One last adventure in China

2012 August 27 Monday Tianhong Hotel, downtown Guangzhou, China

So, I’m having one last adventure, when I thought I was done. Well, I was trying to plan something, but that’s not what worked out. I had either thought to kill 15 hours in the Guanzhou airport, or was trying to make myself stow my backpack, take a taxi to Shamian Island, and look ate some French churches. This worked out better. For a long layover, China Southern will give you a hotel room. But no one seems to speak much English here. Even service personnel, hotel clerks, airline counter people, only speak a few words of English plus the numbers. Instead of stowing my pack, I walked around the airport with it till a woman gave me a voucher in Chinese that she said I would give the hotel. She led a British couple up an escalator and down another, so I followed. When she discovered me, she apologized and sent me back on my own to Exit 2E. There I discovered security guards who made me wait, and wait. But finally a woman came for me and I was directed to follow. She took me down escalators to  the subway and carded me onto the train. She spoke no English whatsoever but was an employee of the hotel sent to fetch me. I never would have tried the subways on my own, though I’d read about them, because signs were only in Chinese. I followed her off the train, up to the light, and my hotel, where the front desk kept my boarding pass and gave me a room key. First off was the hotel’s free breakfast: bau, boiled eggs, tea, sausages. The room is new, on the fourth floor, overlooking—the back of the city, where construction takes place, and there is a a=garden, as well. It is sort of luxurious, but very new construction. After a shower, I made myself go out before it got hot. Am I glad I did! What a world out there! I discovered an open market that stretched for blocks and blocks and tried my strong stomach. Here’s what I saw: acres and acres of fresh vegetable vendors, then fresh meat vendors, with the meat hanging, then puppies, kittens, and rabbits in cramped cages, then acres of seafood, some unrecognizable, then at the far end cheap Chinese good, like tin and plastic. Some of it was hard to take, the smells, the foreign, unrecognizable parts. Cantonese are very adventurous in their cuisine, I’ve read, and will eat any part or organ of an animal. Eventually, I steered myself toward the eight lane street with buses and lots of motorbikes with whole families riding, and no helmet. At least in Nepal they are very strict that the driver must have a helmet, though everyone else never does. I seem to be the only foreigner in the city, except in the airport and the hotel. I entered a multistory supermarket that turned into a department store. The apples seemed the most familiar, but not so the strange sausages, herbs, spices, pickled goods, and on and on. I bought water and everyone laughed and stared as I paid. I  went walking, though weary from little sleep on the flight (I watched a bad Hindi action movie with Chinese and English subtitles), and explored KFC, crepe cafes, a little shop with pies, which I tried, and only one person ever said hello. I followed my bread crumb rule from being lost for hours in Beijing: always note the way back and go back exactly the way you came. But I also picked up a card from the hotel lobby that says in English and Chinese characters: Please help me back to the Tianhong Hotel—thank you! Showing a taxi driver the Chinese script is a foolproof way to find your way back. Eventually fatigue caught up with me, but I explored the city on foot till I couldn’t walk further then headed back.

So Guangzhou has been one of the things I was anticipating as a problem that really didn’t turn out to be one. Other such needless anxieties have been malaria, mosquitoes, typhoid, dengue fever, amoebic dysentery, parasites, leeches, the monsoon rains, altitude, and in general many of the difficulties that I thought about, the chief among them as I was teaching summer school being that the trip would be generally exhausting and stressful, rather than any kind of holiday or relaxation. I spent a fair amount of time actually steeling myself for the month in transit rather than being excited. Many would ask if I was getting excited as the day approached and my honest answer was always no because I feared that on top of the school year then teaching summer school the four weeks traveling in Asia would be too much on top of everything and then I would come back to school exhausted and have to start teaching right away. These fears were not justified in the end because travel for me is better than a stay-cation that involves maintaining a home and watching August slip quickly away. Here I’ve been engaged and stimulated in ways that I couldn’t be in the U.S. So my fifteen hour layover in Guangzhou at first seemed like a challenging problem that I tried to strategize through, but in the end just had to relax about and the answers unfolded. I felt that way about staying with my host family in my village, as well. I thought it would be the most beneficial for growth, but I anticipated bed bugs, amoebas, outdoor toilets, and generally uncomfortable conditions. What I found instead was a very hospitable host and a family willing to help me achieve my goals of visiting schools and seeing Nepal again. The conclusions might be that I should worry less or trust more, but in any case the difficulties have receded and diminished at every stage along the way. That is not to say that this was a luxury vacation or that I was not many times uncomfortable, especially in the summer Asian weather, I was, but I choose that discomfort if the tradeoff is rewarding experiences and engagement.

Now, one last time, I descend into the Chinese city to seek out Cantonese cooking, which for Americans is both familiar, but here can be challenging.  If I can’t find food, at least I’ll have another sensory experience and the airplane food on China Southern has been more than decent.  Here’s to adventure!  

(Later: The food was challenging, whole prawns with eyes and shells cooked lightly, and those were the parts I picked out to EAT, picking around the dried red peppers that could have been good if sautéed more. The vegetables, maybe from the morning outdoor market, were fresh and tasty. The ten waiters were very shy to speak to me and made me wait till they could get their courage up.

Even with the plane delayed two hours, I arrive home caught up on everything that had been happening at  home, especially my daughter and my wife preparing for the second year of college and flying away. Finally I slept four hours of more, pretty good for the first night of jetlag. (I will post soon after I’ve had a chance to restore.) (more photos will follow)