SHENZEN, April-May, 2004 (Part 2)

The thirty-five-minute train ride to Shenzhen was swift and smooth. From my window I saw the opposite of the sparkling superstructures I'd become accustomed to in Kowloon and Victoria Harbor. It was here that many of Hong Kong's poor lived in shantytowns built on steep mountainsides

Shacks, hundreds of them, packed in tight. Tarpaulins rippled in the wind and smoke curled from cooking fires. The government of Hong Kong has made a concerted effort to clean up its urban streets by nudging certain elements of its population into this district with the promising name of New Territories.

I looked at the tiny abodes and thought, And here I am, going shopping. That kind of fraudulence to sightseeing irks me. The notion that every day's another happy-go-lucky experience and we see nice things and we eat nice food and everything's nice. Certainly Hong Kong isn't alone in carefully preserving its friendly, welcoming exterior. There's Egypt and then there's Egypt. New York and New York. Mumbai and Mumbai.

The train carried me into the Wild West (East?) of shopping and all I could do was wonder about the people on the hill.

I arrived at the Shenzhen station, got off the train, walked over a bridge and entered a big box of a structure with many levels of open rooms filled with goods and sellers. Another mall.

For the first half of the day I was so scared at the idea of getting MURDERED or WORSE that I didn't buy a thing. I rode up and down the escalators. Floor after floor after floor. Five floors. No A/C. The air was oppressive and my name was now Missy.

Missy, manicure?

Missy, DVD?

Missy, Gucci?

Missy, Vuitton?

I steadied myself by adopting a kind of zoned-out aspect. I tried to let the sounds hum instead of rankle. The constant hue and cry of the sellers was daunting. For professional shoppers, Shenzhen is small potatoes compared to Beijing or Shanghai, but after Hong Kong I eventually did find some real bargains.

There were rooms of jewelry and shoes, shoes, shoes.... I got a pair of red Converse-type sneakers for four dollars. They lasted for years. I had a manicure/pedicure more as an opportunity to sit down and get my bearings. Everyone there was doing this. Husbands and wives sat side by side and enjoyed the treatments.

There were rooms stacked with bolts of fabric and next to them rows of people at sewing machines. You could pick your silk, have your measurements taken and, after a nice massage, return to pick up a new dress or jacket or pair of trousers. So I had some curtains made, ordering up a beautiful set of sheers at a fraction of the U.S. cost.

At the end of the day I returned to Kowloon grubby and tired, but quite ALIVE, carrying bags with my sneakers and curtains. I never experienced WORSE because I never, ever left the mall.