A Day in My Life

When I left off in my last post I was taking a bullet train from the rapidly developing city of Tianjin to the historical capitol of Beijing. While I promise I will give Beijing its due, I thought I’d write a post today instead about my typical life here in China. I’ve been asked by some friends what my life is like here, so let me take everyone through a typical day.

I’m choosing to write this post now as I feel particularly inspired. As I write I am sitting out on the flagstone walkway of Lujiazui overlooking the Bund across the Huangpu River. As the breeze ruffles my ever-growing hair and sends a slight chill through me (thankfully the heat has broken and been replaced with moderate temperatures and nice breezes that keep the skies clear) an interesting thought struck an inspired me to write—this feels totally normal. Perhaps it is the Starbucks behind me that makes me feel at home in what should be a strange country. Or maybe the proximity of the Super Brand mall with its McDonald’s, Toys ‘R’ Us, Best Buy, and KFC puts my mind at ease and provides me with a degree of comfort. But I don’t think it’s these Western comforts. Sure Shanghai is about as international as you can get—across from me are world-class examples of French, British, German, Russian, and American classical architecture, and a ferry reminiscent of the Mark Twain is slowly shuttling passengers on a sightseeing tour of old and new Shanghai. If I hop across the water I can walk through the glittering aisles of Gucci, Prada, Armani, Coach, and all the rest. With such material comforts reminiscent of the San Fernando Valley, Santa Monica, and Hollywood, you could easily roll your eyes and say of course I feel at home.

The counterpoint to all of this was the side of Shanghai I described in my first “Shades of Shanghai” post. Just the other night I took a stroll through some of these areas in search of good, cheap food. Popping into a restaurant littered with plastic stools and foldable tables (a sign that it’s probably good), I ordered some soup (not knowing what it was when I ordered). I can’t tell you what was in it, but it was definitely a part of an animal I’m not used to eating, perhaps even the brain. And yet aside from perhaps a small flash of surprise on my face when the meal arrived, I was content and showed no sign of discomfort or being out of place. Later, I wandered farther up this particular street to find a street vendor making fried rice for just 5 RMB (less than $1). That’s certainly not the Valley, and yet I felt at home here too.

I’ve come to appreciate Shanghai and China as being, well, home at least for the time being. Aside from my first day, never have I had the thought of “what am I doing in this strange place?” I settled in quickly to life in the bustling metropolis, and even when I’ve ventured out to sightsee or explore other cities in China, I’ve felt comfortable even though I can’t speak the language. Perhaps it’s because I’m under the ever-watchful eyes of the pedestrians here (okay, they are flat out staring at me—tall pale guys with red hair and beards are not exactly the norm in China) that makes me feel secure, or perhaps it’s just that I am able to adapt quickly to new surroundings. After all, Ngomano, Kenya, felt almost like a second home to me, so friendly are the people and relaxing the atmosphere (yes, relaxing even when you are dropping pumps in wells and nearly losing your left hand doing so). Either way, the point of this rambling is to say that my life here settled quickly into a nice, relaxing pattern that has allowed me to truly enjoy China, learn to appreciate it, and really experience at least a small part of the country to the point where I know I will come back—I’m not done learning from China and it will never run out of lessons to teach me.

My average day has evolved over the time I’ve been here from wandering aimlessly around the city to learn my way—after all the best way to learn a city is to get lost in it—to a much more routine life, though still full of little surprises and spontaneous trips. I’ve moved past the stage of what some might call culture shock where things like spitting and smoking annoyed me at every turn to accept these as part of life here. I still don’t like them personally, but it is what it is—you don’t have to like everything about a culture to enjoy it and feel comfortable. I certainly don’t like everything about LA, but it is home. I’ve also come to accept that “packed like sardines” doesn’t begin to describe rush hour on the Shanghai subway. The first time I had never quite felt so violated, but now my bubble of personal space has shrunk to, well, non-existence—the typical size in China—and it’s almost exhilarating to fight your way through crowds, barely escaping the closing doors of the train at your stop. I’ve lost the wide-eyed look of the tourist and come to feel as though I belong here, navigating the streets with an internal map instead of a guidebook.

So now that I’ve attained this state of comfort here in China, what, you may ask, is my life like. Well, at Harvey Mudd there is a saying: “Sleep, study, social life: pick two.” As a freshman you hear this maxim, chuckle at the joke, and then pause wondering to yourself if it is actually true. The smile fades from your face, replaced by a worry and a small confidence that you’ll be the one capable of balancing all three. Then the first round of midterms hits, pass-fail ends, and you realize that the maxim has a reason for being. Then you graduate four years later and you feel like finally you can have your cake and eat it too, but after HMC you never lose the sense of feeling that you should always be busy. At least that is what I have heard from alums. For me, I would say this is true in China, but busy has a whole new meaning here. I think the best way to describe it is with a modified version of the HMC maxim (call it a post-graduate corollary): “Sleep, work, explore: choose two.” Luckily, the last two are not quite mutually exclusive, so I get some sleep too, though of late it’s been intentionally minimal as I am realizing how little time I have left and how much there is to explore!

I’ve settled into a pattern now where I wake myself up early, run through a quick e-mail check to set my schedule for the day and internalize any bus routes, metro transfers, or walking routes Google maps provides me with for the day’s activities, and then set out for the day. Usually this happens between 6 and 9 am, but on the days of Expo it has been earlier—on one day I felt especially ambitious, I set out at 3:30 and arrived at Expo Park at 5 to ensure a reservation for the China Pavilion! Once I leave the hostel, I take with me everything I will need for the day—laptop, reading book, notebook, and materials to read for the Fellowship research. I never plan to return until well after the sun has set. I then embark on a day-long adventure of meetings, exploration, and work in between, often with stops at Starbucks, Coffee Bean, or Costa Coffee not for a recharge (though it would be nice coffee here is very expensive relative to both other food and my budget!) but rather for use of their free wi-fi to check e-mail and make sure no scheduling changes have arisen.

My adventures often include one or two sights, perhaps a stop at a temple or museum, and then some time to sit and work on my project. The sightseeing is fun, but also provides useful information about the culture of China. To understand where the country is today you have to know where it came from. Even with the tumultuous recent history of the country, there is still significant influence on practices and policies from older periods, and understanding these can help unlock insights about today’s China. I find this useful for my research and for my own knowledge and pleasure. For the work, I typically find a park or other outdoor space to sit, work, and enjoy the atmosphere and pulse of the city. Especially when considering issues of sustainable city life as my research does, I find it is helpful to actually get out into the city and watch how people interact with public spaces and each other. You can learn a lot about good and bad design simply by seeing how people move through spaces.

