Guangzhou

I have just spent a few days in the Chinese city Guangzhou, or Canton before the 20th century.

It is the third largest city in China, but culturally very distinct from both Beijing and Shanghai. It has been a centre of trade and commerce for several millennia, giving it a much more international feel. The main part of the city is built along the Pearl river, which empties in to the sea between Hong Kong and Macau.

In the 19th century, huge parts of it were given over to western powers for trade and diplomatic missions. In the 20th century the city saw the birth of the Nationalist government. Today it is again a major centre of trade and commerce. Its distance from Hong Kong, and cultural and linguistic similarities with that city, make it an ideal mainland counterpart to Hong Kong too, with several comparisons between the two being made.

Personally I loved it. It is instantly up there with Busan and Taipei as my favourite Asian cities.

We started the journey very early in the morning in front of Nanning Universities main gate. We made our way to the train station and then had the four hour bullet train ride to Guangzhou. The trains themselves are comparable to the KTX in Korea, though a bit more cramped. But overall it was a smooth trip.

The only disappointment was the Guangzhou Ocean Hotel. It boasted a sauna, airport shuttle bus, and swimming pool.... and had none of them. As a two star 150 rmb a night hotel it would be a deal. As a four star, 400 rmb a night it was a colossal rip off.

We left the hotel and headed out to what turned out to be a major bar area. Stumbled on it actually. Found a great cafe/bar called Minyoung's People's Place and enjoyed a few pints of Tiger. Guangzhou's bars and restaurants are actually VERY impressive, and feel like being in a world class city. From Euro-style bars, to Irish pubs, to Chinese bars the city seems to have it all in that respect. A 180 degree turn from Nanning.

The next day we got up and opted for a 6km walk to Shamian Island, which was at the heart of the foreign concessions before WWII. It gave us a chance to walk through the city and take it all in. It is called the Green City or the Flower city (though half of all Chinese cities seem to have this nickname). However, Guangzhou's is well deserved. The walk covered most major sights, though not stuff such as the Canton Tower. Oh well, next time.

Shamian took a few hours, with a stop to eat. It has been well preserved and the majority of tourists there were definitely Chinese. After a few hours there we cabbed back to the hotel to change, shower, and get ready to go back to the same downtown area.

The last day was basically a transit day and I ended up spending about 5 hours longer at Guangzhou airport than I needed to. However, there is enough to do there to keep you entertained, and it was fine as I know I will be back. Then it was off to Manila.

New Year

Green/Flower city

a statue that looks like a leftover from the

days of Soviet friendship.

In a state of disrepair but at one time must have

been important.

The Pearl river

Shamian colonial architecture

more colonial era buildings.

The English bridge

People's Cafe

Adjusting to Life in Nanning

With my first semester done and having lived here four months, I am starting to adjust to life in Nanning. While there are many cultural similarities between China and Korea, the last 60 years has affected both and made for some very noticeable differences. There have also been personal adjustments I have had to make. Here are a few I have noticed:

Language:

Admittedly my Korean was never amazing, but I was certainly able to communicate what I needed with anybody in Korea. I was also able to read Hangeul. In China I am illiterate for the first time since 2009, and am likely to stay that way a while.

Hangeul (Korean script) is idiot proof. It still amazes me that there are people who live in Korea longer than six months who can't read it. You're telling me you never had a rainy morning to learn it? Because that is how long it takes. Sure there are nuances that take time, but I feel confident that I could teach anyone the phonetics of Hangeul in a day. There is no good reason not to learn to read Korean if you are living there. I also spent a lot of time with JiWon, Haemi and Paul learning it, so I probably learned more than most, and arguably more than I had to to live there, though I enjoyed it and have thought about picking it up again.

Chinese, on the other hand, takes years to learn to read. I have met people here who speak it quite well but who are basically illiterate themselves. I can recognize a few characters (mostly ones that are used in Korea) but I don't think I will ever be able to really read it. As to speaking it? Well there is no reason not to study it a bit, but honestly I can't see myself here in 5 years. I enjoy it a lot, but I think if I stayed in NE Asia I'd go back to Korea before staying in China long term. Because of that I have only really learned to count to five and a couple of questions. I need to learn a bit more, but I doubt I'll ever walk around China with the ease in which I walked around Korea.

