Shanghai Street Stories

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Months ago, I answered a call from a most unexpected person.

“Who is this?” I inquired snappishly, assuming it to be yet another sales call interrupting my evening.

Static greeted me. Then … “Surname Chen. You …. remember me?”

I looked at the country code and googled it: +996.

Kyrgyzstan.

Did someone find my missing tripod in Osh province?

Unsure, I hung up quickly. He rang back again and after much probing, he replied in exasperation, ”It’s Chen, the (Chinese) businessmen you met at the Kara-Suu market in Osh? From Fujian? You met my wife and cousin.”

I did a mental flip through my poor memory. That was more than a year ago. And yes, I do remember him, his family and Chinese comrades that made up the substantial gaggle of Chinese traders in one of the largest trade bazaars in Osh region.

“How are you! Goodness, how did you end up calling me?”

It turned out that he was cleaning out his car when he found my name card. Chen was still in dusty Kara-Suu but unfortunately, his wife had returned to Xian to see family, so has his very fiesty young female cousin who spoke Russian with the most Chinese of accents. The local Kyrgyz laborers loved her.

“A young girl like that,” he referred to his cousin, “she needs to find a husband back home. Not a place like here.”

When I first met Chen, I knew he was different. I felt in him a sense of wanderlust that built up his tolerance for working in a less developed country. He also had a university education, unlike his peers at Kara-suu. Chen never saw himself working as a tradesman, much less in Kyrgyzstan. He missed China’s more developed east coast and would even settle back in Urumqi, Xinjiang where the family business had an export outpost.

We spoke at length, about Shanghai, about China and about life. I sensed he was lonely and was tired of mingling with his Chinese neighbors. He was very engaged when talking about literature and history, sharing happily his views on everything.

Before he hung up, he seemed cheered. “Keep well, 小郑” (Little Zheng, my Chinese surname). I read your blog, though it’s all in English which is a problem.”

I remember he had dropped me a nice email weeks after our meeting, as did his young and lovely wife. Chen said he enjoyed the photos, calling it a perspective of a tourist, not someone who had to be there for work. I readily acknowledged it. It’s easy to romanticize life on the road, especially through rolling hills of evergreen and snow in Kyrgyzstan. But for someone like Chen, after tens of hours crossing the Chinese-Kyrgyz border at Ishkertam Pass in a rattling bus, one would find it tedious and most of all … homesick.

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I shared earlier that I was in Uzbekistan doing some documentary work on Chinese influence in Central Asia. Some of my photography has been appearing on the project site ChinainCentralAsia.com where you can read more of my colleague’s work.

By Raffaello and Sue Anne Tay

Published May 17, 2012

Last week, we have been visiting Tashkent, Uzbekistan as part of our ongoing research on Chinese interests in Central Asia.

Fortunately, on the flight here from Beijing, one of us had the good fortune to be seated amidst a boisterous group of 40 Xinjiang businessmen part of a provincial business delegation attending a trade fair in Tashkent. They had been forced to fly through Beijing from Urumqi – a geographically illogical route – due to the fact that there are no direct flights between Tashkent and Urumqi.

At their invitation, we visited the trade fair earlier this week. Held in an old exhibition hall in the outskirts of Tashkent it was a no-frills affair with basic booths lined up four by four. In its fourth year, the Xinjiang Trade Expo was sponsored by the Uzbek Chamber of Commerce, the Xinjiang government, and the bingtuan (the former People’s Liberation Army (PLA)-managed state owned enterprise (SOE) responsible for much of Xinjiang’s industries).

On the Chinese side, the participants were a mix of Xinjiang companies specializing in locally produced goods like Xinjiang snacks of dabanji (the famous big plate chicken), mushrooms, culinary sauces, an array of Uighur style clothing (and some fancily called ‘Turky style’ clothing) and more generic industries like uniforms/garment manufacturing and electronic equipment.

Other key participants were Xinjiang subsidiaries of holdings companies based in Guangzhou as part of the central government’s push for increased domestic investment in China’s less-developed hinterlands. One manager highlighted that they had started this work in the province at the Guangdong provincial government’s request. They were offering potential Uzbek customers property investment opportunities in Kashgar in southern Xinjiang, Chinese electrical gadgets like smartphones and Ipad-knockoffs tailored to the Uighur market (appropriately labeled with an Android character donning a Uighur hat), lightning equipment, police and factory uniforms. Many of the samples on display were manufactured in southern China and shipped to and assembled in Xinjiang.

With the pomp of the opening ceremony behind them, the reception at the Xinjiang Trade Fair when we went was lackluster to say the least. A thin traffic of Uzbek passers-by browsed with fleeting curiosity at what they considered well made but expensive Chinese products.

“The Uzbek market is too small and low-income compared to the vast opportunities we have in Xinjiang,” a uniforms manufacturer salesman named Tan Chao complained. Two locally dressed older Uzbek women stopped by to finger the bright Gortex jackets and browse a catalogue. A listless conversation in stilted Russian began with no conclusive business made.

