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Mysteries of the Phantom Print |
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By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published September 18, 2005
Bill Doubleday came to China for the women. Pat King came for God.
Both are U.S. expatriates living in Shenzhen, two in a small community of Americans who have migrated to the bustling south China city and made it their home.
Doubleday, owner of X-Ta-Sea bar in the Shekou entertainment district, caters to English-speaking businessmen on temporary assignment. He arrived in the city on a consulting gig himself four years ago, working as a technical adviser to a Chinese telecom.
"I didn't like it at all at first," said Doubleday, now 59. "Then I got caught up in the youth and energy here. Somewhere I made the decision to stay."
One incentive, he admits, was the apparent attractiveness of an aging American to surprising numbers of young Chinese women.
"How many girlfriends do you think I could get in the States?" asked Doubleday, who separated from his American wife in 1995 and has two adult daughters in Bradenton.
Starting with a small 10-stool space, Doubleday has expanded his business six times, buying adjacent bars and knocking down walls. He says X-Ta-Sea was the first bar in Shenzhen with such Western features as happy hour, a pool table and a 100-inch TV. It has been profitable from day one, he said.
Doubleday has had his share of problems: One time a Chinese competitor got officials to abruptly end a band's performance by confiscating all its equipment. After his Chinese girlfriend made several trips to police headquarters - and paid a $300 fine - the instruments were back.
"With all the money I've invested here, and the business I've generated, the officials now recognize I'm serious," said Doubleday, who has about a dozen Chinese employees. "It's really a lot easier to run a business here because there aren't the same kinds of restrictions and regulations as in the States. I imagine it's like the U.S. was back in the 1920s and '30s."
While Doubleday is looking for love and a way to make a living in China, across town on the campus of Shenzhen University, Pat King is answering a higher call.
King, 55, with cropped gray hair, T-shirt and shorts, left a job teaching junior high students in Kentucky 18 years ago to come to China. "I was following God's call," she said simply.
Though the Communist government forbids her from openly preaching her faith, King believes she is answering God's call by living as a Christian in China.
For the first 11 years, she taught English in Nanchang, about 400 miles north of Shenzhen. Seven years ago, she took her current job, teaching English literature and culture and living on the carefully landscaped college campus in the midst of Shenzhen's industrial chaos.
Having witnessed the economic changes in China, King is quick to point out the bad (more cars and pollution) as well as the good (more inquisitive students). With the central government cutting subsidies to universities, King's college has increased paid enrollment. Classes that used to contain fewer than 50 students now routinely attract 150. And these students, who must pass an English test to graduate, are desperate for jobs with Western companies.
King wonders how long the Chinese government can maintain its tight political control while the economy runs wild. She gets around government restrictions on the press by traveling weekly to Hong Kong, a half-hour train ride away, to buy Western newspapers and magazines. She's incredulous that her mail, even regular packages of comic strips from a friend in the States, is still opened by government censors. But she's resigned to the fact that she cannot preach the Christian religion she loves to her students.
"I can answer their questions," King said with a smile. "And I can live a life of friendship and love. It's irresistible."
[Last modified September 19, 2005, 09:55:08]
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