With all of this adventuring, I spend a lot of time in transit, typically about half on foot and half on buses and subways. For the former, there is not much to do other than enjoy what you walk past and gain insights about the space around you as you walk. I learn about little places to eat and drink, shops that are popular, and where locals like to hang out or avoid. I’ve found some good little restaurants that I stop at here. It’s usually the small places that have the best food in my opinion, and I like popping into holes in the wall and grabbing food or eating from street vendors. Just don’t question the sanitation too much. For the latter transit, I typically read or annotate materials for the Fellowship. It makes me feel like I’m making otherwise dead time productive. However this becomes challenging when packed on a subway, so there are times you just have to sit and let yourself relax while the trains whisk you to your destination.

Of late, this otherwise perfect scheduling has been complicated by the need to write fellowship applications and graduate school applications for next year which is part of the reason my recent posts have been so few and far between (that and the lack of good internet at my hostels in Beijing and Shanghai). But at least Mudd trained me to be very productive even late into the night and then to get up early and do it all again.

If I have one complaint about this schedule, it is simply that there is just not enough time, even with the limited sleep I have been getting! I love to learn—I never stop trying to learn—and visiting temples, museums, and other areas of China has really excited me and made me want to learn more about the history and culture of the country. I want to seek out books and articles about China’s history and achievements, but have no time to do so. I would say that perhaps later in life I can, but I know that once I have time there will be new educational pursuits that tickle my fancy and something will have to fall by the wayside.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed my time in China, and though I feel comfortable and like Shanghai is in a way “my city” (a notion that will be put to the test this weekend when I lead some new friends and one old friend from Beijing around), it is precisely this comfort that tells me it is an appropriate time to move on to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. One of the materials I was given for the Watson Fellowship said that a principle for Fellows to live by is “Eschew the known for the unknown.” Well, at this time perhaps Shanghai has become too “known” for me and it’s time to go somewhere new. Though I wish I had more time to explore Western China, I guess that will just have to wait until my next trip. In my time here I feel as though I’ve been able, as one interviewee of mine (an HMC alum too) said, to learn about 80% of the reality of green building and city design here. He said that 3 months was perfect for that, and if I really wanted to learn the other 20% I’d have to come back and work. I’ve learned more than I have had time to process, and now have to figure out how to present all of the material coherently in a good story. I think that too is a sign that it is time to move on—when you start hearing the same things over and over in interviews with little new information, it is time to go. But don’t worry—I’ll still finish writing about China (I have a few more posts left to go) even if that happens in Dubai before I give accounts of my own Arabian Nights. All I hope is that I settle just as easily into a good routine, balanced life, and comfort in Dubai that I have here. Keep reading to hear how I do there!

Toto, I’ve A Feeling We’re Not in China Anymore…

After a brief stay in Shanghai following my return from Hong Kong, I found myself on a train heading north. Now the nice thing, as I mentioned in my Hong Kong post, about these trains is that you fall asleep in one city and wake up in another all for a relatively affordable price. So after boarding, dining, and doing a bit of work, I fell asleep assuming I would be awakened by the conductor on arrival in Tianjin. With a bang on my bed, I was jolted awake in the morning and soon found myself being herded off the train carrying my backpack and computer bag into an unfamiliar station. Having just woken up, I wandered through the station with my head in a daze and a haze over my eyes (or maybe that was the pollution) until I emerged into the diffuse morning light to find myself in…Italy?

Okay, so it isn’t quite Italy, but take a look at the above photos, mentally add some morning haze and then throw in some additional cloudiness as if you just woke up, and tell me that you wouldn’t be confused too.

The Chinese signs all around the stations belie the Italian façade across the water, but at 7 in the morning it was a strange and surreal experience to step off the train into this environment. It left me wondering even more about this country and the surprises it presents at every turn. Tianjin is no exception to this, and rather than walk through chronologically my time there, I think I’d rather just go through the scenes of the city with some comments on urban planning and development because if there is anything Tianjin can teach us about, it is development.

But first a bit of background on the city. Situated about 80 km southeast of Beijing, Tianjin is often called the “East Gate” to the neighboring capitol. Like Shanghai and Beijing, it is both a city and a municipality and is built on sediment deposited from rivers entering what is now its major port, the Bohai Gulf. Like Shanghai, the city was forced open by Europeans after the Second Opium War and divided into concessions for the French, British, Japanese, Germans, Russians, Austro-Hungarians, Belgians, and yes, the Italians. These countries provided an international flair to the city that persists today alongside the Chinese cultural centers like the drum towers and old streets. In more recent times, Tianjin has served as a vital port to Beijing and recently was dubbed the third growth hub of the country—Shenzhen was the first, opened to broader economic trade a couple decades ago as an experiment for the government to see how it could bring in foreign business without fully acquiescing to capitalism. Shanghai came next with the Pudong financial area, and now it is time for Tianjin. This development is exactly what brought me to the city. Part of it will become the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, a bold new vision under construction that looks to avoid the fate of Huangbaiyu and Dongtan. But I will save that commentary for a different post.

This concession history brings me back now to the Italian vision I beheld when exiting the train. Tianjin has become an interesting place since its concession history. Somewhat forgotten in the development craze until the Olympics ushered in wider roads and a soccer stadium in 2008, it has survived off of, as the advertisements said on the train, its reputation as a “Glamorous City.”

The Olympic Stadium: The Water Drop

As I discussed in one of my “Shades of Shanghai” posts, many Chinese do not care for historical preservation of shikumen and lilong style houses as they are reminiscent of poorer lives and do not embody the bold new future of the country. So the glamour of Tianjin is not of the ancient Chinese variety that I and other tourists seek on our trips through China. Instead, everywhere in the city Western styles are preserved and reconstructed to an extent greater than anywhere else I’ve seen—even perhaps Shanghai. I can tell you now that what you see across the river is not original in any sense. It was constructed by Italian architects but in more recent years as the government was trying to add some aesthetic flair to the city and live up to its billing of the “Glamorous City.” In Shanghai, architecture is preserved for its historic value. Here not only is Western architecture preserved but it is also reconstructed. Take a look at some of the examples below of the reconstructions and originals to see just how Tianjin looks.

Reconstructed Church

The Italian Style Town

A Chinese Italian-Style Muse

Other Reconstructed Architecture

Some Actual historic Architecture: A Church and the Astor Hotel

You know, come to think of it, as I read up on the Tianjin Eye, a giant ferris wheel visible from the road near my hostel, and the still incomplete Beijing Great Wheel, I came across a quote from a website that read “If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then China is just brimming with adulation.”