Siesta:

Maybe the thing that annoys me most about Nanning. Lunch breaks here are 12-3. They all shut down and take a nap. I loathe it. Not only do I think nap time is something I moved past in kindergarten, but it drives me nuts that during half the work day the office shuts down. I know a few other tropical places do that, but usually the office stays open until 7 at night. You still get a full work day, so fair enough. Not here. Office shuts down at 5pm. So basically they have a five hour work day. Now some people may love that, but when you are the kind of person who expects to be able to get a full day's work done in a day, it is amazingly frustrating to not be able to. Especially when you have come from Korea where a twelve hour work day is the norm, the work ethic here seems appalling. Now I think Koreans have swung too far the other way, and are in the office forever whether they need to be or not (sitting there for 3 hours on kakaoTalk is not unheard of) but the opposite is no better. But this leads to the next big issue.

Too many chefs:

This is just Chinese administration. You need five signatures and stamp from a sixth person for everything. It does keep unemployment low, but the inefficiency is staggering to me. I think people in the west don't understand what communism is at all. They hear the work and think Stalin. Communism is endless bureaucracy designed to keep everybody employed. Underemployed and making very little with no chance of advancement. but everyone has a job.

Internet:

There is one internet for China, and one for everywhere else. Officially google, facebook, blogger and all these sites are blocked because they say bad things about China. That just seems so childish, and South Park's 'very small penis' episode come to mind. But that isn't the case. I think that they do it so they can practice protectionism while still abiding by WTO agreements. It keeps Chinese social media sites in operation. I mean no one would ever use qq when facebook is available, so what you do is make facebook unavailable. It is VERY easy to get around with a good vpn, which I have. But doing things like putting your docs up on a google drive for sharing becomes a problem when your students and Chinese staff (and a few expats who have really been here for too long) don't use a vpn. The alternatives to google are all in Chinese, and even the few in English are simply inferior. As I say this is an easy problem to solve with a vpn, but internet is just such a part of our modern existence, and to deny people access to it is only serving to hurt the nation denying it.



Overall I am happy here, and have no plans of leaving this year, but these are a few things that take a bit of getting used to/tolerating.

Exploring a Bit of the City

Now that we are on vacation and I am not doing 7 days a week, I finally decided to head out to see a bit of Nanning. Namely, get on the subway and go to the big shopping and Expo area in the east of the city. I went with my coworker and friends, an English guy named Mark who was also interested in seeing the city.

The Exhibition Centre was very busy with people getting ready for Chinese New Year. It was fun but packed. To be honest, while the structure itself was cool there wasn't a lot to actually DO there besides people watch. so we left, walked out to Minzu road, and made a left for Jinhu square.

Exhibition Centre

New Year Sales

We walked along Minzu until we came to Jinhu Square, and Nanning's most famous landmark, a arch with a giant elephant on top. The elephants are apparently a reference to five elephant mountain, which I am told is near Nanning. I am not sure what elephants have to do with Nanning, as the only elephants anywhere in Guangxi are in zoos. That being said, it is a cool looking statue that appears on mugs and shirts here. Like virtually everything else in China, the statue is said to be lucky.

the Five Elephant Statue

While the statue was cool to see, it was a bit like the Exhibition Centre in that there was very little to actually DO. Jinhu Square is a business area, and there isn't much to do there if you don't work at one of the banks. It was also a cloudy, cool day so it was a good idea to keep moving.

So we walked back the way we came along Minzu and past the Exhibition Centre to reach MixC, a mall that has an international food market. Ole, it is called, certainly had a few international foods, but mostly in the form of sauces and drinks. Not a lot of cooking ingredients. They also had the prices to match. MixC is otherwise a moderate sized shopping mall. It is nice to know I can get jeans and shoes here now, but being that we are staying a block away from Mall of Asia in Manila next week, I decided to save my shopping for there.

It was then a subway ride to Chaoyang station to Parkson's. Another mall, but with a few restaurants. We tried Indian, which was among the best meals I have had in China.

Semester Finished

It is over, with my grades submitted I have finished my first full semester as a professor here at Guangxi Uni. It has been a busy few weeks, with seven day work weeks fairly common. Though now, with the exception of a couple of meetings and proctoring one exam next week for another teacher who has to split his exams in to two rooms, I am done. 

