I was lucky to have even landed in China's busiest airport, which had morphed into a ghost-town after a snowstorm on Jan 4 shut down 2 of its three runways and forced more than 90 per cent of flights to be cancelled or delayed. I was even more blessed to have gotten a cab, the grumpy cab-driver nursing a cold told me as we truddled at 40km per hour down the expressway to my office in Raffles City Beijing.

"Yesterday, the roads were packed with snow and very few dared to drive their cars out. Today, everyone ('da jia") is out to clear the snow."

He wasn't exaggerating that much - there were really scores of people everywhere, swathed in People's Liberation Army coats, shovelling little piles of muck into furrows of increasingly grotty snow. I found out later that the Beijing city government had mobilised 300,000 people to clear the snow.

ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

There wasn't any mention of snowplows or any sort of impressive China-made heavy-duty machinery that get featured with such clockwork regularity in the state-owned CCTV's evening news to showcase the economy's breakneck industrialisation. Instead, the most high-tech tool available appeared to be bamboo brooms, which were immensely effective... in making nice calligraphic patterns in the ice.

Why are sheer mass manpower - and bamboo twigs - apparently still a preferred solution for clearing snow?

It was a puzzle that my colleagues and I discussed as we huddled in a cafe - still bundled in our winter gear because it felt like zero degrees inside - and gripped onto steaming coffee cups for dear life to thaw our fingers.

I haven't come up with an answer - probably because my braincells are deep-frozen and my energy is spent damming up the Niagara Falls output from my runny nose everytime I step into the open. (I confess I also wasted quite a lot of time regretting that I didn't join the crowds in Ion Orchard's Uniqlo outlet snapping up puffy winter coats last week - because now that I'm back in Beijing, I'm too cowardly to brave the windchill outside to buy some from the Uniqlo here.)

But I can verify that Beijing does in fact possess snowplow trucks. I saw a convoy of four machines lined up neatly on the road outside my home last  Wednesday night at 11pm, while a pack of workers milled around with their trusty brooms.

With a new bout of snow expected to hit Beijing on Friday, we shall see which prevails in the "Bamboo Men vs Machine" puzzle.

ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

IN BEIJING

IT WAS surreal.

Beer-bellied men and flamboyantly dressed women feasted on huge piles of meat and buns - which could well have cost thousands of meal coupons four decades ago in communist China. They were served by young waitresses clad in Red Guard uniforms, while performers on stage triumphantly sang of Mao Zedong's victory over capitalist dogs.

When I arrived at the "Authentic Revolutionary Red-themed Restaurant" in Beijing - a good hour's drive from the city centre - I thought I would be stepping back in time, enjoying simple village food from Mao's hometown of Shaoshan in the southern Hunan province and watching re-enactments and readings from the Little Red Book of Mao's sayings performed by earnest socialist devotees.

Mini Mao busts and badge sold at Beijing's Panjiayuan flea market.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

 
Mao's Little Red Book, related literature and a Mao-themed
backpack sold at Beijing's Panjiayuan flea market.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

Instead, we entered what I'm tempted to describe as a socialist equivalent of Moulin Rouge - apart from the fact that the performers on stage were much more covered up than those in the audience.

We were ushered into a huge room with a two-floor-high ceiling, packed with at least 30 tables - each seating about 10 to 12 people - and festooned with decorations such as pictures of revolutionary soldiers and dispays of badges, busts and other Mao memorabilia. Need I even mention the colour theme of the restaurant?

Obviously, red.

At 7.30pm, an hour-long, over-the-top song and dance extravaganza began. About 15 performers dressed in revolution-era uniforms including the distinctive olive green suit with black belt, red armband and jaunty cap donned by masses of Red Guard students during the Cultural Revolution to spread Mao's teachings across the country. The songs were classic: "Red Sun", "The East is Red" - popular tunes delivered in Beijing operatic style by girls and lads far too young to recall the history of bloodshed and revolutionary fervour couched in those lyrics.

A dinner performance at the Mao-era themed Authentic
Revolutionary Red-themed Restaurant in Beijing.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

The highlight of the performance was a dramatic Second World War-era skit and song where the bespectacled, roly-poly Japanese enemy and snarling, shifty-eyed warlord were defeated by the valiant Red Army.
Everyone waved their wine glasses and little red flags - distributed to all the customers so that they could participate fully in the nationalistic display - and cheered as if they themselves had been just been liberated from the opppression of capitalist excess and foreign domination.

