• Back to China
CBBC’s membership manager Hilary Footer visited China in July after an absence of 10 years and found many things had changed.

I stepped onto Chinese soil for the first time in 1994 when I helped to launch and publicise a multi-stranded business mission led by Sir Michael Palliser, then president of the China-Britain Trade Group. After the mission departed from Beijing a colleague and I took a tour of China.

This time I was in Beijing for the events surrounding the celebration of 50 years of Sino-British trade relations, including the dinner at the Great Hall of the People on 7th July (reported in the September Review). I then made a private visit to Shanhaiguan and Kunming before returning to Beijing.

CBBC’s presence in Beijing was strikingly different. In 1994 Michael Wang (now, as then, CBBC office manager in Beijing) operated in cramped offices amidst the fading splendour of the Beijing Hotel, with minimal administrative assistance. I was mightily impressed in 2004 by the CBBC office in the gleaming new British Centre, where the dynamic design of the reception area and the integrated open-plan layout of the work stations and meeting rooms have created a professional and business-like environment. Meeting the predominantly young Chinese who work with Michael and director for China, Brian Outlaw, now, including the representatives of the British Chamber of Commerce and the CBBC China Launchpad staff, one really felt that this was the hub of British business promotion in Beijing.

Transport tales
Arrival in the five-year old airport terminal was smooth and trouble-free, quite a contrast to the disorganised taxi pick-up area outside. Under a deluge of business cards thrust at me by air ticket sales companies I reached the head of the queue after about 10 minutes and after showing my hotel name in Chinese to the driver was taken to my hotel (and charged well under the Yn100 I had been told to expect).

Where the roads had been congested in 1994, they were even worse on my brief visit in 2004, despite the construction of two more ring roads in Beijing. There were many more cars on the roads (and correspondingly fewer bicycles). One example - our taxi driver insisted on dropping us on the opposite side of the road to the Beijing Railway Station because to draw up outside the station would have meant a long journey round the one-way system in almost grid-locked traffic. At 7.30 a.m. this meant we had to carry our bags over a bridge, along a narrow walkway facing hundreds of commuters coming the other way!

Train travel was as efficient, punctual and comfortable as I remembered it in ‘94, and faster. Uniformed train attendants waited outside each gleaming carriage of the Y509 to Qinhuangdao and were assiduous in ushering us to our spacious soft seats and offering a varied range of soft drinks and snacks.

In 1994 I had taken four internal flights and found the in-flight services and food profoundly second-rate. This time, travelling from Beijing to Kunming on Air China and returning by China Eastern, the flights were on time and the in-flight service as good as that of any international airline. On the approach to Beijing the flight attendants had to curb the exuberance of the young Chinese who seemed very excited at the prospect of visiting their capital and were reluctant to be restrained by seat belts as we came in to land!

Town and country
I was struck even more forcibly on this visit by the extreme contrasts in environment and demography in China. There are hundreds more high-rise office and apartment blocks now in Beijing, and cranes and construction sites on every street, it seemed. What a contrast to visit Yunnan province with its fields and terraces full of sweetcorn, sugar beet and rice, followed by the sudden incongruity of a cement factory alongside the slow-moving Nanpanjiang river. I lost count of the number of horse-drawn vehicles over-loaded with agricultural produce and livestock we passed. At the side of the road lone individuals herded goats or else sat on their haunches next to a pile of corn or vegetables. At one stage I saw what appeared to be a deranged woman walking in the middle of the road towards the traffic.

The land was intensively farmed, with, I was told, extended growing seasons, but still cultivated using manpower and simple agricultural implements of ancient design. I saw no tractors or other mechanised equipment. From my hotel window in Hebei province I saw similarly intensive agriculture on a smaller scale, the plots more akin to allotments.

Visiting tourist sites in the north and southwest (Hebei and Yunnan provinces) I felt that China had acquired greater expertise in developing and presenting its tourist sites over the 10 years. The karst formations of Yunnan’s Stone Forest were attracting large numbers of Chinese tourists, including some Taiwanese parties. The local authorities had maximised the site’s income potential by offering photo sessions with young Sani and other minority people, tea-tasting sessions, role and game playing with some of the Sani which drew in hapless male visitors (who ended up parting with at least Yn100 by the end of the ‘entertainment’), and finally tours round the site in a motorised vehicle with an ethnic minority guide.

Twenty miles from the Stone Forest we visited Jiuxiang, a vast cave and waterfall complex that encompassed an elevator down to river level, boat trips down a narrow gorge, stalactites and stalagmites colourfully lit, a huge water force and cave and then at the finish a cable car over the wooded gorge. In one dimly lit cave was the biggest display of fossils and crystal formations I have ever seen, some of them regrettably on sale. Here, I felt, there was a crying need for exhibition and presentation expertise to enhance the impact of the stunning natural formations.

Up in Hebei province, Shanhaiguan’s top sights are the Number One Pass Under Heaven, where the Great Wall reaches the Bohai Sea, and the Mengjiangnu Temple. Here, as in Yunnan, the tourist was warmly welcomed and most literature was available in both Chinese and English. At the local museum in Shanhaiguan, great efforts were made to find a guide who spoke English, who quickly changed into local dress to show us the priceless Tang dynasty pottery in the museum.

Retail delights
The department stores and designer shops of Wangfujing and the China World Shopping Mall of Beijing seemed a world away from the Shanghai Nanjing Road stores of a decade before, with their milling masses and open plan loos. Sun Dong An Plaza in Beijing was reminiscent of John Lewis or the Army and Navy store in London with smartly presented sales assistants and all of the Western beauty brands and fashions. Shop assistants were noticeably more eager to sell than before. Could they be working on commission? Street stalls aimed at tourists had also proliferated, many of them run by people from far-flung provinces, who called out in pidgin English, “Lookie, lookie,” something I never heard in 1994.

When you came to pay, calculators and automated cash tills were to hand. Cashiers who worked out your bill with a few deft clicks of the abacus are a thing of the past. Packaging is much the same as in the West. The expert twisting, flicking and tying of paper string as your goods are wrapped in a neat parcel is no longer needed.

As far as eating out in Beijing is concerned, in ‘94 there were only two Western-branded outlets - KFC and McDonalds. This time I also noticed Starbucks, Häagen-Dazs, Baskin Robbins and Pizza Hut. It was however most enjoyable of all to go to local restaurants where the food was all-Chinese (dumplings or duck for preference), with the clientele comprising Chinese families, sharing a bottle of Great Wall red wine or some Chinese tea, with the bill for three coming to less than Yn140 (£9). In 2004, as in 1994, that was infinitely enjoyable.