Adventures in Guangzhou!

Some of my friends were holding a bbq and 1980's-themed danced party so I decided to head down at the last minute on Saturday. After all, who can resist the draw of Wham and Duran Duran? As it stands, it's extremely convenient to head down to HK, simply by taking the train down to Shenzhen, walking across the border, and hopping on to KCR (the light rail that goes down into the actual city). As expected, it was good food and good company which makes for a splendid night. As I was on the train returning on Sunday morning, I had one of those metacognitive moments when I realized once again how lucky I am. More on that in a second...

Crossing the border on the way back into the mainland, we had a couple of interesting thoughts regarding the customs process. First off, the form you have to fill out seems distinctly Chinese in a few ways. The space for your given name is really only enough to comfortably write about five letters, yet they require you to write your first and middle names there. Basically, you have to write as small as possible and squeeze it in so that the whole thing becomes incomprehensible. Furthermore, the space provided for your Chinese address has in parentheses the English, "Hotel." In other words, they expect that all foreigners who come in are going to a hotel. The concept of a foreign national is just a bit too much to consider, apparently.

The other noteworthy realization, which I've noticed every time I've been to and from Hong Kong, is that for some reason the process of checking in or out on the mainland side *always* takes twice as long. I can't quite figure out why because it's always the same number of people walking from one station to the other, but somehow the lines go on and on and the customs officials seem to take much more time, without actually scrutinizing the passports any more than the Hong Kong side. I have no answers for this one.

Once back in Guangzhou, the good thought/feeling I had about my place in the world was amplified even more at dinner. There is a side street right near my school where I often walk to go to restaurants or the 7-11. Every once in a while I'm walking back to the school gate, look up, and am just amazed and where I am and what I'm doing. Sunday night was one of those nights. For some reason this little street seems quintessentially Chinese for me: it has a bunch of really good, inexpensive restaurants, it's a little bit dirty, there are always people selling fruits/vegetables/flowers/bbq on the side of the road, there are a handful of slightly over the top flashing neon signs, and, perhaps most importantly, I've never seen another white person there in my entire time here.

Part of me worried a bit about hitting the proverbial "sophomore slump" in my second year abroad, yet it's times like this past weekend when that seems completely unfathomable. I am lucky enough to teach some of the brightest young minds in this entire province. I have the luxury of taking a train on a whim and ending up in Hong Kong, one of the coolest cities in the world, in under two hours. I live in arguably the most vibrant city in southern China where there are spots like the aforementioned street in which I can walk into a restaurant and have the waitstaff greet me with, "Laoshi hao!" or "hello, teacher!" In other words, I'm a lucky guy.

On a completely unrelated note, I saw an absolutely bizarre sight last night that still has me perplexed. I was walking out of the grocery store with two friends when we happened upon a rather peculiar individual. Now, this grocery store happens to be contained in the basement of what is billed as the largest mall in all of Asia. The mall is extremely high priced and has all of those stores that I have never heard of but carry high end clothes, leather, electronics, etc. So anyhow, we're walking out the side entrance and we see down the sidewalk a man dressed in a nice suit crawling along with his head down. Umm, huh? All three of us sort of paused and stepped on to the road in order to let him pass. He didn't look up once; just continued to drag himself along through puddles and dirt. None of us had any idea what to say or do so we let him go without a word. I still can't figure it out though--clearly he's not homeless if he's dressed in a nice suit and shiny leather shoes. He didn't appear to be injured because he didn't even attempt to look up at us. So, basically, I have no idea what was going on. Life in Guangzhou--never boring!

On a small technical note, thanks to the know-how of illustrious PiA-er Even Pay, I have now added a link directly on the side of my blog to my pictures website. I recently uploaded the rest of my pictures from the summer in Beijing, as well as a handful of shots from my recent trip to Hainan Island. Enjoy!