High tech and hot pot, p.4
High Tech and Hot Pot, page 4
Sesame Credit is a credit scoring app from the Alibaba Group, the biggest IT company in China. Participation is voluntary, but those who behave themselves can relatively easily get small amounts of credit from banks and don’t have to leave a deposit when hiring bikes, borrowing power banks or even renting umbrellas. A high number of points has advantages on some dating apps and can even help to jump the line when visiting the doctor. It is similar to collecting payback bonus points, but the real collector is Alibaba. Sesame Credit, the twenty-first-century equivalent of the command “Open sesame,” allows Ali Baba to open the door to treasures more valuable than gold and diamonds together—the data of Chinese consumers. And that information is not only stored on the servers of the business; the state authorities also have access to it.
The waiter scans Simone’s phone again and the beers are paid for. Diego remembers that he owes her a couple of yuan. He sends it to her in a digital red envelope via a WeChat message that takes a few seconds. When I pay for the next round, I have to fish around awkwardly in my wallet for a couple of crumpled banknotes. I feel behind the times, as if I had just presented my hosts with a cassette mixtape and then asked them for directions to the nearest telephone booth. A long time ago, the Chinese invented paper money; now they are on the verge of being the first to abandon it.
“I never take cash when I go out,” says Simone. “People are lazy, so naturally I do what is easiest.” But the company’s data hoarding worries her. “Sometimes I baidu something, and then later when I’m on the Taobao site, the very thing I was looking for is offered to me. They’ve got some nerve simply passing on my customer information,” she complains. Baidu is the equivalent of Google, which is blocked in China, and Taobao is like a mixture of eBay and Amazon.
The development of Sesame Credit, and other such apps, will soon enable an almost complete surveillance of the population. “The gentleman understands what is moral, the small man what is profitable,” was known to Confucius.2 Let’s merge the two, thought the Communist Party, and came up with the social credit system that is soon to be introduced nationwide.
Here you can lose points by failing to pay your debts on time, for example, or driving through red traffic lights or visiting online porn sites. Conversely, those who pay rent punctually, save a child or report a crime are rewarded with points. It is almost as if somebody is sitting somewhere judging every living moment, then rating it with: good, medium or bad. Life becomes a computer game, with video referee and constant appraisal. Some people might enjoy it, but failure has direct consequences: those who score badly are less likely to obtain credit, are forced to pay more for insurance or, in extreme cases, are not allowed to travel by train or plane. The ultimate tool to control people’s behavior and to reduce criminality but also to demand unconditional obedience to the state.
A number of cities are already running pilot schemes where even political opinions are incorporated into the ratings. “It’s all about what you have posted online and how your friends respond,” says Simone. “If you are married, then you are considered relatively ‘stable.’ With children, more so. But if a friend of mine criticizes the government on Weibo, it will also affect my points in the future. It’s crazy that such plans haven’t caused an international outcry, isn’t it? Cheers.”
On the way home, my hosts show me a red-light district that is only two streets away from where they live. Shenzhen was long known as “second wife city,” because rich men from Hong Kong played sugar daddy and financed their concubines’ apartments and visits to the shopping mall. As the cost of living in Shenzhen creeps ever closer to that of the neighboring city, however, the practice has declined. But prostitution, though officially forbidden, seems to be flourishing. We pass bars with names like Titty Twister, China Dolls and the Why Not Bar but resist the luring calls of the heavily made-up doorway sirens and the purred offers of “massagies” from casual side-street would-be acquaintances.
Diego wants to show me his favorite place on the street. Through an inconspicuous door we enter a room in which a number of men are standing in front of a sheet of glass, inspecting an international range of beauties while being watched by surveillance cameras. Blonde or brown, light or dark, the prices are directly below the goods, and payment is made via WeChat. “It even works without proof of age,” says Diego. Paulaner, Erdinger, Leffe, Guinness and many other brands are at the ready behind the window. “In China you can get almost anything from machines, even beer. Crazy, isn’t it?” He then taps in a code for three cans of Kronenbourg 1664, for the way home. Diego’s favorite attraction in the red-light district is a machine.
In my life I’ve been caught in the flash of speed cameras a few times and know precisely the four phases my mind shoots through in the ensuing milliseconds: surprise → anger at the overzealous cops → worried glance at the speedometer → resignation. This sequence is so inculcated that being flashed by a camera on the sidewalk causes considerable irritation. It happens between the red-light street and a less shady neighboring road. Walking too quickly? Routine face check? Suspicion of visiting a brothel? I can find no plausible explanation but suspect it is one of the last two options. Just to check that the alcohol hasn’t clouded my judgment, I walk back. Another flash. And, because now it really doesn’t matter anymore, and because that last beer was one too many, I walk by one more time, with a big smile. At least they’ll have something to laugh at. The high-resolution box-shaped camera, made by Hikvision, comes from the city of Hangzhou and is the worldwide leader in surveillance technology. The company doesn’t have to worry about sales volume in the coming years. Several hundred million such cameras are in operation in China, and there is still demand for more.