I have a meeting with the Vice Dean tomorrow about ways to use more tech in the classrooms and flipping some classes, and a meeting with my reading coordinator about next semester. On Monday I am proctoring the exam as I said, but as I don't have to grade it I hand it out, collect it, give it to the student's teacher, and am home before noon. Since I have volunteered for these things I can't really count it as scheduled work, so I am happy to say that I am done.

It has been a solid first semester, though a steep learning curve. Changing countries and starting a professional job at the same time is an adjustment to be sure, but so far I think I have been okay at it.

I do have to hang out in Nanning until the end of next week basically in case students need help or an exam needs proctoring, but really I have very little to do. After three months without a break I am not quite sure what to do with myself, though sitting inside on a cold, rainy morning with a cup of coffee seems like a good start. After that I head to Guangzhou (Canton) for two nights before finally getting to Manila for three weeks with Yen and her family in the Philippines.

First Semester Wrapping Up

Well my first semester as a university teacher is coming to an end. I have a few more exams to proctor and grade, but I should be all done by next Monday or Tuesday. I have to proctor exams for other classes after that, but all it involves is watching a room of Chinese students write an exam. The grading is left to other teachers.

It has been a good first semester. I certainly learned a lot, both about working at a university and China in general. That being said, I now appreciate why teachers get 6-8 week breaks. I have worked seven days a week since October, and that is working with adults. I couldn't imagine having to do this job and having parents to deal with as well.

I will have my grading finished by early next week and should have it all submitted in good time. I'll then collect my pay and head off to Manila and the Philippines for a few weeks.

Guangxi University

This is another one I started in Oct.

My new job is at a college called SCIC, which is attached the Guangxi University. The university itself is the oldest in the province, though it only dates back to 1928. Like many universities in China, it was founded during the republican period to try and teach modern science and arts in the wake of the overthrow of the last Emperor in 1912. Today it is the largest university in Guangxi by a fair margin.

There are several colleges attached to it, and it is the premier university in Guangxi province, though I think that is the equivalent of being the top university in Saskatchewan. Now the university of Saskatchewan is a top university, but compared to the number you'd find in Toronto or Vancouver, it is as much the only major university in Saskatchewan as the top university. Still, Guangxi University is well regarded in the region, and it has thousands of students at any one time.

It is also a beautiful campus, which is something they seem to excel at in northeast Asia. I was always amazed at the beauty of Korean university campuses, and now I find that they exist here in China (or at least the one I have seen is very comparable). It is nice.

A Year from Nam

I was looking back at some old blogs of mine from this time last year. I was linking them to my 2016 Christmas one. This time last year I was having Christmas in Hanoi with Yen. While looking through them I realised that I did a very poor job of documenting our time in Vietnam. When I consider that I did blogs in days in 2013 for Manila and for Hong Kong three for the country seems pitifully inadequate. I didn't even mention Hoi An and skimmed Hanoi during the Christmas blog!

I think I was not as in to blogging at that time for a few reasons.
1- CELTA had stressed me out (to be honest a year later and still not 100% sure why I did it)
2- Having no job and no idea where I was going stressed me out.
3- Having fun in Nam kept me busy.

Though doing so a year late means I will inevitably miss stuff, I have decided to do it anyway. I'll start with the city I spent the most time in, Ho Chi Minh City.

Saigon

Or Saigon, the large city to the south that reluctantly joined the communist forces when they overran the American backed regime in 1975. Today the city is the economic, if not the political, capital. Saigon is where I spent seven of my nine weeks in Vietnam, including New Years Eve. It is also where Will lives, and so the reason I chose to do my CELTA there. To be honest I did not fall in love with Saigon the way I thought I would. In fact, the only blog I did about it consisted of about a dozen sentences and was titled "Escape from Saigon." It isn't big cities at all. Hong Kong and Seoul are among my favourite cities in the world. It wasn't even the third world nature of it. I like Manila and love Bangkok. I think it was a combination of doing my CELTA there, and living on Bui Vien, the backpacker ghetto street of Saigon, that soured me on it a bit. But it was more than that that I wasn't crazy about. The city is all about electric bikes (much like Nanning) which makes getting anywhere stressful. Say what you will about Manila traffic, there IS a subway system and a jeepney is so much nicer than riding on the back of some guy's moped. I also wasn't crazy about the coffee there, after everyone told me how great it was, it was a letdown (though if I had known what I had waiting in Nanning....). I certainly enjoyed it, but when I learned that a few of my good friends were planning on joining Will there I had a long thought about going myself and decided to stay with the Nanning plan. I am sure that was the right choice for me both personally and professionally.

