Pandas Tale pdf version

The Panda’s Tale
Journeys in search of the wild heart
of China
By Nigel Hicks
The Panda's Tale is published by Nigel Hicks, 2014.
All designs are copyright Nigel Hicks © 2014
All text is copyright Nigel Hicks © 2014
All images are copyright Nigel Hicks © 2014
None of the designs, text or images used in this book may be reproduced in any format, in print or
online, without the prior written permission of Nigel Hicks.
Please contact Nigel Hicks at [email protected] if you have any queries or wish to use any of
the material in this book.
To see more of Nigel Hicks's photography go to www.nigelhicks.com
Contents
About Nigel Hicks
6
About The Panda’s Tale
7
Chapter 1: Kunming, The Start of a Long Road
9
Chapter 2: The Snows of Jade Dragon Mountain
35
Chapter 3: Chicken Foot Mountain
62
Chapter 4: Tibet’s Eastern Fringe
82
Chapter 5: Panda Country
101
Chapter 6: The Ever-White Mountains
116
Chapter 7: Black Dragon River
138
Chapter 8: Into the Wilderness
161
Chapter 9: The Land of Uigurs and Kazakhs
198
Chapter 10: The Greatest Cities under Heaven
232
Chapter 11: Southeastern Mountains
248
Chapter 12: Into the Three Gorges
268
Chapter 13: Tibet
284
Chapter 14: A Passage to Everest
314
About Nigel Hicks
Nigel Hicks is a professional photographer, who has been taking photographs most of his life, and
working at it full time professionally for over 20 years. Born in the UK and trained as a biologist, his
professional photography career began while he was living in East Asia, initially in Japan and then
more importantly during a number of years spent in Hong Kong. Today, he is based in his home
area of southwest England, though his photography takes him around the world, shooting for a
range of travel publishers, companies and agencies, the last most importantly consisting of
National Geographic Creative, the publishing division of the US's National Geographic Society.
Travel, landscape and nature photography are his three main loves, subjects that have seen him
shooting in some of the world's most beautiful regions, from the tropical rainforests of the
Philippines and Brazil to the glaciers and volcanic lava of Iceland, to the forests, grasslands and
mountains of Alaska, Argentina and Chile. To see galleries of his photographic images, feel free to
take a tour of his website at www.nigelhicks.com.
About The Panda's Tale
During the 1990s I was commissioned by London-based publisher New Holland to do the
photography for a new book about the wildlife and landscape of China, to be entitled Wild China.
The book's text was to be authored by Dr John Mackinnon, a well known conservationist who had
been instrumental in getting China's panda conservation programme up and running, and was
backed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). A hugely audacious project, this was the first
time in nearly 100 years that anyone had attempted to produce a book covering the natural history
of this vast country, and as such was quite an historic project. For myself, as a lone photographer,
it was both daunting and exciting.
My qualifications in being chosen for this project were firstly, that as a biologist who had taken to
the camera I knew my subject matter well, and secondly that as someone based in Hong Kong
and married to a Chinese person I was comfortable with the Chinese environment and was able to
speak Mandarin Chinese. Naturally, these were all essential factors towards the success of the
book, not only ensuring masterful photography of the Chinese natural environment and wildlife,
but also that I could navigate my way around the country and successfully penetrate into some of
its remotest and wildest corners, including areas that had seen few if any Westerners.
The Panda's Tale is the story of my experiences while gathering Wild China's images, travelling
and photographing across the length and breadth of China, at a time when the country was
starting to open its doors wide and just beginning its meteoric economic development. As the book
reveals, it was not always plain sailing, every trip I undertook entailing exhausting and sometimes
dangerous journeys, difficult and complex planning, time-consuming negotiations, and on a couple
of occasions facing arrest as a foreigner in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Panda's Tale is
not - it should be pointed out - a book about China's natural environment and wildlife, but a
travelogue about my experiences in this vast country.
