The search for all things Western....

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Conversation with a fellow intern.
Me: Does it make me an ass that I spend my weekends seeking out all things Western?
Intern: If I answered honestly I would be calling myself an ass.

And so begins the tales of my weekends of travel searching for home comforts. Sometimes these are successful missions, others end in heartbreak. At the start of these journeys it is always in my mindset that by the end I will be yearning to return to my Chinese life, having overdosed on McDonalds, English / Irish / Swedish / German people as well as spending a weeks worth of pay doing it. This unfortunately is not the case. I no sooner return then get to texting, emailing and planning the next trip. We call it the ‘Weekend of Awesomeness Hangover’ in which everything we return to seems much bleaker than when we left. Facebook updates go from super positive such as ‘Sanshui delivered sunshine and blue skies today’ to ‘someone told China that I cheated on it with Hong Kong. China is not a happy camper’. Here are the places ruining my blue skies and sunny days….because they are just so much damn fun!

Destination: Guangzhou
Guangzhou is the capital of our province, Guangdong. It is home to 10.2 million people who all seem to be on the road whenever we want to travel there on a bus. For our inaugural visit we had organised to meet Will at the bus station on the Saturday night and return on the Sunday. Travel there is via Sanshui and it takes two buses and anywhere from 2 – 3.5 hours to get there depending on traffic.

Therese and I were told by the teachers to stand on the side of the road just outside the school and wait for the 616 bus to come by for our first leg of the trip to Sanshui. We nearly cause massive pile –ups during this stage of the journey as people rubberneck at the two unmissable foreign girls standing on the highway. In fact, it is not uncommon for strangers to pull up to talk to us, do a second and sometimes a third lap of that stretch of the road or slow down to about 5km/h to gawk. And I say ‘gawk’ because they are not looking because we are beautiful (although we are!) but it is more a look of absolute shock, astonishment and disbelief. Eyes pop out of heads, jaws drop, looks are doubled/tripled/quadrupled beyond the first glance and one day I had a crowd of 15 people watching me wait for the bus. They didn’t speak to me. Just stood behind a fence and watched me watching for a bus. Highly entertaining. I should have charged a cover fee.

In my infinite wisdom I had one of my star pupils write in a little book for me the destinations that I wanted to visit in Chinese so I could just point at the book when I got to the ticket operator. This worked a treat but I didn’t take into account that there were 15 different exits at the Sanshui Bus Station and we couldn’t be sure we were heading in the right direction AFTER we bought the tickets. The first time a couple who spoke quite good English appeared out of the crowd, drew us a mud map of Guangzhou and directed us onto a bus. We sat in fright as the bus driver spent more time looking at us than the road. Nowadays, we do not even have to say the name of our destinations. The operators know already and have half processed the ticket before I open my mouth. This is expected in Sanshui where there are only 8 or so operators that work the counter but the operator in Guangzhou, the largest bus station in our province, smiled sweetly at the end of my last transaction and said ‘see you next week’.

Arriving in Guangzhou usually requires us to locate Will in the crowd near the big green clock (a game of ‘pick the white guy’), or more recently Maccas, and then get a Big Mac before jumping on the subway. Bear in mind that I am from Tamworth. I have never really used public transport that often, firstly because we don’t have any in our little regional hub, and secondly because it is easier to drive. Other than the school bus, I do not think I have caught one. Yes, I lived in Newcastle for 5 years and frequented the train on a weekend seeking out nightlife, but it was an easy system where I only had to catch one train. Before leaving Australia I became a professional Sydney train dweller to attend conferences, organise visas and HSC marking. I was quite proud of myself really, gallivanting about our state capital with an air of grace (maybe that’s taking it too far). In Guangzhou, we generally have to catch several trains on several lines for the tiny price of 2 – 4 RMB (about $0.60). They have the most amazing train system and me using it is a testament to its ease. I now have it down to a fine art. Use coins to buy tickets, follow coloured signs, never line up for any entry or exit and put elbows out and shoulders down in the crowd, prepared to be stared at frequently, pose for photos, watch the advertisements on the televisions and never mind if you miss your stop because your ticket lets you travel back. This is perfect for me as the subway has a magical power that makes me sleepy instantly and I am prone to distraction by the insides of my eyelids.


Guangzhou has now provided us with several weekends of Westernisation. The first being the beautiful Shaiman Island with its provincial looking buildings, Lucy’s Café which is bearer of very bad Western food with service to match (why do we keep going back there?) and dodgy Europeans. One night we met a German who seemed like a nice enough guy hanging with a random mix of older men (and flanked by a few Chinese women). He described himself as a manager of a factory which is nothing unusual for China. I can’t remember his name but let’s call him Boris (as the name reminds me of someone dripping in sleaze). Boris complained that he was very bad a Mandarin and he often spoke to the children ‘of the factory’ to translate to the other workers what he wanted to communicate. I immediately assumed he was speaking of the children of the factory workers but it transpired that the children WERE the factory workers. I was sharing very bad European beer with a person that was in charge of child labor. I sat dumbfounded. Boris started to explain to us teachers (TEACHERS! Surely he would realise that we may have a few issues with taking a child out of a classroom to make Prada handbags) that not only were the children great at speaking English and allowing him to successfully make business deals but their little fingers were much better at doing the work that the adult ones because they ‘could do the, how do you say, intricate work but you are not to judge as you do not work in a factory’. I nearly puked. Child labor is alive and well here. How unbelievable is that?

