Postcards from SZ, China
By Yin Ee Kiong

Lately I’ve not been able to travel as much as I would have liked. My gammy foot is only one reason and the least of it, the other is unmentionable. So if you are expecting exotic places forget it. But Shenzhen has so much to offer that one finds gems here and there which one had overlooked before.

One such place is F518 in BaoAn – alternatively called the Shenzhen Free Art Base. It is an art and design community set up by the BaoAn District Council. Unlike Dafen where art is more an industry and where thousands of cheap copy art can be found, F518 has only original art. The government has built blocks of workshops where artists and designers work and live. And to facilitate visitors and business people – industrial designers also set up here – they built the Avant Garde Hotel.

On a rainy Sunday (this is typhoon season) I visited the place but found most of the workshops closed. Those whose doors were not locked I invited myself in only to surprise the sleepy artists who were only just getting up.
What about the art? Interesting best describe them. No Zhou Chunya or the much copied Yue Minjun among the lot, but who knows, one of them might just be discovered one day.
Having said that, there was an exhibition of Chinese ink paintings a few of which are listed in the six figure price range and the cheaper ones are over ten thousand. So they must have a ‘name’ then.

Frankly the place was as quiet as a graveyard and the artists have one foot in the grave. This shows that you can provide the best facilities but you cannot guarantee success. Money and facilities help as well as hinder.
Personally, I think to put the infrastructure first and hope that it will encourage art is to put the cart before the horse. Art communities that are artificially incubated are not robust. Robust art communities are born out of the natural congregation of artists and then it grows organically – without interference from officialdom. Often these are in poor areas where the rental is affordable and then over time these areas become chic and fashionable. Great artists (like good athletes and footballers) are often born out of poverty. The best footballers come from the favelas of Rio. In the past Scotland used to produce great footballers who invariably came from the Gorbals – a slum area in Glasgow. When they cleaned it up, Scotland’s source of great footballers also dried up.
But of course Shenzhen is only thirty years young and there is no tradition of art in the city. It shows how difficult it is to germinate an arts culture – a gentle and sensitive hand is needed.
Penang seems to have succeeded in spawning a vibrant arts community. Ipoh sad to say has a long way to go.

I had a chance to speak to the people who run F518. It’s not for the lack of trying that it has not taken off like Dafen. Still they have not given up. A big exhibition is planned for December. Meanwhile I felt that the place needed more publicity to promote it as a centre for original art which sets it apart from Dafen.

Bus 42 to Window of the World and then Bus M200 which will take you to the front door of F518.

Nan Ao is in the easternmost part of Shenzen. It lies on a peninsula at the foot of the Qinang Mountain. It took us nearly three hours from Shekou by public transport. Bus 42 to Window of the World. Then metro to Luohu and then bus 205 changing to Bus E11 which takes you through lovely countryside right to Nan Ao and beyond.

Nan Ao is the place you go to for seafood. It has a seafood street lined with shops offering live seafood – octopuses, fish, prawns, crabs, eels and molluscs of all kinds.
You select what you want and take them to one of the restaurants which will cook it in the style of your choice.
We had fish, crabs and sea urchins. The last in fried rice – the fried rice was good but I couldn’t make out where the urchins were and so cannot tell you how it tasted. The fish and crabs were good except that the crabs were short of meat and were only saved by the nice sauce it was cooked in. The fish was the best of the three, but still not enough to rave about.

So besides eating what has Nan Ao got to offer?
A twenty minute drive takes you to either Dong Chong or Xi Chong – east and west bays with beaches and crystal clear waters. The only trouble is (as is always the case anywhere in China) there are loads of people. However if you want a beach all to yourself that can be arranged. Just hire a boat which will dump you on one of the many secluded beaches which cannot be reached by land and return to pick you up at the appointed time. I saw a few very tempting and secluded beaches; maybe I will do that the next time.

Struck up an acquaintance with a couple of old geezers and before you can say ‘kanbei’ we were zipping round the litchi forested countryside on the back of one of the guy’s bike. The whole place is very hilly and the bike had a hard time struggling up some roads with three people on it. On a particularly steep slope the unwilling bike like a recalcitrant donkey decided to ditch us. Sprawled all over the road (luckily traffic in that area is few and far between) we picked ourselves up and this time the old geezer decided to push the bike up the steep incline before climbing on again. The only thing that was hurt was our pride.
The best part of the mini tour was Ngor Koong Chun (male goose – ie gander – village). It is an old village (at least a hundred years old) now largely abandoned except for two families who still live there. The old houses were quite fascinating. The inhabitants were really friendly. A lady was plucking jumbu batu and she gave us one each to taste. Then the lady on the other side – minding her ducks – decided to chance if we would be interested in buy a duck from her. Well if you can buy fish and get the restaurant to cook it why not duck? The run down village has a natural charm unlike the put up ‘heritage’ villages that dot the more touristy areas.

Nan Ao is a very small town and the fishing industry and lately tourism is the mainstay of the economy. Salt and fish are very distinct in the air. Fresh seafood is popular with diners. We met up with four old fogeys we passed who had cycled all the way from Luohu to have lunch.
There’s a market dedicated to dried seafood. Here you can find all sorts of dried seafood – fish head, star fish, sotong (which is excellent), fish maw, salted fish, ikan bilis, dried prawns and believe it or not blachan! One wonders if the Chinese had not brought blachan to our part of the world all those years back. Despite fish drying by the sea and the seafood shops, remarkably there were no flies! The only fly I saw was one in the hotel room.
Nan Ao is worth a visit if one is looking for a getaway not too far from Shenzhen. Hong Kong and Macau is nearer (time wise) for us but Nan Ao is an altogether different kind of place. You can find peace and quiet in Nan Ao which is impossible in HK and Macau.

On the way home Luohu beckoned; or rather the urge to eat good dim sum did. Luohu probably has the best dim sum and Cantonese restaurants in Shenzhen. This is because of it’s proximity to HongKong. Luohu is a border district and is also the take off point by train to other parts of China.
If you have never been to Luohu you must do so. The place is full of pickpockets, hustlers and touts as well as the generally more interesting characters one meets in life. You can find almost anything in Luohu – designer handbags, watches, shoes, shirts etc – all fakes of course. What is not fake are the beautiful hand-sewn costumes used by ball room dancers and entertainers. Liberace probably got his gear from Luohu. They have enough glitz to satisfy even Elton John.
It’s a wonderful place to people watch – foreigners, Hongkies, locals all ready for the slaughter.
It’s a place where you can spend the day starting with brunch or lunch at any one of the many excellent Cantonese restaurants. Fortified by a good meal you can then shop till you drop and then resuscitated later by skilled masseuses who way lay you in the corridors of the shopping mart. The massage parlours which also provide manicure, pedicure, reflexology or just removing dead skin from your feet, are popular with shoppers. What better way to spend a day – eat, shop and relax.

Until my gammy foot heals Shenzhen is about the extent of my gallivanting. Nothing wrong with SZ, life’s okay here.

(Please note is always written off the cuff so bear with the typos etc)
Copyright ã Yin Ee Kiong 2010