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Shenzhen: The Book – Interview with the Author Ted Rule
In today’s interview I’ll discuss with Ted Rule, one of the authors of “Shenzhen: The Book“, a comprehensive guide for traveling and living in Shenzhen that has just been published by ShenzhenParty.com.
I read the book last week and I must say that Ted and Karen, who first arrived in Shenzhen in 1971, did a great job on both describing what you can do and see in Shenzhen and conveying the atmosphere of this metropolis that, only 40 years ago, was just a village.
Ted, first of all, thank you for accepting this interview. Your book starts with a couple of Chinese sayings. The one I liked the most is this: “If you love him, send him to Shenzhen. Heaven’s there. If you hate him, send him to Shenzhen. Hell’s there,” which remember me the saying “Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford” of Samuel Johnson. What is, in your opinion, that makes Shenzhen so different from the other Chinese cities?
In some ways Shenzhen is very different to other Chinese cities but it shares many of the characteristics that are changing every Chinese city. The main difference – essentially Shenzhen was built from scratch. Before 1979 there was nothing here. That’s true of most Chinese cities in a sense. Look at Beijing and Shanghai. Most of what you see there was built in the past 20 years. The difference is that in Shenzhen there’s no equivalent of the Bund or of the hutong. The “indigenous” population is tiny and its traditions are barely known. Everybody in Shenzhen is a recent immigrant and that colors everything that happens here. There’s nobody to tell you that “we tried that and it didn’t work”.
You arrived in Shenzhen in 1971. How it was to travel around China back in 70’s?
OMG travel in the 70’s. It wasn’t easy. Flights were rare and had an excitement of its own. The only international routes were to Pakistan, Japan, Russia and Burma. There was no direct travel to Hong Kong. To go from Hong Kong to Beijing you took the KCR to Lowu, walked across the bridge to Shenzhen, had lunch in a room specially for foreigners, caught the next train to Guangzhou. There you either took the train (two days and one night) or caught the one flight per day to Beijing (CAAC Boeing 707).
If you were lucky it landed in Beijing. Often the doors opened and you were in Shanghai. For always undisclosed reasons. There was no private travel. You had to be accompanied. To leave a city you had to get permission from the police. Beijing had signs at the ten mile markers saying in Chinese, Russian and English that foreigners were not permitted beyond this point.
Accommodation? If you were lucky it was basic. If not…. And I believe that there was not a single bar in the whole of China.
Source: http://www.saporedicina.com/english/shenzhen-the-book-interview-with-the-author/
