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.