It is true that The Panda's Tale has taken a long time to come into the public arena, rendering
some of the stories of great historical interest, many of my experiences becoming a reflection on
conditions in China at that time, conditions that still prevail for some issues, but which for others
have passed into history. The passage of time has made this story easier to tell and easier to
bring to public attention, and it is hoped that you will find this book hugely entertaining and
informative.
As for Wild China itself, this was published worldwide in the late 1990s to great acclaim, and
continues to sell to this day. Incidentally, it should not be confused with the book of the same
name, which the BBC produced a few years later, the result of work by a whole team of
photographers.
Nigel Hicks
Devon, Great Britain.
Chapter 10: The Greatest Cities under Heaven
It was October and I was in Beijing. The whole city was on holiday, celebrating China’s national
day - the anniversary of the day Mao Zedong had stood atop Tiananmen, the enormous Gate of
Heavenly Peace, the outermost entrance to the old imperial palace, and proclaimed the
establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Tiananmen Square was jammed with festive
crowds flying kites and balloons, munching snacks, endlessly photographing each other, or simply
just hanging out, enjoying the atmosphere. An enormous queue stretched across the square as
patriotic citizens waited to pay their respects to Mao’s embalmed body, housed in the huge
mausoleum built just for him on the square’s south side. After years of denigration, the cult of Mao
was making a comeback.
Tiananmen itself shone brilliantly red in the glorious autumn sun, enormous red flags flapping in
the breeze, huge red lanterns hanging from the building’s eaves. Mao’s massive portrait,
suspended from the gate’s wall for so many years now, looked passively but benignly out across
his people. I tried hard to see signs of the restoration work that had had to be done after students
had splattered paint across it during the demonstrations of 1989, but none were visible - the
renovation had been meticulous.
I had come to Beijing to see the autumn leaves; it
was said that the woodlands of Fragrant Hills Park,
a hilly area of semi-natural forest just on the city’s
western fringe, went a blazing red in October.
Timing had turned out to be a problem, however.
As with Kanas Lake in Xinjiang I had come a touch
too early, most of the forest stubbornly remaining
green, with just a hint of red here and there. Still, I
was also planning to reach Wulingshan, a remote
forested nature reserve out on the border with Hebei province to the east of Beijing. Being higher
in the mountains and so colder, I was hopeful of seeing autumn colours there.
I was killing time, sitting at a streetside restaurant table, reading. When I looked up I spotted a
brown Panama hat with a beard beneath it walking towards me. I recognised the combination
immediately. It was Mike Goodwin, the New Yorker with whom I had climbed Hailuogou Glacier in
Sichuan. It was now five months later and I was on the other side of China, but here he was
walking down the street straight towards me. It was incredible that we should meet again, yet
somehow it felt right that it should happen, especially here in Beijing. His hat, which for so much
use was holding up remarkably well, remained firmly jammed on his head; I wondered if he ever
took it off. He beamed at me from ear to ear, and flopped down in a chair next to me.
We exchanged ‘what-happened-next-after-we-parted’ stories, and I went on about progress in my
photography. He too had been to Jiuzhaigou, the magnificent reserve in northern Sichuan where
Xia Kairong and I had suffered three days at China’s worst guesthouse, and he had had a mighty
interesting time.
“God, that damned guesthouse at Jiuzhaigou!” exclaimed Mike, empathising with the description
of my stay there. “I nearly starved in it. Disgusting place.”
Hollywood, however, had come to his rescue.
“I was just leaving the reserve,” he explained, “When I ran into this Warner Brothers film team.
They were filming inside the reserve, making a movie with pandas in it. I jokingly asked if they
needed an interpreter, and when they said ‘Yup, sure do,’ I found I had a job. So I spent six weeks
there, working on this film. Neat! Suddenly I had far more money than I knew what to do with, and
so much food - all American, trucked in specially. The best bit, though, was when I got to hold one
of the baby pandas that were in the film. So pretty and cuddly too.” He looked pleased with himself
for this great stroke of luck, and with good reason, but then he frowned.
“But you know what? I just discovered that I lost one of my films. And guess which roll it is - the
one with the shots of me holding the baby panda of course. God I’m pissed about that!”