I cheered too - in support of "Xiaohua", one of the waitresses I spoke to who went on stage to perform a dance number waving red flowers and pigtails.

"During lunch and dinner time, we take turns to serve the guests, and during the day, we practise several hours of dance so that we can perform at night," said the rosy-cheeked girl in her early 20s.

Asked if she knew much about the Cultural Revolution where bourgeouis or liberal elements were purged, she shook her head and said: "My parents never talk about it."

It appeared that the audience, mostly locals in their 40s and 50s, had few bad memories - if any - of those tumultous times when Mao's Great Leap Forward resulted in a famine where some 30 million people dying of hunger between 1958 and 1960.

Wu Cheng Jiang, a bric a brac seller at the Panjiayuan flea market in Beijing, holds up badges with pictures of Mao Zedong - some of the Mao memorabilia items that he sells.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

Mao-themed watches and alarm clock sold at Beijing's Panjiayuan flea market.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

Perhaps they were too busy enjoying the cuisine, featuring oily, salt-laden portions of root vegetables, braised pork and chilli. While the food was not exactly impressive to a Singaporean palate, it must have tasted good - the other guests, who were almost all locals apart from the odd foreign tourist group - ate with great gusto, but even their excellent appetites were insufficient to clear more than two-thirds of the huge portions.

To cap off the rousing performance, the audience were invited to join stand up and march along to the national anthem...and a Happy Birthday song (both Chinese and broken English versions) to a beaming middle-aged lady whose age was discreetly left unmentioned.

Before we left, we casually asked a waiter how good the business is. If his account is accurate, there is very good money from this restaurant, chalking up revenues of over 30,000 yuan a day. Cost margins are apparently low - labour, food and rental costs are perhaps 20 to 30 per cent at most, and the restaurant apparently has quite a large pool of repeat customers and tour groups.

The boss of "Authentic Revolutionary Red-themed Restaurant" is a successful entrepreneur indeed. Just goes to show that capitalising on the red legacy is the way forward in modern China.

Mao badges sold at Beijing's Panjiayuan flea market.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

Mao commemorative stamps sold at Beijing's Panjiayuan flea market.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

Read related articles in this week's Saturday Special Report here.

THE RECENT diplomatic spat between Mexico and China over the latter's tough quarantine measures to curb a H1N1 flu virus outbreak has become one of the hot topics of conversation among Chinese.

Squeeze into a crowded train - where only a solitary one or two people don masks - and the chit-chat invariably includes an exchange about how terrible it would be if swine flu (nobody seems quite bothered about using its formal name H1N1) broke out in populous China.

"Why are the Mexicans kicking up a fuss about (China's quarantine measures being a form of) discrimmination? The safety of 1.3 billion Chinese people is more important than Mexican dignity," muttered one man to his companion while they read a newspaper plastered with pictures of the Southern Airlines plane that flew to Mexico to collect Chinese nationals, and an aeromexican plane docked in Shanghai to pick up quarantined Mexcian nationals.

SOURCE: AP

SOURCE: AP

SOURCE: AP

Hop into a cab in Beijing and the conversation with the "shifu" usually dredges up a personal account of how the SARS outbreak in 2003 had created pandemonium in the city - and across China - when government officials finally admitted to the full scale of the crisis.

"We were so scared then, and many of us were put in some form of quarantine too," said one driver, Mr Zhang.

"We were shunned by foreigners...and now they are getting a taste of what it's like to be quarantined.

“The Chinese bore with the measures during the SARS period patiently without making noise...and look at how much noise the foreigners are making about staying in a hotel for a week."

Chinese netizens, while overwhelmingly supportive of the government's measures to make sure the H1N1 virus doesn't infiltrate China's densely populated cities, have divergent views about how China should have dealt with the quarantine.

But voices urging moderation have emerged: "I think we should be careful not to just jump on any Mexican or American or Canadian national who enters China and immediately quarantine them - if done badly ("gao by hao"), China could look like a ruffian," one blogger wrote.

Meanwhile, Mr Yang Ya Nan, a waiter at a Mexican restaurant in the Chaoyang district of Beijing, is more disturbed by the Chinese' indiscrimminate discrimmination against Mexican food.

"There has been a sharp drop in customers since May 1," he lamented, noting that there was hardly a single customer during the usually crowded lunch hour and just a handful at dinner time.

"And the customers all avoid pork. The irony is: this is Chinese pork, not Mexican!"

