GZ - first impressions

 

The dawning of the final tour

Guangzhou 广州. Despite it's being China's most important southern port since the Tang dynasty 唐朝, and the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road trading route, the name of this city of 18.7 million residents and the capital of Guangdong Province 广东省 may not be as familiar to you as, say, Beijing 北京 or Shanghai 上海.  However, once I remind you that it used to be known internationally as Canton, there's a good chance Cantonese cuisine, and possibly the Cantonese dialect, will immediately spring to mind. And you'll then have a better understanding of our new home, and of what will probably be my final post (our fifth in 13 years). So let's use this opportunity to skim over how we've been settling in 17 days after arriving in this part of southern China following a long flight from Seattle and an overnight stay in Incheon, South Korea. 

As we arrived on a Friday afternoon, our first weekend was spent dealing with the newness of our surroundings (the first time for my wife to be here; my third, but the previous visits were short ones). The following weekend was taken up with unpacking and putting away our things that had arrived earlier that week. In the Foreign Service, it normally takes months for unaccompanied air baggage and household effects (the latter sent by container ship) to arrive at a new post. However, as we were transferring to Guangzhou from Beijing, thus negating the need for importation paperwork, port fees and so on, our UAB and HHE turned up just four days after we did, much to the consternation of some colleagues at my office who have been waiting several months to be reunited with their possessions. 

Since then we have been able to make tentative forays into the area around our apartment building (though heavy rain at times has often restricted us to the vast underground shopping corridors located close by), but only once so far have Shu-E and I ventured outside of the comfortable cocoon that is Guangzhou's central business district.

Our new residence provides us with a spectacular view, but living in a serviced apartment does make it feel more like we're staying in a hotel than relaxing in a home (though having our material possessions has certainly chipped away at that guest feeling). Bu there's no rent to pay so I can't complain, although in my last position in Beijing (as a general services officer) I quickly learned that some folks will still do so anyway:

Our neighborhood is especially vibrant-looking once the sun goes down:

"I miss you so much in Guangzhou" says Google Translate: 

The first time we ventured outdoors (the day after we arrived, in order to set up new cell phone accounts at the local branch of China Telecom), we passed by this establishment. Kani Dōraku かに道楽 with Chinese characteristics? 

The view from the opposite side of the building:

Canton Tower 广州塔. We'll have two or more years in which to visit it so there's no hurry to go there:

In the park near our building there's a water fountain show that appears to take place every day at 15:00 and 20:00. We've yet to see it up close,  but in a mantra that's been oft repeated since our arrival, there's plenty of time: 

One morning we heard the sounds of rhythmic drumming coming from outside, so my wife and I went down to have a look. Shu-E overheard from other bystanders that these young performers were rehearsing for an upcoming overseas tour:

Having dinner at a restaurant claiming to have been awarded a Michelin star, though it wasn't clear if it was at this particular branch the honor had been bestowed:

The food was pretty good, though I have no idea what kind of epicurean standards the fare may have met (and we didn't have any of the soups, which is what the chain is apparently most noted for):

Frankly speaking, it's a drag having to wake up early and go into an office again following  the relatively carefree days of Home Leave, but being greeted with sights like this first thing in the morning does help with reintegrating back into the drudgery: 

Parklife:

"很可爱!" our daughter will probably squeal when she eventually comes for a visit:

Like the Canton Tower, the main site of the 2010 Asian Games changes color throughout each evening:

My wife had heard about a Taiwanese restaurant in the Liwan district called Wan Wan Jia 弯弯家, started by a former Taiwanese dentist. This was our first time to venture beyond the boundaries of the CBD: 

The main dish for me was Lŭròu fàn (braised rice with pork and soy sauce) 滷肉飯.  I try to avoid using trite buzzwords like "authentic", but if this restaurant were in Taiwan it wouldn't feel out of place (though the name and decor would need to be changed). Shu-E, however, doesn't want to go back because it took more than 30 minutes (including one transfer) on the metro to get there. It should come as no surprise the woman has never lived in Tōkyō 東京:

It was the baseball-themed Chinglish on the T-shirt that first drew my attention, but then I noticed the photo of Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 and Mao Zedong 毛泽东 in the background: 

Stopping to have a look after lunch at the ruins of a fortress wall dating back to the Ming dyansty 明朝:

What the ruins were once a part of:

As we continued our walk we came across a performance of lion dancers celebrating the opening of a new business. This was a sight I never saw during our three years in Beijing, so already southern China feels very different when compared to China's capital. Dare I say perhaps even more "Chinese"?:

My wife accidentally sped up this video but I thought it looked cool:

財運亨通 - traditional characters meaning (per the Pleco app) a "run of good luck in making money":

Not far from the lion dancing was a trendy-looking old street called Huijixi 惠吉西, where this feline couldn't give a fuck if people were coming into or going out of the shop: 

Taking a break from the heat in a cafe called Old Rules. We didn't get to pet any lizards, but we did sit across from the resident snake:

Shu-E had a beer, while I for some inexplicable reason made do with a Cola Americano: 

2½ weeks in and we experienced our first genuine typhoon (there had been an earlier one that had veered away from the city at the last moment, as most of these storms apparently do, or so I've been told). Ragasa, however, was different, described as the strongest typhoon so far this year. It had already wreaked havoc in the Philippines and Taiwan, and was now approaching Hong Kong and southern China. The Guangzhou authorities were taking no chances - the evening before public transport was suspended and businesses were ordered closed after 21:00. My employer, however, took its time to decide whether or not to stay open. It wasn't until around 05:45 the next morning that the word came down the consulate would be closed for the day - all the subsequent messages lighting up in the various WeChat groups meant I wouldn't be able to sleep in, so I stepped outside to have a look at the clouds zipping past: 

The typhoon arrived around breakfast time, though fortunately it didn't bring the feared destruction, at least not in our area:

A little bit o' culture. This past weekend the missus and I took part in a workshop in making Chinese incense charms. This involved adding water to some blended incense powder, and then massaging and rolling the mass into a smooth ball in a process my wife likened to making dumplings:

I settled on these plates to use for my jiaozi charm. One is for my birth year, the other my daughter's:

The result of my efforts. The instructor encouraged me to smooth off all the rough edges but I elected instead to go in a wabi-sabi direction. Our charms are currently drying out on our kitchen counter, a process that's supposed to last several days. By the time I get back from Taiwan mine should be ready to attach to a decorative string and hang up near my bed. Or at least that's the theory:

Another view of Guangzhou's central business district after dark:

Lunch this afternoon at a Japanese restaurant called Nozomi のぞみ:

The irony:

Frankly speaking I've been having some difficulty adjusting to yet another Chinese post. Following our tour in Beijing I'd felt it was time to move on, and my hope was to land a job in another Asian post, but in a different country. When I first joined the State Department back in 2012 I had been looking forward to leaving the Mandarin-speaking world behind, but instead by the time I retire half of my career will have been spent toiling away in the Middle Kingdom. I would've preferred more geographic diversity when it came to assignments, but now apparently the powers that decide these things have determined I've become an Old China Hand. I suppose this means I should be propping up the bar in a 1930's-era hotel, boring other patrons to death with tales of old Canton, but for now I drink at home:

It isn't helping that after I return from Taiwan Shu-e will stay behind to spend time with her family, leaving me on my own here until the end of October. So don't expect much from this blog until then. Once she's back we'll head back out and explore, but until then I'll be holed up in the waiguoren 外国人 bubble. It does look nice at night:

Now I regret we let Amber have the cat...