Old Canton, New Guangzhou

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September 11th 2017

Published: September 28th 2017

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Guangzhou Skyline

These skyscrapers all centre on Zhujiang Park, which flash, new, immaculately kept park that has a wide path that leads past the Guangzhou Opera House all the way to the Pearl River, opposite the Canton Tower.

I've written before about how I glean nostalgia and romance from the old names of colonial Indian cities. The same applies to China. Names such as Peking and Nanking. OK, perhaps not Nanking. But I was now heading to old Canton, now known as Guangzhou. And as you might have guessed, this is why people from Guangdong province and the language they speak is known as Cantonese. Cantonese by blood and one of China's major cities, it would have been remiss of me not to visit the place.

Getting there from Macau was pretty straightforward, starting with a free shuttle bus to the mainland Chinese border from the Sofitel across the road from my hotel! Hotel-casinos put on these shuttles for Chinese coming over the border for a flutter in order to get them to flutter away at their casinos. Anyone can hop onto these shuttles, which run every 15-20 minutes.

I then undertook my last land border crossing of the entire trip! I've had my share of slightly ropey border crossings but like this one, they all ended up fine and I haven't had to pay anyone off.
On the other side, I missed out on a cheaper and faster train from the border town of Zhuhai to Guangzhou. Train wasn't

Enning Lu

Historic street of old Canton.

mentioned by Lonely Planet as an option but I'm not sure why I didn't at least check out the Zhuhai Train Station when I saw it. Then again I was expecting Zhuhai to be a sleepy border post a la Hekou rather than a one-million people strong, apartment tower and glass skyscraper concentrated city.
Speaking of skyscraper concentrated cities, that was exactly what was waiting for me in Guangzhou. This was a proper city in every sense of the word compared with Macau, which is comparatively tiny.

Nipping into my customary, unassuming, budget eatery that evening, I noticed that like everywhere in China, there are some frankly hilarious translations of things into English, particularly on menus, if there even is an English menu. Fancy some "Ants Climbing Up A Tree"? How about "Husband And Wife Lung Slice"? Some "Lion's Head Meatball"? The reason why you often get such wacky translations is because the Chinese themselves often name and describe things in a very poetic or metaphorical way, unlike in English, where food is most often described literally. This means that even native Chinese speakers can't understand what the hell they are reading on a menu.
In terms of speaking

Canton Tower

Modern Guangzhou's most iconic landmark.

and listening, there are then the hundreds of local dialects that pronounce Chinese characters in their own way, which complicates things even further. Pinyin, an attempt to romanise Mandarin, has its own set of pronunciation which is different to how letters are pronounced in English, meaning that reading and speaking pinyin is like trying to learn another language in itself. Language in China really has been a challenge like nowhere else I've been.

Rain has been a feature of my travels ever since I got to Malaysia. I had planned my trip around the world by the seasons to maximise good weather and this largely worked until I decided to travel beyond June this year, where I have walked right into East Asia's rainy season. This annoyingly continued here in Guangzhou.

One of Guangzhou's main sights is the Mausoleum Of The Nanyue King. The tomb is over 2,000 years old and was stumbled upon when digging was taking place to build the metro system. Quite the structure, the tomb was built into the centre of a hill with a corridor, a storeroom, two ante chambers and the main chamber where the king lay, in his amazing jade burial

Shamian Dajie

The main boulevard running through the middle of Shamian Island.

suit which is on display in the adjacent museum, along with all the treasures and possessions that were buried alongside him, to be taken into the afterlife much in the same way as Qin Shi Huang took the Army Of Terracotta Warriors with him. Zhao Mo however, the Nanyue King, took some live people down with him too; concubines, servants and guards who were sacrificed to accompany the emperor. A bit shitty for them innit. As well as showing off the tomb's excavated artefacts, the museum explained Guangzhou's trading and maritime past, reiterating what I learnt at the Shenzhen Museum, less than 100km away. The tomb reminded me of ones at The Valley Of The Kings in Egypt.

As mentioned earlier, I am of Cantonese descent and after my visit to Guangzhou, I will be visiting some family I have never met who are living in Guangdong province. Through my communications with the family, I discovered that I actually had an aunt in Hong Kong! What a shame, if only I had known when I was there just a few days ago. Nevertheless, Aunty Suiching and her daughter Winnie were so determined not to miss out on seeing me, that they came all the way from Hong Kong to

Carvings At The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall

Wonderfully colourful and intricate. One of the highlights of Guangzhou.

