I find it hard not to despair a little after traveling. The enormity of China's problems are there for everyone to see. Here are some notes on the places I visited, in chronological order; I'll revisit them periodically and add details I remember.
Guangzhou:
Airport - Sleek, clean and awe inspiring. Impressed. Cousin jests that it is built with blood.
Smog, bridges, cars, traffic, new airport, and new metro. Living in Guangzhou is like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Wake up in the morning, taxi around all day, and by the time you get back home your nose is all black. Pictures of the lungs of chronic smokers come to mind.
Not yet Hong Kong, but getting there. West side of the city have apartments like those towering buildings of Hong Kong. The environment is cleaner on this side too, well, all except for the half-black-half-brown river one can see during the day.
Real estate prices: 500,000 - 1,000,000 RMB - 2 bedroom 1 living room to 3 bedrooms 1 living room. that is $60,000 - $125,000. Consider the average income of Guangzhou is around $7,500 (for those who are well off), it takes a couple of lifetimes to pay off the mortgage. Actually the prices are pretty "reasonable" if one compares Guangzhou to the other less well developed big cities in China. A lot of overseas Chinese investors. They buy a unit, contributing to the price inflation, in hopes that one day they can retire here. In the meanwhile, they will rent it out and let the rent for for itself. Expected more Hong Kong investors and higher price inflation, but I guess they are all in Shenzhen, where the real estate are 2 to 3 times more expensive.
Metro - best subway system I've experienced. A marvel of Teutonic engineering. Cousin mentioned that the city's public servants' salaries were frozen for a couple of years to contribute the subway.
Food - when one thinks of Chinese food, it is actually Guangdong cuisine they are thinking about.
Ningbo:
Poor country side, reminds of the cultural revolution movies. Especially miserable because of the cold weather. As a general rule, the countrysides get poorer and poorer the further north one gets.
Home of Jiang Jieshi - didn't/don't care.
Place of Zhang Xuelang's first imprisonment - lonely, cold. worthy place of imprisonment for a hero.
Putou Shan - Monks try to rip people off, WTF. This is one thing that I am really furious about.
Uncle's high school classmate, now a PLAN captain, invited us to dinner. Got drunk. Never drinking with PLAN naval officers again.
Fast boat to Shanghai.
Shanghai: It's cold here. The winds cut to the bone, and even northerners complain about the freezing weather. Cousins sleep with windows open when it is 4 degrees Celsius outside...
Suzhou: Just another travel spot
Nanjing: Zhong San Ling, the steps become harder and harder to climb the high up you are. Sun Zhongsan is about 5'5''-6''. The city seems a bit desolate.
Hangzhou: Just another travel spot
Maoming: Didn't realize how poor it is until I saw it this time. Well, it is a developing city.
Gaozhou: second home. Even in a small (relatively speaking) such as this, there are huge wealth disparities. For example, Me and two cousins, including one of their parents and my grandfather and grandmother use to/still live in a 3 story/now 2 story (1st floor rented out) house. Whereas one of my cousins has two floors of his family's 7 floor house all to himself. Although, while living here I have never felt "poor". There were always things I would like, but I was too busy studying to begrudge.
Zhanjiang, Nanyou: Never saw Zhanjiang proper until this time. I grew up in a medium enclave called Nanyou, a bit south(?) of Zhanjiang proper. It is the base of operations (is it the HQ? I'm not sure) of CNOOC in the south.
The place I lived is still the same, fifth floor of a building bordering on: civilization, a hospital, a water pumping station, and the country side. #2-18. Even the discoloration on the building is still there. I wonder if any of my childhood friends are still there. They are probably in college, Winter Vacation don't start for them until the end of January. On second look, where I grew up is really not a bad place to live. Nanyou is pretty nice, palm trees everywhere, the park during night time is lovely, you can see the beach and occasionally, fishing boats. There was a French village here that my mom never told me about until I came home this time... I swear, some adults treat kids like they don't/shouldn't know anything...
The elementary school I attended has changed its name. From Nanyou Second District Elementary School to Nanyou Central Primary School. Just another way of saying it got upgraded. The arboretum is still the same: small. But the plants inside are as green as I remembered them. Green and brown. Leaves and dirt.
I remember digging up cicadas around here. During the summer, you can start digging on the dirt around the trees. About a few inches down you will find unhatched cicadas, sleeping. What is weird is that occasionally we find red, soft coral like flowers (they have no leaves, only the stem part that grows out like a flower). When we dig down we find that the root is actually a unhatched cicada. The plant sprout from the cicada's body. And like the Cicada flower, people in Nanyou are from different places in China, transplanted and sprout up in a protective body, and grow up to be beautiful but strange.
Perhaps it is the sea wind here, my aunt remarked that I was once very dark. Now I am all pale (relatively speaking). I think my complexion is once brown, from the sun and the palm trees. Of all the places, I never thought I would miss this place. I wonder when will I be back next time? If only to walk among the rocks in the park during sunset, and feel the sea wind.