But really he looked cheerful enough, and when he declined my invitation to come along to
Wulingshan with me - I was due to head off the next day - I found out why. “I’ve got a plane to
catch; going home at last. It’s time to see my mom and pa.”
When we eventually parted once again it was to allow Mike to buy presents and souvenirs for the
homecoming, and for me to make a few preparations for Wulingshan. I had already found myself a
driver, a gruff, middle-aged taxi driver that I had taken a liking to when he gave me a ride across
the city the day before. Zhou Haijun, his name, he seemed honest, easy-going and had a sense of
humour - always a good idea on my photographic trips, and as it was to turn out absolutely
essential on this one. The one drawback was that his Beijing accent was so thick I could hardly
understand a word he said. In true Beijing style the ending of every word was clipped short and
replaced by an ‘r’ sound, making for a diabolical slaughter of ‘standard’ Mandarin, whatever that
may actually be.
When 6.30 the next morning, our agreed meeting time, rolled around and Zhou appeared in front
of the hotel I started to have second thoughts. His taxi was a little Chang’an van, just like the
hopeless vehicle I had had in Yunnan, except that this one was coloured bright yellow instead of
bright green. Having sworn I would never waste my time with such a vehicle again, I wondered at
my foolishness now, and I started to have misgivings about Zhou’s ability to get his minibus into
the reserve. There was only one way to find out.
The journey started out quite well, but as we got further from Beijing it became clear that Zhou
knew even less about the reserve than I. He certainly did not know the way, for we got lost several
times, and it was late in the morning before we reached the town of Xinglong, just across the
provincial border in Hebei province and the closest town to the reserve. It was here that disaster
struck. At an intersection on the edge of town, Zhou stopped to ask directions, and in those few
seconds a jeep pulled up in front of us. Three officious-looking men stepped out and walked
towards us, the most senior of the three addressing Zhou.
“Where have you come from?”
“Beijing.” replied Zhou, a bit non-plussed.
“Why have you got a foreigner on board?”
“We’re going to Wulingshan.” Answered Zhou.
“This is a closed area; foreigners are not allowed here without a permit. Does he have one?”
I did not of course. I had no idea the area was closed - how could I have known? My map marked
the reserve as a ‘Developed tourist site’.
“You’re under arrest.” said our assailant flatly. “Follow us.”
The three men climbed back into their jeep and drove slowly through the town, our little yellow taxi
following forlornly behind. We pulled up outside a drab four-storey concrete building and began
climbing a staircase until we reached a room with a sign up outside that read ‘Xinglong County
Foreign Affairs Police’. Xinglong was not exactly bursting with foreigners - after all, it was closed so I felt sure the local foreign affairs police were not terribly overworked. My arrival gave them a
rare opportunity to flex their muscle and justify their existence. My heart sank.
My heart sank still further in the room, for although it was comfortably furnished, like so many
concrete buildings in China it was cold and damp despite the warm sunshine outside. But the men
were a picture of hospitality, going through the rounds of brewing tea and offering cigarettes, the
essential prelude to any discussion, serious or otherwise, in China. The niceties dealt with, they
settled themselves in a conspiratorial but relaxed little group around the room’s desk, located next
to the only window and on the far side of the room from where Zhou and I had been offered chairs.
There was a huge gulf between us. The gathering drifted into a pregnant silence, and I could
sense the men relishing this unexpected turn of events.
“Why were you going to Wulingshan?” the leader asked me.
“I’m a biologist.” I lied, determined not to admit to being a photographer. “Wulingshan is quite an
important nature reserve, so I wanted to see its scenery and photograph the plants there.”
“But this is a closed area and you don’t have a permit.”
“How are we supposed to know it’s closed?” answered Zhou. “You should put a sign up on the
roadside, or something, to warn everyone.”
“That’s not the point. You are supposed to know. New rules were published in all the newspapers
a few months ago, so there is no excuse.”