I really like this quote and think now that it applies very well here to the faux-Italian buildings at which I found myself gawking on arrival. I suppose that this is China’s way of imitating the West. It could be an attempt in the midst of rapid development to appear developed by adopting the visual characteristics of Western societies. The idea of adopting Western culture and ideas easily and cheaply, if you will, seems to permeate society here and could help account for the existence of so many different pirated movies and books. Certainly the existence of ubiquitous pirating (the pirated goods are sold at supposedly legitimate bookstores) is an indication of a lower level of development than the US and Europe, but it could also be indicative of a mad scramble to adopt Western culture wholesale. This, in the sense of sustainability, provides more evidence for the idea that we will see increases in energy use in China as the years wear on. The scramble for Westernization will manifest itself through technological adoption and greater utilization of energy to make life more convenient and reduce the hardships that some here taut as evidence of China’s greater energy efficiency (I’m talking about the willingness to suffer through harder winters by putting on a coat rather than turning up the heat or wandering the apartment and street shirtless in Shanghai summers instead of flipping on the A/C). Bringing this back to buildings though, when China rips off Western ideas they are never quite the same. Someone quipped to me that Chinese won’t by “Made in China” because it will break in a month. But with the Italian Town, it was more that you could tell the roofs were plastic or vinyl, not tiles. The facades were concrete, not marble, and you could see the seams in the mold castings. It’s like the box of Disney movies I saw at a store that include Aladdin, but not the Disney version—it’s close, but not quite right.

However I digress from this tale about my tour of Tianjin. I believe that the Italian Town goes beyond mere emulation of the West. Though I was told by Nie Ning, the Secretary General of an investment corporation in Tianjin, that the development was aesthetically motivated (he said it looked nice and so it was built), I believe that the motivation is to attract tourism and foreign business, and the ad on the train from Shanghai helps back this up. Tianjin lacks in the history of Beijing or the international flair of Shanghai. So instead, it has built a new tale which is a combination both its larger cousins—it has built a Western history. From a sustainability standpoint, should this ploy work it will diversify the economy of Tianjin beyond that of a port city and industrial center for Beijing. The reconstructions also provide areas for foreigners to enjoy a relaxing evening out and some Western food, perhaps a facet of life the city sees as critical to attract investment beyond factories. If it wants a service sector to develop with Western nations at the forefront, perhaps the city leaders feel they need Western services.

Yet what is likely to attract most foreign companies is not this Italian village but rather the area set out for economic development. This was the main reason I had ventured to what many in Beijing clearly viewed as a wasteland. Tianjin can be divided into two areas—Downtown Tianjin and the Binhai New Area. The latter is the new growth pole, my primary destination, and the main attraction for foreign investment. Before I talk about it in detail though, let me first talk about getting to it. The two centers of Tianjin are connected by the fastest light rail in the world which, at speeds of over 100 km/hr, takes about 30-40 minutes to fly between the two areas. While convenient, what confused me a bit the first time I made this ride was the scenery outside the train. From Tianjin, you travel through a bit of city off to your left hand side before seemingly leaving the urban behind abruptly in favor of farmland with the occasional manufacturing factory serviced by unskilled workers from small nearby neighborhoods—perhaps smaller and with worse living conditions (no paved roads, tin roofs, reused brick walls. It was almost like being back in Kenya) that really put into perspective the idea of China as a growing nation. For these people, growth will likely mean sprawl that threatens to remove them from their land. Factories and power plants also dot the landscape here, telling a tale of environmental degradation and rapid expansion to support the growing city. This truly is the city’s underbelly, yet it is here on display for all to see. Given the attention to detail and “face” of the government I believe this will change, but until then it is like the images below.

It was strange to find in the literal center of the new growth pole of China such an underdeveloped area. Despite the agriculture present on this land which undoubtedly provides food for Tianjin, I can easily envision a day when out of a desire to hide the true China from foreigners or simply out of the realization that the Binhai Line will bring economic success this all will be developed into rows of apartments interspersed with convenience stores, hotels, and shopping malls. The future is not too far away either—already cranes dot the horizon as you ride between Binhai and Downtown working night and day to construct blocks of towers just the same as those in which I lived in Shanghai. I suppose it is good that this new town will be built linearly along the rail line. In fact, if residents are close enough to the stations, it could provide a vital housing sector for Binhai. With easy transit into both downtown and Binhai, this linear plan coupled with the high speed light rail could prove the most sustainable portion of Tianjin’s future. The simple lack of infrastructure surrounding this light rail may mean that sprawl is limited. At least I can be hopeful.

After the light rail ride, I arrived in Binhai to find a town unlike what I expected. My first stop was the Holiday Inn for a conference on the eco-city. While only a few years old (everything in Binhai is only a few years old), the building already is showing signs of wear. In the water-starved north of China, it is easy to question the wisdom of building an industrial center complete with glittering glass buildings whose exteriors need constant washing to maintain their glamour. The Holiday Inn has clearly suffered this low-water fate as its windows are now dulled with sand, its steel beams weathered and rusting. The appearance made me question the choice to build such a large industrial complex in a place where water must be piped from the south just to meet the residential demand. The anticipated growth in population both from migration to the city and the added industrial capacity will mean that even if a new “Glamorous City” is built, it, like many other buildings in China, will soon appear much older than it is. The buildings will have a decreased lifespan and diminished energy performance. From an environmental standpoint, such location is lose-lose. Either you use a lot of water to maintain the appearance and performance characteristics of the building to uphold your environmental and economic performance, or you let the sands and winds take their toll, reduce daylighting and PV output and wear down your facades and soon you must either replace the building stock or live with leaky structures.

The Holiday Inn is just one example of a building in Binhai though, so I was eager to see how the rest of the new area compared. Frankly, I was disappointed. Despite the presence of an eco-city in the development, the ideas of a sustainable city have not permeated the rest of Binhai. A bus ride through the city revealed massive 6-12 lane roads with large, single-story warehouses and manufacturing centers dividing the few shopping malls and pedestrian areas. Despite lawns and landscaping around sidewalks, there was clearly no pedestrian scale here. No services, no mixed use, and a lack of public transportation (despite the extensive masterplanning, there is no subway) mean that people will not want to live here. The convention center was deserted despite the presence of a public exhibition on new technologies, and the mall next door still had half of its spaces empty as a testament to the lack of customers even during the lunch rush hour when I visited. I suppose it is not the best metric, but the lack of a Starbucks in the area pretty much tells you that there are not many people here unless they have to be. Maybe as the area continues to develop it will change, but frankly, I’m not sure who would want to live in the high rises popping up in this otherwise industrial center. There is nowhere to walk to, nothing to do aside from work, and nothing to engage residents. Perhaps the spine of the light rail to Tianjin will provide these services, but even if it does that means that people must live away from where they work. For all of the hype about the eco-city here and the lessons it can provide at large for development in China, there was a failure here in its own neighborhood to adopt sustainable planning.

