Welcome to the Future - China part 1

**Apologies for the lateness of this blog - I've only just figured out a work around so I can post while in mainland China**

"Welcome to the future" reads a massive billboard from a mobile phone company, on the road which leads from Shanghai's PuDong Airport into the city. Crossing the Lupu Bridge into the centre of the city, I stare at the 100's of skyscrapers lining each side of the Huangpo river, it's hard to disagree.

If Beijing is taking all the attention in 2008 for the once-a-four-year extended School games-athon, Shanghai is just busy getting on with the job of becoming the centre of the world. Every major business and finance organisation is setting up shop here. PuDong which was twenty years ago forgotten marsh land is now a real life version of Mega-City Four. Gleaming towers to capitalism push ever upwards into the sky. The biggest construction sites in the world are operated by an army of workers from China's rural heartland. They are relentlessly building more. Maps which are printed only a few years ago are almost redundant, such is the pace of change.

Walking around The Bund, you get a sense of how fast things are moving. The old, grand colonial buildings which once housed the banking houses are now swish restaurants and bars. A gawdy psychedelic 'tourist tunnel' now runs underneath the river to where the real action is in PuDong. Old versus new separated only by a muddy stretch of river.

The Bund's eight lanes of clogged traffic is a testament to Shanghai's new monied middle classes.They have long since flipped their bicycles for silver Diahatsu's. Fashionable teens parade up and down with mobile phones clamped to their ears, ignoring the mandolin player reciting old Chinese folk tunes. The street food stalls which mobbed the Shanghai of the 1930's have all but disappeared, to be replaced by fast food joints. McDonald's and Burger King are fighting it out with Sushi Now! and cheese cake vendors for custom.

Third time's the charm..

The ongoing China Visa story part 358

So, it's up and out of The Towers by 7am, to be down to the Chinese Embassy by 7:30. I'm all set with a vat of coffee, a George Saunders book and some music to keep me company. Hearteningly there's only about 20 people lined up at Portland Place when I arrive. The sun is shining and my hopes are up. Nothing is going to go wrong today!

Then something goes wrong. One of the guys at the front of the queue beckons me over to read a note posted on the outside of the Embassy door. From today, the People's Republic wants not only a lengthy two page form and a photo of you, but the details of your flight AND confirmation of what hotel you are staying at. My heart sinks. The details are kept on my webmail, and they need printed copies for their files. Going back to The Towers and getting the info would take over an hour, and the queue would lengthen considerably. I need this now!

Reluctantly I race towards Oxford Circus to try and find an internet cafe. I pass BBC Broadcasting House and wonder if there's anyone working early who I know to blag me in. Then I realise the people I know are over at White City. Damn! I spy two internet places nearby but they don't open for another hour or so.

Standing on Oxford Street I compose myself. Where can you get anything, day or night in London...? Answer: Soho! I barrel down Wardour Street to a 24 hour copy shop. The owner unlocks the door and lets me in. I manage to explain my predicament, while surrounded by dormant printers and copiers, waiting to spring into inky life. So will he help me?

"No, we don't offer that service, sir"

What?? You're a 24 hour print service! I NEED to print. Surely this is EXACTLY the service you should be offering! I even proffer a small bribe in his direction to help me out. Still the uptight jobsworth says no. I spy a PC behind his shoulder and wonder, as this is an emergency, if it would be ethical to throw him out of the way and commandeer his keyboard.

Luckily we don't come to blows as he mentions a 'net cafe close by. I turn and disappear out of the door. Success! Five minutes later I'm clutching my precious documents and running back down Oxford Street.

The queue hasn't grown too much in my 30 minute departure. The new scheme seems to have scared people away. The queue time passes and by 10am I've handed in my form. Time to celebrate this first triumph. I stride down to Market Place for a full english breakfast. There's no finer thing to lift the spirits. The folks at this brilliant blog on the great british brekkie have got it right.

After being suitably replenished, I then head back to the embassy. After another thirty minute queue, and handing over 50 GBP plus my sanity, I get the Visa. It's 11:58 am. The place shuts dead on midday.

Let's have a heated debate!

So news of the latest trip to China is causing a little controversy in the nomorejam world.

The question posed by some (quite vocally!) is that it's unethical to visit China, especially when the situation in Tibet is so bad. The Foreign Office have just updated it's advice here.

As a paid up member of Amnesty international, I'm well aware of the current problems in Lhasa. This is what they're currently saying about the Olympic Beijing legacy.

I don't subscribe to the view that visiting a country is the same as supporting the regime that runs it. While I won't be travelling anywhere near Tibet, the issue is worth pause for thought.

China will have an increasingly dominant position in the world throughout the 21st Century. Increasingly it's the world's manufacturing base, and with the American credit collapse, it also is taking a higher position in the finance world. Tourism boycotts will have next to no affect on the country. They really only have an impact when the people of the country ask for them, such as in Burma. That certainly isn't the case here.

Raising an issues' profile in the media, such as last week's Olympic Torch fiasco, will have a far greater affect than a few hundred people deciding not to board flights.

Passing up the opportunity to go and develop a greater understanding of a country is not something I believe in. Especially when the place will have such a significant impact on our lives.

Groundhog day

So back to the Embassy for a second try. A sunny morning, and I'm in a positive mood. Could I do this all before 10am? Were the Gods of Visa on my side..?

Were they hell!

The Queue at 8am was worse than the queue at 11am the previous day. I started talking to other seasoned Visa queuers. I might get to the front of the queue by 11am they said. As I had to start work an hour before that, my heart sank like a stone.

So I joined the queue out of blind optimism anyway, just to see if it would move AT ALL. It did, bang on 9am, but my hopes of a quick turnaround were receding fast. People in front of me had come prepared, with books, music and giant cups of coffee to while away the hours before getting processed by the people's republic.

My disappointment was only leavened by a courier who obviously had left the gig too late and tried begging his way into the middle of the queue. This being England, we were having none of it, and he promptly got sent packing around the corner to the very back.

So with time definitely not on my side, I left the embassy still without my Visa. Now I have the hard earned knowledge that I'll have to be up with the milkmen, and start queuing a lot earlier if I'm going to get that darn paperwork.

Props out to my fellow queuer DJ Storm, I hope the Beijing gig goes well, and the sun shines for you...

Destination China - 32 days and counting

So I'm back posting again after a long while. Hurrah!

I'm also back out in to the big wide world to report on the most interesting, vivid and bizarre places. In the process meeting fun and strange people, and of course attending any cultural festival I can find.

So in just over a month I'm heading off to resume an unfinished part of last year's tour, China. Having run out of time in Hong Kong I had to race back to the UK for two important weddings. As I bored my plane I vowed to return as soon as possible to this vast, strange, controversial and increasingly globally vital country.

With the help of Virgin Atlantic I'm flying off to Shanghai in May. Before you can fly though, you have to visit the Chinese Embassy for a visa. After the events of this weekend, I was not sure what to find as I approached Portland Place in London.


There was certainly a big big crowd as I approached the door to the visa application building. I asked one man standing there what the big crowd was for, half in mind that fire extinguishers might be let off any moment and cries of "Free Tibet!" would ring in to the air. I was to be disappointed, it was THE QUEUE for getting a visa. And it stretched all the way around the block.

As it was 11am and the office closed at 12, there was no chance in getting served. I resigned myself to the inevitable, I wasn't thwarted by protestors, but by the popularity of people wanting to visit the Country. I laughed, then strode off to the magnificent Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street to peruse their brilliant downstairs Asia section.

So we try again tomorrow!