Continuing in my role as amateur cultural anthropologist, I have a few observations about the differences between China and the U. S. of A. that I will be documenting over the next few days as they bubble up to the top of my head.

This time, it is about obesity.

I’m sitting in the San Francisco Airport on my return flight from Hong Kong, China, after a work assignment in Shenzhen, China.  Shenzhen is a new, bustling city and I have a lot more to write about that in future posts.  I was there with three co-workers last week and by myself this last week.

Shenzhen is a city of around nine million people and has a very efficient, very new subway system. The subway was far more efficient and inexpensive than taking a taxi everywhere and it gave me a chance to watch people, which is a favorite pastime. Both last week and this week we were trying to find someone that was visibly overweight.  Anyone.  These are full subway cars, there are lots of people, everywhere.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I’m considerably overweight.  I’m actively working on reducing to more healthy levels and increasing my exercise level but it is a long process.  It took me a while to get this way and it is going to take me a while to reverse the process.)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.  It was the rare case to find someone that was overweight and I don’t think I saw anyone that was morbidly so.

In comparison, I’m sitting here watching the couple hundred people or so waiting to board flights to the different destinations. Of all of the adults, I can see two people that would fit the ’slenderness’ model I’ve been seeing for two weeks and both of them work for the airline and they both appear to be of Asian descent.

Before traveling, I wouldn’t have given it another thought and I wouldn’t have considered many of these people overweight without the examples I’ve seen over the last two weeks.  But all of these people have a gut; they are all carrying at least some extra weight around their middles.

Discussing it with a co-worker and friend that lives in Shenzhen, I’ve come up with a few possible reasons.

• Diet. Other than rice there isn’t a lot of empty carbohydrate calories in their diet.  Portion sizes are much smaller too, except for social dining where there are lots of dishes to share. Still, people seemed to eat what they wanted and stop, more interested in the socializing aspect.
• Exercise. Between walking to the subway, walking from the subway to my destination, walking back, etc. I walked far more than I would have spent on the treadmill at home.
• Environment.  It is hot and humid all of the time.  According to the people that live here, it will sometimes cool off to around 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the cool part of the year.  If you live where it is warm you don’t need to store fat around your middle.
• Genetics.  Living in a warm climate most likely selects for those that can survive and be comfortable in that climate.  I’m used to the heat, mostly, but I still visibly sweat and perspire when I walk outside.

Still, the comparison isn’t a pretty one – at this rate the health related disease and illness from obesity is going to ruin us here in the U.S.

On the positive side, I now have some good ideas about what I can do to help myself get to be a smaller person.  I’ll never be ‘rail thin’ like the people in Shenzhen (my shoulders from bone to bone make me wider than most to start with) but I can be a lot more healthy.

Update:  After I finished writing this in the airport and closed the laptop, a couple of college-age adults arrived that were very slender. 

For some strange reason, I have the chorus to “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” running through my head all afternoon.

I desperately need a new song in my head.

Up until now, I have been leading a rather charmed life here in Shenzhen, China.

Last night, while shopping I had someone pull the old ’switcheroo’ and give me a product that was less than agreed on and tested. Since there is really no recourse for returns, you usually plug it into the computer and the person opens up Windows Explorer and shows you the size of the component in the properties. I was looking at a SD media card that was 8 Gigs in size for about 100 RMB (13$US). A fantastic price but there is always a bit of risk involved with the quality of the device or media.

Anyway, we negotiated for a while (I didn’t really need it and had talked him down from about 180 RMB) and I took my leave. We had tested it and it appeared to be fine, but he was really eager to make a sale so he followed me, still negotiating. He offered 80 RMB which is about 10 bucks for me so I decided to go for it.

What I didn’t realize until I was on my way home on the subway was that the chip I bought wasn’t the same chip I had negotiated for and sure enough, even though it said 8 Gig it was really a 1Gig chip and it had a big old crack underneath the label.

Caveat emptor.
So this morning the hotel staff hailed me an official taxi and I headed off to work. When we arrived, the fair was double what I was expecting and I knew something wasn’t correct – however, since I don’t speak the language I can’t argue well. I had some smaller bills and then a couple of 100 RMB bills. Since the fare was more, I gave him a 100 RMB bill and after a moment he handed it back to me, pointed to my wallet. I showed him I didn’t have smaller bills, pulled the 17 RMB out and handed it to him. He smiled, took it and I got out.

Can you see the problem here?

I knew there was something wrong when the fare was wrong but I have a receipt and the cab number (the hotel is very good about writing the cab number on a card and giving it to you when you leave). Armed with grave suspicions, I went in and talked to a co-worker and friend that has been a great help and a guide while I’m here. I showed him the bill and he knew immediately – it was counterfeit. When I gave him the bill, he turned and then turned back and gave it back to me but it was a different bill – he had switched them. So my cab ride this morning cost me 117 RMB instead of 21 RMB (15$US instead of 3$US). My friend reported it to the right authority who informed him that both the cab’s external identifying number and the number printed on the receipt were not registered numbers – definitely a practiced swindler. I’ll let the hotel know as well.

I asked and my friend said I could keep the counterfeit bill but not try to pass it on anywhere.

I still think it is funny – I can’t do anything about it at this point other than report it and it doesn’t do any good to rant against the people I’ve made friends with here. No use ruining their day. Apparently, this happens to local people as well so I’m not a simple mark and I know better now so it has a good lesson to it.

I think my body is still a little mixed up. I’m going to sleep about 1 AM and waking up at 7 AM for the last couple of days.