At the same time, all is not lost for Tianjin and Binhai—not yet. On my last day in town I was escorted to the Tianjin Planning Exhibition Hall by Nie Ning and his assistant, a nice guy who goes by the abbreviation TWJ.

Feeling like a VIP with this private tour, I got to see what the future of both downtown and Binhai look like, and I must say that I felt more hope and opportunity here than at any other time yet in China. Looking over the room-sized maps of the planned developments, I saw the scale of development yet to come.

Walking around downtown, numerous fences and forests of cranes indicate the rising of superblocks of apartments and new business areas. Trenches and workers around the new train station alert you to the expansion of the subway system from one line to five. Yet what is clearly missing is the impetus for “green” development. Aside from the eco-city, the models look the same and I suppose that is what inspired me. There is opportunity here to create a new model for a residential block and then actually try it in one of these many areas slotted for construction. And even if you are late to the game on that, the lack of public transit in the Binhai area could provide business and engineering challenges. Integrating the river that runs through Tianjin and Binhai into the public transit framework could offer quick trips across town by ferry and bus connections. The routes almost seemed pre-planned to me on the map, but I know they are not yet there. This means that there is room for someone to come in and develop them. Tianjin is just waiting for something to spark its development—a new economic model to launch it past just the industrial port and park it has become, past the reputation as Beijing’s factory, and into prominence among China’s and the world’s cities. The eco-city already provides some impetus for an environmental industry to take hold in Tianjin, but for me the massive scale of development that will occur here in the next 10-15 years is the real opportunity. Take lessons from the eco-city (which won’t even be finished until 2020) and create new lessons independent of it, and leverage them to create new eco-residential buildings, parks, and business centers. Then Tianjin will have the hottest commodity on the market—a real, scalable, working model for ecologically sound development. And if they can do that without using too much water, then they can export anywhere in the world. The water shortage will provide the impetus here—all that remains is the right minds to do it. But it better happen fast, otherwise the state-owned developers will quickly turn Tianjin’s promise into the fields of fenced off “tofu towers” I occupied in Shanghai. All hope for a pedestrian city will be lost as these shams of mixed use ecological building which in reality are monotonous, poorly-built towers divided too widely by swaths of manicured land. Fences and gates discourage mingling between residents and passersby, and the already limited walkability of Tianjin will be diminished to nothing save for in the reconstructed Western pedestrian areas. But like I said, hurry if you want to get in on this development—the cranes never stop and soon there will be no land left. Don’t believe me? Take a look at some views from the streets.

I only got to spend a week in Tianjin, so I didn’t fully get to know the city and its development, but I those are some of my thoughts. I guess to wrap up the development side of the story, Tianjin is rapidly changing and hopefully will draw lessons from its small eco-city, though I’m not too hopeful. The scale of infill development in the city presents a choice—build ecologically and create a pedestrian city or follow the Shanghai model and end up with monotony that alienates passersby. As for Binhai, the roads are built so it is too late to make a pedestrian center there. Perhaps in the future Tianjin will wake up, realize its folly, and overlay these broad and currently underused highways with public transit, green terraces, and human-scale space. However for now, it is destined to look like a plain of manufacturing and warehousing, not the ecological mecca of its small eco-city.

As much time as I spent in Tianjin pondering the vastness of its development, I did have some chances to get out and explore the city. So before I close today, I think I’ll mention a few things of note in the city. Despite the Western influence I mentioned above, Tianjin does have its Chinese side. Perhaps the best example is the Tianjin Water Park, a sprawling Chinese-style garden built around a lake.

Dotted with pagodas, pavilions, trees, and a ferris wheel set against the growing skyline of Tianjin, the park is a great place to sit, relax, and in my case, read Confucius. Sadly the smoke from the factories (many of which are right in the city) and the sand from the West grayed the sky every day I was in the city making the park less idyllic. For an idea of the sky, check out the pictures below—pretty gross if you ask me, but here is another sign of the true China and its ongoing development.

However it was still a pleasant place to relax and gave me a chance to see the Tianjin version of Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower. Unlike its futuristic twin (for images, see my “Shades of Shanghai” post), this tower almost appears to be a smokestack, paying homage in my opinion to Tianjin’s growth as a factory city and manufacturing center. Even should the city evolve to a service economy and become world-class, this tower could be a powerful reminder of what began its growth and rise.

Tianjin’s other Chinese heritage areas are the drum tower and old street. Here, shops and hawkers peddle everything from Hot Wheels look-alikes to silk scrolls that they “made themselves” (in exactly the same stitchwork as every other shop owner in China). While these areas do have history as the commercial centers of old Tianjin, their history has long since given way to bright acrylic paints, flashing lights, and tile flooring designed to draw in tourist dollars. While a fun little stroll, I must say there is little special about these streets after you have visited similar ones in Nanjing, Shanghai, and every other city in China!

As I wandered Tianjin, I came across a tourist magazine called Time Out available for free. Flipping through, it alerted me to the three must-try snacks of Tianjin: erduoyan zhagao, goubuli baozi, and shiba jie mahua. I figured they were worth a try, so sought them out throughout my trip. My first find, the shiba jie mahua, was an especially delicious treat. Made of deep-fried dough twists sprinkled with what tasted like slightly sweetened graham cracker bits and sprinkled with sugar and little green and red sweet twists (I don’t know of what), the monstrous sample I bought lasted me a whole week of snacking until I felt sick. Pick one up at the Food Street mall area, an entire indoor mall devoted to Tianjin and Chinese cuisine.

My last night in Tianjin, I sought out the second must-have dish at Empress Dowager Cixi’s favorite restaurant, Goubuli. After being led through the historic restaurant portion to a fast-food type place in the back, I purchased my steamed buns and dug in. The sweet white dough melts away as you chew on these creations leaving the marinated pork in the center to provide the salty, rich flavor. While a great treat, they were a bit pricier than I had expected (56 RMB for the meal below—expensive by Chinese standards!) but I suppose when your restaurant has been around for over 100 years and was a royal favorite, you can charge what you like and the customers, like me, will appear in droves.

Though resigned on my last day to miss out on the final Tianjin specialty, as I wandered the streets en route to the train station I encountered a man peddling the glutinous rice cake known as erduoyan from his cart. For under 5 RMB I walked away with my sweet, sticky prize—rice held together with far too much sugar to be healthy and interjected with some sort of paste, perhaps red-bean based, that provided a little flavor and a change of texture from the sweet rice. It was an excellent find, and the perfect way to cap my trip and relax a bit as I shot from Tianjin over to Beijing for my next adventure on the bullet train.

