Editors' Blogs

Readers who live near large bodies of water are probably familiar with the concept of the ferry as a practical means of public transport. In the Pearl River delta, in which lie the peninsula and offshore islands that make up Hong Kong, ferries are a very common sight, but they're a bit different than what you might see serving, say, New York City or Vancouver Island. They're relatively small dual-hull ships with two-level cabins resembling oversized airplane cabins (with rows of seats, tray tables, etc.), and they go like stink.

We made the trip from Hong Kong to Zhongshan in about 90 minutes, barely time to get seasick (although Chris Mayes-Wright availed himself of my Imodium to deal with a farewell gift from Hong Kong). We pulled up at the dock, offloaded past the creepy cartoon characters welcoming us to Zhongshan... and that's when things got interesting.

Most of us sailed through customs without any incident at all. But when Andy McCreeth of Sonicstate ran his camera bag through the X-Ray machine, five guards appeared out of nowhere and began questioning him about his video camera. The rest of us waited outside by our buses for a while, and were eventually herded off to our hotel without Andy, who was forced to stay behind with a Behringer rep pleading his case. Apparently he'd been assured by the UK consul that there would be no problem video-blogging the trip, and had come to China unaware that the Chinese port authorities thought otherwise. The rest of us all had still cameras and handheld video cameras on us, which passed without question, but Andy's gear looked professional, and that raised (if you'll pardon the expression) a red flag.

We got to the Shangri-La, Zhongshan's first five-star hotel, and settled into our rooms, greeted by such uniquely Chinese niceties as mutant AC outlets designed to handle any of the five major plug shapes used around the world, and elegantly engraved signs over the bathroom sinks informing us that maybe drinking the tap water wouldn't be such a good idea.

A quick lunch proved an eye-opener in more ways than one: the hotel restaurant happily provided food from many cultures, including a selection of delicacies from all over Southeast Asia, and I had fun experimenting... mostly. I tried the Tom Gam Soup on the recommendation of Behringer's Winnie Ng, completely forgetting that Winnie was a native of Singapore and "no, not too spicy" meant something completely different to her than to me. I didn't die, but I thought I was going to. No sign of Andy.

Then it was back to the tour busses for a whirlwind tour of Zhongshan, led by a sprightly young Chinese guide with delightfully broken English. We got to see the park dedicated to the city's namesake, Dr. Sun Zhongshan, better known in this country as Sun Yat-Sen, founder of modern China and leader of the first non-royal government until 1925. It was startling to see that Dr. Sun was held in such reverence here (considering that he wasn't a Communist and his successor, Chiang Kai-shek, was a mortal enemy of Mao Zedong's), but even more startling to see how thoroughly Zhongshan had been scrubbed of Communist references -- only one big propaganda poster on the side of a building, no pictures or statuary of Mao anywhere. This part of China, so close to the West in some ways, had apparently been set up not to frighten anyone.

In fact, more than anything else, it reminded me of the Niagara Frontier in western New York State, where heavy industries related to the shipping of cargo over the Great Lakes and trade with Canada sprang up everywhere: factories, some new and some delapidated, high-rise apartment buildings with clothing hung out to dry from every window, and bicycles and scooters sharing the roads with cars of every description, from Buicks and BMWs (lots of them) to unfamiliar Chinese makes like Chery. And there were still signs of the past: banana, mango, and lychee plantations between the factories, with paddies of standing water and centuries-old wooden buildings quietly doing their jobs as they always had.

Everywhere we looked were major names that would be familiar to our readers, logos up on anonymous and gigantic factories and warehouses: just in the audio world, we saw Casio, Akai, and Sansui on our brief trip. We always talk about "Made In China"... well, here we were.

We stopped at an almond-cake factory to see how these delicacies were made and to buy some to bring home, then headed back to the hotel. Still no sign of Andy.

That night's dinner and entertainment were to be hosted at a mansion formerly of the Hakka, an indigenous people largely but not completely absorbed into Han Chinese culture. It was a three-story building in the shape of a large ring, with an open courtyard in the center where we had dinner and listened to traditional music. As we arrived, so did Andy, from a different direction, pale and shaking a little. After five hours of paperwork and with heroic intervention by Behringer, he had managed to avoid being deported, but they'd confiscated all of his gear and it wasn't clear that inquiries of the local officials would be able to pry it loose any time soon. Our one video blogger was reduced to borrowing cameras and using his cell phone.

After the banquet, we made it an early night. The next morning we were to see how Behringer fit into this culture of major corporations taking advantage of the region's benefits. Stay tuned.