Earlier this week, I was cruising along in a cab at about 3.30pm, usually the lull period before the peak hour traffic. Suddenly, the taxi creaked to a halt and my heart sank at the sight of a mass of honking vehicles clogging up the four-lane road.

"It's strange to encounter a traffic jam at this time of the day," I remarked to the taxi driver.

"Maybe some demonstrators holding up traffic," he muttered.

I was immensely amused: what a great sense of humour Beijing cabbies have!

We inched along for what seemed like eternity, and suddenly spotted a man from afar surrounded by a gaggle of curious on-lookers. He was spawled on the road, chanting slogans drowned out by the din of stalled, croaking car engines.

"This is an unusual road-block." Or so I thought - until the following afternoon, when I walked out of the State Council Information Office building after a press conference by the chief banking regulator Liu Mingkang, along with some 30-odd journalists from local and international news agencies.

We were confronted with the sight of a demonstrator perched precariously on top of a two-storey-tall traffic light on the major eight-lane road. Some security officers were trying to coax the demonstrator down, while a fire engine truck and a few police cars had pulled up underneath, blocking part of the road.

Demonstrator, Mr Li, perching on top of a traffic light above Chaoyangmen inner street.
Source: Grace Ng

But this guy created more than a jam - he generated a media commotion.

Blissfully aware of the dozens of cameras trained on him while journalists and passers-by rushed to get a closer look at him, the demonstrator raised his voice in the name of human rights and power to the people.

"I can give good ideas to run the country! Give me the help of public opinion!" he yelled, while the flimsy paper sign bearing his name Li and his home town - the improverished poor Laohekou city in Hubei province - flapped in the winter wind.

Perhaps the chill was getting to the thinly-dressed, stocky man - I spied a look of relief on Li's face as the civil service personnel ascended in a moving ladder to pluck him down.

I must admit I could not help feeling rather disappointed that he didn't struggle or even protest; instead, Li tore up his paper sign wth a dramatic flourish and eagerly reached out for help to get onto the ladder. Once on the ground, he was promptly whisked away in a police car.

Anyway, his mission was accomplished - Li got his 15 minutes of media fame in front of a captive 'traffic jam audience'.

"What caused the jam just now?" asked the "shi fu" (driver) when I finally flagged down a taxi.

"Oh, it's a demonstrator," I replied.

The "shi fu" didn't even raise an eyebrow.

THE nameless Chinese underground lender had a spiky red hairdo, fierce hairy eyebrows, ruddy cheeks and a toga-like uniform.

He bobbed up and down as I asked questions tentatively, and even made one smiley face when answering me: The "seasonal" interest rate for a 10,000 yuan loan was 12 per cent for three months.

To get my loan application started, I must submit copies of my residency permit (a "hu kou"), identification card and two passport photos.

My first encounter with a representative of an underground bank was on China's popular instant messaging platform QQ.com.

Needless to say, trying to borrow money from a hyperactive cartoon icon which made faces at me on QQ was a surreal experience.

I was in Beijing, and he was in some other part of mainland China, and the only reason I was able to connect online with "Dai Kuan" (which means "loans" in Chinese) was because he had posted his QQ user ID in an online forum ad offering cheap loans to individuals.

What struck me as I was gathering information for my article about underground banks in China was the secrecy and sheer scale of this industry.

Platforms like QQ, online forums and mass SMS advertisements offer the anonymity and the widepsread reach that the tens of thousands of underground banks across China favour.

Some analysts have estimated that the grey banking sector contributes as much as 15 per cent of total bank lending in China.

Underground banks range from sophisticated syndicates of lenders who provide project financing and even foreign exchange transactions for big clients including listed companies and state-owned enterprises, to huddles of family members or friends who pool spare cash to loan out to their contacts, to loansharks with officiously designed corporate websites.

These grey market lenders do not have a license to make loans or take deposits. But they have thrived for decades in China by filling the credit gap left by rigid state-owned banks who may turn away private sector enterprises and individuals because the latter lack a credit history.

Some borrowers also find the loan application process at a state bank too cumbersome.

Nimble and enterprising grey market banks, on the other hand, are said to be more flexible: Manager Liu of Guangzhou XY Company Ltd, for instance, offered a 2000 yuan discount on the interest payment for a 50,000 yuan loan paid up within a year when asked for better terms.

Underground banks are also known to have quick response times - some advertise "one working day" approval for loan applications.

But a prompt response does not mean that they are forthcoming in giving full information.

