Blogs from Jiangmen, Guangdong, China, Asia

After a couple of cups of coffee, I was off to Li Garden. It was a bout a fifty minute walk from where I was staying, but using public transport would have taken almost as long as I would have to walk about half the route and then wait around for the bus as it isn't too frequent. I enjoyed the walk although it was raining lightly. I headed along the road out of the village in a different direction passing more traditional style houses. I loved how old they looked and with the modern touches of people's laundry hanging out to show that they were lived in. The village road was pretty quiet and so was the main road I walked along. I'm glad there wasn't too much traffic as there were no real footpaths ... read more

After barely sleeping for a few hours, Kate and I decided to go exploring a bit into the main city of Guangzhou. We were to meet her best friend in the downtown area so we headed over to a place. We had a quick lunch and then I learned a few weeks ago that Guangzhou had the largest Line store in the entire world so I had to go. Line is an app that featured characters such as Brown and Cony. Brown! Shortly after, we headed over one of Kate's uncle's restaurant where we had a table of 18 people that consisted of the entire family including all grandma's, aunts, and sisters. Spoiler alert, they were watching me. I also learned that the same uncle also originally opened the first Sam Woo restaurant in SoCal. The ... read more

The Hakkas are a unique ethnic group of "Han" Chinese originally active ， mainly in south of China。They have their own langue and culture. My family is one of the traditional Hakkas. My grandfather told me that our original settlement was in middle of China. They were forcing to move to south for fighting. As a latecomer to places initially occupied by locals, Hakkas usually had to struggle and survive on the less desirable lands. Thus, Hakka people are well known for their perseverance even in the most adverse environment. And Watchtowers are created for prevention and defending at that time. There are many Diaolou all over Guangdong. The most famous is in Kaiping. They were approved as a national cultural heritage site in 2001, and were listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in ... read more