'Mainland China' ↓

Zhuhai is unexpectely green, dotted with parks and palm trees. I once took the No.2 bus from Xiangzhou (香洲) area to Gongbei (拱北), where the border crossing between Macau and Zhuhai is, and passed, surprisingly, four parks on the way.

I ended up visiting the Haibin Park (海濱公園)，along the Lovers’ Road. Palm trees and expanse of grassland with a view of the sea. Calm, and peaceful, with few visitors. 

Just across the road, is the Jingshan Park (景山公園)，which attracts more visitors. It has a 6000sq meters artificial lake with some water activities on offer, children playground facilities, and more importantly, some hiking routes to the top of the mountain to have a bird’s view of the city. On the way, you can see some rock formations in their interesting shape. 

Parks in Zhuhai have no admission fee. A reason for you to love Zhuhai.

The easiest way to get around in Zhuhai is taking a taxi. Initial meter charge is RMB10. Of course you can also take a bus, if you know already which bus to take and where to get on and off – there is no English to explain the bus route and indicate station names in any of the bus stations.

Buses in Zhuhai no longer have staff selling you tickets. You pay when you get on the bus, putting money into the metal box placed next to the uniformed driver. Exact money. No change. Air-conditioned bus fare is RMB2.5 while non-air-conditioned bus fare is RMB1.5.

The bus stops are all standardized – a structure that is yellow-tile roofed, resembling a pavilion. 

Taking the bus is a way to feel the pulse of the city – if you can read some Chinese characters. Just watch the electronic ad that is displayed in the bus. The ads ranged from cosmetic surgery, to learning english, to fashionable glasses for sales.

I once got on a bus that not only displayed electronic ads, but also played pop songs, in Mandarin. Fortunately, the songs were not jarring on my ears.

zhuhai waterfront

If you look for a city in Southern China for relaxation, away from the tourist crowd, you may want to come to Zhuhai. 

Bordering Macau to the South, Zhuhai was named among the earliest Special Economic Zones in China in the 70s. But its development has been slow compared to Shenzhen, another Southern China city, just across the border from Hong Kong. The fact that its main avenue Lovers Road surprisingly does not have busy traffic says a lot about the city. 

And that is why I find the city laidback and calm. It has a beautiful and long waterfront along the Lovers Road. In the morning, you only see a few locals exercising here. Don’t the Zhuhai people like exercising? If it is in Hangzhou or Guangzhou, the waterfront in the morning would be teeming with people jogging, playing Taichi or doing all sorts of exerecises. Not in Zhuhai.

yeli island

The city has newly developed a Yeli Island (野狸島), which is named Mingting Park (名亭公園), near the Xiangzhou Fishing Port, and across from the Lovers Road Central. The island park is open to the public for free. Though nothing much to see on the island, strolling around is surely relaxing, with some nice sea view to appreciate.

Hotels in Zhuhai, a southern China city neighbouring Macau and Hong Kong, are not as expensive as those in Shenzhen or Guangzhou, and you can find quite a few hotels here which have seaviews and yet the charges are reasonable. 

If you look for a hotel in Zhuhai to relax, I would like to recommend this hotel to you - Zhuhai Maihao International Hotel (珠海邁豪國際酒店, 91 QingLu Middle Road). The hotel is pretty new, opened in 2006. When I asked the taxi driver to take me to the hotel, he was at a loss. “Is this a new hotel?” he asked. 

The hotel is wonderfully located, just five-minue taxi ride from the Jiuzhou ferry terminal (less than RMB20), along the tree lined Qinglu Road (Lover Road), facing the Xiangzhou Bay (香洲灣), and the island park Mingting Park （名亭公園）. 

If you book the hotel through elong, the room charge is RMB370 for Mondays to Fridays, and RMB430 for Saturdays and Sundays, for a seaview room.

You can also make the booking through the hotel website, but the price would be slightly higher. 

The hotel lobby is not as elegant as a four-star hotel can be, but the hotel rooms are just gorgeous. It has carpet to ceiling window, opening to the bay, with fishing boats parked around. The bathroom has window glass open to the bedroom, and to the seaview. You can have a very open view even when taking a shower.

