Gone to Guangzhou
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2007
1
16
33
Trip End
Apr 21, 2008
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Guangzhou,
China
Friday, December 21, 2007
Started out the day taking a ferry from Hong Kong up to Shekou, a Special Economic Zone located in Shenzhen. This used to be a fishing village until about 27 years ago and now it is a boom town. The local joke is that before the fishermen would jump in the water to swim to Hong Kong for a better life, but now are swimming back for an even better life. I think it probably works better in Chinese. The population is very young and most have moved here from other locations in China due to the economic opportunities. Though don't get too excited, alot of this consists of girls from the farming villages working their asses off and not making a whole hell of a lot of money (but more then they would on the farm).
Our guide was very interesting and shared a lot of information. Some of which would have gotten her thrown into prison about 30 years ago. I am not including her name just in case things haven't changed as much as she claims. Ha-ha. Hey, she was really nice! She discussed the education system and the birth control, among other things. It is true that the Chinese can only have one kid. If they are farmers and have a dreaded girl they are allowed to try one more time for that all important boy.
Local Preschool in Shekou
Too bad if you live in an urban area. If you have more then one kid you have to pay an astronomical amount of money and then it doubles and triples with each subsequent rug rat after that. On top of that only 5.5% of the population qualifies to go to college and "better life." This is not any government oppression, rather simply a lack of space and schools. Or so we are told, but with all the construction going on, I find it hard to believe they can't include a few more schools in their plans. But, what do I know. We also visited a "museum" of the Terracotta Soldiers that was really more of a marketing ploy to get us to the gift shop. But the story of the Terracotta Soldiers is quite interesting and I really want to learn more about them. Once Emperor Qin's tomb is opened to the public, it would be amazing to see the 8,000 soldiers he had commissioned to guard him into the next life (and the bones of the artists who were buried alive along with him).
Afterwards, we headed by coach up to the capital city Guangzhou.It was a couple hours drive and not to exciting so I took a nap. Luckily, the group was a pretty good one. There were 19 of us and pretty much everyone was from Australia. Except for myself and Klaus, who was from Germany, and one other couple. Once we got there we had lunch and then went on to a traditional local market. Very good planning on the our guide's part as we experienced the Cantonese cuisine signature for fresh ingredients. There were snakes, chickens, frogs, eels, turtles and scorpions all moving and ready to be taken home for dinner.
After the market we made our made to the Liu Rong Si Hua Ta (or six banyan temple), a Buddhist temple that is very old but recently restored. After this we went to the memorial hall for Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China. I think this was more part of the "Party's" suggestion to the tour company as a good promotion for the country then anything else. But I will give it up to the guy that he is the one who abolished the barbaric and painful tradition of binding women's feet and for that alone it was worth the stop. Three inch "feet" were considered the ultimate sign of beauty...who came up with that but a man trying to oppress a particularly feisty woman and could think of no other way I am sure. My wide size 8 1/2 American would not quite make the grade I fear. Oh well, they still look nice with the nice festive pedicure I got for the Christmas season.
After this we hit rush hour traffic in this city of 10 million and headed to the train station for a 2 hour ride back to Kowloon. Everyone was exhausted but it was a good day with a good group of people. Not a bad way to pass the Friday before Christmas. Peace, Brandy
