Scenic travels

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Today I saw more of China than I had seen before! We took some of our students to Guangzhou to hear representatives from two colleges speak at an international school, and our school provided a bus for us. There was some mention of seeing the city or staying over, but ultimately we were so tired that we decided we wouldn't be able to see that much. But we were hoping the ride itself would be of interest. We didn't realize how long it would take, since it is only an hour between Shenzhen and Guangzhou by (bullet) train, but I guess if I had thought about it, I would have realized it takes almost an hour to get to the airport, which is less than half of the distance we traveled today. Besides the length of time and inevitable traffic jams, the downside to the ride was the lack of geographical diversity (and the fact that what we saw of Guangzhou looked basically identical to Shenzhen). My coworker was hoping for some interesting hills or rivers. On the other hand, I finally got to see some of the more industrial sides of the Pearl River Delta, which may not sound that exciting, but is really the only interesting thing about Shenzhen, and I hadn't experienced it yet.

I actually drove out to the airport yesterday, so the first hour of the trip was not that exciting--lots of residential high rises (ranging from about 10 years old to still in construction), some large hills, some greenery. This stayed the same for the first few miles after the airport, but soon things started to shift. The buildings got older, and smaller, and grungier, and I started seeing large complexes that looked like they could be factory housing. The change was subtle at first, and the development seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, which made it even harder to distinguish the difference. However, as we left Shenzhen and hit Dongguan, I started seeing signs for individual factories, and it became clear that these were the heart of the light-industry of the area (and the factories that I had read about, where migrants come from all over China, live in dormitories, and work 6-7 days I week).

We passed through a few areas with what seemed to be older apartment buildings, a totally different style from the high rise towers or the squatter factory dorms. These almost reminded me of Spanish houses, with bright colors, roof balconies, and wire window covers (used to keep out thieves) mimicking the latticework of fancy villas. They didn't seem to be part of a city, and I didn't see any signs of commerce, just long rows of these houses, with more factories in the background. Maybe they are older factory housing?

Then we got close to the Pearl River itself, and the scenery changed again. There was more agriculture--banana plantations, and maybe rice fields? It was unclear who owned or tended this land, as there didn't seem to be farm houses (I saw a few shacks, but most of the fields didn't even have those). They also were in sharp contrast to the now larger, more heavily industrial factories interspersed among them. I started seeing smoke stacks (and more haze than we're used to in downtown Shenzhen), and bigger buildings. We crossed and recrossed the Pearl River; in parts it looked somewhat pleasant, but mostly it was muddy and slow.

And then gradually, without me even noticing, the factories changed back into residential high rises, and we were in Guangzhou. I really wish that I had pictures of this... maybe next time I go I will take some, and we can compare them to my dad's from his trip through the same area 25+ years ago.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Very interesting. As you can guess, this is my favorite kind of travelogue sb

[leogoesrawr]

Yeah, one of my coworkers is planning to go to Manila (and maybe some islands) for our break, and he said that the fact that everyone was telling him Manila was not an interesting city for a tourist was increasing his desire to go there, and I thought of you.