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• First Person - William Wainman
It all used to be so difficult, remembers William Wainman, and that was just seven years ago.
Gadgets in China are packed in notoriously shiny boxes, but this one was in trouble from the start. All afternoon it had sat on my knees in the sweltering heat, a layer of dust settling over its surface and its base gradually melting into a glittering porridge on my lap. It was all I could do to concentrate on holding it level and prevent it from bouncing around too much as the van sped round pedestrians, livestock and piles of rice drying on the hairpin bends. By the time we got back to my office in the small city of Changde, in Hunan province, I had no idea whether this handsome and soggy box's contents would still function.
Fax machines were unobtainable in Changde at that time, so a trip to the provincial capital of Changsha was deemed essential for communicating with the West. It was also a good idea for someone attempting to start their own business in China as a means of recording what was going on.
However, at that time a journey from Changde to Changsha was no small undertaking. There was no rail service between the two cities. Work on the new inter-city highway was yet to begin, and, as for the prospect of flying, I'll just say that this was some distance off.
What few roads there were at that time were being steadily taken over for agricultural and other purposes, so the round-trip to the capital and back would take a minimum of eight hours. This did not take into account the time spent trawling through back alleys overflowing with fax machine shops and certainly did not budget for the traffic jams on the return journey.
Unfortunately, our excursion coincided with a lesser-known local festival and this provided numerous schoolchildren with the excuse to set off firecrackers and an assortment of rockets along most of the route back to Changde. At one stage our van's driver had to brake so suddenly and violently to avoid one of these missiles that I lost my grip of the precious fax machine box. I had no way of telling what damage this knock had done to the machine inside the box, but the windscreen was shattered by the blow. "Mr Li [the van's driver] says that Chinese windscreens are not so strong now as they used to be," my interpreter, Irvin, informed me.
One fixed windscreen and countless hours later I was extremely anxious to send my first fax. As the day had worn on and the chances of a successful transmission seemed to fade along with the sunlight, so my anxiety increased. Would the machine still work after all this rough handling? The answer was yes, and no.
The lights all came on correctly as soon as it was plugged in and it even played quite a lively little tune. There was just no dialling tone. Suddenly the issue of contact with the UK was of all consuming importance. How was I going to exist without it? What could be done to make the machine work? Would this involve another dawn-till-dusk journey the next day? The prospect filled me with dread. Irvin sensibly suggested trying out a neighbour's phone in its place and we were relieved, but also annoyed, to find that this, too, had no dialling tone. The problem was not necessarily with our fax machine, but this did not tell us what the problem was.
The answer came a little later that evening at the city's government-run hotel. Enquiries from Irvin had elicited that this hotel was the only place in the city currently able to send and receive faxes abroad. "They say they will be delighted to see Mr William's fax," Irvin told me.
"We'll be seeing quite a lot of you for the next fortnight," the lady in the hotel's business centre told Irvin as she carefully photocopied the fax. "A fortnight?" Irvin repeated. "How can it take so long to repair a phone line?" "Repair? Who said anything about repairs? Have you forgotten the Hong Kong handover on July 1st? You must know all foreign phone lines in this city have been disconnected until it's over."
It's hard to believe that this incident took place barely seven years ago. A gleaming new railway and highway and even an occasional air service now join the city of Changde to its provincial capital. Mobile phones are visible everywhere you look. But spare a thought for the unfortunate fax machine: it appears to be in no greater demand than before. "A fax? Whatever do you want to send us one of those for?" is the inevitable reply when I volunteer sending one. "You should be using broadband instead."
William Wainman is a partner of The SAWD Partnership based in Hunan province and Kent. His company manufactures environmentally-friendly bamboo coffins in Hunan for sale in the UK and overseas. These coffins have recently been awarded The Natural Death Handbook Award 2004 for Best Coffin in the UK.
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