TRAP – trip to HK, Macau and Zhuhai

Travel is the most amazing gift to my life, the sentimental excitement arouse from each journey is the best reward of all time as if strolling along the tree-shadowed boulevard, swinging in the summer breeze… stunned by each extract of scenery, fascinated by each dialogue conducted with the locals, and last but not least, heartquaked by the history, along with the culture evolved as time goes by. Nothing is no more exhilarating than being on tour; like a drifter, going anywhere his fate takes him to is an unadulterated glee for life, whereas hardly being accepted by the mass public.

Buried by stacks of work, I was deadly longing for a break to nest somewhere quietly without being a clown; once a while, I will reach to my limit, tired of being glossy shallow look chic, always painted the face like a Peking Opera singer; being disconcerted by the annoying clink leaked from high heels; sick of each fake nodding and smug giggle. All those superficial manners turn out to be a cluster of beasts ripping myself apart, with an unbearable final polish. I crashed every night, dreaming of being somewhere tranquil and worry free. Every morning, daymare returns and successively devours my body and soul. I’m knackered; I need a break more than any other thing in the world before I turn myself into a neurotic.

An unexpected chance dropped from nowhere which allowed me to go to Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai for 5 days with my mum, scrutinizing through my to-travel schedule, these are the top cities I would go, (coughing) counting from the bottom. My affection to these cities was not even closer to my mum’s. After all, it was her maiden voyage to officially leave China mainland, doomed to be fascinating, or maybe less than more…

It was 8 days before Christmas, a crisp day started with a beam of cold sunshine, morning wind cut right cross into my bone which arose the goose bumps on my cheeks, I tried to shake away the chill by squeezing with my mum and a few her senior friends, funnily the plots stuffed in my mind were all from the movie “Love Actually”, a homey and well structured movie to be watched especially during Christmas period. I particularly enjoyed the jolly music, blended with the festivity for this holiday season. In a jiffy, we have reached Hongqiao Airport which is the first airport in Shanghai. Due to its limited capacity that was unable to cater the boom of mobile population in this ultrasonically developed city, all the international airlines have been relocated to Pudong, left with civil airlines only. I took a quizzical gaze at our itinerary, which stated “Day one: Flying from Shanghai to Hong Kong”, apparently Hongqiao airport had no direct flight to Hong Kong as far as I knew. Wandering off around to look for our tourist guide, who was middle aged, with a bulbous nose and naturally squinted eyes made him stand out from the rest. He was always with his cap, pretending at his 40’s. Albeit his unconvincingly attractive look, he was quite well spoken, and being unexpectedly helpful. I was not an arranged tour fanatic, as a matter of fact, since 2003; my arranged tours could be counted with less than 5 fingers, neither of which was impressive nor enjoyable. Every time I felt myself like charged radar scanning through all the spoilt points in the most time-effective fashion, ended up with no real fun. If my mum wouldn’t be my company, if the places I went were neither HK nor Macau, I would have never ever considered arranged tour. Going to these two places has been long infamous for shopping and gambling, that didn’t appeal to me at all.

Anyway, desperately pleading for a getaway, the destination appeared to matter least whatsoever. I went with flow, expecting nothing upbeat. Our group had nearly 30 people, accountable by two tourist guides; Mr. Cap was our guide, the rest team members could be categorized into baby boomer. But being with old was sort of fun for you got indulged and spoiled from time to time: they would peel the apple for you; tuck a candy into your mouth even though you had your mouth full already… Live proof shows senior people are always more hospitable than the youth, maybe people who experienced “Great Leap” and Culture revolution always be afraid of both famine and property will return to their offspring, rather than die in hunger, they’d rather you enjoy eater’s death. I was always bombarded with so many snacks on the way. And surely the transport time was much longer than expected for the sack of a combination transfer between air and overland. We flew to Shenzhen, then hopped on a shuttle bus to Hong Kong through Huanggang custom which ran 24 hours a day, unlike Luohu that would normally close at 10pm. Within the whole trip, we have changed 4 tourist guides derived from different travel agencies as if we were so prestigious. Our schedule in HK at the looked quite abundant at the first time compared to the amount of money we paid (1400rmb), nevertheless, there are no longer petty advantages…

