Guangdong Tourism Festival: Lights, Colors, and Old Friends in Guangzhou

On Friday, the Shenzhen Education Bureau bused a bunch of foreign teachers to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, for the Guangdong Tourism Festival. Once on the buses, they provided us with the most hideous hats you've ever seen-- the gray brim was about four inches too long and they were bright orange with "Shenzhen" written in pink across the front. I loved it and wore it as long as possible. Our guide had a pole with the number 12 on top-- we were to follow her en masse to find our dinner table and to find the stadium. Without our consent they turned us into one of those hilarious Asian tour groups that you see in Beijing, at Versailles, or holding up the leaning tower of Pisa...it was too funny.

We arrived in Guangzhou and they fed us a massive Cantonese dinner, lazy Susan style, with more food and Portuguese egg tarts than we could eat, and then herded us over to the stadium. We broke away from the group because there was still another hour and a half before the show started. We quickly found a corner store and the local Guangzhou beer. Equipped with a giant bottle of pijiu we hung out for a while on the streets around the stadium, learning various characters (like the one for that gross porridge that KFC sells with shrimp in it-- it looks like two electric currents with the baby radical inside it.) When we finally decided to make our way into the packed stadium, we discovered free bags of fun provided by the Guangdong Tourism Bureau (or some other equally boring sounding official entity). They had collapsable light sabers with batteries included, those plastic blowup clapper things, a program, tissues, a bottle of water, and a magazine of sights around Guangdong. So classy.

The stadium was the size of an American football stadium, and was filled halfway around so everyone could see the enormous stage on the opposite side of the floor ground. There must have been at least 40,000 people there...but I'm never good at guessing figures like that. The performance started with the mandatory Chinese speeches that lasted forever followed by the requisite fireworks and light show. Tacky floats representing each of Guangdong's major tourist cities drove by covered with flowers and palm trees. Oh how we cheered when the Shenzhen float drove by! Hundreds of performers filled the stage, moving in unison and creating different shapes with props and colored lights. Olympics style pyrotechnics ensued with Chinese pop music and more props, including a high speed train and giant green bamboo tubes. After an hour and a half Cody and I had had our fill and darted out to beat the crowds to the metro. We met Gabrielle and Chris at a hostel on the waterfront bar street (which had a children's park in the middle...) and called it a night.

It was so nice to see people from home! Gabby and Chris have known me since I was about eight or so, are good friends of my parents, and have traveled all over the world. They helped us with the initial planning of our Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia? trip and we helped them figure out Hong Kong and getting bus tickets to Yangshuo. We also got a delicious dim sum breakfast and climbed Baiyun Mountain on the northern edge of Guangzhou. It has good views of the polluted city and is a nice walk. Then we caught a train back to Shenzhen-- it's 75 kuai! Yikes! It was really fun to show someone from home around my new neighborhood and my school. After getting foot massages, seeing Dongmen and the People's Park in Luohu, eating Sichuan food near Ke Xue Guan, and watching the morning exercises at my school they were off again on their travels. They have friends all over the world and are welcome everywhere. Their lifestyle reminded me that there's no set formula to happiness...they have no home, no kids, but are perfectly happy being nomadic and dropping in to visit. It was so nice to have a piece of home but also inspiration to keep blazing my own way.

Thanks for the pics from the festival, Kiks.

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