Motorists, by the way, are recorded constantly on all the major streets, not only to catch them driving too fast but also to see whether they are wearing seat belts and just to keep an eye on where they are cruising around. As I learn later, sometimes there are flashes without photos being taken, simply to send the message: Hey, we’re watching what you’re up to.
I will never find out whether and where my three pedestrian films are stored. But I can spot surveillance cameras that are on 24-7 on every street corner. There will be a film version of this trip recorded somewhere, without my having to take a cameraperson, with hours and hours of material of streets, railway stations and parks. Somebody just has to make the effort to edit it.
At home Diego sets up a camp cot for me in the middle of the living room. Soon I’m alone with five energetic cats who don’t seem to realize the connection between lights out and sleep. They climb up the curtains, jump over the sofa and camp cot, racing back and forth from the scratching post to my backpack, mewing and spitting, wrangling and fighting. I lie there like a living prop at a Gulliver’s Travels–themed costume party and mull over what a load of perfect-world nonsense the cartoon Simon’s Cat is. One single bloody cat—boy, oh boy, that guy had problems.
Pickwick decides to use my elbow as a starting ramp for a reckless jump. The claws of the cat’s hind legs catch the skin, and I’m left with two red scratches and blood dripping onto my T-shirt. I grab my phone. The internet diagnoses toxoplasmosis, cat-scratch disease, tetanus or, at the very least, blood poisoning. Somewhere deep inside my backpack I find some antiseptic spray. The party around me goes on for hours.
“How was it with the cats?” asks Simone in the morning as she shuffles out of the bedroom and sees Pickwick, Alba and Pumpkin innocently dozing at my feet.
“Interesting,” I reply truthfully, while hiding my abused elbow under the sheets.
• • • • • •
DURING THE DAY, Simone and Diego both have something to do, so I explore the city on my own. On the Couchsurfing site I created a “public trip” so that other members could see that I am in Shenzhen and would enjoy meeting some locals. One person responded and left her WeChat contact details: Qing, thirty-four, a policewoman. Her job makes me a bit suspicious. Particularly here, as I have never seen a place with so many security cameras. So, as a foreign journalist, am I about to be allocated a minder after all? My gut feeling says I should be cautious and cancel the meeting. Especially as she looks pretty. I open up the WeChat message window.
To: Qing Policewoman
Ni hao Qing, I am Stephan from couchsurfing. I would love to meet you! Is 5pm ok?
HIGH TECH AND HOT POT
DESPITE ITS SPECTACULAR skyscrapers, Shenzhen is not a place of beauty, but at least it has a pretty promenade with a view of Hong Kong and the air quality is better than in most other Chinese megacities. If tourists were less interested in beaches and relaxation and more in a look at the future, then Shenzhen would be their city. They could, for instance, visit the Huaqingbei market, a gigantic electronic toy bazaar, with household robots, telescopic lenses for cell phones, shimmering gold karaoke mics with integrated echo effect and, of course, drones, buzzing around like giant insects, most made by DJI, the industry’s world leader from Shenzhen. Also based here is the technology giant Tencent, which transformed WeChat from a simple WhatsApp copy to a universal app for all aspects of life. Nowadays, you can use it to pay for things, organize a wedding, book flights, buy cars and take out insurance, usually at a more reasonable price than its competitors.
Also, the telecommunication giants Huawei and ZTE come from Shenzhen. There are more patent applications from this city than from France and Great Britain together. China is, at the moment, going through a transformation into a country of innovation, especially in the field of digital technology. With the construction of a network of transmission masts with ultrafast 5G technology, China has just managed to overtake the US. By 2030, President Xi Jinping wants China to be number one in the world in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.
I witness where all this high-tech development can lead at the intersection of Xinzhou Road and Lianhua Road, northwest of the idyllic Lianhuashan Park.
Five Chinese Companies to Know
Alibaba Group. The largest IT company in China to which belong the online shopping platforms Taobao and Tmall, as well as the payment system Alipay, among others.
Tencent. The developer of WeChat, the biggest all-round app, with more than 1 billion users. Additionally, the world’s leading video game producer.
Baidu. China’s largest search engine, with 65 percent market share. The contents displayed are filtered after consultation with the government.
JD.com. China’s answer to Amazon but with an integrated logistical system allowing extremely quick delivery of products nationwide. Many goods are already being delivered by drones.
Didi. A ride-sharing company along the lines of Uber but with more customers—more than 25 million trips are booked daily.
Behind two pedestrian crossing lights, LED screens have been fixed, framed by text in blue: “Shenzhen Traffic Police—we can recognize your face. Intelligent cameras will take your picture if you cross on red.” An animation shows a computer comparing heads and an eager policeman at the station viewing umpteen screen pages of personal information. “We have your data” is the subtitle. “We know how often you have broken the law.” Then there are a few sample photos of offenders.
The appearance of technological perfection is somewhat marred by the notification in the upper right corner of the screen recommending an update to the newest version of Google Chrome. Nevertheless, there is no doubting the efficiency of the technology, as according to the police’s own information, almost fourteen thousand jaywalkers have been caught in ten months.
