The only thing for Westerners to do here on a Saturday is shop, so that’s what I did. I couldn’t have managed it without my local guide, a Taiwanese girl who lives here and speaks fluent Mandarin. We had been out the night before to a Teriyaki restaurant, and both had sore heads on Saturday morning; she swore the best thing for it was more Japanese food, so that’s what we did first.

Then she made a telephone call to the Secret Apartment, where she takes all visiting colleagues from the UK and America, to buy handbags and watches with dubious designer labels…

We met another colleague, and then Taiwanese colleague had to go off on an emergency errand, leaving me and Chinese colleague to browse through an amazing selection of belts and bags and other leather goods. She had given us guideline prices, so when we had piled up everything I wanted, we decided on what we considered to be a good price, which was RMB600 [remember, 15 to the pound].

The Secret Shop’s Secret Assistant rattled the prices she had decided on into her calculator, and came up with a figure around RMB3000, at which point Chinese colleague started to argue. She had never been to the Secret Place before, and she was terrified, but she argues like a good ‘un, and we eventually walked out. This is what you do. Secret Assistant followed us to the lift, and I raised the price to RMB700. Chinese colleague was disgusted with me. Secret Assistant begged me for a little more so I said 750, at which point the lift arrived and we got into it. I gather this is all part of the proceedings, and I needn’t have gone up to 750; in fact it would be better if I hadn’t, because among the many counterfeit items in the Secret Apartment, were the counterfeit RMB50 notes – which was what they gave me in change.

Nonetheless, I’ve got 2 watches, 2 handbags, 4 purses, a belt and a silk tie, all with very good fake brand labels, for fifty quid. We left the Secret Apartment feeling like we had been had, and met up with Taiwanese colleague again; she reviewed the haul, and said I hope you didn’t pay more than RMB1000 for this. Very pleased with our handiwork, I can tell you.

We crossed the road (which is a horror story in itself), and went into Lohou Commercial City – like a giant indoor market crammed with little stalls selling all kinds of tat. As we walked through the aisles, all the shopkeepers called to me Hey! Missy! Looky! and offered their wares: watches, dvds, silk scarves, manicure-pedicure-massage, everything under the sun.

We shopped and shopped until we could shop no more, then went for more food. I had my first chopstick disaster, when I dropped a dumpling into a bowl of oil and soy sauce: splat.

I’ve taken lots of photos today – you will have to wait until I get back before you can see them.

I am now in the city of Shenzhen, as you will know if you have been paying attention. Shenzhen is in the south-east corner of China, right on the border with Hong Kong. To get here, you take a local train for about half an hour, and then walk through the HK border, across 100 metres of no man’s land, and then queue for ten minutes in the wrong queue, before being sent back to complete an Arrival form. You then spend some time wandering around in the brightly-lit dark looking for a taxi stand, and eventually find it underground.

There is very little information about how to get around these parts, because it is strictly not a tourist destination. On Wednesday we visited a factory in the next city, and the drive took two hours; yesterday we were at a factory in Shenzhen district, and the drive took two hours. There are skyscrapers as far as the eye can see, in every direction.

Driving is crazy here. Lane markings are treated as general guidelines, so where there are three lanes marked, the traffic will be five cars wide, changing lanes at random right under each other’s bumpers. Pedestrians cross roads anywhere, even on a major intersection, and wander as slow as they like – traffic just stops for them. Bicycles, tractors, small cars, all merrily drive up the wrong side of the road, and slip roads are a directional free-for-all.

A smart innovation: when we’re lost, we look out for guys on motorbikes beside the road. For 20RMB they will guide you to your destination. Could’ve done with that when I was in Essen last week.

Haven’t taken any photos yet, because really I have been working too hard and haven’t seen anything pretty.

My job takes me to New York, China, Switzerland, Germany, and yesterday it was supposed to take me to Milton Keynes, such is the glamour of my existence with Sweatshop Busters Inc.

The plan was to meet my boss on the Circle Line platform underneath Paddington Station, but thanks to my own personal disinclination to get on a crowded train at Reading, I arrived a few minutes late – a few minutes after they closed the gates, telling everyone there was a power failure. I called my boss and left a message saying I would get a bus to Euston; I assumed she would do the same thing.

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She had spent a great deal of her day wondering if this was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. It seemed to help, to spend time discounting her blessings; reckoning the accumulation of losses that she now had under her belt. The problem was that she was still too good at coping, to be of use to anyone else. She made it hard for people to sympathise with her, because she kept her heart in her pocket, and only showed it to one very close person, and wrote about it in her diary. This made her seem rather cold and callous, but it was good, she thought, to be able to pigeon-hole things; it was a technique she had tried to explain to others, with little success. Wrap your pain up and put it away. Only take it out in private moments, to examine it, to feel it again, like pressing a bruise. Give the world a brave face, so that they don’t ask how you are feeling, because heaven knows, you don’t want that; sympathetic enquiries just seem rude, people demanding to see what’s in your pockets; but to tell someone that simply shows you to be an ungrateful wretch. Read the rest of this entry »