Guangzhou, China

We arrived in China a little over a week ago and are still trying to orient ourselves to this huge city. Our guidebook, which is a couple of years old, puts the population at 10 million. Mark was last here 13 years ago and he was very surprised at how much this place has changed. For example, the train station we arrived at is now a bustling section of the city with expensive hotels and shopping centres. 13 years ago it was a dirt road with a hut. The school he attended years ago only had a dirt road around it, now there's highways all around it. It's quite evident that China's economy, at least in southen China, is thriving. Guangzhou and the Guangdong province are know to be quite wealthy. It seems that people in the cities now have some discretionary income. In fact, there's something else different now than from years ago. Before, movement between cities was restricted, but that has since changed and people are free to move where they'd like. What this has meant for Guangzhou is an influx of people coming from Mandarin speaking areas. Cantonese is the main spoken language in the Guangdong province. Mandarin speakers often times get the low paying service positions, such as working the reception counter in hotels, waitresses and so forth. What this means for us is that we have a very difficult time communicating with people in the hotels and restaurants. Mark knows only a little Mandarin and can only read a little bit as well.

Some things about China remind me very much of my experiences in Russia. There is so much beaurocracy and officialness attached to everything from checking into a hotel to changing money and opening a bank account. And yes, we actually opened a bank account. Believe it or not, that is actually the easiest way for us to access money while here. Mark has an ATM card and everything. There is only 1 Bank of China in Guangzhou that exchanges traveller's cheques and it's not exactly convienent to go to often. On top of that, the bank is always full of people making the lines long. There was a ton of paper work to first open the account and then cash the travellers cheques. Mark thinks that this may come in handy in the future if the Chinese government floats the yuan. Right now the yuan is attached to the US dollar, but if it floats it could do very well.

We spent the first week in an area of the city near Bei Jing Road. This is a very large commercial area. There are lots of shopping malls, restaurants, clothing stores and about 3 McDonalds within close proximity of each other. Clothing seems to be quite popular here. In Thailand, we encountered about 50 mobile stores whereever we turned, but you don't find that in China. Perhaps, because it's government controlled. You also don't find many internet cafes either, but the library is a cheap and reliable place to go for interent. This area was ok, but there was no way we could afford to stay because the food in this area was much too expensive. It seems that trendy foreign cuisine restaurants are quite popular. Western, Thai, Korean and Vietnamese seem to be big, but this also means a higher price for average food. These were pretty much the only option in the Bei Jing Road area. However, we did eat at a very popular place that specialized in Cheung Fun. It's usually a dim sum dish of rice noodles stuffed with beef or various other foods, such as shrimp, pork or veggies.

We've now moved to a much more residential area and are finding the choice of eateries to be much more to our liking and budget. Yesterday the total bill for lunch was a little over a dollar and we both got 2 soup noodles and pop.

So far we've met quite a few of Mark's relatives. His Mom's older sister and her 2 children and their families live here. His Mom's younger brother is also coming in from the village later this week to see us. His Dad's "younger brother" and his 2 children and their families are also here. We all went out to dinner the other night and had a very good time. They were all very impressed with my chopstick skills and the fact that I ate Chinese food. When Mark told them that I'm quite good at cooking certain asian vegetables they were all quite floored, either that or they thought he was lying. I put younger brother in quotation marks because it's really his dad's cousin, but in the Chinese culture cousins are considered siblings. In fact, his "uncle's" children all call Mark "big brother."

We haven't really done any sight seeing since we've been here. We were too busy trying to find a school for us to learn some Chinese, but that didn't happen. All of the summer programs start in July. But we did get tutors, they are university students who wanted to make some extra money. I'm learning Cantonese and Mark is brushing up his Mandarin or putonhua as it is called. It's been interesting and I've learned lots of new vocabulary, but as good as it as I thought I would be. In fact, my first lesson I felt like I was in that episode of Friends where Pheobe is trying to teach Joey French and he completely says the wrong thing. My tutor just looked at me like whatever was coming out of my mouth was so way off from what she had said, but to me it sounded the same. I've gotten a little better over the past few lessons, but I have a long way to go before I'll ever be able to join a conversation with Mark's family. Good thing his parents already like me because I will definitely not be impressing them with my Cantonese skills at the end of this trip. Although, his Dad did say that it's enough I know how to say "hello, how are you?"

Well, I need to get going. Hope everyone is doing well!

P.S. I just found out today that I did officially graduate on June 1st!!! My diploma will be waiting for me when I return.