Public display of the red-light offenders is just the first step. In the future, those caught will immediately receive a message on their cell phone that includes an automatic debit for the fine and deducts points in the social credit system.
In the afternoon, I have a meeting with Policewoman Qing. I take an e-cab to the InTown shopping mall in Futian district, where she awaits me.
“There is a hot pot restaurant here that is famous for good service,” she says on greeting me. She is wearing a light blue jacket, white jeans and white sneakers, with her hair tied in a ponytail. Analysis by a face recognition software would reveal: oval, almost perfectly symmetrical face, high forehead, slight wrinkling around black eyes, narrow eyebrows, wide nose and small ears.
“How are your hosts?” she asks.
“Great. But their five cats are a bit troublesome—they had a wild party all night long.”
We ride the escalator to Haidilao on the fourth floor. The waiting area is equipped with snacks of peanuts and cherry tomatoes, board games and a free manicure service in a creative approach to calming the usual flurry here.
A beaming receptionist greets us, a beaming staff member leads us to our table and her beaming colleague inquires about our well-being. He guides Qing into her chair and ceremoniously presents the menu—a tablet computer in an orange case. China’s customer service companies often have two to three times the number of personnel compared to Europe’s, but they are seldom as overly friendly as here.
“We’re lucky that we are here so early. Sometimes you have to wait more than an hour,” says Qing.
Her dainty appearance doesn’t really match her voice, which has a sharpness that makes even routine sentences sound like reprimands. Qing speaks perfect English, with a British accent. She studied languages before joining the police, where she met her husband, with whom she has a seven-year-old daughter.
“I now work in a prison,” she says. “Sadly, most of my colleagues are not well educated. I am different from them, but I don’t show it, or they would think me strange.”
A waitress brings us aprons to shield us against the spitting fat and towels to wash our hands. Using the touch screen, Qing orders two kinds of soup—a mild one with mushrooms and a spicy one with tomatoes—which are placed on stoves in the middle of the table. On top of these she orders the raw main course, which we have to cook: slices of lamb fillet, little fish balls, lotus roots, bamboo sprouts, octopus, quail’s eggs, napa cabbage—all fresh and high quality. A note from the health authorities on the wall awards the kitchen a straight A for hygiene. Customer ratings on the Dazhong Dianping (“many people evaluation”) app give the restaurant 4.7 out of 5 stars.
At the pick-and-mix buffet we can make our own dips from a selection of thirty sauces and spices. People who are worried about not being full can stock up on slices of melon, dragon fruit and cucumber until they burst.
A hint about etiquette—don’t point at people with chopsticks, and don’t leave chopsticks sticking upright in rice; they look like grave decorations. Every book about China has to have at least one tip on etiquette, so now we’ve got that behind us.
I tell Qing about the pedestrian crosswalk with the screens.
“They like testing new technologies in Shenzhen first because the city is very modern,” explains Qing. “The cameras are great—every crime can be solved. At my job, if someone escapes, we know that he won’t get far. Wait, I’ll show you something.”
She gets the newest generation of Huawei cell phone out of her handbag. “Look at the camera.” She presses the shutter. “This is a police app that recognizes faces, but you are not in the system yet, for sure.”
My paranoia returns in seconds, and in seconds the results are in. My head is a 78 percent match to a black-haired guy from Xinjiang province, and there is a 57 percent chance I am an American called Marc.
“We use this app when we are detaining someone who doesn’t want to show his ID card,” Qing says. “Recently, just for fun, I scanned a picture of my favorite junior high teacher from a newspaper article, and I actually found him. It was great to meet him again after twenty years.”
I try imagining a database with 1.4 billion Chinese faces. Theoretically, you could get the software to categorize the heads according to similarity, and then play them back in time lapse, rather like a flip-book. It would be a work of art: first, there is the illusion that all Chinese people look alike, and then, after a few hundred faces, the opposite becomes apparent as the images change continually and the differences begin to stand out.
Qing shows me another job-specific little helper on her work cell phone. With an app—or rather, A-P-P (the Chinese always pronounce the individual letters)—she can scan license plates. If someone is parked illegally, she can immediately find out who owns the car. Another program with a photo function is designed to report illegal advertising—for instance, street traders dealing in piao, piao, or forged invoices with made-up figures for falsifying tax statements. Then there are other little gimmicks, such as an internal point ranking among colleagues.
“Here I can check in with my current location. You can do this every half hour, and you get five points for doing so.” She slams her phone down on the table. “Can you believe it? We are the police! And they expect us to be tapping into our phones the whole time.” She shows me the current rankings of her colleagues. The front-runner has more than 3,500 points. Qing’s score is 1,954 and she is ranked eighth. She tells me it’s good to sit in the middle of the pack as she taps in her current location: 1,959 points.
A beaming man or a beaming woman with hands interlocked behind their backs is constantly asking us whether we need anything. At the neighboring table, the waiter is tossing a mass of noodles through the air using both hands, rather like a diabolo juggler, and one of his colleagues is cleaning the recently vacated table with what seem to be kung fu–inspired arm movements.