Bitexco Tower

Ho Chi Minh Statue

delicious

Homes along the Mekong

Mekong delta

Bui Vien

(nicest pic I had)

old French buildings

Notre-dame Cathedral

Reunification Palace.

Straight out of the 70's.

Views from Bitexco.

Street food.

That being said I did enjoy a lot about it. Besides coffee (Starbucks :P) and beers with Will, I managed to see the reunification palace and the old French colonial ruins. The Reunification Palace was cool as a day trip. Being that they have left it exactly as it was in 1975 it looks more like the set of a Roger Moore James Bond film rather than a modern presidential palace. Well almost exactly as it was found.... I doubt there were too many pictures of Ho Chi Minh and Vladimir Lenin in the palace before 1975.....Our Celta group also took a trip to the Mekong delta, which is an amazing place to see. I think that when I go back (with Will and Mike both there it is a question of when, not if) I would certainly spend less time in Saigon and more in the south. Beautiful area. I would also visit Da Lat, probably the big miss of my trip. I did enjoy being on Bui Vien with Will and some of my Celta group. It was a sight to see, and the bar called 'the View Rooftop Bar' was one of the nicest bar/restaurants I have visited in SE Asia, though you go there for the chicken burgers, so hardly a Vietnamese destination. Will also took me to a few places he eats which are certainly more local. One, where he brought in the New Year with Yen, myself, and other friends, was another of my favourite places in Vietnam. I think where Saigon may excel is in living, rather than visiting (if moped's don't bother you). In a sense Seoul is like that. A day or two is ample to see the sights, but as a city to explore you could spend weeks there. Perhaps being stuck on Bui Vien limited what I saw. As I say I enjoyed it, and would go back, but when compared to central Vietnam I know where I would want to live should I ever live in Vietnam.

Central Vietnam

Without question my favourite part of the trip. Yen's too I think. Our trip consisted of three places, Danang, Hoi An, and Hue. I wrote quite a bit about Hue last year and so don't have much to add to it, except that it is an amazing place and well worth a trip. Definitely a highlight of Vietnam for me.

Danang

I also did a decent write up of Danang at the time, and stand by everything in it. I would simply add that Danang reminds me of Asian cities like Busan and Taipei that people don't immediately think of visiting, but are well worth the trip. It was also a very liveable city. It is a great base for exploring Hue and Hoi An as well. I think if I ever moved to Vietnam I would look here first. A year later and it is where Yen and I talk about the most. My review was short, basically saying it was a great place to hang out. Very true. We had a great time on the beach, several great meals (and the worst meal I have ever had, but no place can bat 1.000), and just decompressed after Saigon.

Dragon Bridge in Danang

Riverside

Danang from the mountain

looking north up the coast

Hue

Hue again

Danang beach on a stormy day.

Hoi An

Maybe my favourite part of central Vietnam, and I completely skipped writing about it when I was there. Oh well.

Hoi An was a trading port from the 15th to the 19th century, with merchants from China, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Portugal, Arabia, India, and Persia all stopping by and setting up shop. The Chinese influence in particular, is very strong. In the 19th century the French moved the trading hub to the south, which accommodated the larger steam vessels better, and Hoi An became a backwater. Its status as a backwater left it effectively untouched by both the Japanese invasion during WWII and the American invasion of 1965-1973. Today it is a UNESCO heritage site, a tourist trap, but nonetheless a very cool city to see.

Yen and I set off from Danang in the early morning to a hotel I had found online. It was nice, though a decent walk from the town centre. When we arrived there was torrential rain, and so we spent our first afternoon in Hoi An at the hotel reading and watching TV. By the evening the rain had stopped and we got out for dinner. 

