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Friday, September 14, 2007

Xiamen: tech malls and cows

By Dan Zehr | Friday, September 14, 2007, 10:25 AM

XIAMEN, China — My trip to Asia to check out Dell’s operations there took me to Xiamen, where Dell has two factories.

I went to a tech mall called “Computer Town” or “Technology Town.” Outside there are a bunch of vendors selling all kinds of accessories, electronics and software. It looks like a sidewalk sale here. One guy was selling clearly bootlegged copies of Windows XP and other software titles.

This mall is noticeably smaller than those in Singapore and Shanghai, which is to say it’s only three floors. There are fewer vendors, and the ones with the best space of shops that open up directly onto the covered walkway outside. Most also have a back door that appears to go pretty much unused.

There is an inside to this mall as well, with more of the white box and smaller vendors having space in there. China Unicom and other types of electronics stores are here as well.

Heading out one exit, a vendor had a whole wall of bins filled with computer parts. It looked like the bins to buy nuts or grains at Whole Foods, only you probably don’t buy I/O cables and transistors by the pound.

Compared to Shanghai, Xiamen almost feels quaint. Not far from Dell’s two factories, there’s a pair of four-lane roads that intersect. There’s no traffic light, and no Mr. Nice Guy when trying to drive through.

It is considered a mid-size town, but population is a relative phenomenon in China. Xiamen’s population is approaching 2 million people, and the signs of its growth are remarkable. Older, run down apartment buildings are getting replaced by new high-rises with all manner of architectural twists and frills to catch the eye.

The best illustration I’ve seen of Xiamen’s competing future and past could be found along the Island Circle highway, which rings the isle on which Xiamen sits. Every couple miles along one stretch of the road, crews of workers in orange jumpsuits and wide, reed hats were grooming the landscape to perfection.

I started looking out for the next one, thinking I’d get a quick count of how many people were working on each crew. Only the next work crew consisted on a couple cows lazily chewing cud of the overgrown grass.

Still, in Xiamen and cities like it in coastal China, sights like a few cows grazing along the road are becoming relics. Just on the other side of the road, a long wall divided the road from yet another construction site, this one for a new yacht club.

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