Leaving Xiamen and Guangzhou

Well as I expected I’m a few days behind schedule with my travel blog! No real surprise!

I decided to put my feet up on my last day in Xiamen. Having spent the last day running around the city fitting in as many sights as I could I thought it best before my train journey to Guangzhou to make full use of the excellent DVD store just down the road and furthermore rest up on the extremely comfortable sofa at the hostel. Two DVD’s later and I was ready to go!

A piece of advice for anyone who finds themselves in Xiamen for a couple of days, the International Youth Hostel (Xiamen Guoji Qingnian Lushe) is an excellent base to see the city. The rooms are cheap and clean and for 55 RMB you can’t ask for more! The setting was quiet and the staff went out of their way to help me. I know some of them might be reading this so I’d just like to say a big thank you to all for making my stay very enjoyable.

The train journey to Guangzhou was pretty good although I’m beginning to sympathise and understand with my old students who complained that speaking English all the time is tiring! I now know that speaking Chinese for an hour is usually enough for me. Yesterday I made some more friends on the train however I seem to be encountering the problem that that their English is actually worse in most cases than my Chinese! Hard to believe I know!

We usually go through the usual repertoire of conversation which takes about an hour and then we hit a wall. Being a foreigner I’ve noticed that it doesn’t take much language wise to impress my Chinese friends. However I do like to think that over the past few days I have actually improved a little, but once again I should point out that it's very tiring! The conversations only seem to go so far and then it becomes of a question of having to look in the dictionary whilst using a variety of hand and body actions to get my meaning across. Everyone I’ve met so far has been so hospitable and none more so than “King” who I met on this latest train trip.

It wasn’t long before he’d not only given me a special bottle of baijiu but also treated me to dinner off one of the trolleys that roll up and down the corridors of each carriage. In fact it was difficult for me to stop him from giving me more such was his generosity. I declined to open the bottle of baijiu, instead telling him I would save it for a special occasion. I didn’t however have the heart to tell him that I can’t stand baijiu!

The hours quite literally rolled by and eventually the lights and the music on the train went off and it was time to sleep. King was also kind enough to wake me in the morning to tell me of our imminent arrival in Guangzhou.

Once the train pulled into Guangzhou he also went out of his way to point me in the right direction of the main train station and how to navigate the subway system. We parted ways having further strengthen Chinese - British relations. I was told that next time I’m in Guangzhou I must have dinner with him and his girlfriend and also his lovely sister who I’m sure he was earmarking as a potential wife for yours truly!

One quick interesting point I've noticed about China. My friends or people I've met in Shanghai have always said to me that when they think of Englishmen they always associate them with being a ‘gentleman’ I have tried to point out to them in the past that this is by no means a word that can be associated with all Englishmen. The other word that often crops up is that of “liumang” which the guys I met on the train thought was absolutely hillarious. Before I had even looked the word up in the dictionary I already had a pretty good idea as to what it meant and yes I was right. It translates into English as ‘hooligan’ Isn’t it great that in the eyes of many non-natives the English are seen as a nation who get drunk and then beat the crap out of each other!

I'd been warned on my arrival that in actual fact 'hooligan skills' might come in handy in Guangzhou. I'd been told by many people that Guangzhou was not only 'wexian' or dangerous but also full of 'xiaotou' or thieves. I was half expecting a cross between Iraq and the projects of New York! I entered the station with my bag clenched firmly to my person and attempting to look as menacing as possible. The station (supposedly) the worst area wasn't actually that bad after all. My experience of train stations is that they aren't usually the most picturesque places in the world. I'll never forget once seeing some drug addicts injecting themselves at the train station in Bergamo Italy before. This really was a piece of cake!

For the sake of those reading this outside of China I should point out that China has 56 different ethnic minorities with the ‘Han’ accounting for 92% of the population with the other ethnic groups often being referred to as ‘shaoshu minzu’ (minority groups) It seems that the train station might be the place to see such a wide variety of these groups. I really should start a chart and attempt to tick them off one by one as I see them!

Having lived in Shanghai for so long where us 'whitey's' rarely cause much interest it’s somewhat funny to have rediscovered fame once again! I really do swear I’m the only foreigner travelling by train in China at the moment. The gentleman starers get a very British ‘Morning’ or ‘Afternoon’ whereas the ladies get a tip of the hat and a trademark Paul Smith smile!

I managed to fit in a few sights in Guangzhou namely Shamian Island (Shamian Dao) and Yuexiu Park (Yuexiao Gongyuan). Shamian Island really proved to be a worthwhile visit. It was apparently established in 1859 as a foreign concession. It became a base for both the British and the French with the Brits taking the West of the Island and the French the East. Access to the island is gained via a small number of bridges which apparently used to carry signs proclaiming ‘No Chinese’

As a first impression of a city it was an excellent introduction and totally unexpected, a real hidden gem, plenty of old colonial buildings, tree lined boulevards and old people going through their numerous early morning exercise routines. After that I popped over to the park and desperately tried to stay out of the scorching midday sun.

So that’s Guangzhou, next stop the eagerly anticipated Guilin (2nd March)

I'll try to keep it a little bit more up to date!

And yes photos will follow soon, but it takes me so long to write this that I'm exhausted after!

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