Honestly, I don’t understand what’s with this prejudice some people have against China. Even telling people that I’m off to innocent Shenzhen for a weekend of cavorting with foot-masseurs and having clothes tailor-made, always elicits the reaction: Be careful!

Not only people who have never been across the border, but an astonishing number of fairly seasoned travellers in this most intriguing of countries seem to harbour an underlying worry that the great red dark Communist landmass of China is actually something to be, if not entirely avoided so at least treated with the greatest trepidation, like some unexploded landmine.

. “China is dangerous!” they wail. “It’s dirty! Everybody is a crook! You’ll get robbed! Or worse!”

Hong Kong people both of the local and beige persuasion, I feel, are strange in that they’d rather spend hours getting to the airport and go through is more and more gruelling security checks only to sit shaking in an awful plane for hours to go to the accepted holiday destinations Phuket, Kotakinabalu and Bali.

To walk dignifiedly or take a leisurely taxi to Hong Hom station and get on a train without any particular to-do with destination Somewhere in China, our closest holiday destination, almost seems like something not quite above board.

Thus, when I announced just before Chinese New Year that I would go hitch-hiking in China, I expected many a rueful warning about darkly hinted-at calamities that would befall me. But it seemed that at that stage my friends had already written me off as lost. A couple of weak quackings of “be careful” was all I got. I was almost disappointed.

As it turned out, and as I fully expected: Hitch-hiking in China beats every other means of transport, including the sacred train, hands down.

It wasn’t the first time I and my trusty fellow China-lover Lee had hitch-hiked in our beloved motherland. Only the year before we had stuck our thumbs out to great success in Inner Mongolia, stuck on the grasslands somewhere outside Hohhot and freezing our arses off waiting for a bus that never came.

We got picked up by the second car passing that day, that of a kind doctor, and driven all the way to our hotel with much exchanging of telephone numbers.

This time we wanted to see the innermost regions of Guangdong province, a province criminally overlooked by the Hong Kong tourist industry. Surely Guangdong is one of the most wondrous provinces of China and without doubt the one with the friendliest and most accommodating people. And believe me, after 18 years of extensive travel in China, that says a lot.

Because we were hitch-hiking, which is in itself a fate-inviting undertaking, we decided to leave everything up to fate. So when the bus to our intended first stop Siu Heng (Zhaoxing) in the west of Guangdong, known as “Little Guilin” due to its scraggy crags and many lakes would only leave the station in Shenzhen two hours later, we decided to get on the first bus that was taking off. It was the bus to Sei wui. (Sihui.)

After a three hour quite harrowing journey (anybody who has ever perused the “bus crashes in China-pages of the SCMP is bound to be a little wary of bus travel in China) we got off in a charming town which, despite its propensity for huge Arc De Triomphe-like structures and a screaming CNY atmosphere, turned out to be the perfect starting point for an adventure. After being told that a room in our hotel was the bar and finding ourselves gate crashing a rather large party, we were soon part and parcel of that town’s party scene and were duly invited to celebrate new year with an accommodating young man’s family the next evening.

After forcing down some wine steeped in the bosom of several snakes for a number of years we fell in with the general merry-making of the family, most of whose members were glued to the television screen throughout. As in every country at new year, China’s national and regional TV channels offer up various kinds of extravaganza during the celebrations, and we were privileged to view the spectacle of the Tibetan people welcoming the influx of Han Chinese carried into the “province” by train after endless train, giving their thanks to the government of China and to the ever protective PLA through the medium of mass dance in their festive national costume.

The next day our adventure started in earnest, in light drizzle and under a huge poster proclaiming in text and pictures that the PLA and the people of China were as one. We stuck our thumbs and chests out, and soon a car with three young guys stopped, wondering what we were doing. Didn’t we know the bus stop was on the other side of town? By this time we had learnt the term “hitch-hiking” in Cantonese, and after much discussion between them they suddenly drove off. But to us even a driving off car, having stopped, was a victory. And when the three guys came back to pick us up after having been gone for twenty minutes, we were away.