Take Manager Zhao of JX Loan and Financing Group, who claimed to be located in Beijing despite having a mobile number registered in a different province.

Only after some probing did he reveal that an approved loan of 50,000 yuan for one year actually yields only 45,000 yuan - the interest payment of 10 per cent is deducted upfront.

If the borrower defaults on payment? "We will sue you in court," he said.

Somehow, that threat did not carry much weight for me.

But news stories abound about the strong-arm tactics by other underground banks that do strike fear into the hearts of hapless borrowers: death threats, vandalising property, using connections with provincial officials to create trouble, in order to extort loan payments from borrowers.

The government has been clamping down on illegal lenders. Nonetheless, these grey market shops still appear to be going strong, operating beneath the radar by using anonymous online personas and frequently changed mobile numbers to communicate with their clientele.

When I went on QQ the following day to look for "Dai Kuan" hoping to get a formal media interview, I found that the account had been deleted.

But who knows, perhaps he may surface somewhere else on QQ as a blonde bombshell with pink leggings.

You're at a hawker centre and you call out in your “O” Level A-grade Chinese to the stall owner: “Xiao jie ah, ke yi gei wo duo yi ge tang chi.”

The 50-plus-year-old Auntie will readily give you a spoon.

But say that in a Beijing and chances are that the fu wu yuan will glare at you for (1) implying she is a xiao jie offering services more appropriate in a motel than in a Chinese restaurant; (2) for being a yellow-skinned lao wai who is so ignorant that you don't even know local lingo like  “shao zi”; and (3) for being downright rude.

The gap in the way Singaporeans and mainland Chinese communicate has landed some Singaporeans in a few scrapes and prompted them to join the growing pool of students signing up for Business Mandarin classes. 

One Singaporean recalled how bemused he was when a Chinese official diplomatically welcomed him as a yuan qing - a polite term, often used to refer to the bilateral ties between mainland China and Singapore). Being a straight-talking guy, he corrected the official: “No, you're wrong, I don’t have any faraway relatives living in China.” That gaffe got him “clobbered by the boss”. He learnt his lesson and promptly signed up for business mandarin courses.  

This anecdote jolted my memory with an interview I did during a press trip to Tianjin last year.

The Chinese official corrected me for referring to Zhong Guo when talking about various investments in the country, and suggested that I use nei di instead, as I am an ethnic Chinese hua ren and therefore should not refer to China as the foreigners would.

This puzzled me initially as I had translated nei di literally in my head as “inland”. But I certainly was not about to protest – especially since I was busy figuring out how to discreetly empty my allotted share of 5 cups of potent bai jiu (white wine) into a plastic bag I had stowed under the table, without being spotted by the generous Chinese hosts.

I wished then that I had learnt some tips about how to navigate Chinese cultural norms and popular business practices – like the proper etiquette and toasting procedure during endless gan bei sessions – before I went on the Tianjin trip. It was a sentiment echoed by Singaporeans who joined classes at centres such as the Singapore Chinese Chamber Institute of Business (SCCIOB) after suffering culture shock on their maiden business trips to China.

There were students like Julie Chong and Grace Yeo who impressed me with their genuine passion for the Chinese culture and language, which are so closely intertwined. For them, commercial use of their bilingual ability was a secondary consideration. No wonder they were willing to fork out several thousand dollars to attend a bachelors of arts degree course at the Singapore Institute of Management on English-Mandarin translation and interpretation.

But what intrigued me most was that practically all of the business mandarin students in the - admittedly small - random sample that I interviewed seemed to take up the course out of desperation. 

They had discovered their language inadequacy and cultural barriers only after struggling with their interactions with mainland Chinese clients. They were taking the courses purely for pragmatic reasons, and just as an after-thought, rather than something that they planned to do in preparation for work in China. 

As one student told me: “I just want enough business Mandarin to get a deal going there, and then get out, and get back to my comfort zone in Singapore. Frankly, I sometimes wish I’m a westerner instead of a Singaporean, so that the Chinese would excuse me for my bad Mandarin and let me use a translator without despising me.”

Nothing wrong with pragmatism, or with yearning for the comfort zone. I grew up speaking English, but I've been immersing myself in all things Mandarin - from Zhang Ailing novels to popular Chinese search engine Baidu, to the sheng jing (bible) - not just because I'm fascinated with China, but also because I know my life and world will be profoundly shaped by the roaring dragon economy.  