I decided against going to Macau and instead explored Shenzhen a bit more. I went back to Luo Hu on Saturday and it was much more tolerable with more people there. Leong took me around on Sunday and showed me a few sights as well as a Electronics/Appliances/Computer market that is larger than Luo Hu! Just amazing.

The wind has picked up the last couple of days and the air has cleared out quite a bit. When I go for my walk in the evening I don’t end up coughing for an hour and you can see that there are actually hills around the city, which I didn’t realize were there.

The last couple of days we have gone to lunch at local places that the staff would eat at normally – much more to my taste and not exotic. Yesterday was Hunan style at a place we walked to and it was simply wonderful and spicy. I think it was only the second time in 10 days I’ve had something spicy and it was great.

There is a great place near the hotel called China Cultural Villages which is very similar to the Polynesian Cultural Center on Oahu, Hawai’i. I was going to go on Sunday but my stomach was acting up a bit so I gave it a pass but I think I’ll go Saturday before I board the ferry to the airport.

On Saturday, my co-worker (Andy) and I did a bit of exploring through Hong Kong by foot and by taxi. First, we took a subway ride underneath the bay to Hong Kong Island, which is where much of the touristy stuff seemed to be. Well, other than museums, which seem to be on the peninsula but museums weren’t quite in his agenda so we gave them a miss.

After we got to the Central station, we took a taxi up to the top of Victoria’s Peak. In clear weather this provides a great view of Hong Kong and the back side of the mountain. There is a 360 degree viewing platform at the top of the peak that for some reason I didn’t take a picture of – it was very unusual in its architecture. Apparently, the viewing platform kept being added on to over the years so instead of a seamless ride to the top it was a series of very short escalators.

From the top, there was a grand view of Hong Kong, the harbor and across to the Kowloon Peninsula. Unfortunately, the air was rather smoggy (but not as bad as Shenzhen) so the photos aren’t as clear and crisp as I’d like.

We decided to ride the tram down the mountainside back to Hong Kong instead of a taxi. It would have been fun to have taken the tram up but we didn’t know that it was running. We had been cautioned against taking a aerial tram to the top of a different mountain and had got them confused. The tram to Victoria Peak is very steep – probably close to a 45 degree angle and it didn’t feel so much like a train ride as it did a sloping dumbwaiter. The tram didn’t run under its own power but was lowered and raised by massive cables underneath the car.

While trying to figure out where we were after we got off of the tram and figure out how to get to Soho, we ran into a very nice man who gave us a bit of an impromptu tour of downtown Hong Kong. Since Andy and I were walking around together he might have assumed we were a couple or something – we just don’t know. Regardless, he showed us a few places we never would have seen on our own.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t switched batteries in my camera and didn’t take the spare so I was running low on power. I managed a couple of shots though, including a unique stained glass window that depicted the future and the past.

After our tour, we found our way to Soho and apparently the world’s longest escalator. I don’t know about the claim (and I’m too lazy to look it up) but it was a very long series of escalators going up the hillside in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, at this point my camera was out of battery power so I don’t have any photographs. At each cross street we would walk a bit over the street and then ride the next escalator. We were nearing the top when we realized that there wasn’t a down escalator – we would have to walk down the hillside to get back to the subway. It was definitely a work out and my legs were a little rubbery when we finished getting back down.

We took the subway back under the bay to our hotel and then went to the gym at the top of the hotel for a work out and a soak. The hot tub was amazing! Also, very, very hot but it relaxed us and between the tub and the sauna we were almost human and recovered from our jet lag. We found a nice Italian restaurant and had dinner and then I took Andy to the Temple Street night market that I had wandered in the night before. I bought my boy a nice chess set with wood carved Chinese figures and then we hoofed it back through the prostitutes to the hotel.

I arrived in Hong Kong on September 7th at around 6:30 PM after a 13 1/2 hour flight from San Francisco. The flight wasn’t bad since I intentionally stayed up the entire night before so I was really tired. I slept for about 9 of those 13 hours.

For the remaining four hours I watched three episodes of the new Dr. Who on my PocketPC along with a bit of classic Billy Connelly stand up. I was staying at the Langham Place Hotel and they had a limousine and driver available to take me from the airport to the hotel.

The hotel is on the Kowloon Peninsula in the middle of a rather run down district but it is a very nice, very posh place. Here is a picture of some apartment buildings on the drive in.

I checked into the hotel, which was very seamless for having booked online.

I didn’t take my camera to dinner and my street browsing on that first night. I was exploring alone and I didn’t want to be marked at an obvious tourist by sporting it. Also, when I’m looking for interesting pictures I don’t pay as much attention to what is going on around me and that might not go well.

As it was, I had a lot of fun. I took a taxi to near the the waterfront, ate dinner and then walked up the crowded street towards the Temple Street night market. I didn’t intend to walk the whole way but I couldn’t get hold of a cab that didn’t already have a fare so I just kept going.

I was also propositioned while I walked – possibly two times. The first was a girl asking if I wanted a ‘massage’ and when I declined she offered ‘not me, someone else?’ which I also declined. The second was a young man but I couldn’t understand what he was saying so I’m not sure about that one. I walked through the market and then back up to the hotel, where I took this night photo of the view from my window. It is a eight or ten second exposure.

You can click through on the image to see a larger version.

Shenzhen, China, the place I’ve been for the last week and will be for the next week has a big problem – air pollution. The city grew rapidly and there are lots of poorly tuned cars and even more energy consumption by air conditioners, power plants, etc. There is a real drive to use renewable energy and such but it is just getting under way and it won’t make much of a difference for a decade or more.

Here is what it looked like today at lunchtime.

Probably only taking a year or two off of my life expectancy walking around in this soup of an atmosphere.