Graeme Allen - Is That Fat Foreigner Rich?: An Irishman in China

IS
THAT
FAT
FOREIGNER
RICH?

For Lee and Katie Grinne Zhimi

AN IRISHMAN
IN CHINA

IS
THAT
FAT
FOREIGNER
RICH?

MURPHY BROTHERS PUBLISHING

First published in 2016 by
Murphy Brothers Publishing
Dublin, Ireland
graeme-allen.com

All rights 2016 Graeme Allen

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The right of Graeme Allen to be identified as the author of the work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

The Journey Begins

O ne day recently our ayi (maid) was walking across our compound. In China we all live in compounds or in what our American cousins would call gated communities. I had originally thought that this was for safety and control of the population, but according to an old Chinese proverb, A house is not complete unless it has a wall around it, so maybe Im wrong.

Our ayi was stopped by one of our neighbours, a Shanghainese lady, who asked her if she was the ayi of Zhang Lee (my wife), to which our ayi replied, Yes.

The Shanghainese lady then asked, Is that fat foreigner shes married to rich?

Our ayi replied, No, I dont think so.

God, hes ugly, the Shanghainese lady said. He must be one of the ugliest guys around, but then of course Zhang Lee is from the countryside, so shes probably done quite well for herself.

This was a bit of a joke really, as Lee is highly educated; in fact, she has two degrees, one from Hangzhou Fine Arts University and one from Monash University in Australia. And she is already relatively rich in her own right, having come from very humble beginnings.

There is a huge divide in China between the city dwellers and people from outside the major cities, and the Shanghainese in particular seem to think they are Gods gift to the world, not realising the Irish have performed that role for a number of years!

Ireland Comparison

In Dublin, my hometown, there is an old street song that expresses the singers deep love of his home city and starts with these words: Oh, Dublin, youre breaking my heart. This is exactly how I feel about China. At times China exasperates me and tests my patience, but I love the place, the history, the culture, the wide-open spaces, the overcrowded cities and towns, the deep rivers and lakes, and the hills and mountains. But most of all I love the people; they are pure magic.

China reminds me of growing up in Ireland in the fifties and sixties. We were a country with a great history but a relatively new nation on the world stage, and we were trying to break from the perceived similarity with, and dependence on, Britain to establish our own identity.

In Ireland it was the time of men of vision like T. K. Whitaker, secretary at the Department of Finance, and Sen Lemass, taoiseach (prime minister). They tried to create more jobs by attracting light industry with the promise of low-cost labour and generous grants. Donogh OMalley, the minister of education, eventually succeeded in revolutionising education in Ireland. As recently as 1966 he introduced free secondary education and free transport for rural children to the nearest school, saying that the number of children leaving school with only primary education was a dark stain on the national conscience; you cannot claim to be a modern, prosperous nation if you have so many children with no access to education after thirteen years of age. He also succeeded in setting up regional technical colleges around the country. Unfortunately Donogh died in 1969 at the age of forty-seven without seeing his plans come fully to fruition a tragedy for Ireland. The joke at the time was that we would have the most highly educated, but unemployed, workforce in Europe. For a while the jokers were right, but these men of vision, I believe, laid the foundations for what was to become known as the Celtic Tiger. Unfortunately in the early part of the twenty-first century, Ireland was nearly brought to its knees by a small group of corrupt bankers, greedy businessmen, and incompetent politicians. But Ireland will rise again like a phoenix from the ashes.

During the sixties in Ireland, you saw JCBs (diggers and excavators) along the road to Cork, Irelands second city (dont tell the Cork people that), building what was in essence Irelands first proper road. There were young men and women forming junior chambers of commerce in every town, and there was talk of Ireland joining the Common Market. In fact, our application was ahead of the UKs. We were the new generation, and I was part of it. You could feel the excitement, and thats how it is in China today you can almost touch and taste the excitement in the air. Living in Shanghai, I jump out of bed every morning knowing that today will be different. It will be a challenge, and the buzz is how you cope. Its never boring, always interesting, and it keeps a seventy-year-old like me young and in the prime of life.

So How Did My Chinese Journey Begin?

I was asked this question some years ago at a British Chamber of Commerce monthly sundowner by the British consul general. She was touring the room glad-handing everyone, and when she came to me she said, And, young man, what brought you to China? She was calling me a young man when I was well into my sixties, so I thought she must either be blind or senile and I thought Id have a bit of fun with her. Maam, Ive been in China now for a few years, I told her. My last position was in Belfast, and the reason Im here is that theres no extradition agreement between China and the UK. She looked at me a bit strangely and just walked on without saying a word, but the real reason for my being in China is a lot less romantic. I had been working in Australia quite successfully for nearly ten years for the Irish Tourist Board (Bord Filte), which was funded by the Irish government to promote the Republic of Ireland as a tourist destination. Since then things have changed; the Irish Tourist Board has been replaced by Tourism Ireland, which is funded by both the Irish and UK governments and promotes the island of Ireland as one destination.

I was also chairman of the Australia branch of the European Travel Commission, and felt I was an important player in the promotion of both Europe and Ireland in Australia. I think this went to my head in the last year, and things started to go badly wrong for me. My marriage broke up (my fault), I was drinking more than I should, and I offended a couple of senior people in the travel industry in both Europe and Australia, which was pretty stupid. I had also upset some of my senior head office colleagues in Dublin by cooperating with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board in jointly promoting the island of Ireland as one destination, which at the time was against Irish Tourist Board policy, but more of that later. So I was a marked man. I was also looking for an exit strategy from the Irish Tourist Board. I wanted to stay in Australia and knew that if I stayed with the Irish Tourist Board I would eventually be transferred back to Dublin. So in preparation for this I tried to set up a tourism representative company with a couple of friends, using my money and some of the contacts I had made through my involvement with the European Travel Commission. It didnt work out, and I lost a considerable amount of money, a disaster from which I feared I would never recover.