As proof, the leader produced a three-month-old copy of the local daily newspaper, the Xinglong
Ribao, with a big article plastered across the front page headlined ‘New Rules Concerning
Foreigners Travelling in the People’s Republic’. Though I could only read parts of it, I could see
that it was all laid out in turgid black-and-white, just the sort of stuff that people might read only
when they needed a cure for insomnia. A finger pointed helpfully to the two rules we had infringed,
numbers 37 and 45. The first informed me that any foreigner entering a closed area without a
permit would be fined, while the latter followed up by pointing out that any citizen of the People’s
Republic who helped a foreigner enter a closed area would meet a similar fate. There was no
doubt about it; we were as guilty as hell.
To drive the point home, our foreign affairs policeman pulled out a rules book the size of a
telephone directory, and with practised fingers turned to rules 37 and 45. Here, added detail was
given, like the size of the fines; up to 500 yuan (£40/US$65) for each rule; not exactly bankbreaking stuff for a foreigner, and it sure beat being sent to a Qinghai salt mine.
There then followed an interminably long process of statement filing, our stories - plus of course
an abject apology for our mistake - repeated several times over, written down by the policeman in
a painfully slow, careful hand. Throughout it all Zhou gently puffed on cigarettes, smiling sweetly
and talking to our arresters as if they were his best friends. Not a sign of irritation or impatience
touched his face for a moment. His outward calmness was a complete contrast to my inner
turmoil, itching so hard to tell these men exactly what I thought of them, struggling to restrain the
explosion building up inside me. I knew that Zhou’s reaction was the only right one, his calm,
benign demeanour born of years of experience in finding ways to handle China’s volatile
government officials.
Finally, the statements were completed, read, reread, signed and given the essential red stamp.
“Now, please leave the room, both of you, while we discuss how much to fine you.”
So, like naughty schoolboys sent out of class Zhou and I retreated to the corridor to await our fate.
Our summons came in just a few minutes. “We have decided to fine you, Mr Qiu,” explained the
more senior policeman, “200 yuan, and you Mr Zhou 100 yuan. You have explained that you
meant no harm and have apologised for your mistake, and this has been taken into account.” He
was clearly enjoying his officiousness, but there was now light at the end of the tunnel and the
only thing to do to hurry matters to a close was to go along with the charade.
I paid over the money, receipts were issued, and immediately the official atmosphere evaporated
with more tea and another round of cigarettes. “Now, perhaps you would like to buy a permit to go
to Wulingshan.” said the leader magnanimously. I certainly wasn’t going to give up and retreat to
Beijing now, not after all this, and so with a little more form filling I was once again set.
“Right, you can go.”
And so we did, quickly and before the policemen could change their minds. It was lunchtime and I
was largely inclined to put my growing hunger before the need to get to Wulingshan. But we had
lost three hours stuck at that wretched police station and Zhou, bless him, stubbornly refused to
stop the vehicle, insisting on pushing on towards the reserve. “It’ll start to get dark at five o’clock,
so if we don’t get there soon we’ll lose the light.” He was right of course, and I quelled my
rebellious stomach by slowly munching away at the few biscuits I had brought along.
At the entrance to the reserve, a lonely hut on a dirt track, the warden showed no interest in the
permit I had bought in Xinglong - so much for the policemen’s assurances that I would never be
allowed in without it - contenting himself with simply relieving me of more money before swinging
open the pole barring the road.
From here the road climbed into a narrow valley surrounded by high, steep mountains. The slopes
were covered with forest that had clearly been severely damaged by cutting in recent years but
which was now undergoing regeneration. It was both a sad and an encouraging sight. And
although most of the trees - at least in the area that I could see - were quite small, they were a
glorious sight, a blaze of autumn colour, glistening golden and scarlet in the brilliant sunshine. The
road began a tortuous switchback, hauling itself up one of the mountain slopes, giving wonderful
views across ever-healthier oak and birch forests, and even further, out across lines of mountains
forested in the foreground, denuded and barren beyond the reserve’s boundary.