Hong Kong Holiday

A quick note about this post before I get started: hopefully it will both entertain my friends and serve to provide some lessons for those among them and any others who may stumble upon it regarding transport between China and Hong Kong. There are other sites that offer tips, but it was hard to compile for me the answers to all of my questions about my trip from disparate sources. So as my friend here Mark Evans said, “Everything you need is on the internet. But if it’s not, then it’s up to you to figure out how to do it and then put it on there for others with the same question!” If you’re only interested in these travel notes, they are scattered throughout and compiled separately at the end of the post.

Okay, not to get to philosophical, but it is interesting how sometimes things happen for a reason even though it may not be apparent at first. When I was in LA applying for my Chinese visa, I was frustrated by the fact that the embassy refused to give me the 93 days I required for my fellowship here but instead would only issue me a 60 day visa because that was what was typical. However when they gave me a multiple entry visa even when I didn’t ask for it, I found out the door had been opened for me to, at no additional visa expense, exit the country and return to get a new 60 days I could stay in China. So I began thinking about taking a trip to Hong Kong. Then I found out that one of my good buddies from high school, Elvin Chiang, would be in Hong Kong visiting his sister at about the halfway point of my stay in China, right when I would need to head south to extend my visa. So in the end because I got a visa I didn’t want I had the ability and necessity to see a good friend halfway around the world. Funny how things work out sometimes, huh?

So next thing, for those astute readers who are saying “Wait a minute—the British returned Hong Kong to China in 1999, so how is it ‘out of the country’?” you are right, and wrong. I had the same confusion when I learned that Hong Kong could help me renew my visa—how could an official part of China be considered another country? Well the answer is that Hong Kong is a “Special Administrative Region.” When ownership transferred back to China, rather than integrate it fully into the country, since it already had its own currency, government, and economic structure that worked to draw in foreign businesses by the handful, the Chinese government felt it easier to leave Hong Kong as it was. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) in Hong Kong where capitalism is king, this mean that they couldn’t be a part of the tightly regulated economy that makes China unique. This means that to retain the drawing power for international firms and workers, Hong Kong had to be left alone but couldn’t be part of China and subject to Chinese regulations. So the Chinese government chose to set up a structure where they would gain revenue from the SAR but keep it very separate so its own citizens would be discouraged from participating fully in the Hong Kong model lest it creep across the border to the mainland. Or at least that’s my take on the history. Whatever other reasons they had, the government’s decision 11 years ago worked in my favor this week when I was able to leave China, add another stamp to my passport, and enter Hong Kong to extend my stay in China.

One of the things I have come to love after only a few trips here in China is the rail system. It is fast, affordable, convenient, and for me fun and exhilarating. I boarded an intercity through train in Shanghai after going through customs in the station (I arrived 90 minutes early as suggested by a website which is when they open customs but was through in 20 minutes and waiting until boarding began about 40 minutes before departure; as a warning, customs closes 15 minutes before the train departs), did a bit of work, fell asleep, did a bit more work, and as I watched the green hills and forests whir by, soon found myself in Shenzhen. Less than 5 minutes later, a fellow traveler from Hong Kong with whom I had become acquainted unceremoniously announced that we had crossed from Shenzhen into Hong Kong. Watching out the window I was confused—the town had never stopped and restarted. The two cities reach right to the border making it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins from the train, though there definitely is a distinction (more on that later).

Soon I found myself in the station at Hung Hom, excited to see my friend once more. After a quick embrace and chat, I tried to get my return ticket to Shanghai only to learn that I had overlooked the important fact that with the Mid-Autumn Festival upcoming and my departure scheduled for the day after, businesses were closed and people were fleeing en masse to spend time in parts unknown so no tickets were available. In fact the earliest I could leave was October 1—not good enough when I had to be in Tianjin by September 26 after stopping through Shanghai. Dismayed, I wanted to find a solution and Elvin thought his sister, a Hong Kong resident, could be of some help, so we headed back to her apartment, chatting and catching up on the way.

The next few days were spent mostly hiding from the rain while popping out to grab food when needed, putting together some IKEA furniture as payment for the free room from Elvin’s sister, Ann, a few meetings for me, and running out to see the sights at times when the rain finally let up for a bit. Oh yeah, and the last full day I was there was the Mid-Autumn Festival, which had its own events and excitement. Rather than a play by play, I’ll hit the highlights in a couple of topics.

The Sights

Hong Kong is known primarily for one thing—its magnificent skyline. Though it has other more natural attractions which thanks to inclement weather I didn’t get a chance to visit (I guess that just means a return trip is necessary), the key attraction remains the manmade which is accented nightly with the world’s largest continuously operating light show. Featuring spotlights and building highlights on both sides of the bay, the show is set to three movements and is impressive though not as exciting as I’d hoped. However I still think it’s a must for visitors to do once. The skyline in itself though is breathtaking—the number of buildings and people crammed into the small level areas and shallower hills leading up to the mountains is incredible. Viewed both from Avenue of the Stars (which in and of itself is fun to walk and see the names of all of Hong Kong’s movie stars) and the top of Victoria Peak it is mind-blowing to consider how 7 million people are squished into such a small amount of space.

This crammed atmosphere gives rise, however, to more to explore including narrow streets and alleyways, the more major ones with skinny double-decker streetcars that look as though a wind will topple them. It also creates the iconic alleys with overhanging neon lighted signs in both English and Chinese drawing consumers into various restaurants and shops and creating scenes unique to this city. It also creates images of historic English buildings painted in front of modern towers including the IFC buildings designed by Italian Cesar Pelli or the I.M. Pei designed Bank of China building.

On the streets, it is inevitable that in this ever-growing city you will see a sight that excited the engineer in me and brought us to a stop to admire for a while. I’m talking here about the famed bamboo scaffolding that is used on every building be it a high-rise or single-storey commercial space as that shown below. The people who scale these seemingly unstable structures appear as daredevils to us who are afraid of the wobbling reeds lending what appears to be tenuous support to massive concrete structures. In actuality, the scaffolds are quite safe and perhaps more sustainable than their more common steel counterparts as the materials are grown quickly and locally and reused many times before safely being discarded to biodegrade.

