Shenzhen Zen

Cardboard Boxes
There are still piles of them on our new balconey following this weekend's move. But C did all the heavy lifting, or hired strapping young bucks for ridiculously low wages to do the rest.
"Just stay in Hong Kong until I call you. I know how you are about moving," she said. Sweet words, lemme tell you.
As for the new digs, it's not as bad as I'd feared, though there were some possibly-unique-to-Shenzhen twists in the relocation.
Transportation is one. There are precious few taxis or buses servicing wherever it is we are now but the forces of capitalism and illegal commerce have quickly filled the vacuum. Idling and parked outside one entrance are fleets of small, spiffy privately owned cars chauffered by fellows eager to undercut the legal taxi trade. They're also cleaner, cheaper and -- so far -- have shown that they'll also make change without a squawling heebeejeebie fit, wait outside your destination for a return trip if you're not going to be in there long, and are available by appointment.
No 2 is home entertaiment. It's cable ready -- real cable, as in HBO, Cinemax, ESPN, CNN, BBC as well as Chinese fare. But a twist. There's always one, right? We were in the cable office where initially the best entertainment was live. A young woman and her apparent beau were literally screaming at the hapless cable staff in a very unChinese manner.
"She's angry because they want her to pay an extra 7 yuan for something," C whispered as I watched in awe as the disgruntled female subscriber uttered a loud profanity and heaved a vinyl and metal chair one-handed against a wall where it rattled and fell.
Seven yuan is about 85 cents. Man. I would've paid twice that to watch the whole show unfold, but we caught the tail end which ended with everyone in the office -- save me -- pretending that nothing ever happened. That was after the rabid woman had relented and thrown 7 yuan across the room and then sat down and sighed loudly.
Me? I sighed loudly when our turn came and C told me the cable staff needed to photocopy my passport.
"What for?"
"Because we are subscribing to western news. BBC and CNN," she said. "Chinese citizens cannot have western TV news in their homes in China. Only foreigners. And foreigners who live with Chinese citizens, I guess."
"Tell them that what CNN offers isn't really 'news' as most real journalists understand the concept," I replied. "And that the BBC wastes too much time on 90 minute documentaries on elderly pensioners in Waddage-on-Fullbottom who collect 1950s-era soup can labels and footage of men in silly shorts and jerseys plastered with corporate logos mincing, prancing and kicking balls around for scores like 0-0."
No dice.
"So...what? You have to leave the room whenever I watch BBC?" I asked. Nonetheless, I handed over the passport, which was studied and passed around to at least four different cable employees before disappering briefly to be reproduced multiple times with copies presumably going to whatever Shenzhen security bureau monitors illicit western news cable TV subscribers. "Anybody else want some BBC?" I said loudly, waving the passport around to the uncomprehending onlookers. "Freedom of information! Use my document and learn the truth: 'Real Madrid, Tottenham on course for Cup glory! News at half past!'"