A Ugandan journalist lost in Shanghai

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OPINION

By Sam Wakhakha

On July 23, I travelled to Shanghai city in China to cover the World Mobile Congress (WMC), an annual trade show dedicated to the ICT industry.

I travelled with Ronnie Arinda from Huawei Technologies Uganda, the company that sponsored the trip. Like any other literate Ugandan, I had a rough idea of the country that I was due to visit for the first time. I knew China was a global technology giant. However, while there, I went through an experience that gave me a deep insight into the Chinese values and ethos that make the country a leading investment destination.

We left Entebbe at 5:00 pm and arrived at Pudong Airport in Shanghai at 3:00 pm local time the following day after an exhausting flight of 13 hours. When we landed, it was clear that the country I was visiting was technologically advanced. The airport was big and busy but chaos-free.

The corridors were clean, the signage was clear, and registration processes were automated. There were many passengers, yet efficiently managed. The airport workers were keen to see lines kept short.

The first registration was strictly done by scanners, where all arriving guests would have their photos and fingerprints taken before being with an identification slip.

I then went to the last immigration desk, where a lady asked me: “What are you coming to do in China?”

“I am a journalist going to cover the World Mobile Congress,” I replied. She asked me for the invitation letter, and when I presented it, she stamped my passport, and I proceeded to the taxi waiting area, where I found Arinda waiting as he had been cleared first.

What impressed me about China was that technology had permeated every system of life. The taxi moved us from the airport to the city. The city was impressive with good roads, trains and skyscrapers. Finally, we reached the city centre, where the driver dropped me at the Sheraton Shanghai Hotel. The cab proceeded to drop off my colleague Arinda at the Shangrila Hotel, about 2km away.

Arinda was to, among other things, handle my inland travel and meals on behalf of Huawei while in China. To ease payments, he had installed WePay, a mobile payments system, on his phone. It is what he used to pay the airport taxi fare. He had also installed an app which could translate English to Mandarin. It is what we used to communicate in restaurants, supermarkets and shops. For the taxi, Arinda always used WePay, which is what most people in China use. I did not see anyone use cash apart from myself, who carried a few dollars.

So, I presented my passport to the hotel reception and was taken to my room on the 26th floor. On reaching there, I immediately slept because I was tired. After eight hours of sleep, I woke up and freshened up. 

When I turned on my phone to link up with my colleague Arinda, everything seemed offline. My WhatsApp was not working, and neither was my Gmail. I eventually came to learn that Google and Meta products do not work in China. I thought of alternative ways of reaching Arinda but failed. The hotel had wifi, but most of the apps could not work because they were linked to Google. I did not have a local SIM card, nor did I have the local currency. All I had was about $200 in cash. After about 20 minutes, I decided to forge a solution and reach the WMC conference venue.

When I got out of the hotel, I realised it was raining. At the reception, I saw the young man who had received me the previous day. He smiled and waved. I waved back and signalled him to come and help. Through a mixture of English and sign language, I explained to him that I wanted a taxi to take me to the conference venue, but did not know how much I would be charged in dollars. He told me in broken English that it would cost less than $10, and when I said ‘okay’, he stopped one and spoke to the driver in Mandarin. I sat in the cab, and off we drove to the conference venue.

As we drove, I was mastering the streets and roads because I wanted to walk and save back instead of using a taxi.

We finally reached the conference venue, I handed the driver $10, and he shook his head, indicating that it was not enough. I added another $20, and this time he nodded, indicating that it was enough. He then gave me change of about 100 Yuan. “xièxie (thank you in Mandarin),” I replied to his goodbye as he drove off.

At the conference venue, there was a sea of people, but like it was at the airport, everything was happening seamlessly. It looked like everybody knew exactly what they were meant to do. The use of smart gates and face scanners ensured the smooth entry of guests.

Working in organised groups to accomplish tasks looks like something innate among the Chinese. They work in teams like termites to make difficult tasks appear simple. How the Chinese society manages to achieve this is something I still ask myself. Is it a result of Taoism, Confucianism, Communism or something else? How I wish we in Uganda could get as organised as they are.

At the exhibition centre, I went around the conference halls and realised that most of the exhibitors were just setting up stalls.

After about six hours, I decided that it was time to retire to the hotel. I decided to walk because the taxi had charged me $25 for one trip, and this seemed expensive to me. The hotel was about 5km away. I tried to scan the city skyline for my hotel, which was about 5km but failed.

I decided to walk since I had mastered the streets. It was after getting lost in Shanghai that I experienced the real side of China. Random people would wave at me, saying ‘hullo’. Others were asking me to take photos with them. Those who were having street lunch were inviting me to join them, but I shied away, yet I was hungry. After about an hour of walking, I realised I had lost my way to the hotel. I stopped, scanning the city skyline for my hotel, but failed again.

I did not have the taxi-hailing app on my phone, no local SIM card, no internet and didn’t understand Mandarin. It was time to reach out for help through sign language. I pulled from my bag the card that had the address of my hotel and started asking random people for directions. 

I would greet them with “Ni hao (hullo in Mandarin)” and then show them the address of my hotel while using sign language. Most of them would respond with words that I could not understand, but I would pick up the message through their gestures. What I noted about the Chinese is that they are very friendly to visitors.

Each person I reached out to was eager to help, even when they did not speak English. They always made an effort to make me understand what they were saying. The first three tried to direct me, but I failed to understand what they were saying. They would do it with a smile. I was lost in Shanghai but still felt safe. No mugging, no racism.

The Chinese are so connected to their gadgets that each person I asked would use the phone to search for the address of my hotel.

After about five attempts, I eventually found one who could speak English. I showed him the address on the card, and he told me the hotel was about 7km from where I was. He asked me if he could stop a taxi for me, to which I said no because of the limited local currency that I had. “What if the driver asks for the fare in local currency and I don’t raise it?” I wondered. So, I declined the taxi suggestion.

“You wanna walk there? It will take you two hours to get there on foot,” he told me. I then asked him how much it would cost me, and he said about ten Yuan, and I accepted because the amount was within my range. The first driver who took me to the conference venue had given me change of 30 Yuan.

The gentleman stopped the taxi and told the driver where he was supposed to drop me. We set off for the hotel, and when we reached, I handed him a 20 Yuan note and he gave me change of 3 Yuan. “Xièxie (thank you in Mandarin),” I waved him off and went to my hotel room. When reached there, I found an envelope under my door.  It contained a letter from my colleague Arinda and a temporary SIM card from a local Chinese telecom.

In the letter, he said he had looked for me the entire day in vain. He stated that he had bought the SIM card to enable us to stay in touch. 

I inserted the SIM card and immediately called him. When he received the call, we all breathed a sigh of relief. From then onwards, communication became easy and we enjoyed our stay in Shanghai.

I spent seven more days, mainly at the conference. I was able to use my work email to file articles and send them back to Uganda.

The last day of the conference was memorable because other teams from Uganda joined us. The only downside of the trip was that I had only a day to tour the city. China left a lasting impression on me in terms of ethos and work ethic. I still yearn to know what laid the foundation for such a nation.

The writer is an editor