But I couldn't help contrasting the rather half-hearted desperation displayed by some Singaporeans to learn Chinese with the impassioned drive displayed by the millions of Chinese who underwent English boot camp to prepare for the Beijing Olympics, portrayed in the movie “Mad About English”. I was gripped by awe when I watched masses of Chinese people hurl themselves into the great campaign to learn English -  for the success of the Beijing Olympics, for the honour of their parents, for the reputation of their glorious country. They were learning English to communicate with the world, because those foreigners are to be pitied for not knowing how to speak the great Chinese language.  

Try shouting that sort of motivational slogans in mandarin classes in Singapore and I can wager my brand-new 1248-page Advanced English-Chinese dictionary that the response may be well be one of stunned – even incredulous - silence. 

What a world of difference.

Read Grace Ng's full report Professionals hit by language fever.

I was flabbergasted: "Why?"

Lisa rolled her eyes at me in an oh-so-sophisticated way and said precociously: "I get to wear nice clothes and tell rich people how to use their money".

It sounded a lot like what Little Miss Private Banker Wannabe already does at home, but I wasn't going to going to spoil her fun (and mine), so I ventured another interview question: "How did you know about what private bankers do, Lisa?"

She tilted her head, just so, for dramatic effect, and said authoritatively: "From the newspapers lah."

That's when I told myself: I have failed as a journalist.

Having covered the Singapore financial sector - which includes the flourishing private banking industry - for four years, I have written quite extensively about hiring and growth trends. From 2004 to last year, private banks were sprouting up in Shenton Way, and announcing with great fanfare their plans to hire thousands of private bankers and their torrid double-digit growth in assets under management.

Those were the days when my friends in corporate and investment banking were all taking the yellow brick road - we all hoped - towards fortune and the fine life in wealth management. 

Those were the days when the clarion call for more Singaporeans to train as private bankers to address the talent crunch reveberated through the office cubicles of engineers, accountants, IT staff, etc. It stirred young professionals to arise, go forth, take financial courses and cross over into the green pastures of private banking.

I wrote about all that, and I'll admit: I was guilty of glamourising the sector.

It was a sexy news angle afterall. And really, every private banker I had seen under 50 was glamourous and looked like they just walked out of a fashion magazine. (By the way, they still look like that, two years down the road  - in spite of being in 24/7 stand-by mode for their clients' calls and meeting what seemed like gargantuan targets for new assets and revenue each year. I have yet to weasle out their beauty secrets, but who knows, it may well be the pinacle of my journalistic career to break that scoop).

But I also partly believed in it myself. When I got a couple of headhunter calls at that time, I was tempted - but a little voice in my head intoned: "You're still too young, you're not mature or humble enough to advise clients who have eaten more salt than you have rice." (Plus I'm not drop-dead gorgeous and I did have a six-year scholarship bond.)

I have no idea how I got that notion in my head that maturity had anything to do with successful private banking. But two years later - still a journalist on The Straits Times' Money Desk - I interviewed a private banker with 20 years of experience who told me almost exactly the same thing.

He was one of the over 20 private bankers that I interviewed for today's mega Saturday Special Report on private bankers. He knew his stuff; he had survived. But frankly, he wasn't anything I had really expected a typical successful private banker to be.

He acknowledged it himself: "I'm balding, old, cheena-looking, can't speak polished English, don't know much about wine and art, and I'm quite boring. But I'm mature and I know how to listen to clients."

Age and maturity. There it is again. Seven-year-olds need not apply.

Indeed, what jumped out at me when speaking to heads of private banks is that the really valued private bankers are neither the ones who are beautiful, nor those who have a Wharton finance degree or Wall Street pedigree. (Although all those traits do help.) 

Those who are survivers and thrivers have discretion, stamina, perseverence, emotional maturity, honed through at least eight years' experience in the private banking sector. 

They also know how to offer their clients advice on financial decision-making to enrich their family lives and seek significance and legacy in a life complicated by money - lots of it. 

One thing I omitted in today's Saturday Special Report is the philanthropic advisory activities of private bankers. Setting up foundations and donating to needy causes don't quite fall under the advisory scope of a private banker, but they are in a unique position to influence their clients to enrich others (especially the poor and disenfranchised) and not just themselves.

So when I wrote this mega feature on private bankers, I set out to debunk some myths and set the record straight about the common perception of a private banker's job. I wrote it for kids like Lisa - hoping they will aspire to be mature and community-minded before they grow up to advise others on how to invest.

I hope it helps.

Read Grace Ng's Saturday Special Report in The Straits Times today.