The city itself has amazing laneways each dedicated to a particular product. They have a Shoe Street, a Pet Avenue, an Electronics Blvd and a Washing Machine Lane. Alright so I made those names up. Clearly. But you get the picture. Shoe Street is yet to be explored but I was mad keen on Pet Avenue. They sold an array of animals from multicoloured turtles, to handbag sized poodles and pugs as well as kittens, bunnies and goldfish. Animals, animals everywhere! I was in heaven. I got shouted at a dozen or so times from shop owners for petting, snuggling and picking them up but I had already master the art of saying ‘sorry’ in Mandarin so I didn’t get evicted completely. Some other interns have bought animals and are harbouring them in their school apartments. I was very, very tempted to become a member of Team Have-A-Random-Pet-In-China-And-Plan-To-Give-It-To-Someone-That-Won’t-Eat-It-When-You-Leave but noone around me shared the same feelings (As a side note I got an email from another intern today saying both his pet turtles were eaten by a rat. A RAT? Surely a turtle would win a fight to the death with a rat?).

A turn around the corner brings you to the mecca of Chinese Medicine where instead of seeing Tiger Paw Ointment made from the plant, instead you could buy a whole tiger paw. That’s right folks, a paw from a tiger to go with the horn from a rhino and mixed in with some shark fin. Somebody call PETA!

Will and I met for a day trip one weekend in search of books and steak. We found an amazing bookstore just off the subway line that sold English books for quite a reasonable price really, if you were only after the one. At one stage I had 6 books in my hand ranging from an Austin classic to Confucius. OK, I got a little too excited, did a quick calculation that they would cost me a months salary and ended up only buying two. As I was in Asia the Confucius book got to come home with me as well as a Japanese novel. Literature in hand we went in search of steak. I had been craving it all week and Will had ‘googled’ a nearby steak district. Google lied. There was no steak district. There was not even one place that sold it. We walked and walked and walked and walked and nothing. We ended up at a Muslim noodle place and ate potato instead. Mission failed.

We have around 10 other interns from our group that are placed in the Guangdong province so we have had a few weekends of mass group catch ups to save our sanity. There are also around the same number from Therese’s group too so there tends to be quite a crowd. Our first one was in Guangzhou at a YHA near Bar Street and revolved around no Chinese culture. Instead we sought out an Irish bar that had all the delights of the world. I didn’t mind sitting through two scrappy games of soccer (and getting yelled at because I kept insisting on calling it 'soccer'. To be fair I was promised 'football' and was pouty when I found out it was not a league game we had turned up for) because I was too busy being delightfully happy due to the following:
1. Beer on tap.
2. Pizza with real cheese and real meat.
3. A game of cricket on one television (be it the small one in the corner but hey, I have perfect eyesight).
4. Ireland vs England in the Rugby following the two soccer matches (this was a surprise. Pout eradicated!)
5. Free drinks from an Irishman named Donny who incidentally had met our resident Irishman, Paddy, the night before. Donny and Paddy got talking and discovered not only were they from the same town but Donny knew Paddy’s grandmother quite well. Paddy announced “he has been to my granny’s house” and I wondered how long it would be until my little world caved in on me somewhere along the tracks.
6. Hearing an Australian accent in the flesh. I enjoyed it for about 2 minutes before realising the guy was an idiot and moved away without any sudden movements. When I asked him where he was from he made the shape of Australia using his two index fingers and thumbs (like a squished love heart) and said very slowly 'Aus- tra - lia'. Thanks Captain Obvious, I got that from your accent mate. He then went on to explain that he was the head of an Australian Group that met in Guangzhou every few months. Needless to say, I did not sign up to the mailing list.
7. Pizza with real cheese and real meat.

NOTE: I realise noone reading this is actually impressed by the above but for the sake of my sanity, it HAD to happen. I cannot keep eating rice, noodles, chicken heads and unidentified meat objects whilst having no television and only having one other fluent English speaker to chat with (even though she is an extremely lovely girl, variety is the spice of life).

Guangzhou isn’t a bad place. Actually, it is quite convenient really so expect to see some more Gzhou (as I like to call it) stories over the remaining few months I have here. I have conquered the transport system, located a book store and an Irish pub and can now pronounce it clearly enough to buy tickets if the operator does not recognise me. It is also our gateway into everywhere else…..


Destination: Zhuhai
Examples of hyperboles -
Will: My place has a BEACH.
Me: I’m visiting EVERY weekend.

Zhuhai is on the coast, located on the border of Macau. It is a one hour bullet train from Gzhou to Zhuhai so we left early afternoon on a Friday to try our luck with some sun, sea and sand. To be fair, it does have beach like things occurring near it. Maybe it’s an English thing but when I saw it the word ‘beach’ did not come to mind. ‘Disgustingly uninviting coastline with some sand, litter and no waves’ was more my train of thought.

