Baiyon Mountain

In the north central part of Guangzhou is Baiyon Mountain. Baiyon Mountain (White Cloud Mountain) is considered the lungs of Guangzhou. The mountain has the most greenery and trees in Guangzhou, so it purifies the air around it. White Cloud Mountain consists of more than 30 peaks and covers an area of 28 square kilometers. The highest peak, Moxing Ridge stands in the center of the mountain, measuring 382 meters (1250 ft.) in height, also called ‘the First Peak under the Southern Sky’.

We had a large group with us today. From left to right are Edward, Angie, Yuki, Mel, Marsha and Carmen.

Being older, we elected to take the tram up the Mountain. Unknown to us, the tram only takes you halfway up! The crowd scene is near mid-mountain. Almost everyone in the scene has already walked uphill for over an hour. There were tens of thousand people in the park. For the next hour we joined them walking up the second half of the mountain. Around every turn we expected the summit.

When a family found a piece of concrete that met their need, they took out sheets of newspaper to sit on [just like we would spread out a blanket]. The picnic bag would be laid out and the feast would begin. [In Guangzhou, it is not permitted to picnic on the grass.]

On the way down, we walked at a more leisurely pass. Including lunch we spent five hours descending the mountain. For snack before lunch we had some sweet steamed tofu curds. I liked it better with a big helping of garlic to cut the sweetness. Fortunately, Angie's parents are regulars at the best restaurant on the mountain. They were able to get us a private room with air conditioning. Most people were eating outdoors. In typical Guangzhou fashion, they ordered much more food than an American can eat. [I don't understand how they stay skinny.]

We took a look at an amusement park just below mid-mountain. The attractions included grass skiing down a 60' hill, a bungee ride where you propelled yourself by jumping on a trampoline and a grass slide. The lines were short, probably because the prices were fairly high. Next to the amusement park is a sing-a-long area. A couple of hundred people were singing. A conductor has the words on a large sheet of paper.

Our final stop on the descent was a Taoist temple. The Nengren Temple is built into the mountain. The following are a few pictures.
A Buddha.

Court officers.

Burning incense as part of their prayers.

A pond in the compound.

The entrance.

Shaiman Island

On Monday, Daniel Chen took us to Shaiman Island. Shaiman Island is in the Pearl River. It is the first place Westerners were allowed to stay in Guangzhou. Today anyone is allowed to live there, but it is expensive real estate.

Every building is in the European style. Many of the buildings are old, 100+ years. To me the buildings were boring (, so there are not any building pictures).

Shaiman Island is the one area in Guangzhou without public transportation. If you do not have a car, you must walk over one of several bridges. The bridges are not very long. The lack of public transportation, besides keeping exclusivity, also means less road noise and less pollution.

Interesting fact: Shaiman Island is where most Caucasians who adopt Chinese girls stay while they are awaiting the finalization of the adoption.

Labor Golden Week

Sorry for the delay in posting. We have had a very hectic week.

Labor Day (May Day) is celebrated differently in China than in the rest of the world. First, there are no speeches or parades to commemorate Labor Day. They do not have military parades like Russia nor labor official speeches like Canada and the United States. It is celebrated more like Presidents Day, major sales at all the department stores. Also for most government employees, white collar workers, students and teachers it is a 7 DAY HOLIDAY.

In 1999, China decided that the people are not spending enough. To get them to act more like tourists, they changed three holidays into week long events. It is like three weeks more vacation for the lucky people who do not work retail or in the tourist business.

As university professors we have benefited from the change. In the last week we have gone on three local tours with some of our students and a shopping day with our neighbors. Some of the trips have been long and tiring, but they have all been fun. Getting to interact with our students in a social setting has been very enjoyable and educational. Marsha and I wish we could have that type of experience back in the States.

The next few posts will tell you about our activities.

Class [Marsha]

The classes have been going well. Most of the students are participating with encouragement. I still have to do a military "voluntarism" some of the time. But more and more they seem to be enjoying expressing their thoughts. Sometimes when I ask them to compare what I am describing to the Chinese system, they seem hesitant. But they are getting better. I have been giving "GSU presents" to them on a random variable schedule. They seem to get a kick out of that. At least they giggle. The magnetic clips and the mugs intrigued them the most.

