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Published: December 17th 2017
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Kate's House
Notice the metal doors? Barred Windows? Its like they want to keep people out. From my parents house to Kate's parents house, it takes 22 hours door to door.
Our morning started at 6AM and we left to get to LAX. After getting to LAX, we checked in at 8:30AM and we had roughly 3 hours to kill before getting boarded at 11:30AM. Before boarding, I told Kate that we probably should eat something and not wait for the airplane food.
So get this, before traveling to China, I opted to eat at LAX's Panda Express before going to China. You know, to serve as a benchmark for what I am going to eat over there. 😉
We board and for the next 16 hours, I try to keep my sanity. I finally watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens (the 2015 one), and I just wanted to let you know that Finn is a legit character, Kylo Ren though, is an emotional lesbian. I also saw The Revenant, and told myself that "OH, this is the movie where Leo finally won his Academy Award for Best Actor by fighting a bear, getting buried alive, and eating raw bison meat". I suddenly didn't feel so bad about my flight.
After arriving in
Employee Cafeteria
Just like my companies cafeteria, empty. Guangzhou (pronouned GO-WONG-ZOH) airport, Kate and I had to wait for a bus. After an hour, we board the bus, and it takes me through rural China. Here I am, sitting on the bus looking at the signs and we get further away from the city and I noticed "damn none of the restaurant and building signs have English anymore, here I am, a Chinese person that looks like everyone else here, but can't read any of the damn signs. If anyone local asks me where and what is, I'm going to look like a damn fake".
Two hours driving through rural China, there were no lights on the road. All freeways are tolls, and the housing apartments are super small. We finally reach her family's home in Taishan (pronounced THAI-SAN). Ironically, this is where my mom's mom was born, so when Kate told my grandma, they became BFF's like instantly. Like I wouldn't be surprised if they said in Cantonese, "girl, I got your back, we from the same local hood, don't let this big buffoon think he runs the show." Oh, I should also mention, I don't speak Cantonese, which is the local dialect here. I understand
Compound Kitchen
Believe it or not, I met the woman that makes the food for employees and us. Pretty good. a little bit, and just nod my head when words are spoken towards me. Everyone in China though speaks Mandarin, so I'm somewhat safe.
We get to the destination bus stop and Kate's parents are there to greet us. They drive us to their house which is a compound on outskirts of Taishan. A compound with a guard gate, 10 guard dogs, 5 guards, a courtyard, and a metal barred house. I feel like a certain someone that had a compound in Pakistan a few years ago.
We end up sleeping really late at 1AM and I woke up around 8AM due to extremely loud music outside. A little backstory...
Taishan is considered a village. It has areas where there is no infrastructure for water or electricity. The problem with this is that the village itself is behind in providing services for housing and businesses. Thus, the village doesn't grow, which doesn't become a city.
Kate and her family here in Taishan own a art glass company (see photos). They have illustrators, painters, glass blowers, even cooks that live in the compound. The compound itself stretches about 1/4 of a city block and then there is
Night 2 Party
People here are from various parts of China coming to enjoy the party night 2. a metal gate that separates the dorms of the employees and then the family house where I am staying at. Her dad has thrown a giant 3-day party to attract more business with local people, media people, artists, movie producers, TV stations, newspaper journalists, and apparently even the 3rd person behind the Dalai Lama showed up today. So with that said, we had a busy day hosting people and greeting people. Other than that, its been an exhausting 48 hours, off to bed.
Funny video: