Shaking hands with white people is good for investment

So a few weeks back I had the opportunity to join a free weekend trip to some cities in JiangSu province, completely paid by the JiangSu government. It had been provided to some of the foreign experts working in the province, and our school had been one of the schools to be invited. This being China, we were expecting some pleasant (and unpleasant) surprises, but hey since everything was paid for, who could refuse?

The first thing we noticed was that everywhere we went we had a media crew following us around. The whole trip seemed carefully choreographed and every passing shot and handshake filmed. Some of us (including me), were even interviewed by the local tv news station in one city, asking us what we thought about the tourist site we had just come out of. Since the city was a small one, i think very few of the viewers would've understood our ramblings in English, trying to put a positive spin on a somewhat run-down and underkept lake. ''oh yeah it's so picturesque, and so green, and and, I love how everything here is so new!''

Actually i had been warned by one of the other teachers about the film crews before the trip. The footage of foreign (esp white) people visiting a city and shaking hands with a few Chinese people in suits makes for great P.R. and promotion for investors.You see, all of the cities we visited weren't exactly your typical tourist destinations. Rather they were all newly or recently built cities in dire need of an injection of foreign investment. And the destinations we were taken to were also a bit odd. One day we were taken to a shipping port, just to get out, be filmed, hear some 5 minute speech (that we couldn't even hear for the gusty winds), and then whisked away to another location. You could say we more felt like the investors ourselves, being taken on a tour of the facilities. Everywhere our buses went there was a police escort with us, clearing the traffic in front of us, and electronic signboards always reading ''warmly welcomes foreign experts to xxxxx''

And then there was the exhibition centres and their models. Every city we went to the first thing we did was pay a visit into the exhibition centre.  There we were met with miniature models of the city(or proposed plan) complete with light features, displays about the local products, and speeches and videos about the city. Let me tell you, the mini-model makers are kept busy in China. All of us westerners felt an urge to jump up onto the model cities and play godzilla/kingkong with a few of the buildings. I don't know why, must be the destructive natures in us! Though we didn't end up doing this, my collegue and I did end up pinching a souveneir plastic tree each from one of the model cities. It won't take the shine off the model i'm sure :)

All of the cities also had their own 'europe town' shopping area, complete with clock tower, and every one of them looked exactly the same. seems theres a template  'europe town' in every chinese city. We were also given information booklets about each city before we arrived, detailing all the info and statistics about the city. The chinese love quoting figures, numbers, and rankings. 'the product output last year increased by 16%, making xxxx the 13th fastest growing city in China of 2011', you get the idea.

Actually there was one touristy thing we did, and that was to visit an elk reserve. Pretty interesting, though we didn't have the chance to get up close to the elks.There were some entertaining Chinglish signs though :)

The other place worth a mention was 'Taizhou - medical city'. The whole place was built up from scratch about 5 years ago, and is being touted as a centre for the medical industry. At the moment, most of the companies there are pharmaceutical companies, both foreign and local, along with a few medical device companies. One of the pharmacy schools has even moved it's campus there. But perhaps the city will remain focused on pharamaceuticals, since the exhibition centre is all about the pharmacy industy. I'll write more about that in the next blog, because it deserves a whole entry!






Although the choice of most of the destinations were a bit dubvious and uniteresting, we couldn't complain about the accomadation and meals. Every lunch was a gorgeous buffet, each dinner a Chinese banquet with booze and a few toasts and speeches from local government reps, and each hotel at least 4 stars. Even if you found no interest in any of the sites, this alone was worth the trip!