I tried showing a video in class on negotiating style of an American with an Asian supplier, but I did not have it on DVD. It was on the Internet, and I could bring it up on my computer at the apartment on campus, but not on the classroom computer. That was disappointing. It was an interactive video and I am sure it would have generated more discussion than normal. Luckily I did have another DVD but it wasn't quite as good as that one. As another teacher told me before I left, when teaching overseas always have multiple backups. Well this time, my backup system wasn't perfect. The second video was OK but not as good.

The campus where we live is called Dong Feng. It is in the center of the city. The surrounding area is a typical Chinese city. However, we teach on the Long Dong campus which is in the suburbs. There is more space and greenery. They share the space with several campuses, but there are fences between the campuses. The air is somewhat cleaner and it is definitely prettier.
Here are some pictures of the classroom building and from the balcony of the classroom building .












Classroom building.




























View from classroom balcony.

Wholesale clothing center

Near the Shahe campus is the wholesale clothing center. The center services the multitude of clothes shops in Guangzhou but will also sell to off the street customers. On Saturday we went shopping with Dong Mei. It is good to have an interpreter and someone who can haggle in the native language. Haggling tends to reduce the price 5-15%.

The center had eight to ten rows of shops extending three city streets deep. Each store had around 12' - 15' frontage, about the width of a very narrow store in the States. A wild guess is over 1,000 stores! Each store is manned by 2-6 people. The last time I saw anything this big was the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. There is no comparable area in the States. These are successful business people who have moved up the food chain. They probably started as street vendors, then got a local small store and now supply the stores.

The center has clothes from socks to dress pants. What it did not have was men's suits, formal dresses and shoes.

Nearly all the goods were displayed nicely on hangers. One specimen of each item they sold. When you selected something they went for the correct size out of boxes around the side. If they did not have it there, they climbed a ladder into their storage area on the second floor of the store. Watch out, a box will be thrown out of the ceiling!

Marsha and I had trouble finding stuff as our size is well above the Chinese norm. So I only bought 5 golf shirts. Marsha got 2 fancy tees, a beautiful blouse and 2 pairs of pants. We must have stopped in over 100 stores. Our total cost in USD, $75. Our guess for U.S. price on sale in a store like Sears is over $300.

Some other oddities:
1. There are no cash registers.
2. No credit cards or checks are accepted.
3. There are also no receipts.
4. There are no names on the stores.
5. Cash is thrown into an unlocked draw. Change is searched for in the draw, no partitions.

I am certain none of the merchants claim earnings over 120,000 Yuan a year. The level for the rich man income tax in China.

Hong Kong I

On April 21 we took the fast train from Guangzhou to Kowloon. The maximum train speed was just upgraded to 200 km/hr. The trip took one hour and forty-five minutes. Add a half-hour for customs, a half-hour queuing for a taxi and a half-hour to get to the tunnel to Hong Kong Island. In all, it does not matter that the train gets there 15 minutes sooner than before.

The train ride was up to European standards. Our first class soft seats were equivalent to first class seats. Service included complimentary tea/coffee and peanuts. For sale they have beer, soft drinks and dinner. Both English and Chinese is spoken by all serving people.

Hong Kong is treated like a separate country. You have to go through customs. The first step is a health screening. In reality unless your look sick, this just means going through a bug bomb to make certain you are not bringing Avian Flu into Hong Kong. Then a perfunctory immigration step where you get a visitors visa.

Our hotel was in the Wan Chai area of Hong Kong. Wan Chai is about equivalent to the South Loop in relation to downtown, e.g. a dozen blocks from the Ritz and Hilton. Prices are around 50% higher than Chicago. The hotel room was nice but nothing special.

The first afternoon we took the local bus from the hotel to near the Victoria Peak tram. Along the way our bus was delayed by a demonstration. At first we thought it was a parade as it had marching bands in full uniform but towards the front of the parade were the protest signs. Around 1,000 people were demonstrating. The demonstration did not make the evening news or the next days' newspaper.

