I lie by the dockside, just down from the factory whose clanking
machinery created my lines and sides and corners and spaces. Freshly painted
across my frontage, an array of industrial hieroglyphics - China
International Marine Containers, Hapag-Lloyd, HLXU2003419, 22G1, Max Payload
29,230kg - numbers defining who I am, numbers defining what I can be.
Shanghai sprawls resolutely behind the harbour-front; its forest of
cranes and concrete criss-cross the dawn sky, soaring totems to the gods of a
new world.
Through Pudong’s early morning haze, neon lights pulse green and red,
beacons dancing to the relentless beat of the metropolis. And just beyond, the
grand old facades of the Bund, still resplendent in their neoclassical and
art-deco finery, their stories written over a century ago.
But my future lies in the other direction, not inland but out across the
East China Sea. The dawn horizon calls out to me, whispering promises of
marvels and adventure.
My first consignment is a cargo of high-tech computer equipment, loaded
up by the dock-handlers on the 4am shift. I hear their banter as they work.
Their calloused nicotine-stained hands speak of years on the dockside, whilst
this passage of time has perfected their collective operations into a balletic
choreography. They know each other well; they are like family.
A crane hoists me up high into the sky, a lofty leap towards those
skyscraper peaks, wondering when I'll next see them again. Next week? Next
month? Never?.. And then down onto the foredeck, where the stevedores
lower me onto a maze of containers, each with their own voyages and destinies.
And so on this day, my work begins. I'm a missionary, whose belly
carries the new Chinese economy across the world.
