The end of classes

Marsha taught her last class yesterday. My last one is today. The last few days in Guangzhou will disappear in a blur. Tonight we have dinner with Professor Yi, the head of the business school, tomorrow evening with the parents of one of the students planning to come to GSU. Sunday we will have a final lunch with our neighbors and friends, Hans and Mary, who are Canadians from German descent, and will have dinner with Professor Fang, the Director of Foreign Affairs, and David. Monday at 6 AM we leave for the airport, the start of a 18 day whirlwind tour of China.

The following is one person's summary of Guangzhou. I do not want to generalize what we have seen with the rest of China. Guangzhou has a long history of being different from the rest of China.

• Almost no one wears tee shirts with Chinese characters. Almost one in ten wear tee shirts with English words on it. Most of them cannot read the words on the shirts.
• No one wears Mao type peasant clothing.
• It is still a cash dominated society. Only supermarkets, department stores, very high end stores and hotels accept debit cards. Only hotels and their restaurants accept credit cards.
• Smoking is now the exception not the rule. Only twice have I seen people smoking in restaurants. It is also quite rare on the streets.
• The poorest Social Security recipient in the US, can live easily in Guangzhou. The school estimates that students can eat for an average of $2 USD / day. Those are all restaurant meals!
• There is no control over where foreigners go. We have traveled freely by foot, bus, Metro, train and taxi.
• Many elementary school students are studying English. Dozens of times, little children have practised saying "hello" to us. They are surprised when we respond with the same in Chinese.
• Foreigners are still stared at.
• Service in stores is tremendous. Labor is cheap, so clerks are plentiful. I will miss this level of service.
• No one drinks the local water, including the natives. It is okay if it has been boiled.
• The people are friendly.
• You will not know you are in a Communist country when you are doing daily chores. There are an unbelievable number of small stores. There is also a large number of major stores. There is a small, unarmed police presence, less than I see in Chicago. They call it pragmatic Communism. The pragmatic part is visible. Pragmatic seems to mean people work best when they have a stake in the outcome.
• Guangzhou is not third world. It has the highest per capital income in China.
• Legal citizens vs. squatters from the country. Officially you can live in Guangzhou only if you have permission to live in Guangzhou. Most have it because their ancestors lived here, others because of job assignments from other areas and some gain it after military service. BUT there are 3-4 million people in Guangzhou who do not have legal residency in Guangzhou even though they are Chinese!! (Sound familiar?) I am not sure what rights are denied the illegals, but they have limited help from the government. The news last night said 300 retired farmers(i.e. illegals) living in Guangzhou will begin receiving 400 Yuan a month in retirement benefits in July and in 2008 they will also receive medical coverage. Maybe the dam is breaking.
• Health insurance for working people is NOT free. When we asked what happens if someone without insurance gets very sick we were told, "They will probably die."
• Cars are king. Do not expect a car to stop for you! They must use 2-3 horns over the life of a car. The horns are constantly honking, it would make a New Yorker proud. Bicycles are relatively rare. Motor cycles are illegal in the City Center.
• Public transportation is excellent. Buses don't go in straight routes down a single road. Even the natives are constantly checking the routes to make certain they take the correct bus. At one of the bus stops near us, over ten different buses stop. Buses seem to run every 5 to 10 minutes. They are often crowded. The fares are low, 2-3 Yuan. The Metro, subway, continues to grow. It is modern and clean. Fares range from 2-6 Yuan depending on the distance you are traveling. The trains run every 3-4 minutes. Taxis are plentiful and inexpensive. Starting fare is 8 Yuan for the first 2.3 KM.

Sunday Marketing

For the last few weeks we have been telling you about the special things we have done. Today will be back to basics such as shopping for daily supplies. We started before 9 AM Sunday morning. Before 9, because the temperature will be going over 90F today, with the humidity over 70% and the Sun will be pretty strong. We walked over half a mile to the largest supermarket in our area, ParknShop.

ParknShop is a Hong Kong based firm, hence it has been in this area for less than 10 years. We walked most of the way on the shady side of the street, but we finally had to cross the bridge over the main road. [You can not jaywalk because there is a fence in the middle of most large streets). There are a lot of pedestrian bridges and overpasses, probably one every quarter mile. There are very few traffic lights to delay traffic. Car is definitely king over pedestrians.] Not to complain, it is 40 steps up and 40 steps down. More annoying when you are carrying your shopping home.


ParknShop is in the basement of a tall building. We read the ads and then take the escalator down.

Like most modern supermarkets, the produce department comes first.

Next comes the meat and take-out section. You can buy your meat under plastic wrap. In addition their is a butcher to make your special cuts. Keep out of the way of the cleaver.

The rest of the supermarket is what you are used to. The dairy and cheese area is smaller than in the U.S. The rice, tea and oil sections are much larger. You can even buy loose rice and tea. When you checkout after shopping, you can pay with cash or a debit card, credit cards are not accepted. Upon leaving the supermarket you are forced into passing a series of stores and kiosks. Below is the bedding store were we previously bought our mosquito netting. [Shown on the right side of the picture.]

