Guangzhou

Guangzhou is not famous as a holiday destination. It's definitely one giant workplace. And that's why I liked it. Nobody trying to rip me off. No crowds. No endless acres of souvenir shops. 

Although they still stared. Man I had forgotten how much Chinese people stare...

My hostel was in 芳村, Fangcun, which is a nice district across the river from the main city. I say nice because it has a pleasant walk along the river as well as some surprisingly chic brick buildings. There was even a church that I made the effort to go and inspect. I pottered through a market and down some alleys. Dropped into to McDonalds for a pineapple pie. 

Then I got lost. 

Cue endless wanderings through streets before I worked out where I was. I had, somehow, ended up going in completely the opposite direction to where I thought I was going. So I slogged back in the drizzle. At this point the Chinese, sensing my weary mood, decided to kick in with their hello!hello!hello routine. This annoyed me. 

But just as China is capable of putting me in the foulest mood it invariably lifts me back up again as I stumbled upon 沙面岛, Shamian Island. For decades this tiny blob of land was the only place in the whole of China where us white devils were allowed to live. Most of it was built by the British but the French did one end, hence a Catholic church, and as a consequence it is a tiny slice of Bloomsbury hiding amongst the skyscrapers and four lane roads of Guangzhou. Cobbled streets, leafy avenues and pretty Georgian style buildings. Heaven. It even had a Starbucks... 

There were also quite a few statues around showing everyday scenes from colonial times.  My favourite was one of three Chinese  women. The first was short and dressed in traditional Chinese clothes (wide trousers and shirt), the second taller and in a stylish qipao (designed around the beginning of the 20th century as a modern fusion of East and West) and the third the tallest of all wearing shorts and chatting on a mobile phone. I loved the contrast and that if they had ever met, these women would have had nothing in common. The first would have been cultured and refined although repressed, the second glamorous and well versed in revolutionary thought, and the third, well, the third would be like most young Chinese women I see that specialise in cultivating a studied air of dimness. Not for her calligraphy and tea ceremonies, or Marx and French red wine, no she wants an iPad and Prada. 

There were quite a few army soldiers running around the island. Must be a nice place to train I suppose. 

A ferry went from the island to just opposite my hostel. I enjoyed this 2 minute trip far too much but now I can say that I've sailed on the Pearl River, just like my ancestors an age ago. 

Speaking of ancestors I paid a visit to Guangzhou's art Museum which housed bits and bobs left behind from colonial trading. It was a fascinating exhibition containing some really quite spectacular works of art. There were delicate silks, watercolours of colonial warehouses, blue ceramics and the most exquisitely carved ivory I have ever seen. There was a whole tusk covered in trees and figures and rickshaws and roads in stunning detail. There was a dragon boat, again breathtakingly finely carved as well as some scenes of Chinese deities and some ivory "balls" that consisted of shells and shells of ivory, one inside the other. Another favourite of mine was a black and gold lacquer desk. 

There was also a replica of a "Chinese room" that was in vogue in European houses at the time. This would be a room set aside for Chinese "stuff", as the translation helpfully explained... Opposite the room was a huge picture of a river and Tudor style house that I think was supposed to be the view out of the window...

There was a picture of a European ship called 哥德堡, Gedebao, that visited Guangzhou three times, although it sank in the mouth of its home port on the third return. I spent a long time trying to guess the English version of the name, with only the clue that it was in Europe to help me. It's named after Gothenburg, in Sweden, apparently. 

Another fun transliteration I spent a while puzzling over was 鸦片, yapian. Specifically the Yapian War. Or literally- duck slice war. Which confused me. Of course, it means opium dur...

I also visited the Revolutionary Museum which was also fascinating. Guangzhou has had quite a few revolutions over the years, from fighting westerners to Japanese to Nationalists. It was in a park dedicated to the various martyrs and had some statues of the notable ones. Some of them died very young. 

The park also had the obligatory groups of middle aged women doing fan dances as well as an Erhu quartet having a great time in one corner. I sat and watched a group of men and women doing a sort of tai chi routine with swords. Except not all of them have swords so some used umbrellas instead. 

At night the light pollution is so bad it is almost as light as day. Not that that is hard as in the day the smog blocks out quite a lot of the light...

One last bit about Guangzhou- as well as westerners in the 18th century, Persians lived in the city over a thousand years before. And now the Ram City, as it is known (legend says that 5 mythical rams brought rice when there was a famine once), is home to over a hundred thousand Africans. They come to trade and I did see far more of them than any other foreign ethnicity.

So in summary, Guangzhou turned out to be very enjoyable and a fascinating place to visit.