Barriers
I flew into Guangzhou in the south of China, and was picked up by Jerry (the son of the lady who I'm working for) and his girlfriend Sunny. Jerry lived in Toronto for a good 10 years so he can speak English perfectly; Sunny only speaks Mandarin and some Shanghainese (the dialect I can get by with).
They drove me around town for a while...There are actually palm trees all over the place and the weather is quite mild...my tour book says that this was an oasis of escape for emperors back in the day.
The first night was quite awkward...On top of being thrown in with two strangers (albeit, of my age), the language barrier didn't help...I guess it didn't hit me until now, since I was in Shanghai most of the time that I'm pretty much helpless everywhere else in this country...And I feel the requisite dose of shame and embarrassment
I stayed in their apartment which was nice and had high ceilings but it was essentially made of marble and glass and I actually woke up in the middle of the night because I was freezing to death...I walked around in a sweater the next morning..until I stepped outside and realized in looked and felt like Palm Springs.
In the afternoon, we drove down to Shenzhen, which is the closest to Hong Kong you can get in Mainland China (the border is 6 kms away from downtown)...In Shenzhen, once again, I couldn't even ask for the bathrooms and two of Jerry and Sunny's friends joined us for supper...they were quite empathetic and did their best to decipher that I was asking for tea, not the time...but all was well in the end when we went to Karaoke...I guess singing drunk is an international language which crosses borders...I downed 7 Heinekens (at 4.7% mind you) and ended up sleeping like a log by the time we got back to the hotel.
Saturday was spent at the "Window on the World" theme park..which consists of scaled-down versions of every international landmark you can think of...though none from Canada apart from Niagara Falls...The highlight was the traditional African village where a bunch of dark brown asians performed folk dances...Upon exiting the village, there was an attraction that was hidden by bushes by we climbed up to see what was going on...turns out it was an entire savannah with toy animals stampeding (think the Lion King)...but those sneaky designers, I knew they had something up their sleeves:
After our theme park adventure, we went for a foot massage...I was crossing my fingers for the cute guy in a track suit but ended up with the tomboy with a 'stache... but she was quite charming, especially when she realized that I had no idea what she was saying and proceeded to rub my feet like a mother from there on...at one point, she hit this painful spot and I told her it hurt and she matter-of-factly said: "This is the stress spot, you're not sleeping enough"...I was in love
Sunday morning, we went for a final meal in Shenzhen...and I inadvertently ended up with this on my plate:
(I know, it's easy to make things look gross on a plate and take pictures but this one was too priceless to pass up)...I politely poked at its eye and proceeded to declare that I was finished eating....After lunch, I was driven to the border...and basically walked from China to Hong Kong...it's quite common and many people do it (it doesn't sound as refuge as it does)
the rest of Hong Kong in another post!
They drove me around town for a while...There are actually palm trees all over the place and the weather is quite mild...my tour book says that this was an oasis of escape for emperors back in the day.
The first night was quite awkward...On top of being thrown in with two strangers (albeit, of my age), the language barrier didn't help...I guess it didn't hit me until now, since I was in Shanghai most of the time that I'm pretty much helpless everywhere else in this country...And I feel the requisite dose of shame and embarrassment
I stayed in their apartment which was nice and had high ceilings but it was essentially made of marble and glass and I actually woke up in the middle of the night because I was freezing to death...I walked around in a sweater the next morning..until I stepped outside and realized in looked and felt like Palm Springs.
In the afternoon, we drove down to Shenzhen, which is the closest to Hong Kong you can get in Mainland China (the border is 6 kms away from downtown)...In Shenzhen, once again, I couldn't even ask for the bathrooms and two of Jerry and Sunny's friends joined us for supper...they were quite empathetic and did their best to decipher that I was asking for tea, not the time...but all was well in the end when we went to Karaoke...I guess singing drunk is an international language which crosses borders...I downed 7 Heinekens (at 4.7% mind you) and ended up sleeping like a log by the time we got back to the hotel.
Saturday was spent at the "Window on the World" theme park..which consists of scaled-down versions of every international landmark you can think of...though none from Canada apart from Niagara Falls...The highlight was the traditional African village where a bunch of dark brown asians performed folk dances...Upon exiting the village, there was an attraction that was hidden by bushes by we climbed up to see what was going on...turns out it was an entire savannah with toy animals stampeding (think the Lion King)...but those sneaky designers, I knew they had something up their sleeves:
After our theme park adventure, we went for a foot massage...I was crossing my fingers for the cute guy in a track suit but ended up with the tomboy with a 'stache... but she was quite charming, especially when she realized that I had no idea what she was saying and proceeded to rub my feet like a mother from there on...at one point, she hit this painful spot and I told her it hurt and she matter-of-factly said: "This is the stress spot, you're not sleeping enough"...I was in love
Sunday morning, we went for a final meal in Shenzhen...and I inadvertently ended up with this on my plate:
(I know, it's easy to make things look gross on a plate and take pictures but this one was too priceless to pass up)...I politely poked at its eye and proceeded to declare that I was finished eating....After lunch, I was driven to the border...and basically walked from China to Hong Kong...it's quite common and many people do it (it doesn't sound as refuge as it does)
the rest of Hong Kong in another post!
posted by mic at 4:18 AM
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