The room is spacious. Its broadband internet worked immediately on my computer once I put in the cable provided. And the internet was fast. Three floors of the hotel are dedicated to non-smoking rooms. So you can enjoy a non-smoking and spacious seaview room with free internet. The staff are also friendly. I don’t think you should ask for more for this price.

But mind you that the TV in the hotel room has no international channels such as BBC or CNN, and the dining and recreation facilities look a bit poor. Also, there are cracks and marks on the wall in my room, not to mention a big splash of yellow water stains on the wall near the window (a result of rain seeping from outside the window?). It seems that in China, buildings for public use get run down easily, no matter how new they are, as a result of sub-standard of the buiding material and how people use these buildings.

China visa restrictions on foreigners in HK will be lifted from Oct 16, 2008, according to the report of South China Morning Post today (Sept 22). 

The report quoted a vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Travel Agents, as saying that the central government might have decided to wait until after the National Day holiday to relax the visa application processes.

Under the restrictions, multiple visas and short visit visas to shenzhen are suspended. Also, Visa applicants have to produce advance hotel reservations and return-flight bookings. Nationals from 33 countries including South Africa, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia can no longer obtain visas in Hong Kong unless they are residents.

Mengniu is the No.1 diary brand, and also one of the most prominent brands in China. The brand is as famous as Lenovo in the country. Its milk product is not only popular in Mainland China, but also in Hong Kong. Here in Hong Kong, my father drinks its yogurt drink; my company’s pantry has Mengniu’s milk; one of my colleagues just told me the milk in her home’s fridge is always Mengniu’s milk. “Because it tasted good,” she said.

The company’s President Niu Geng Sheng often toured the country and Hong Kong to speak about brand management. It publishes Corporate Social Responsibility report, and actively goes green – it has just built the world’s largest methane power plant using cow-dung (investment RMB 45M /US$5.7 M).

So when I learnt of the news this morning that not only its baby formula, but also its milk are found contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine, it is a real shock to me.

How could it be possible to trust a Chinese brand anymore, if even a brand like Mengniu cannot be trusted?

The investigation by the quality watchdog of China, the General Administration for Quality Supervision, just found that 11 out of 121 batches of milk from Mengniu contain melamine.

If you ever live in China, you would know that three diary brands dominate the market: Mengniu, Yili and Guangming. In the supermarkets in China, it is very likely they are the only diary brands you can find.

The saddening thing about China’s milk scandal is that all its major diary manufacturers – Mengniu, Yili and Guangming – are involved. Yili’s and Guangming’s milk are also found contaminated by China’s General Administration for Quality Supervision.

In Hong Kong, tests conducted by the Food Safety Centre have found Yili’s milk products contaminated and the authority has asked the distributor to recall all the company products. Milk products by other mainland companies are still in the testing process.

By the way, here in Hong Kong, I eat Yili’s ice stick. Thank God, only occasionally.

The latest melamine-tainted baby formula scandal on the mainland highlights one thing – the culture and behavior of a country won’t change overnight. 

The scandal is reminiscent of how the authorities in China handled the SAR, a daunting public health challenge in 2003, when the officials initially tried to cover up the scale of the SAR break-out.

China’s Minister of Health Chan Zhu yesterday admitted that the “authorities” were aware of the problems with baby formula in mid-July, and several investigations had been carried out since to establish the cause, only to no avail. Why not, then, alerted the public about the problem which is so consequential when it was first discovered? Who are all these “authorities” aware of the problem?  The minister didn’t answer.

Minister Chan, after 3 deaths and more than 6000 children affected by the tainted formula, was still trying to offer excuse for the slow action – or the cover-up - of the “authorities”. His statements seemed to imply that “well, we didn’t hide the truth – we were  just investigating.”

On another front, the formula manufacturer concerned Sanlu received complaints as early as March this year, and later its tests confirmed contamination. The New Zealand owner of a 43% stake of Sanlu, Fonterra Co-operative Group, said it urged the company to recall the product as early as six weeks ago. After no action taken, it had to bypass the company and the local authorities to alert the Central government.

The company Sanlu and the authorities, local and central, all share one common skill -buck passing and fact hiding.

I am thinking about the glory and grandeur of the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics just weeks away, with themes reflecting the traditional Chinese culture. What is really the Chinese culture NOW? Would people want to seriously think about it?