Wenzhou is different than I expected. I knew going in it was a small city – of several million people – and one of many centers of China’s low-tech industrial machine. Google National Geographic’s story from summer 2007 on China’s boomtowns so I don’t have to type it all here on the phone. But do it. It’s fascinating stuff and turns out they focused on both Wenzhou and Lishui – the two main towns I’ll be in this next while.
Downtown Wenzhou
I walked around most of the afternoon today. Trying to keep moving so I could stay up and force myself into the time change. It’s a strange mix here. Cell phone stores hawking smart phones and 3G are everywhere as are fancy magazine brand boutiques. But in between are the stalls with ducks and pigeons stuffed into cages and weird little shops full of things like salvaged industrial machine buttons of all types or car key blanks, and families siting on the floor trimming the plastic fringes from some newly molded part who knows what it does. I was almost run over a number of times by both pedicabs and high-end European sedans. Not the kids-huffing-glue-at-the-shoe-factory-China one expects of industrial China (though according to that Nat Geo article a quarter of all shoes bought in China and 70% of all the cigarette lighters in the world are made here) but I think that’s just my ignorance or arrogance to think they’d not also have/want Prada and BMWs. Most of these places are also a lot safer than our fears would have us believe. That’s a real benefit of travel, even if it’s to such non-exotic places like Wenzhou. Perspective grounded in experience.
So, I’ve made it to an hour where I can actually go to bed now and get some sleep appropriate to the new time zone so that’s what I’m going to do. And tomorrow I’m headed out into the country so I’m assuming there won’t be much internet access. I’ll post again when I can, perhaps after a few days in the countryside with more interesting things to share.