Yet lest you think the city is all narrow alleys and skyscrapers, it does have its natural escapes too. The morning Elvin and his sister flew off to Cambodia before I boarded my train I wandered through Hong Kong Park, a green oasis in the packed city which I think tops my list of sights in the city (thanks to Jeff Mailes for the tip on this one). Mounting the steps to the park, I turned and found myself face to face with a gorgeous little lake. Starting at one end of the kidney bean-shaped pond, I passed reeds and flowers as I strolled around, led by the ever-changing vanishing point of the water around the gentle curve. Finally, the full pond was revealed to me as a beautiful koi pond flanked on my side by a stone path and woods and on the other by rockery, reeds, and overhanging trees. Ahead, at the end of the pond stood a brilliant almost effervescent green tree shimmering in the wind and standing out in front of the deeper verdure behind. The park then winds up a hill through a nice little conservatory and into a gorgeous, large aviary, before bringing you back to where you started. The whole time though, you are relatively isolated from the city—the sound of cars does not penetrate the walls of trees and only from the upper reaches can you see the buildings around. A café and tea house dot the grounds as well as the marriage registry. Frankly, I think the latter is an excellent planning decision. It not only makes the space mixed use ensuring that it will not just be used by the elderly, birdwatchers, and families on holiday, but also by young couples coming to get their licenses issued. However the decision to locate in the park also forces these young couples to view the beauty of nature and see the fresh-blooming buds and trees on their pilgrimage to formalize their budding life together. It makes the occasion more special in my opinion than a trip through a grimy city to the county courthouse, an all too common occurrence in most cities. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of the park as my camera picked this morning to die en route to the sights, but trust me when I say it is a beautiful locale not to be missed, especially on a calm, clear, crisp morning when the air is fresh and calls for you to escape the city. Here it will melt away with ease, and you don’t even have to leave town.

One last sight worth a mention is the Chungking Mansions. I also stopped through here on my way out to the train and found it to be as seedy and grimy as billed. Here is a collection of shops and cheap hotels that feature a very international and questionably legitimate clientele. It is said that over half of the cell phones in Africa passed through this location, and indeed when I was there, two African businessmen were completely at least one deal with a cell phone salesman. Various aromas wafted from shops on both floors calling the stomach to enjoy Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, or other cuisine, likely for cheaper prices than the restaurants in the Mid-Levels where I spent most of my time. The Mansions are worth a visit, but I’ve heard that you should never stay there unless you absolutely have to or really want a dingy, sketchy experience.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Rather than make this a part of the “sights” section, I wanted to give it its due as the Festival is the reason for the title of this post. For those who are as unfamiliar with Mid-Autumn Festival as I was when I arrived, the holiday is a 3,000 harvest festival celebrated on the 15^th day of the 8^th month of the Chinese calendar. Also known as Moon Festival or Lantern Festival, it is celebrated by burning incense, eating mooncakes in the moonlight, carrying lanterns or lighting floating sky lanterns, and often by fire dragons. The link above gives a bit of history as well on the various versions of the legend that gave rise to the holiday, or you can read one version of the legend of Chang’e (sometimes Chang-O) and Hou Yi here.

For those more interested in the celebration and wondering what moon cakes, lanterns, and fire dragons are, I was lucky enough to get to experience all of them during my holiday in Hong Kong. So let’s start with moon cakes. These delicious little treats are pastries filled with lotus seed paste which is not so sweet but has a dense, filling quality that surrounds a yolk from a salted duck egg. Though that may sound like a weird combination, they are very tasty and a nice combination of sweet and salty. One version, sold at Café 85C in Taiwan and Shanghai is shown in the image below.

Another version available in Hong Kong is shown in the images below.

Get it? “Moon” Cakes? Clever, and sadly sold out during my visit.

Yet eating these delicious treats with friends, family, and loved ones is just a part of the festival. Elvin and I decided to experience the full glory of Mid-Autumn by trudging down to the famous Tai Hang Fire Dragon. Fighting our way through crowds, what we saw was a 100+ meter long dragon made entirely of incense floating down the street on poles supported by young men, trailing sweet-smelling smoke. Accompanied by live drum and bell music and commentary that I could not understand (though Hong Kong speaks a lot of English this tradition was in Chinese), the dragon bounced its way through this older district of the city, at times chasing its tail, at times boldly charging down new alleys and boulevards, all in a choreographed story that ended with confetti blasts and the dragon rearing its mighty head. I wish I knew more about the importance and meaning of this festival—any insights would be appreciated! Please just share in the comments below. It was pretty cool to watch though, and the pictures don’t quite do it justice.

After experiencing this , Elvin and I wandered off to find the subway but inadvertently stumbled on the largest celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong in Victoria Park. Here, concerts by local musicians, traditional sword and fan dances, and a lively host entertained throngs of onlookers basking in the glow of the bright moon, red lanterns, and dangling white and blue lights. The festive atmosphere and pleasant yet night-appropriate lighting provided a great place to relax, enjoy traditional culture, and even get your fortune told by one of the slew of fortune tellers lined in the back. This year, even Haibao, the Expo mascot, made an appearance to take part in the festivities.

Ok, so my impression needs some work, but it was still a fun atmosphere. I enjoyed seeing all of the families from grandparents to infants lined up, sharing treats, laughing, smiling, and enjoying time together on this special day. It was a more human side of China’s crowds than I see on a day-to-day basis and provided a nice, relaxing way to enjoy my last night with an old friend, at least for a while.

Food

I think one of the best parts of this trip has been the food. Even when I’m being cost conscious, I end up eating well by finding a hole in the wall restaurant, identifying the few characters I’ve learned for pork or beef and either rice or noodles, or using pictures to guide my choice, and then waiting for my steaming plate to arrive. Almost inevitably it is delicious, typically well-cooked and filling as though catering to men having done laborious work all day. Thanks to Elvin, a foodie, our eats were as good or better than my Shanghai adventures (except of course the first night when due to rain, exhaustion from walking that afternoon, and laziness we ordered McDonald’s—the deliver in China and HK!). Some highlights are below.

1. Though I’m told it’s good anytime it’s cold outside, for breakfast especially tasty was congee. Though it sounds simple—essentially it is rice porridge—when you throw an egg in there along with a little pork and corresponding pork juice (for lack of a better descriptor) the taste is quite not bland but rather quite flavorful and leaves you warm inside. Mop it up with some fried dough wrapped in rice noodles with some cinnamon and spices (think doughnut but not as sweet with a slimy outside) and you’re set for the day.

2. For dinner one night, we decided to explore the culinary creations from farther east and popped into a Japanese noodle restaurant. The noodles were delicious and came with pork and a sort of mayonnaise-like dipping sauce on the side. Cooked to tenderness and breaded, the meat was excellent and well complemented by the slightly salty soup for the noodles with its vegetables.