After dropping the packages at home, cooling off with an ice tea and recovering from walking up the four flights of stairs to our flat, we went down to our local shopping street. The English translation of the street is Rhinoceros Street. Rhino is about a car and a half wide. On the ground level are a large number of stores. Almost all are definitely owner run. The first picture shows the first three stores, a key maker, a seamstress and a restaurant. [that is the restaurant where we ate frog.]


On the second and above floor people live in the walk-up flats. As is usual in town, the wash is always trying to dry.

Some more of the stores as we continue down on the street. The plant shop is were we bought a plant for our flat. It helps to clean the pollution out of the air.

Every time we go down the street there is a crowd watching people play Chinese Chess.

There are also street vendors selling produce and seafood. This gentlemen is selling live eels.

Next comes our neighborhood grocery store. It sells basically can and paper goods. No produce, fish or meat departments. [Early supermarkets in the U.S. did not have those departments either.]


Across the street is our favorite BBQ place. I am buying our lunch.

Next comes the live market. The front section is multiple fruit and vegetable vendors.

I'm buying a watermelon I did not want to carry all the way from ParknShop. We also bought some Holland Peas [aka snow pea pods] for dinner and some Wonton from a noodle vendor. Each of the vendors is an individual business person.

Towards the rear of the live market are the wet market stalls. Meat, fish, and poultry vendors are shown. Today I did not see any turtle or frog.

Finally the egg vendor.

Shopping done we climbed back to our flat, cooked some rice and ate the BBQ.

Pearl River Boat Ride

Wednesday evening we took a Pearl River dinner cruise. While the food is several levels below the dinner cruises on Lake Michigan, it is still a bargain at 88 Yuan ($11). Cruises without dinner cost 44 Yuan.

On a very warm day, it was a pleasure to feel the breeze by the riverbank. When the ship was moving it was perfect.

While it has somewhat less neon than Times Square or Las Vegas, it is in their class. I would not like to sleep next to one of the buildings.

Below are some shots from the moving ship.

Yuyin Shan Fang

Our Saturday trip was to ShiShi Temple and Yuyin Shan Fang. We went to the Temple with Daniel in the morning.

The ShiShi Temple is a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Guangzhou. I was built in 1863. As we have traveled around the world (and even in Chicago) we have seen Jesus portrayed with the facial characteristics of the worshipers. What was striking at ShiShi is that all the portraits show a Caucasian Jesus. The Cathedral is very beautiful and is built in the same style at St. Marie Cathedral in Paris.

Below are some pictures of the stain glass and sculpture.




Yu-Mi joined Daniel and us for the second event. Yuyin Shan Fang translates to Ancestral Garden. The garden is a national protected cultural relic. The garden was built in 1871, the 10th Yu-Mi, Daniel, Marsha and Mel

year of Tungzhi Emperor in the Qing Dynasty. Mr. Wu, the original owner of the estate, was a supernumerary vice minister of punishment. Obviously he was very wealthy. The Chinese believe that seeing a mountain from your window guarantees the continuation of your wealth and good being. Since he built in a coastal city with no mountains, he had a mountain built in the middle courtyard of his home. While not a big mountain, it is 8 meters high (around 25 feet).

Over lunch both Daniel and Yu-Mi opened up even more than previously. Daniel was most interested in Jews. Hopefully we corrected a couple of things he thought he knew. Yu-Mi had more personal type questions.

Here are some pictures of the estate.
wood door carvingwood sofa and screen plateprivate temple glass painting and real lily pond.


Finally, Marsha and I played Mr. Wu and his concubine (Marsha says: First wife). For 20 yuan ($2.50 US) we play acted.

Bai Mo Garden

On Thursday May 3 we went to Bai Mo Garden. The school arranged for us to have a driver and van. We went with a teacher, Autumn and two of our students, Angie and Yu-Mi. Autumn also attends our classes.

Before going to the Park we had Morning Tea with Dr. Fang and David. Morning Tea in Guangzhou is a very large meal. Dim Sum from honey buns to several shrimp dishes were served. Either as an honor to us or because of Dr. Fang’s rank we had a private dining room. The bad part is that included a high minimum charge. So the food just kept coming. At the meeting both sides expressed a desire for Marsha and me to do the teaching again next year.

With Dr. Fang we got to practice a custom we learnt from the students on Wednesday. Tapping the table three times with two fingers is a shorthand for saying Thank You. The custom started when foreigners controlled the Chinese and the people were not allowed to kowtow to the Emperor.

The Garden is around 45 minutes out of town. We expected to see some beautiful flowers. Like everything it was almost what we expected, it is beautiful but there are no flowers. In China, anything with a lot of green is called a garden. Bai Mo does have a lot of trees. From previous reading I knew Bai means precious. I learnt that Mo means ink. So it is a precious ink garden. More precisely, a park with beautiful calligraphy as the main exhibit. In addition, it had many ponds and other exhibits from different dynasties.

The most photogenic event was some dancers from another province. See below.

Angie, Marsha, Yu-Mi and Autumn Wall ceramic.