Far into the inner hinterland they took us, to meet the driver’s father for breakfast in the guys’ home village, a road with the inevitable tiled monster houses signifying that someone had come into money by foul means or fair. They had been on an adventure/whoring trip to Seiwui to celebrate the new year, and were reasonably sated. With many admonitions from the father (a communist party bigwig) about calling him at government offices at the first sign of trouble, we then bought an umbrella and hitch-hiked on. Children came running out of their houses inviting us for tea, but we had bigger fish to stir-fry.

The further away we got from big towns, the more frequently cars stopped to pick us up. Past the last frontier of Guangling and its hinter-lying charming bamboo forest and dreamy lakes, it was all systems go. We barely had time to get out of one car, forget about sticking out any digits or organs, before another car, sometimes two, stopped.

The road, meanwhile, started to give up all pretense of ever having been covered in tarmac. Only my underwired bra saved me from serious hopping injury as I was thrown about in the steering cabin of the truck that took us from …. to ….. We quickly learnt that saying “Oh, anywhere!” was not the right answer to the question of where we were going, and always picked the closest destination to where we were being picked up, as our answer.

So when on the last stretch from …. to Siu Heng, where we were planning to spend the last night and take a leisurely but scary bus back to Shenzhen on the last day, two guys in the smallest car I’ve ever seen picked us up just as we were getting out of the car of a family of three travelling around Guangdong province of a New Year, I wisely said we were going to ………., 20 kilometers down the road.

Neither Lee nor I are particularly small people and with his rucksack and my wheelie bag we had problems fitting into their car. The driver took it in his stride though but with gritted teeth I couldn’t help but notice.

We wanted to get to Siu Heng, one of the greatest party towns of China, the same day, and I was therefore Happy to glean from the guys’ conversation that they were also going there. Siuheng! That’s where we’re going too! A decidedly morbid atmosphere descended upon the car and its inhabitants. After much prodding I got it out of the driver: Yes they were going to Siu heng but with the additional weight of us on board they wouldn’t be able to drive fast enough to get there in time for work.

Oh, the Chinese penchant for hospitality! We had to beg him to let us off at the next stop so that he could get to his destination on time. They drove off, hesitantly at first and then at great speed, skipping over the many bumps and holes in the road now that 200 kilo of foreigner was got rid of.

Back in Hong Kong many people I know expressed great surprise at seeing me alive. Honestly, what are these people like? I used to swear by train travel in China but from now on, only hitch-hiking will do for me. Everything else is too slow.

My family has been in the "rag trade" for 3 generations. My late grandmother, Charles Chan Kent was an uneducated but driven individual who did not throw in the towel. He had to support 14 of his children and founded Aero Garment Ltd. which became the largest clothing manufacturer in Western Canada in the 1970's. I am one of his 60 grandschildren. You could say that fashion was in my "jeans".

In elementary school I worked cutting the grass and trimming the edges around my grandmother's building for $ 1.00 an hour – slave labor. My younger brother only got paid $ .50 / hour for cutting the edges with a manual hedge cutter – child labor. They managed to trim his pay in half and get him cheap. It took 4 hours for us to do the yard work as we had to crouch and hunch over to trim the edges along the building as there were no electric or gas trimmers back then.

In high school my brothers and I worked in the shipping department (aka – the concentration camp) every summer packing garments into boxes, counting inventory, and pulling orders under a strict slave driver who timed us for every task we did. I called him the taskmaster, as he camped out in his office ready to whip us into shape and punish us for making mistakes. There was no favoritism for the young offspring of the family. When I got older I was given a pardon and was transferred to the accounting department to do bookkeeping under my father who was the CFO of the company. In fact all the males in my family were accountants. My father and songer brother were CGAs, and my older brother was a CMA; but I was just an MIA – missing in action.

In 1985 I worked part-time selling the fabrics that were left over after every season. My grandfather had 5 sons who ran the business. There was Sonny and a Bunny; but there was no funny, honey or money. I cut swatches, pasted them onto black cardboard backing, created my own booklet and set off to sell to whatever was interested. I worked off a straight 10% commission basis and was given no salary, car allowance, or gas money. It was a matter of survival; – sink or swim, or do or die; as our family did not believe in giving any free handouts. The only thing they believed in was giving free advice.