3. Ann and her friends took us out one night to a Sichuan restaurant. Here Sichuan means spicy and that is what we got. A combination of fried rice, pork, vegetables, and fish all with a good amount of peppers and spices made for a delicious dinner that made you sweat. After all of the flavor, though, the rice cakes with squid, pork, and fish which we ordered for those who weren’t such a fan of spicy food seemed bland. Any other day and I’m sure alone it would have been excellent, but after the explosion (somewhat literally) of flavor, it seemed relatively flavorless.

4. Though Elvin wasn’t a huge fan, the last night we stopped at a barbecue place in the district of Causeway Bay where I was served up a nice chicken dish over rice with a peach and honey sauce that was a perfect blend of sweet and salty in the meat, in my opinion. The sauce was so good that I saved rice to mop it up ad savor every last drop of the honey sweetened with juice from the peaches. I haven’t had peaches since arriving here, so the treat was exquisite. However I think my favorite part of the meal was simply the fact that when we sat down, Elvin and I were given different utensils. Guess which side he (the Chinese-American) sat on and which one I (the white boy) sat on.

5. The first day I was there we dined with Ann’s work friends for lunch at a small shop in the Mid-Levels which served up egg noodles with succulent, tender braised pork. A bit of a hole-in-the-wall, the tables were packed such that different parties were seated side by side to fill the restaurant and accommodate as many as possible. Quick service also didn’t diminish the taste of the succulent pork chunks in a broth seasoned with chives, cilantro, salt, oil, and other spices. Delicious, filling lunch option.

Nightlife

Hong Kong is a young worker’s paradise for a number of reasons. Great international cuisine, walkability, and good nightlife combine here to make a truly international city that embraces all with open arms. So given that the nightlife is billed as a highlight of the city, Elvin and I ventured out on our last night together to reminisce over a couple drinks and experience one of Hong Kong’s biggest draws for the young crowd. Heading down to Lan Kwai Fong, we found a night scene vastly different from that of Shanghai. As one of my first roommates in Shanghai, Dario, pointed out I neglected the nightlife there in my Shades of Shanghai posts so I will mention it here by way of comparison.

In Shanghai, the night begins late, as it does in Hong Kong (nobody goes out before 11 pm—it’s just not cool to head out early) but when you do go out, in Shanghai it was straight to the club. For Dario’s birthday, we hit up Muse 2 where our own private table awaited us with a 4 L bottle of Chivas and endless green tea for a mixer (by the way, try the mix—it is surprisingly good). Between about 20 of us, after several hours of talking, laughing, dancing, and playing a dice game that if anyone wants to learn I am happy to teach, the bottle was empty and we were all in high spirits. One of the nicest aspects here is that if you leave your table to dance, the waiters hold it for you so you can freely enjoy the floor and then return to the comfort of a table when tired.

In Hong Kong though, Elvin and I arrived at LKF to find two full streets of bars blasting everything from jazz to hip hop, classic rock to alternative with people pouring out of each into the streets. The alcohol flowed in various forms and tiny dance floors packed in the back of each bar were crowded and not worth the effort. Instead, we fought for seats at the bars or tables on the patios (nothing was held) and yelled our conversation as we freely wandered the streets with open bottles, admiring the crowds about us. The open air atmosphere and easy open container policy made for a relaxing, fun atmosphere and a great place to unwind from a long day or week of work. I can see now why this is a draw for younger employees here in Hong Kong.

So which do I prefer? Hard to say—different atmospheres for different nights. I’m not a fan of clubbing in the US, but in Shanghai I could get used to it if not for the expense. It is a great way to have high-energy fun with a group of friends whereas in Hong Kong, a more relaxed yet still loud atmosphere provides a nice venue for winding down a week with old friends or venturing out to meet new ones. Take your pick—personally if I could have both I would.

All Play and No Work?

For those afraid that during this adventure in Hong Kong I was derelict in my fellowship work, never fear—I not only had two productive meetings but also learned the importance of the lesson that every day is an opportunity to learn, to experience, and to advance my understanding of the local culture and how it affects my project. I personally think that this last part is the most important lesson learned from my time in Hong Kong, and so rather than discuss my meeting results, I’d rather talk a bit about the implications of Hong Kong for sustainable development in China and perhaps around the world.

Wandering through the streets of Hong Kong, I was struck immediately by one thing—the density. No matter whether you are in the central business district or the mid-levels, or even across the bay high0rises abound, dwarfing the city. Yet in all of this the pedestrian scale is not lost. Lively street scenes are the norm whether you are about in the morning, afternoon, or evening. Such activity keeps the streets safer as more watchful eyes abound but also makes you feel comfortable and at home wherever you are. The city becomes walkable, and when supplemented by escalators uphill and buses and the MTR, little need of personal cars is present in the city. Such density is the antithesis of cities like Los Angeles where a lack of walkability in the suburbs due to spread out homes creates an inherently high-carbon society and therefore an unsustainable model for the future of our cities. So in some ways the Hong Kong model, born out of necessity of packing as many people at the base of the foothills as possible, is more sustainable, though it lies on the higher end of the density spectrum. For this reason Peter Head of Arup in his recent lecture series does not advise copying the Hong Kong model citing that it creates some challenges for efficient centralized transport, utility, and infrastructural systems.

Despite this, I believe that Hong Kong still has much to teach China and the world about human-scale development and creating spaces that simultaneously banish cars by the nature of their design and promote walking by weaving small shops among business centers and restaurants catering to all budgets and food preferences. In fact, Ann said that on many days they don’t leave their building from the time they arrive until the time they depart for home simply because enough restaurants abound in otherwise commercial buildings (to the point where you have to know where to go and which floor to head up to just to find the places) that they can head down from the office and have a multitude of choices without setting foot outside.

Hong Kong also does a nice job in my opinion of peppering parks and public spaces in the city to break up the monotony. By lucky virtue of its location, nature is drawn into the environment with a glance out a window where mountains back the man-made wonder that is the skyline—a contrast to Shanghai where the scenery is buildings, buildings, and more buildings. And as I mentioned previously, escape is just a stroll through the park in Hong Kong. Rather than these being the dangerous voids and inherently transient spaces of Jane Jacobs’ New York, the Chinese philosophy of harmony in nature and resulting interaction with parks draws families, business, and the elderly out to enjoy the fresh air and natural environment.

One thing that surprised me though on arrival was that the buildings here are visibly no more sustainable on the whole than in mainland China. Despite the years of British influence and the presence of an ever-growing number of high-end apartments, much of the city is still composed of decaying, dilapidated concrete structures that must leach heat in the winter and cold in the summer making them more energy intensive than they need be. In both of my meetings, this issue arose with the conclusion being that the biggest issue facing China and Hong Kong is these buildings and finding an effective way to retrofit them or improve their energy performance. However the toughest challenge in this arena is not the technology—it is financing. Some precedents exist here in the Netherlands where energy efficiency retrofits have been ongoing for decades, however a good financial model for China has yet to be developed.

