Guangdong aka: Canton,广东

Business Trip

I went to Guangdong Province last month.It’s really noisy and chaotic,killing and cheating always happen.I am afraid of such place.I hope the public security will be better.

Shenzhen was great, but most of the time I was in an industrial area interning._. That part was less worth visiting (besides the people).

Calm & serene.

Goin’ back to my ROOTS :)

Beauty City!

guangzhou is a very good city

I visited a small town outside of Shenzhen for a few months. This was one of the more interesting experiences I’ve had so far.

I dropped into Hong Kong fully expecting to get the third degree from Chinese authorities. To my surprise, neither the Hong Kong customs nor the customs between Hong Kong and mainland china were a problem. My bags were not opened once; Noone asked me any questions. In fact, for the second customs, neither I nor my bags even left the car. My driver just handed off my passport, they looked at my visa, stamped my password, and waved me on.

I need to get back to HK, I have not experienced enough of that city, but this entry is not about it. However by contrast, I need to point out that HK is a very comfortable town. By contrast, as I was getting closer to shenzhen and my destination, things just turned wild. This is a semi industrial town, dominated by a single large company, and populated by mostly young people moved here from other areas of the country.

For one thing, there are no traffic rules obeyed anywhere. A red light in many cases means “go around me by faking a left right turn and then a quick left”. Cars would routinely try to squeeze in side by side within a single lane. There are people and bicycles everywhere. And the taxi drivers… oh the taxi drivers… you think that the big rides at Six Flags are wild, get in a taxi here, and you’ll find the real meaning of the roller coaster.

Unlike in the west, the cars have the right of way, the people have to move out of the way. And the people, they are everywhere, between cars, on the sidewalk, etc. I don’t mean this to come out the wrong way, but this being a somewhat industrial zone, they all also tended to wear the same shade jeans and brown members-only type jacket that the company issued, which made them look like xerox copies of each other.

And there is the bicycles. I expected a lot of them, but I’ve never expected to see people carrying queen-size mattresses on a bicycle. Props to them, they have some talent.

At night the people change. The brown jackets go away, and nicer clothes come out.. Well, nicer is a bit relative—nice for the early 90s maybe, because the trend in that town seemed to be the same type of obnoxious acid washed jeans with a pronounced white stripe on the front, which looked almost painted on.

My hotel was fairly good by the standards of the city. I have no complaints, except there was no freakin heat! Should’ve known something was wrong when I arrived and there were five little girls at the front desk, huddled around a space heater). Anyway, I always say too cold is better than too hot.

The other problem was that the hotel was also a little… umm.. how should I put this… interesting? Sometimes walking through the hallways was like watching one of those cheesy Cinemax movies we all used to love to watch in our teens.. There were moans of pleasure and squeaky beds everywhere. It seemed to be the norm; I was often asked if I was feeling tired for the day and if I wanted some company for the night. This was not by a random prostitute on the street, this was by hotel staff. As a good boy who didn’t want anything to fall off prematurely or end up in a Chinese jail, I declined. But it was a little hard declining, I admit, when you are in a society where that type of stuff is not considered an arrestable offense. I suspect that most married guys who travel for business to one of those countries and are in unhappy sexual relationships will sooner or later succumb to hiring one (or two, or three) girls to make the “loneliness of being away from home” go away.

Other than that, people are extremly nice once you talk to them. Not many speak english, but some try hard. I’ve been flirted with a few times, but usually through an intermediary. I noticed that the nice (non-”professional”) girls prefer to talk to strangers through someone they know. They may smile and do the usual flirty gestures, but they prefer to whisper what they want to say in the ear of a friend who will rely it on for them.

I know a lot of business travelers enjoy the “massages” here as well; I have had no experience wit this, as I don’t take massages well (they make me giggle) so I can’t comment.

Shopping was almost nonexistent, unless you are interested in cheap knockoffs. The only place to legally buy antiques is HK I beleive, so don’t think you’ll uncover something magical in Ginagdong.

I liked this place, and its rawness. It seemed honest and there was no politics apparent anywhere. I had a high speed internet connection in my room, and I could surf or VPN anywhere in the world. The food was obviously good and people were warm. I felt a little uncomfortable walking around at first because I’m not used to turning heads in the US, but I guess I didn’t quite blend in very well there, being a 6ft, 185lbs, light skinned caucasian. After a while, that became flattering, especially when I realized I turned more girl heads than guy heads.

Would I go again? Definitely.

Would I expat? Probably, if I could find a nice area to live in. I’d probably rely heavily on taxis and someone to live in and help with shopping and day to day translation, but I think I’d do ok. My ideal expat contract length would be about 1-2 years.

Also I’ve been told that the crime rate in that area was fairly high, so it may not be safe to walk around much by foot. This is contrary to the big cities like Shanghai or Beijing where crime is kept in check, but where I visited they seem to rely heavily on unarmed private guards dressed in fancy uniforms. Almost every hotel or major intitution had their own little army of private security guards.