WORD of a new trend has come our way: gourmet weekends in Shenzhen. At a cost considerably below that of staying in a Hong Kong hotel and enjoying the talents of its chefs, the trendy young set are popping over the border, booking into top quality hotels and dining in style.
Ever eager to catch up on such things, we decided to see what the attraction was and ended up in the Landmark Hotel run by that old China hand, Hubert Liner.
Over pre-prandial drinks, conversation turned to the glory days of the hotel business in Britain, the early 1970s, when the price of oil suddenly rocketed and the newly rich Arabs began buying up the world.
Hubert, a mere page boy at the Hilton in London's swanky Park Lane at the time, recalled how it was not uncommon for him to receive US$1,000 tips for the arduous task of holding a door open for a visiting sheikh.
Later, having bought a hotel in his native Austria on the proceeds, Hubert recalled how at 2.30 one morning an Arab demanded two blonde women to sit beside him and his business associate during negotiations.
When it was pointed out that the only way to make this happen would be to hire a jet and fly them in from the nearest big city at a phenomenal cost, they simply said, 'So what? Just do it'.