Zhuhai did deliver on many other levels though. There were a few expat bars and more importantly, expats. (Reminding you that this entry is entitled ‘search for all things Western’ – please don’t look down on me for it!) Expats are a funny breed of people. They would not normally be the type of people I would get excited to hang out with. More than often if I had met them back home it would have taken me about 2.5 seconds to get irritated with them and walk away but here in China, land of all things not Western, I suddenly have gained a remarkable amount of patience. So we hung out at The Office, the smallest bar in the world, and chatted with other expat teachers, sharing war stories until the early hours of the morning. We then caught THE fastest cab home in the world. It was the first time in months I had put a seat belt on….since December 26th in fact…. for fear of my life.

Our days were spent visiting the border of Macau and China, the underground shopping market with its maze of delights and eating at fast food joints. At the border I was reminded of how easy life is in rural China. A small girl of around three came running up to me and saying ‘hello’. I immediately bent down and started speaking to her in English as when this happens in our town the parents are as proud as punch that you interacted with their child. In Zhuhai, children are used as beggars. Much like Phnom Penh, my heart broke. This is the first time I had seen something like this in China. I had only been thinking earlier that week that China is so different because it had not been corrupted by tourism. Nothing is set up for a tourist here in any way, shape or form. At times it is frustrating but others it is refreshing. You are always experiencing the ‘real’ China. Macau is the gambling capital of Asia so it makes sense that the gap between rich and poor raised its ugly head here.

Destination: Hong Kong
Facebook wall posts -
Me: I had no idea Tomb Sweeping holiday was THIS weekend. Hong Konging it up.
Jess: Excellent. Well, we will text when we get there Saturday.

Last Monday I realised that we had an upcoming national holiday that fell on a Tuesday. The students at my school explained that they had Monday off too. We had been told about Tomb Sweeping holiday in Beijing but it snuck up on me. Tomb Sweeping holiday is an ancient tradition where families basically go and visit their deceased ancestors and family members graves and perform maintenance and prayer ceremonies. It is not a ‘holiday’ as such for the students as they go home and prepare for the tradition.

A few others had murmurings of visiting Hong Kong so after some quick calculations we realised it was possible for us to attend too. We have two entries on our visas which allows us to leave and re-enter China twice. As we are nearing our half way point for our stay, it made sense we use up one over the long weekend. Quick bus to Gzhou and a two hour train to Kowloon saw me earn another stamp on my passport.

We arrived at 11pm on Friday night, tired and in need of a hot shower. The train, which we thought would have been packed, was empty and we bought a ticket on the last arrival of the night just in case we couldn’t make it through departure in time. Therese and I were far too excited to sleep and babbled the whole way. We were surprisingly met at the train station by Will who directed us to look at our phones. It so happens that China Mobile does NOT work in Hong Kong, he wasn’t able to contact us to tell us where he was and we wouldn’t have been able to contact him. It also meant we were without contact means with the others, who were all arriving the next day. But fate intervened and we found one half of the group standing outside of a 7 – Eleven at 9pm at night and another the next morning walking down the street at the exact time we had planned to meet as a whole group the night before.

We all stayed at the famous Chungking Mansions which is home to possibly 1000’s (Ok, so maybe about 50 – 60) of hostels piled on top of each other. It was also home to a large number of Indian and Pakistani people, mostly touts and shop workers on the ground floor. It felt like I had been transported to Dehli, not Hong Kong. On the Sunday night we arrived home to find a massive brawl, flags waving and a cacophony of chanting occurring outside the mansion. India had just beat Pakistan in the cricket. Tempers were flaring. Police were called. The only entry into the mansion was blocked. It took a good while for everything to be cleared but apparently it had already been going on for hours.

We definitely were not in China anymore. People giggled when we spoke Mandarin (not because it was so bad, more because they don’t expect you to even try. Everyone speaks English in Hong Kong), the prices went up ten – fold and there was steak, pasta and pizza EVERYWHERE. Plus there were Westerners everywhere and we didn’t get stared at (which was off putting – we have now become attention whores).

The buildings were gorgeous and we took a tram to the peak and wandered around there for a good few hours. Even better was that the sun was shining! I wore shorts and a singlet for the first time since January and even got to work on my fading tan. The temples were stunning, the ferry was fun and the gardens were breathtaking. We had an uneventful trip to an island somewhere (? – Therese was in charge of that one!) and spent some time shopping in up in a place that had sizes to fit us. I even went to a church (did you read that Dad? I went to a church! I should get at least 5 brownie points for that one) and visited a church bookshop (only bought postcards though – minus two brownie points). I sat in a café, writing notes home (plus 2 brownie points) and drank by the harbour watching a very underwhelming light show (minus 10 brownie points).

The days flew by far too fast and we tried to pack as much in as we could without blowing the budget. We spent Tomb Sweeping day on the 3 subways, 2 buses and 1 train it took us to get home and it is taking us days to recover. I definitely heart Hong Kong in a big way….. maybe that’s where I can find my rich Chinese investment banker of a husband (plus 2000 brownie points!)…….

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