At first they thread me a bunch of swatches and prices and told me to run with it, so I was left cold calling, developing my sales pitch and trying not to strike out. Yet I was fortunately to win a number of clients in the retail and wholesale industry, including local manufacturers and School Boards. In order to earn my commission for each sale, I was required to fulfill each order by measuring the fabric rolls, cutting to order, and packing the rolls separately in boxes. Back in the eighties acid wash jeans were the craze and the factory had two dedicated washing machines to create the wash effects. Fortunately I used some ingenuity to create more business by acid washing all our denim fabric ends and selling them in bulk by the pound to various fabric chains such as Fabricland, Fanny's Fabrics and the Angel Merchandising Group. In addition I purchased scraps from other denim manufacturers and processed them for sale as well. You could say that I sold a ton and took my clients to the cleaners.

Since we had our own garment wash / dye facilities on site I was given the added challenge of generating extra revenue from other manufacturers. Occasionally I received business from companies such as Please Mum stores, Levi jean sub-contractors, and other denim makers. I also learned how to drive a one ton truck and picked up jeans and garments from various garment manufacturers in town. Every day I would drive down narrow back alleles picking up jeans from various clients and trying to maneuver the beast without damaging it. One client of mine was Starboard Pant factory located in Vancouver Chinatown. I bulldo so so often that I nicknamed the vehicle – the "wonton" truck.

A year later I was offered the additional responsibility of overseeing the embroidery department and solicit extra contract work. I flew down to New Jersey to learn how to digitize, repair and operate our two 20 head multi-color embroidery machines and traveled to California to co-design a custom magnetic frame attachment to increase the efficiency of embroidering designs on denim back pockets. Some of the clients I worked with were local manufacturers such as Westbeach, corporate apparel companies, and businesses who had licenses to produce goods for companies such as Disney. By this time I was really reaping what I was sewing.

After graduating at Simon Fraser University in Finance in 1987 I worked full-time for the family business. In a year, I became part of the management team and took on the role of Purchasing Manager in charge of forecasting and MRP (material requirements planning). I sat in meetings with our designers as they reviewed the new fabric lines that were presented. I then corresponded with the sales agents once the fabrics were selected for the season. Learning about fabric construction and composition was a bit hard to digest at first, but I dreaded more about having to think about avenues of discarding the leftovers after the season.

Two years later once again I was moved to improve the efficiency of the Distribution department and help expedite orders in a timely fashion. I guess the family must have figured that the leadership style was outdated and needed to be re-designed to be more progressive. The company did not believe in being fashionably late.

After improving the efficiency of the Shipping and Distribution departments I was asked to oversee Operations from cutting, sewing, pressing, and trimming. The biggest challenge was to interact with all 300 workers who only spoke Chinese. So in order to communicate with them without looking foolish, I mastered the fine craft of nodding, and became very fluent in the art of Chinese sign language.

Aero Garment Ltd. originally hired a new President outside of the family who started a Corporate Apparel division and I assisted in the procurement and inventory management. The company recently set up a new Screen Print division and purchased some manual and automatic screen print machines. The Corporate Apparel division became quite successful and we had contracts with Hooters restaurant chains worldwide, Alice Coopersville, Coast Mountain Bus Co., Westjet Airlines, Mr. Lube, and Speedy Glass. I assisted negotiate and win contracts with the government and other large accounts, but did not have the benefit of socializing with clients such as Hooters.

As time wore on, the onslaught of imports took its toll on local manufacturing and made it difficult for us to compete. In 2004, the 5th 2nd generation family members decided to wind down the business, retire and to settle their estates, while the rest of us wound up having to settle on finding opportunities elsewhere.

During this time my wife and I had a son. I never imagined becoming a Mr. Mom, but I took on the challenge from being a Top Gun to a Pop Gun and was preparing for the big "change." Two years later we had a daughter and I had the opportunity to be blessed with being a stay-at-home parent and loving it. While looking after my children I spent one year studying to obtain my Supply Chain design. I formed a study group, flew out to Toronto for a week of residency, and then passed the grueling 2 day exam to acquire my SCMP (Supply Chain Management Professional) design.

I have since established my own company and have focused on developing, designing and marketing innovative kitchenware products. I consider that it was time for another change in my life and begin the process of transforming from being a Mr. Mom to becoming a Pop-preneur. But change is good.