Much to my relief, though the dirt track we were driving along was rough and steep, it was bone
dry, allowing Zhou’s little Changan to make slow but steady progress. Eventually, we climbed up
to a saddle where there were a few buildings belonging to the reserve management. Here the
road split, one branch pushing on upwards for a relatively short distance to a radio station perched
on the highest peak, the other diving down into a deep, hidden valley literally buried in apparently
pristine, unmolested forest. We followed the latter, twisting downwards and eventually coming to a
full stop in a small car park at the start of a
footpath leading off into the forest. Here I
heaved my cameras onto my back and set
off on foot, leaving Zhou to take his ease,
no doubt alternately smoking and snoozing
in the cool afternoon.
The land here was staggeringly vertical one either went straight up or straight down,
the only path an exhausting stone staircase
that led downwards deep into the valley. I
was enveloped in an almost fairytale land of
colour, the birch and larch trees a mass of
shimmering golden leaves, complemented
by the almost dazzling white of the birches’ trunks, and contrasted starkly by the almost scarlet
leaves of oak and maple trees. But in such dense forest it was hard work getting photographs that
would show anything more meaningful than a formless tangle of vegetation, though in the end I
was fairly satisfied with the results. And that was just as well, for it was not long before I ran out of
time and light. In such a deep, narrow valley sunset came early, the gloom of dusk creeping up the
mountainside as the sun sank further below the opposite ridge. I retreated before that rising black
line, climbing back up the path and holding sunset at bay while I could get a few more
photographs, but it soon overtook me and I was swallowed up in the growing gloom long before I
made it back to the vehicle.
But now with the sun gone it was time for the wildlife to start coming out. The undergrowth came
alive with pheasants, a variety I had never seen before - grey and purple with a double dark purple
combe. At least that was how they appeared in the dim light. I struggled to photograph a few, but
was unable to creep up close enough for a camera flash to be effective, and I returned to a by now
anxious Zhou. Even as we drove away I made Zhou frequently stop to allow me to rush off in
pursuit of pheasants scurrying away along the track, but always without success. At our final stop,
close to the saddle and from where there was a magnificent view of a sky glowing crimson across
lines of starkly blackened mountains, I detected Zhou’s first sign of irritation. I could not blame
him. It was getting late and with the sky crystal clear the temperature was plunging; if the track
iced over we would be stuck here for the night.
So onward we drove, now dropping down to the reserve’s outer limits. I was very happy with the
eventual outcome of the day, though still quietly cursing the wasted time in Xinglong. The one
thing I was slightly disappointed about was my failure to spot any rhesus macaques. Wulingshan
is important in being the world’s northernmost home to these noisy, intelligent monkeys. In fact it is
very nearly the world’s northernmost home for any monkey; only the Japanese macaque lives
further north, and even then not by very much. So it would have been significant to have
photographed a few here. No such luck today, however.
The return journey went quite uneventfully. Once we were safely out of the reserve and back onto
tarmacked roads Zhou’s usual good humour returned. We finally got to eat at about 11 o’clock at a
small place on the outskirts of Beijing, and by the time we pulled up in front of my hotel it was
gone midnight. We were both exhausted but happy and we parted as friends.
“I’m staying in bed tomorrow.” said Zhou happily. He had earned a lie-in.
From Beijing I boarded an express bound for Shanghai, and onto the next leg of my journey.
Originally, this trip had been intended as a relatively short foray into the nature reserves of China’s
fairly mountainous southeast. But with failures and omissions in earlier trips needing to be
corrected before the onset of winter, it had grown legs and was in danger of starting to resemble
an out-of-control octopus. The Three Gorges still had to be confronted, and had been tacked onto
the end of this journey. So all in all, I was now embarking on a trip across much of the main body
of China, a journey that for most people would represent a major tour of the country, but which for
me was just one more leg of this massive exploration.
For the coming few days I would stay in Shanghai doing some general photography of this fastchanging city - nothing to do with wild China of course, though some say Shanghai is pretty wild. I
would then make a short hop to Hangzhou, site of West Lake, one of the most beloved of
locations among the Chinese, and ancient and important enough to have been described in
immense detail by Marco Polo. I would use the city as a base from which to carry out my
explorations into the mountainous nature reserves of the southeast. Once that was completed,
then I would tackle the problem of cutting across country to begin an ascent of the Yangtze
through the Three Gorges.
