Nighttime, Lok Ma Chau border crossing. Mere minutes before this border crossing from Hong Kong to Shenzhen closes, the immigration officers already behind me, and lying ahead one last escalator to take me down to the main lobby of the border-crossing building. In front of me I can see a few other stragglers, also crossing the border into Mainland China at the last moment. Thirty meters from the escalator I can hear a noise, still faint but growing stronger with every pace, putting in mind of a flock of geese during mating season. In a few moments I reach the top of the long escalator, where I gaze upon the expected sight: a crowd of touts at the bottom, trying to get incoming passengers to take a taxi.

Normally these women stand right outside the front doors of the building, but it appears that near closing time the guards have grown lax and the touts have gotten inside and were crowding at the bottom of the one-way escalator. A quick, appraising glance, I count nine of them - not including several more wandering some distance behind. Most of them are announcing “taxi taxi” at the top of their voices in either Mandarin or Cantonese. Others are relentlessly asking in Chinese “where are you heading to?”, and one particularly crafty tout simply cries out “Shenzhen Shenzhen”. They do not seem to be the least perturbed by the fact that, by now, potential passengers are already arriving at a rate of only one person every ten seconds and do not pause their continuous gaggling as long as there is at least someone within line of sight.

~~~

When buying in the supermarket, especially in departments such as haircare products or cleaning products, the supermarket workers were always keen to assist me. Too keen. Merely pausing for a moment in front of the shelves would immediately result in a lady asking me what kind of product am I looking for. Upon telling her, she would immediately try to shove some product into my hands, usually some large “value pack”. She would adamantly praise the product and pressure me to buy it. If I did not want it, she would offer another product - which on careful inspection would reveal to be either the same brand or another brand belonging to the same company. Asking for a different category of product would result, too, in a product line from the same manufacturer.

~~~

Often, in restaurants in China, I would notice “special” waitresses. These waitresses would wear clothes completely different from the other waiters, usually a “sporty” outfit in a combination of two colors (e.g. black and green). These waitresses would invariably approach and would ask us if we would like to order some beer. The beer waitresses provide only one brand of beer, of course, the same brand as the brand colors they are wearing.

~~~

In my eyes, all the above are symptoms of the same thing: China is a rat-race. Whether it’s a tout trying to be heard over the voice of the other touts, a deteragent manufacturer handing out commissions to supermarket personnel, or a beer distributor placing his own serving staff - in all these cases people are trying very, very hard to get one step ahead of their competitors and “make it”. True, it happens all the time all over the world, but never before have I witnessed it in the same scale as it is here. Because of the sheer size of the country, when someone actually does manage to make it, he makes it big - and it seems these role models are enough to push all the others forward in a never-ending race.