The question is difficult to answer simply because there is a disconnect in residential space between who puts up the initial capital (the owner) and who accrues the benefits (the tenant). While there is no answer to this question for China yet, some suggestions include government incentives that could help reduce the cost for developers and fixed pricing structures for utilities for tenants that will also help the investor recoup his up-front investment without the tenant seeing a change in monthly payments. The ESCo, or Energy Service Company, also referred to as Energy Performance Contracting or EPC model, could also work here. In this arena, a third-party finances the retrofits and then uses monitoring to identify the cost savings, splits this with the user (in this case tenant) and thereby recovers their investment while the tenant also sees some cost-saving. This could excerpt the manager of the building from the process save for the approval to overhaul the building systems. However the challenges with this model lie in financing—in China, these methods are not yet proven enough to garner low interest rates and the small size of ESCo companies means they have trouble financing large or numerous projects on their limited collateral. Finally, they are not seen as high payback investments and so are given lower priority than other loan opportunities.

A final way to potentially address this issue was advanced by Julian Bott of Cundall, one of the gentlemen with whom I met in Hong Kong. Julian suggested that by creating standards with appropriate monitoring and then using a display and rating system for energy performance requiring building owners to display how much energy their apartments are, a spirit of competition could drive efficiency retrofits. If owners were able to see added pride, higher rents, or quicker turnover in apartments due to their better energy score, then competition could drive the baseline to a lower overall equilibrium. It is not the first time I’ve heard competition mentioned here as a potential driver, so perhaps Julian is on to something. Now if only there were the regulation to back it up…

Conclusion

Well, for those who have made it through what I’m pretty sure is now my longest post yet and are wondering if I made it out of Hong Kong and up to Tianjin in time for the conference, never fear—my resourcefulness as well as devoted internet searching helped me escape Hong Kong just in time. After Ann suggested trying China Travel Service which apparently only sells the overnight tickets on the train operated by MTR (the sold out railway on which I arrived), I was directed by the internet to return to the Hung Hom station and seek out the outlet for CRH (China Railway High-Speed) where I was able to purchase a ticket from Shenzhen to China. Shenzhen is just a 45 minute ride on the MTR away from downtown Hong Kong, so on the appointed morning I boarded the subway for Lo Wu and in no time was standing in line at customs in Hong Kong. With a quick exit paper and stamp in the passport, I was officially in no-man’s land. Now on the way here the transition appeared seamless, but this time, that could not be further from the truth. From Hong Kong to China you stroll across an enclosed glass-walled tunnel that overlooks what I can only describe as a prison moat between the two countries. On both sides high chain-link fences topped by barbed wire make the border look more like a war-zone or Alcatraz than two areas under the same central government. A wide, deep channel cuts between the sides, making it even more prison-like in appearance. Thanks to my multiple-entry visa into China (which I’m not sure why I was granted, and neither did the immigration officer when I listed my reason of entry as “Leisure/Tourism”) I did not have to obtain additional visas or permits to reenter and got a whole new 60 days in the Middle Kingdom. However, I did have an entertainingly tough time getting through immigration. The Chinese “efficiency” meant that while I was standing at the counter having my passport inspected, when the clock struck switching time, the woman logged out in the middle of processing my passport, left her post, and a new gentleman took her place only to start the process over. Though he stamped me in, he was perplexed at my clean-shaven photo which does not accurately depict my appearance anymore and handed the passport to a supervisor to double-check that it was actually me. After a chuckle from him, I was handed my documents and strolled into the economic engine of Shenzhen to wait for my train. While this is not the first time I’ve given visa officers pause (I was told on exit from Kenya that I looked like a bush man from their country), it was the most difficult check I’ve endured, though I had to walk away laughing.

Travel Info

Ok, for those interested in the travel info between China and Hong Kong, as promised, here it is:

Options for traveling to Hong Kong: Train T99 from Shanghai is operated by MTR and runs every other day (check the website for details as it changes monthly which day it runs on, odd or even). You cannot yet buy tickets online, but they are sold at the Shanghai Railway Station (get there by Lines 1, 3, or 4 of the Shanghai Metro). A hard sleeper top berth was 399 RMB. Remember that flights to Hong Kong are considered international, so a trip can easily be 500-600 USD round trip. Your other option is to take an overnight train to Shenzhen, for which a hard sleeper is around 350 RMB. You then have to take the MTR from Lo Wu to Hung Hom for 36.5 HKD (RMB not accepted) or to wherever else your destination is. Flights to Shenzhen also run close to 100 USD, so while it is faster and cheaper than flying into HK, it is still pricier than the train.

Options from Hong Kong to Shanghai: Train T100 is the MTR operated train back to Shanghai (the counterpart of T99). It operates on days that T99 does not (again, check the schedule). Tickets can be bought at Hung Hom or at CTS outlets throughout the city. You can also do the reverse Hung Hom-Lo Wu-Shenzhen-Shanghai and can buy the ticket at the CRH outlet in the Hung Hom station (across from the CTS outlet and down the shopping arcade a bit) but you will be charged a 100 HKD convenience fee. MTR also operates a number of trains from Hung Hom to Guangzhou from where you can also go to Shanghai, but check the schedules and plan early if you try to do this as the CRH outlet in Hung Hom was not readily willing to sell me a ticket from Guangzhou to Shanghai for some reason.

Advice: Buy your tickets early. Tickets for the trains start selling 60 days in advance so don’t wait until the last minute. These trains are surprisingly popular.

Customs: On the Shanghai side at the train station, customs took about 20 minutes. They start letting you through 90 minutes before the train leaves and stop checking you in 15 minutes before it departs. Boarding begins about 40 minutes before departure. If you remember to bring the yellow departure card you received on arrival to China and fill it out in advance it expedites the process. In Hong Kong, the total time was about 15 minutes.

Immigration and Visas: While it seems strange, Hong Kong and China are basically two separate countries for all intents and purposes relating to visas. US Citizens do not need an advance visa for Hong Kong—you just fill out an arrival card and get a stamp. To China, if you have a multiple entry visa, it is valid for the number of days on the visa each time you enter the country. So that means you can stay say for 60 days, pop down to HK, and then come back across and get a whole new 60 days as long as you are still within the overall period of visa validity (typically 6 or 12 months). If you only have a single entry visa, you will need to take care of getting an additional visa in HK. CTS can handle this as well, and I’ve heard it only takes a day or two. Other visa services exist too, so ask around for the best prices.