I made for the Pujiang Hotel, conveniently located just on the northern edge of the Bund, the
waterfront strip of western colonial architecture for which the city is so famous. The Pujiang
belonged to that breed of building, having once been the Astor House Hotel. It had had much of its
1930s style restored, so that hallways and the enormous rooms were lined with mellow wood
panelling, giving a feeling of relaxed elegance. The floors were a bit squeaky with age, but it made
a pleasant, if somewhat quaint, change from the usual supposedly modern but already crumbling
buildings that passed for hotels in most of China.
Though the Pujiang may have been born in an earlier age, by now it was firmly entrenched in the
vanguard of the New China, bursting with neo-capitalistic socialism-with-Chinese-characteristics.
Its ballroom hosted the Shanghai’s stock exchange (though that later moved to its own, purposebuilt building). Blue-suited gentlemen hung around the hotel’s foyer all day, thoughtfulness
carefully and deliberately etched across their faces, while bulging security guards stood sentinel
before the elegant ballroom doors, blocking any attempt to see what was happening within. In the
few short years that China’s two stock exchanges, in Shanghai and Shenzhen, had been running
the country had become gripped by stock fever. The Chinese seem to be incurable gamblers which is one reason why both the communist government of China and the capitalist one of Hong
Kong strove so hard for so many years to ban it - and when institutionalised and supposedly
respectable gambling came to town in the form of the exchanges the nation flocked to them with
undisguised glee. Though admittedly a glee carefully etched with socialist characteristics, just in
case.
There had been a similar phenomenon a few years before in Taiwan. When that island’s economy
really took off in the late 1980s the stock market became a craze, sending the index skywards,
climbing at one point by a staggering 30% a month under the weight of money pouring in from
housewives and taxi drivers. Whole sectors of society stopped work, realising that they could
make more money in a month by following the stock market than in an entire lifetime of labour.
Then the bubble burst and reality came crashing in. A similar process had set in in China, though
less dramatically than Taiwan, shares at both of the country’s exchanges showing a depressing
downward spiral. They were not happy times for China’s new breed of gamblers.
Not that I found the
economy to be in a bad
way, far from it. Shanghai was booming after years in the
doldrums. For the first
dozen years of China’s open door policy, while most of coastal
China boomed Shanghai
had continued to stagnate, stymied by a requirement to hand over
a huge proportion of its
income to the central government in Beijing. Then in the early
90s, one of the last things
national leader Deng Xiaoping did before slipping into senility was
to free the city from its
economic shackles. Almost immediately, the city exploded into a
powerhouse of business
and money, its new strength further boosted by the ascendency in
Beijing of what became
known as the Shanghai
Clique - virtually all of China’s top men, from the president down, came from Shanghai.
Before 1949 Hong Kong had been a very poor cousin to Shanghai, the latter the glittering jewel in
the oriental crown economically speaking at least. But with the arrival of communism and the flight
of Shanghai’s capitalists and their money, the position was reversed. But in the 1990s, China’s
Shanghai-reared leaders pledged to restore their home city to its mighty pedestal and to put Hong
Kong back in second place. And therein lay a warning for Hong Kong on the eve of its return to
mainland China control. There was more than one way to skin a cat; boosting Shanghai’s
economy was not the only way to push it back to the top - you could also slow Hong Kong’s.
For years British politicians had calmed their fears over Hong Kong by saying that the territory was
far too important economically for China to want to harm it; China would never dream of killing the
goose that had laid the golden egg. This claim was almost like a mantra, useful in allowing British
politicians to gently rock themselves to sleep at night, content that everything would be all right in
the end. But it was shallow soil in which to lay foundations for the handover of six million people.