Like Tan Chao, many of the Xinjiang businessmen were bored by the lack of opportunities offered in the trade fair. When we spoke to a pair of salesmen from an agricultural machinery manufacturer subsidiary of AVIC (the Chinese military aviation SOE), they acknowledged their presence seemed almost futile. Neither spoke Russian nor were there any serious potential clients for the cotton-picking machines they were peddling (Uzbekistan is one of the global top five cotton-producers). They responded to inquirers by waving a sheet with the prices of their equipment carelessly scribbled. Amusingly, curious onlookers seemed more interested in purchasing the model on display rather than the actual machinery.

A manager of a Xinjiang-based electricity infrastructure developer (with affiliation to Siemens) named Liu Zhao was one of the more enthusiastic and serious participants. His company had specially shipped in a landscape model of an electricity grid made up of parts manufactured by their company. Liu spoke fluent Russian thanks to 2 years of study in Almaty, Kazakhstan and extensive experience travelling to the region for work.

Several businessmen we spoke to, including Liu, acknowledged the difficulties of doing business in Uzbekistan. The government welcomed investment but not competition with local industries. Hence, the options for Chinese businesses in Uzbekistan are in the form of trade of specialized Chinese goods to the Uzbek market, attracting Uzbek investment to China and vice versa.

The limited convertibility of the Uzbek currency – 1800 Uzbek som to 1 USD (at the official rate, we were told the unofficial rate was as high as 2800 som to the USD) – was another obstacle. It is prohibited to take earned foreign currency out of the country, meaning you cannot leave with more forex than you arrived. Thus, foreign companies are either compelled to reinvest domestically any Uzbek som profits or absorb foreign exchange losses made via the official foreign exchange centre.

Hence, the dilemma facing Duan Weiming, a Chinese producer of Western suits who had just made a modest sale of several tens of thousands in Uzbek som. He jokingly showed off his cash bundles to his friends. What is he going to do with all the cash he made? We inquired.

“Why, spend it all on dinner, drinks and karaoke!” he boomed smilingly in response. Maybe to go enjoy his new fortune, the group packed up early at four o’clock. With another day at the Xinjiang Trade Fair, the Chinese businessmen were determined to make the best of what remained a slow affair.

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Kyrgyzstan’s street bazaars are awashed in a dizzying array of colors – the vintage hues of the former Soviet Union cling onto the infrastructure, the blaring contrast of bold plastic on all Chinese mass manufactured objects, and the undercurrent of Middle Eastern influences in clothing and culture.

The colors sometimes burn a little brighter under the shards of sunlight piercing through the incongruous slates in the roof.

Even amidst the thronging crowds on a busy afternoon, where voices raise in negotiation and shuffling bodies press close, it is not impossible to seek isolated moments, thanks to the delightly play of light and shadows.

You can read and view more of Kyrgyzstan’s street bazaars here.

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(Editor note: It seems that I did not notice the lower resolution when exporting the photos, will sort that tonight. Please bear with me. Resolution sorted, selection of photos altered slightly)

This past week was spent wrestling with an intransigent hard drive, which took its last breath and some recent work I had done along with it. But all is well now and to celebrate, I thought I’d dig into my bursting archive and sharing a little my 3-week trip to Central Asia last October/November.

For two weeks, I was in Kyrgyzstan documenting trade markets, as many readers would know, is one of my favorite things to do. In particular, I was trying to understand the pervasive nature of China’s economic influence at the goods trade level but more importantly, the role of Chinese businesses and their networks in this neighboring yet obscure region.

Kyrgyzstan’s bazaars are huge, with the largest being Dordoy Bazaar, located in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital. Traders from all over the region including China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Russia converge to sell and procure goods in large volumes, ranging from white goods (expensive flat screen TVs, refrigerators, washing machines) to consumer products (shampoo, clothing, shoes, toys).

Like all bazaars in Kyrgyzstan, Dordoy is assembled by shipping containers that are stacked up and stretch for miles and miles. The containers, ranging from rusty red, sea blue and deep green, and serve as both storage and shopfronts. The layout of the bazaars is easy and almost grid-like, giving a sense of order amidst the chaos on a busy Sunday.

Stepping into the bazaar, one dives into a kaleidoscope of rich smells, loud sounds and dizzying colors assailing you from all sides. In narrow pathways, customers mingled with mobile hawkers who carried tea and snacks in baskets or push carts to feed he crowds. Every few minutes, laborers carrying giant boxes of stock would bellow in warning as they barrel through. On a clear day, sunlight would pierce through chinks in the roof in a sharp slant, illuminating anyone in the way.

Almost all consumer/appliance products you find in Kyrgyzstan’s largest bazaars are made in China, and a small selection from Russia, Turkey and other neighboring regions. Nevertheless, most China-made products are labelled in Russian as they were to be exported to Russian-speaking regions.

Russian is still commonly spoken in much of Central Asia though since breaking away after the collpase of the Soviet Union, the independent countries have been promoting the use of their own local languages. Kyrgyzstan is especially fierce about advocating Kyrgyz in schools, though many recognize English (and increasingly European languages, Korean and definitely Chinese) offers more employment possibilities. Nevertheless, Russian is a common language of choice for all traders. Accents are heavy but the point is carried across and transactions are eventually completed.

In the next installments of the bazaars of Kyrgyzstan, I look at the delicious bazaar foods.