to put it and, voila, you're through. And then you walk across a bridge across a river and you're in China.

China-side, at Immigration, everyone else with a HKID card gets to do the same thing again, and, yes, I often get to do it this way again, unless I get spotted by a Red Guard and then I get chased away to go through the "Foreigners" section where you get to revisit the past by taking your place in a queue and doing the agonisingly slow shuffle forward; only it takes a fraction of the time it used to since most of the other 10,000 people are just sticking their cards into slots and putting their thumbs where they're meant to.

And then, these days, when you're through Immigration, you walk out into a sublime enormous square with fountains and slick waterways and other funky stuff. It really is quite lovely. No cafes however. No place to stop, regroup and organise yourself. No place to wait for others to come through. No place where you can tell people you'll be waiting for them.

That's something that must be addressed.

At present, when you're traveling with a bunch of people, some with HKIDs and others without, and some with HKID only have been singled out by Red Guards, you're all taking different lengths of time coming through, and you have to wait for everyone else outside the building, surrounded by 10,000 touts and Sharks and other hassling-types, hanging onto your purse and passport for dear life since, yes, you are not being unnecessarily paranoid, you probably ARE likely to lose them.

That's something you have to take onboard. Shenzhen sincerely isn't a nice place to be. It's inevitable really, since the entire reason for the SEZ in the first place is for China to make money as fast as possible, and the only reason people come into the SEZ from Mainland Proper is to make money fast and not necessarily honestly. OK, seldom honestly!!! Although I'm sure there are lovely people out there, and, yes, I've met a lot, most of the people are big-time on the make, and it's really not a nice introduction to China to immediately be thrust into the middle of a giant throng of, maybe, the worst of them while you're waiting for friends to come through.

So, LoWu border-crossing, any way to make this happen? Several nice cafes immediately outside your buildings? Like maybe just inside the doors? Even one cafe would make life so much nicer. Yes? Can you do it?