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)
Welcome back!!
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