Supposing China’s leaders decided that Hong Kong had laid enough golden eggs? That the
country no longer needed to tolerate, for the sake of its money, Hong Kong’s debauched
capitalistic and above all disobedient ways? Far better, perhaps, to shift the centre of that
economic power to Shanghai, for half a century now firmly in the grip of the communists, and
away from those uncontrollable westward-looking individualists in Hong Kong? For make no
mistake about it - as I had discovered when researching for a book a couple of years before when faced with a choice between a healthy economy but one which is disobedient to Beijing,
versus a poorer economy that follows Beijing’s orders China’s communist masters chose the latter
every time. It hardly needed to be said that Hong Kong’s future loyalty to Beijing was suspect to
say the least, whereas there was no reason at all to doubt Shanghai.
I was perturbed during this trip by a change in the tone of questioning I was receiving from people
about Hong Kong. Whereas until now discussions had been quite neutral, conducted out of mere
interest and hunger among Chinese people for information about Hong Kong, suddenly I found an
underlying cynicism creeping in. The new tension was unspoken but clearly felt, often expressed
by knowing looks flashed for an instant among any group I might be talking with, looks that more
often than not were rounded off by a bout of cackling laughter. But the laughs were not funny, nor
even happy. There was no sign that they might imply joy at the final reunification of the
motherland, not even gloating at the thought of the golden goose finally becoming theirs. On
virtually every occasion the laughs, backed up with the knowing glances, were filled with a
cynicism that said ‘The poor fools! Like lambs to the slaughter they have no idea what is about to
hit them!’
This was a very disturbing new trend, and I was left pondering what could have caused it. It might
simply have been the nature of the people in this eastern part of China, but I rather doubted it.
More likely it reflected a creeping return of politics back into everyday life. For most of the decade
pragmatism had ruled in China, but over the preceding year there had been signs of a rise in the
power of political dogma. Not only had there been a considerable hardening of China’s attitude to
Hong Kong and foreign policy in general, but in addition the president, Jiang Zemin, had
repeatedly called for greater political awareness and ‘correct thinking’ among the people. China
watchers felt that he was struggling to secure his apparently rather shaky grip on power in the runup to the impending death of his mentor, Deng Xiaoping. He was out to court the conservative
military, the one vital area where his hold was weak, at the same time using the spectre of 'correct
thinking' to purge his rivals. I could not help wondering whether this return of political dogma was
starting to seriously impinge on the ordinary people’s lives, resulting in a rapid rise in cynicism
among those old enough to remember the madness of the Cultural Revolution. If so, it was one
more up and coming problem for the people of Hong Kong to worry about.
With its raw capitalism, bustling, purposeful
and fashionably dressed crowds, and the
streets’ blazing neon lights, it is really true
that there is nowhere in China quite like
Shanghai. At this time at least, Beijing was
simply nowhere on the comparative map, the
free-wheeling abrasive energy and business
of the southern city made impossible in the
capital by the stifling proximity of central
authority. Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s main
shopping street, was even more crowded
than ever, its buildings festooned with ever
more neon lights, its stores becoming more
and more chic. Sincere, a department store that began life in Shanghai many years before but
which since 1949 had been exiled in Hong Kong, was back in its old Nanjing Rd slot, a piece of
slick Hong Kong transplanted back to home soil. It was a triumphant return for the store, and one
symptomatic of the times; that many of Shanghai’s commercial properties were being returned to
their former European and Overseas Chinese owners, a way to entice them back into doing
business in the city.
I found Shanghai quite overwhelming. Business was growing so fast that the city’s infrastructure
was crumbling under the pressure, despite the local government’s desperate efforts to keep up.
New bridges across the Huangpu River had been built to link the city with the massive Pudong
Development Zone, a huge new city to the east on what had until recently been farmland. A new
subway system was taking shape. But still it was nearly impossible to get around. At this time, only
one subway line was operating. So I struggled around in taxis and on foot - the buses were so
overcrowded there was little hope of me squeezing onto them - and more than once I ended up
stuck in traffic jams for nearly two hours. Walking became the quickest way to move.