Dates	Planned Itinerary	Actual Itinerary
Day 1	Fly from Shanghai to HK Lunch in HK Visit Repulse Bay, Chatham Road; Ocean Park Accommodate in HK	Arrive HK at 16:00pm Visit Repulse Bay, convention center Drove us to Repulse Bay for shopping Accommodate in International Regal Hotel (that’s the highlight of the day)
*Day 2	Visit Huang Daxian Temple in the morning Visit Causeway Bay, Convention Center Victoria Harbor Cruise	Visit Huang Daxian Temple at 9:00am Followed by shopping, shopping, shopping… Raced to Ocean Park at 16:30pm, got out at 18:00 (ridiculous)
Day 3	Self-organized	It could be the only day I have done something I loved every minute of it… Lunch with a TMC friend Went to Star Avenue, and Disney Land for free till 21:00

* The second day, here named “Aggressive Shopping Day” was a shocker, which reflects how sick HK is from another angle.

After a whole day turbulence, we were still quite thrilled about the 4 star hotel, the bed, the pillow, the size of the room… wow, out of 1400rmb fee we paid for the whole tour, how kind the travel agency put us into such a nice hotel with the retail rate listed 1500HKD/night. Everyone was praising the remarkable decision they’ve made to join this tour. But I was a bit puzzled for there was an old saying, “after all, it is the customer who pays”… travel agencies were not dumb explicitly. I was just wondering how the system run to allow us to accommodate in the 4 star hotel, the answer merged as the day moved on. The first shop we visited was an Italian Diamond Factory named Diamond In Love (DIL) nested in a narrow alley, no grand French doors, crystal Chandelier, neither glittery showcases. Only an array of posters hung on the wall, showing a few sample they’ve got. I guess they could be the nicest ones out of all the garbage. A stylish lady in cream white shirt with permed brown hair and heavy make-up elegantly walked to us, who was also holding a mini microphone, they were very well prepared by the look of it, geared up to cater to large group of tourists like us. She began to deliver a presentation about her company in no time. From her speech, she has at least practiced for more than 10 times with no verbal stumbles, ushering us into a small dark room, which was similar to film processing/duplication room. Imagine you, with the other 29 people all in one tiny room, the light even didn’t allow you to recognize each other’s face, the subconscious pressure and tense created in no where but continually got stronger and stronger as if we were about to be slaughtered in a few seconds. While everyone was seduced by her brainwashing speech and PPT, I was checking around the edge of the ceiling to see if they have installed any poisoned gas shower rose. How bizarre! The clock was ticking, the sharp lighting shot from the LCD screen caused so much discomfort, I was trying very hard to distract myself from something trivial on the ground, even a cigarette stub could be my mate.

“Okay, thanks for your listening, now follow my lead, let’s see more display prepared for esteemed you!” the moment I heard this line, I almost jumped to my feet, all the panic and tense has elapsed in no time. Unfortunately the elation didn’t last that long. The time she pushed the hidden door open, it was almost like NARNIA, well, not quite, a NARNIA, swarmed with tourists. Overhearing the accents, majority of them were from Shanghai, Hangzhou and Wenzhou… What a trap! Our HK tourist guide Mrs Zeng had eventually ripped off her disguised smile, bug-eyedly monitoring us around, pushing her envelop to force us to spend, I was in sales for 2 years, never despised any sales people until today I saw how nasty sales could turn people to… but I guess it was not sales itself, but their evil spirit… All the shop assistants were doing the worst sales I’ve ever seen in my whole life – begging and insulting… there were no eye contact, but pocket contact, no questions as a start, but direct sell all the way through, no elegant smile exchanged, but aggressive bargaining. But one thing was somewhat positive for you could hardly feel the financial crisis in this hall. We were kept there for 2.5 hours just because few of us have shopped, not anywhere near Mrs Zeng’s sales target, how did I knew, well, everything has written on her face, which had lasted in the next 5 hours. The day was yet finished; we continued our journey to shops, to shops, to shops, which patronize us in the accommodation, meals and transport fee. After all, it is the customer who pays.

The tourist guide in Macau was way kinder compared to the one in HK, mostly because of country’s totally different economic status. In Macau, the lowest wage is 6000-8000 Macau dollars (equivalent to 5280 – 7040rmb) similar to HK to certain extent, however living expenses in Macau were almost 4 times less, plus so many numerous allowances for kids, women, old that made every one of us jealous of being Macau Landers, unluckily, not long ago, legally permission of migration was no longer granted. On the contrast, their neighbouring city HK has turned their citizens into materialistic and practical monsters, who only work for living. They were trapped in this vicious cycle deeply and unswervingly. The more I thought about that, the more empathy I paid on HK people. This is so called “China’s capitalism”…