1. Note they had police protection and the women at the lower right has her small child with her.
   
   
   The tram to Victoria Peak is a tourist scam (Marsha: I disagree, it obviously is for tourists, but scam is to strong a term: maybe tourist trap). Later on, we found a city bus which would have been 1/10 the price. But, it gives a good feeling of how Hong Kong Island is basically a small mountain or large hill. Nothing in the Central area of the city is flat. The pitch is greater than the streets of San Francisco. At the Peak there is an observation area on top of a shopping mall. On each floor the escalator for the next floor is on the other side of the mall. They make sure you see every store. Besides gift shops, antique stores and local restaurants there is a MacDonald's and a Bubba Gump restaurant.
   
   On the other side of the Peak is the older shopping mall. They have the same types of stores plus: Haagen-Dazs, Burger King, Starbucks and the local supermarket chain, Park and Shop.
   The view is worth the trip. Looking down the cascading skyscrapers to Hong Kong Bayis a fantastic sight. Because of fog, we only got occasional views of Kowloon and the New Territory across the Bay.
   Here are some views:

Clockwise: north view, normal size apartment building and east view.

Looking south, there is a lot of park land.

After riding the Tram back to the higher end of Central area, we hiked down to the Bay. The roads and walkways are horrendous. To get across most major streets, you have to walk on an overpass or down under a subway. Good for the leg muscles and cardio-vascular system. After a while you get smart, and start looking for an escalator in a hotel, office building or shopping center which will lead to the overpass. You usually can't jaywalk because they have fences in the middle of many streets.

To end the day, we ate in a local Chinese restaurant. It’s food tasted closer to the Cantonese food we get in Chicago and New York.

Finally, the view from our hotel window at night.

Hong Kong II

Our only full day in Hong Kong was devoted to exploring the downtown area and visiting the Aberdeen Fishing Village. Taking a sampan ride was high on my list, so we did that first.
The Hotel staff always told us to take a taxi. We usually preferred taking the buses. You see a lot more and save money, a good combination. So after refusing to tell Marsha, they did tell me which bus to take. They were almost correct. We did pass Aberdeen but should not have gone to the last stop (which they told me to do).

The good news was that we got to walk around the Chinese area of Sai Wan Ho. The apartment buildings look like the apartment buildings in Budapest which were built during the communist period, very utilitarian and bland. The ones we saw were 8-10 stories high. Unlike the main area of Hong Kong, the clothes were hanging from the balcony, i.e. no clothes dryer. This area was served by small supermarkets and we passed through a traditional wet market [live chicken, fish and turtles waiting to be chosen].

A short cab ride got us back to Aberdeen. Aberdeen is much more prosperous. With just a little bargaining, the sampan ride was reduced from 100 HKD to 50 HKD per person (8 HKD = 1 USD).
They charge a per person rate regardless of the number of people in your party. We had a private ride. Our "captain" was Thomas. He had a sign in the front of his sampan with his name in Hebrew. An Israeli wrote it for him.
The ride took us through the busy harbor area which is loaded with fishing boats.

Most of the fishing boats go out to the South Sea for twenty days of fishing. They come in for off-loading and to get provisions for twenty-four hours and then head back to sea.
Some smaller boats are outfitted for night fishing.

A large fish sorting area is near the entrance to the harbor.

Getting brave, we asked some local people how to get back to the Central area. They told us which subway (under the road passage way) to take to get the bus back into town. [Each bus has its own fare schedule. Fares range from $2.8 HK to $4.6. Exact change only. Having coins was important. Sometimes I had to give more than the requested fare. At 12.5 cents US per HKD I did not mind.]

Downtown we walked around some more. This time including the area around the Expo Center. To Marsha’s great surprise, the toilets had Western fixtures. The photo is from the harbor side of the Expo Center. The barges are working at extending the landfill.

The highlight of the afternoon was lunch. We stopped in a small fast food place. I had a BBQ combo plate and Marsha had a chicken rice dish. As space was limited, we shared a table with a Hong Kong couple. It is a small world, the gentleman is the Executive Director of Harvard Business Research. His group developes Asian cases for Harvard.

After a siesta, we visited the botanical garden and zoo. The prettiest thing is this fountain.

And a couple of the flowers.

We did walk some significant hills. It is pretty easy on the way down. We kept walking to downtown.

By dinner time we were ready to crash. We could not find a restaurant with a seafood menu before our legs gave out. So we had another local fast food meal. It was very good. By 8 PM we were in our room.