So it was with no small amount of relief that after five days I boarded a train for the short journey
westwards to Hangzhou, 13th century capital of China and repository of much of the culture that
emanated from that era. My stay here was to become something of a calm between two storms,
for the Shangri-La hotel chain, one of my sponsors, had provided a free room for me at their
lakeside hotel in the city. They did me proud, for my top-floor room became a haven from the
maelstrom that was China of the 1990s, with dawn, daytime and dusk views across magnificent
West Lake. Such luxury can be addictive, and to venture out became a trial - my room had
satellite TV, while the gardens were perfumed with the scent of osmanthus flowers and decorated
by the leaves of maple trees just starting to turn their autumnal red. The thought of plunging out,
even onto the streets of Hangzhou, let alone into the wilds of the mountains to the west was
simply too much to bear.
But venture out I did of course, making the occasional foray along the lake’s shore. It was on one
such occasion, while I was sitting on the shore watching the sun set, that I met a man named Wu.
He came up behind me and said in impeccable English, “Hi! Lovely evening isn’t it? Would you
like to have a guide to show you around the lake and the temples?”
“No, not really,” I replied discouragingly. Wandering around temples was one of the last things I
wanted to do, and the view I had of the lake from where I sat was just fine. Wu was tall and very
skinny, his chest almost concave, his face drawn and wan, with hollow cheeks and a sad
expression. He looked sick.
“You speak English very well.” I continued. “Where did you learn it?”
“I read a lot.” he replied, pointing to a pile of English language newspapers - the China Daily - lying
in the basket fixed to the back of the bike he was pushing. “And I listen to the BBC World Service.
That’s all I do. I stay at home all day studying English, reading and listening to the radio. Then I
come out and speak with foreigners.”
“But how do you survive? Don’t you have a job?”
“Oh, I make a little money by showing people round. Say, do you play the stock market?”
“No I do not.” I replied firmly.
“Why not?” Wu asked, rather surprised. “Everyone does.”
“It’s too dangerous. You can lose a lot of money that way.”
“Yes you’re right. My father plays the stock market.”
“And does he win?”
“No. By the time he buys it’s already too late. So he always ends up buying high and having to sell
low. He’s losing a lot of money.”
My point exactly, I thought, and my mind went back to a scene I had witnessed earlier in the day in
the centre of Hangzhou. I had passed a hall filled with TV screens showing the latest stock
exchange figures. It was completely jammed with anxiously watching men, many busily trying to
make transactions. The crowd was swelling out onto the street, those at the back struggling hard
to get a better view of the screens. All except one man, who sat alone, on some steps and way
from the melée, his head in his hands. I imagined him having just lost his entire family’s savings,
blown every renminbi of money secretly ‘borrowed’ from his company, or some such terrible story.
A lot of people were losing a lot of money on China’s stock market right then. Indeed, a man had
just been executed for China’s first stock market crime. An ordinary guy had lost a fortune - money
that was not even his - and in an effort to recoup his loss he had tried to rob a bank. During the
raid he had accidentally killed someone, and so he had to pay the ultimate price. A bullet in the
back of the head. The last thing he did was to go on TV to beg the people of China not to gamble
foolishly on the stock market, and to express his utter sorrow at leaving his seven-year-old son
fatherless. I doubt that many people were listening.
“The stock market is falling all the time.” bemoaned Wu. “It’s all because of Deng Xiaoping’s
health. Everyone’s worried that he’s about to die and they’re anxious about what will happen
afterwards.”
There was good reason to expect Deng’s imminent death. Not only was he already very old, but
he had not been seen in public for a very long time, and one of his daughters had cancelled a
planned visit to New York. China was holding its breath.
“Personally,” continued Wu, “I think he may already be dead. They’re just keeping it secret for a
while.”
At the time, there were plenty of grounds for agreeing that Wu could be right; precedent was
certainly on the side of believing this could happen. But as it turned out later, Deng was still alive just - and China was once again able to exhale, for the moment. I don’t know that it helped the
stock market, however.
The Panda's Tale, sample text
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Nigel Hicks