Guangzhou to see me! And meeting them in the lobby of the hostel, they were so excited to meet me! They very kindly took me out for dinner as we talked about our family and what we were all doing with our lives. Aunty Suiching is essentially a half-cousin of my father and she doesn't speak any English so it was a good thing that Winnie did.
We had an outing together the next day as we visited the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall. The Chinese have built all these amazing temples to their ancestors and this one was amazing. It was so elaborately decorated and built that it felt like the classic old China I've always imagined in my head. The bonsai trees, the lanterns, the grey bricks, the roofs. But it was mainly the carvings, which were so intricate and colourful, which impressed me the most. The ones on the roofs in particular reminded me a lot of the statues and carvings I saw in India, affixed to the temple roofs there.
It felt appropriate too that I was visiting an ancestral hall with descendants of ancestors of my own. We went for dim sum afterwards where I was

Guangzhou Opera House

fed so much that I thought my stomach might explode. Aunty Suiching and Winnie then had to make their way back to Hong Kong for work the next day and it was a little sad saying goodbye to be honest. I was really touched by their warmth and how enthusiastic they were to see me, someone they hadn't met before. I hope to see them once again someday.

And this might've contributed to why I felt more of a connection here to Guangzhou, the capital of my 'home' province of Guangdong, where my grandparents on my Dad's side both hail from. Perhaps it was the Cantonese in the air, the familiarity once more of the food or the classic pedestrian streets rebuilt to restore the old-school feel of Canton back in the olden days.
These days the city is one of China's more cosmopolitan and well-connected ones due to its history as a trading port on the South China Sea and its proximity to Hong Kong. In fact, like Xian was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, Guangzhou was the eastern terminus of what was known as the Maritime Silk Road. The cosmopolitan aspect certainly made feel a little

Chen Clan Ancestral Hall

Wonderfully elegant ancestral hall, one of the best I have seen in China.

more at home.

Modern Guangzhou is perhaps encapsulated by the area near the Opera House and Canton Tower. All prim parks, plush underground shopping malls, glass skyscrapers and bright lights. Thought it'd be cool to see at night and indeed it is! It gave me a glimpse of what was waiting for me in Shanghai.

The next day I hit Shamian Island, which is a tranquil and classical oasis and is a lovely place to get away from the hustle and bustle. This island of reclaimed land was conceded to Britain and France after the Second Opium War which explains why the leafy pedestrian boulevard of Shamian Dajie is flanked by beautifully kept European buildings and embassies. But if you've been to Europe before it is nothing new; though it is a nice little piece of Europe for local couples to take their wedding photos in front of.
I then went down Guangzhou's 'memory lane' of Enning Lu. It took a while to find the Bahe Academy which used to look after Cantonese opera troupes by providing lodging, schooling, medical and funeral services. It is now a club for retired artists. There is nothing much to look at

Cantonese Alley

A typical alley that probably hasn't changed much over the last century or so.

other than the original wooden door from the academy's 1889 founding which survived Japanese bombing and being used as a parking plank for 4-ton vehicles.
Of more interest are the cool little lanes of normal Cantonese life around the area, whose images are evoked when you think of Old Canton and Chinese life back in the day. Almost the type of scene you would see Chun Li fighting in front of in Street Fighter. And speaking of fighting, it is on one of these lanes that lies Bruce Lee's ancestral home. Bruce Lee's father was known as one of the "Four Clown Masters Of Cantonese Opera" and part of his acts involved performing martial arts for show. There is a 200 year old union for such performers that is supposedly right next door to Bruce's father's old house but there seemed to be no indication that it was actually there. The whole area was being gentrified and Bruce Lee's Ancestral Home was so newly opened, that only three of the many rooms in it actually had stuff in it. The old lanes of life around here were no more. Not even opened yet was the Cantonese Opera Art Museum which

Five Rams Statue

Legend says these five rams brought down five immortals from heaven to feed and save the people. The rams are the symbol of Guangzhou

looked impressive in both size and design.
I capped off my time in Guangzhou with a walk around the wealthy neighbourhood of Dongshan. Beautiful red-bricked villas and tree-lined streets made this former overseas Chinese enclave - which included the high ranks of the Communist Party's arch rivals and the founders of Taiwan, the Kuomintang - resemble the affluent suburbs of Boston's Back Bay and Beacon Hill, some of London's more minted residential areas and even some of Dublin's posher suburbs. But again, if you've visited nice neighbourhoods before, there wasn't anything new to see here; you could just appreciate the serenity instead. There were supposed to be big villas along with schools and churches established by American missionaries here but I didn't spot the churches.

Overall, I actually quite liked Guangzhou; while resembling most of China's other cities, it did seem a little more Westernised than those I've visited so far and I appreciated the familiarity of the food and its lack of spiciness! I just felt more comfortable here than the other cities.
And it is a good thing I did because what I'm doing next has me both excited and nervous. It is something very personal to me, something you'll have the