In my recent travels through China I have a place heavily sanitized and lacking the adventure of old. This was until I rented at Huadu Garden Building.
To say this place and indeed the whole area is a bit weird would be a gross understatement. This is old school scuzzy back alley dodgy as hell Middle Kingdom action.
Table of Contents
What was “old” China like?
Now when I say old China I am not talking about Imperial China, nor Commie Red Mao times, I mean my China when I first got here almost 20 years ago. That China had sketchy alleyways, dodgy bars people selling all manor of things (and themselves) and KTV’s. Believe me people do more than sing at these places.
Over the years though specifically since just before and after the Beijing Olympics things started to change and get far more authoritarian. The ‘pink shops” closed, regulations became more tight and in many ways things got better.
Said changes got not so good and more profound during and after Covid-19. This meant that many of the places I visited such as Xian, Beijing and Dandong had become alienist unrecognizable.
This though was not so much the case with Guangzhou and as I would now find out Shenzhen.
What the Shenzhen?
I wont go too much into Shenzhen, but basically this is a constructed city that is barely 40 years old (younger than me). That means that everyone who comes here moves here. There are for all intents to native people. This I found when I last lived here made people a lot less traditional and more likely to throw caution to the wind.
I had thus assumed that it would also be sanitized, but that was not to be the case. This was found after I needed to rent an office, which took me to Huadu Golden Building Shenzhen
Huadu Garden Building Shenzhen
Located down near Luo Hu border crossing to Hong Kong and at Guomao subway station site Huadu Garden Building. This is an office block with two towers that is near malls and what can be called the Central Business District.
We came to look at and office and that is exactly what we did. What personally shocked me when we did this was quite how nice he office I was being offered was, how cheap it was and why the current occupants wanted to move upstairs. This would become plane as day later.
And not only did I like the office itself, but also the weird back alleys of Guomao, back alleys that said loud and proud that behind the facade this was old school territory,.
Putting the weird into Huadu Garden Building
So, where to start? Well on entrance you are greeted by the fact that there is a club, or two that can be accused from the ground floor. There are a few shops and stuff, but it is fairly lacking compared to other places.
On the right theres a private elevator to “live” club, which is it seems connected to PiPi room – which I can confirm has nothing to do with urination. It does though take up 3 floors and when we went it was a serious club.
We also tried to check out the other “club” unfortunately we were told we could not drink in this karaoke joint as we were foreign. Yes racism is alive and well in China.
On our first night sleeping in the office we would not help but notice ti the right of us was another KTV, but this one was more in line with looking after older gentlemen. The noises have also confirmed this. To our right though seems to be an absolutely pumping club that belts out tunes until 5 am. And above me? A bar/lounge that insists you buy 6 beers merely to sit down.
Exploring Huadu Garden Building
With all this in mind me and my colleague decided to go to the 24th floor and then walk down and explore. This screwed with out head even further. Essentially most of the building, say 3/4 is office. This includes top import an export companies, not to mention China Construction Bank and even the Communist Party of China.
And the last quarter? Dodgy stuff! We found massage parlors, clubs within clubs, as well as group of guys partying in what looked like an office. Where they on this office at Huadu Garden Bucking because of work? Did they live there? Was this an illegal rave? Quite frankly no one knew and I still do not know.
And all of this combined means that from 1-5 am there are just drunk and perhaps high people falling around as far as the eye can see.
Yet while I am more than happy to turn not just a blind eye, but to be grateful for my ignorance it dies not mean that I do not like the place.
My Huadu Garden Building Shenzhen Adventure had duly begun….