The next day was actually very nice and so we headed out on foot to the town centre. It is very much a tourist trap, with the only Vietnamese people being the vendors. However, it was also an amazing place to see a bit of the history of this part of SE Asia. However, it got even better at night. The government has mandated that along the river there is to be no electric lights. Only the lamps that would have lit up the harbour in the 19th century are to be used. The result is a very authentic feel for what an ancient port like this would have felt like 200 years ago. We only had one full day here, which was a shame. If we go back I would like to spend 3-4 days here, and preferably do so in the summer.

dinner after the rain

river near Hoi An

busy streets

and old buildings

the Japanese bridge

more old streets

canals of Hoi An

no idea

at night

again

Hanoi

The capital city, and one of the oldest cities in Vietnam, Hanoi was another very cool place we visited. Cool in every sense of the word too, as during the winter it gets chilly, with daytime highs of 14-16 not uncommon when we were there.

We actually arrived just before Christmas, and with so much moving about in central Nam, we opted to spend the first two days in the apartment we rented on airbnb, having a quiet Christmas. After our 2014 Christmas party it was a more subdued Christmas, but still a nice one. Hanoi is a very different city from Saigon, as it has a history going back over 1000 years. It has been, at various times, a Vietnamese capital, a Chinese provincial capital, and a French colonial capital. It was also a more, well serious city. The people are certainly more reserved than in Saigon, which I personally kind of liked. It was a bit like going from Los Angeles to London in terms of weather, history, and etiquette. 

We stayed very close to the old quarter, the part of Hanoi which helps you remember that Vietnam is an ancient country. We were able to walk around the west Lake and in to the city from our apartment without having to actually stay in the old quarter (which is beautiful but can be cramped). 

We spent our first two days in Hanoi at the apartment, as it was Christmas. On Boxing Day we decided to walk through the old quarter to Hoan Kiem Lake, the spiritual centre of the city. Along the way we saw one of the few Lenin statues still around, the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, some amazing French architecture, and some decent urban scenery. I am not sure why communist leaders are embalmed and put on public display like they are, but I guess Lenin really was a trend setter. Unfortunately Ho Chi Minh was away in Russia for further embalming (seriously), and so we couldn't see the man himself. I am okay with that. I also thought it was interesting that 25 years after the collapse of the USSR the Russians still do that. I wonder if they will do that to Castro?

a pond near the apartment

west lake

a temple on the lake

again

a student revolutionary

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

the square by the mausoleum

don't see too many statues of him anymore do you?

old French colonial architecture

Hoan Kiem lake

More old French architecture.

Hanoi was the one city in Vietnam that I feel we didn't get to explore enough, and being in Nanning I want to make the 8 hour train ride down there at least once or twice. Between Christmas and our trip to Ha Long Bay, we only had two days in the actual city, which simply isn't enough. I may save a full blog for the city and do it after we go back. 

Ha Long Bay

One reason we missed so much of Hanoi was because we opted for a full day trip out to Ha Long Bay, a few hours east of hanoi. Our tour company sold us a deluxe bus, which then crammed us in to a regular bus. This made more than a few people very angry. Be warned, tour companies in Hanoi are notoriously dishonest, and we got suckered. However, once we got there it was well worth the effort and annoyance, as the cruise company they set us up with were amazing and went above and beyond. Ha Long Bay itself is a bay filled with limestone islands and caves in a bay filled with emerald water. Of course being winter we had overcast and downright chilly weather, but it was still amazing and among the coolest places I have ever visited.

A Few pictures:

Overall

Vietnam is an amazing country, and one that I do hope to go back to. While I certainly wasn't crazy about Saigon the south did have a certain appeal, though it wasn't the part of the country I fell in love with at all. Central Vietnam is a place that everybody who can should see at some point. Danang, Hue, and Hoi An are all well worth a visit. In fact I would love to go back on a 2-3 week Central Vietnam stay. I don't think I stayed in Hanoi long enough to fully appreciate it so I will refrain from any real verdict. I liked it, but I feel like I need to go back to get a full appreciation of it. What I want to do is get a few of my friends in Saigon to meet me half way (Danang or Hanoi) during one of the term breaks and have a summer long weekend/week in one of those places. When I head back to Hanoi I will do a better job of documenting it.