Lazy days in Guangzhou

For some reason, I can't stop using the name of the city I'm in as part of my title. You would think that after a week, everyone would get the idea that I am in Guangzhou.

The last two days have been exceptionally unproductive. Dr. Chen and Dr. Lo left yesterday, leaving me all alone. Actually, in at least one way this is nice, because Dr. Chen had started to snore. On the downside, I no longer have anyone around to translate. I figured that would be OK, since I would take a tour with an English speaking guide, but after evaluating my finances, decided not to.

Instead, I explored the area around my hotel. I was hoping to find a store of some kind, but I was completely unable to do so. There is a big block of apartment buildings near my hotel, but I have no idea where they are buying their food and so on from. They can't possibly all have cars or they wouldn't fit, so there must be some hidden grocery store I couldn't find.

I did, however, manage to have a pleasant walk through a beautiful neighborhood, and found something called "The Guangzhou Gym", which is undoubtedly the largest gym I have ever seen. I'm wondering if "Stadium" got mis-translated. I didn't go inside this gym, but I did take some pictures from the outside.

I wouldn't want people to get the idea that all I did was go for a walk in two days. Although this may not be such a terrible idea to get, I have been busily pursuing academic interests, ranging from cryptography to architecture. I have also been learning some of the Chinese language.

On the topic of language, it has been a huge barrier for me here. I never expected everyone here to speak English, as that would be Western arrogance at its height. However, considering this is a hotel which targets English speaking people, I have had a number of problems, the worst of which was me losing 5 yuan because I couldn't tell the room service girl that it belonged to me, and not her. Should I ever come back to China (which will depend entirely on the amount of money I have), I will try very hard to have a degree of proficiency with conversational Chinese.

It seems to me that I have been awfully hard on the Chinese here in my blog. Anyone reading (hi government censors!) could easily get the impression I was not enjoying myself, or I was disgusted with the country. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Although there are some areas of intense poverty, as I have mentioned earlier, the areas which are NOT impoverished are astoundingly sophisticated. I would consider, say, Vancouver, a sophisticated, world class city. But the impressive parts of Guangzhou put it to shame. First of all, there is the architecture. The Chinese are not content with straightforward, boring buildings. Within the wealthier, and ever middle class sections of the city, every building has a unique and interesting design, which is not showy just to be showy, but just plain elegant.

Furthermore, the transit system is phenomenal. There are comfortable, fast trains going everywhere. The highway system, although plagued by toll booths is extremely well maintained and very efficient. The largest cities have subways, with easy to use access cards that the PG bus system could learn a thing or two from.

In addition to all that, in the midst of the city (which is where I am), there is greenery everywhere. Even the lampposts have a compelling design. Each thing may sound somewhat trivial, but when you put it all together, you end up with a city that is beautiful and extremely convenient. The only thing stopping me from declaring it the best city I have ever seen is my dislike for the food and my lack of knowledge of the language.

You wouldn't think food would be that big a deal, but I would say that it has become a metaphor for all of the things I miss constantly about Canada. There's nothing like feeling disappointed every time it's meal time. Next time, I am bringing a chef with me.

Here in the hotel, they have a Western Restaurant. This "Western" Restaurant is about as close to Moxie's as the China Cup is to a Chinese restaurant over here, which is to say, not at all the same. "Western" food generally consists of noodles or rice, typically with beef, seafood or chicken. This COULD be western, except everything is prepared in a Chinese way, and it really just tastes the same as Chinese food, except in this case I know what it is before I eat it. In fact the "Western" restaurant here is much closer to a Chinese restaurant in Canada than it is to Earl's. I would even be happy with Denny's.

(On a side note: every time an establishment plays Western music, it is invariably soft rock from the 70's, 80's or early 90's. I have heard Celine Dion, Paul Simon and Elton John. Considering in a Canadian Chinese Restaurant they play that hokey Chinese stuff that everyone associates with China, is this what they think of our music? Do they know about things like heavy metal or punk? Have they ever heard of an indie song? I have heard some modern Chinese music, and it was all pop. Not like J-Pop, but Backstreet Boys/Britteny Speares kind of pop. Some of it was quite good. Some of it was not.)

Tomorrow I fly to Beijing and start my tour, so I won't have time to wind my lazy way along a cultural rant like this. Instead, I will have actual things I have done to talk about. Won't THAT be exciting.