- On 22 June 1993, I flew first class to Shanghai, starting a 3-month contract to produce Western pop radio shows.
- My role was to sell coffee through radio programs, but I initially questioned if moving to China was a mistake.
- A creative editing test in Scotland secured my job, leading to a life-changing adventure in China for 32 years.
- Early 1990s China was challenging for foreigners, but I learned to embrace cultural differences and reject notions of superiority.
Sweltering it was that humid Saturday night in Shanghai. The date was 22 June, 1993. I was sat in seat 2A of Northwest Airlines flight NW001 from Detroit to Tokyo, and the flight’s then-recently added leg into Shanghai. Aboard the mighty Boeing 747 jumbo jet, it was the first and only time I flew first class (a free upgrade for that final leg).
As we were waiting to deplane, an adorable flight attendant did a remarkable thing. We had got chatting during the flight, and as I gathered my things, the African American, overly tall for a flight attendant in my opinion, came up and handed me a bottle of the ship’s champaign. “This is the last piece of civilisation you’re going to be seeing for a while”, he said.
3 months to be precise. That was the length of my contract; to come to China to produce radio programmes of western pop music. To be beamed to millions.
More accurately, or cynically, as I was to find out later, I had in fact come to China to sell coffee. Those radio programmes were the vehicle for that endeavour.
Sounded great in principle, but looking out of the window into the darkness, I saw nothing but drab grey concrete. Shanghai International Airport needed to work on its PR. And buy some more light bulbs. And I simply thought, “I’ve either made the worst decision of my life, or the best decision”. It was to turn out to be the latter, but I’d need around 15 years to figure that one out.
The sky was also grey, and it was to to stay that way for the next 20-plus years, but my decision was going to also turn out to be one hell of an adventure, and the best education on the human spirit and geopolitical relations for which one could ever hope. Much of it was even to take place without the internet, and somehow, 3 months was to turn into 32 years.
But before I got to my business class and first class seats, I had a test to pass.
It was utterly surreal that I was about to start work for a company that had its bases of operations as a three-star hotel room in Shanghai and an idyllic stone cottage in a tiny Scottish Highland village (comprising seven stone cottages to be precise).
Banging on the door of the one belonging to my boss-to-be and former Programme Controller of the UK’s most listened to (and then smallest) radio station, the legendary Brian Anderson of Radio Caroline fame, I said, “I need a job”. He said, “You can go to Chengdu. But first I need to go buy some milk”.
As he walked out of the door for his 30-minute run to the town of Nairn for milk, I was assigned the task of making Billy’s Joel’s “We didn’t start the Fire” China friendly.
That meant cutting out the line that says, “China’s under martial law”, while still keeping the musical structure of the song intact. But that’s only one bar of 4/4 time. I’d need to replace it and another to preserve the rhyme and do it with just a razor blade; no digital effects then to cover any slip-shod editing.
The test was passed and for my efforts I was rewarded an Apple Powermac 100, US$1,500 in travellers’ Chequers, a business class ticket to Shanghai and a lift to Glasgow Airport. Then I was on my own, as a 23 year old about to cross the world and go live and work in Shanghai (and Chengdu).
But I was also provided with explanation as to why I had been given a 3-month contract. I had, naturally, presumed it to be a probationary period. But no. Brian simply said, “It’s to see if you like China. And more importantly, if it likes you”.
It was a telling point. Many a foreigner comes to China to initially enjoy a “honeymoon period”. There is the initial excitement at all that is splendid and new. But the practicalities of life could back then weigh heavily on some; the language barrier seemingly insurmountable, the culture too far removed from that to which one is familiar.
The early 1990s were without doubt a tough time for foreigners to live in China. The flip side of the coin was that many Chinese appeared to be in adoration of the West, assuming it to be somehow better.
This attitude was partly political in sentiment, but it was also based on a few Hollywood movies that had somehow been smuggled in. As I arrived in China, my first lesson learnt was that there is no better, there is no worse, there is only different.