Smells Like Cons Spirit

大熊猫

Those of you who been following this blog may recall that on a couple of previous occasions (here and here, in case you've forgotten) when my wife went back to Taiwan, I basically fell apart, turning into a weekend version of a hikikomori 引きこもり. I didn't want to go out; I didn't feel like eating outside by myself; and I didn't start any of the personal self-improvement goals such as cooking, cycling and swimming that I had made a list of doing. After our triumphant though brief tour of Paris and Ireland in early-mid July, and enjoying our daughter's company for the last two weeks of that month, at the beginning of August I found myself having bacherhood thrust upon me again. This time my mother-in-law was involved in a serious traffic accident in Taichung 台中, so Shu-E understandably went back to take care of her. Although this time I was more socially engaged (going to the cinema to see "The Odyssey", having brunch at a Turkish restaurant and participating in an all-consular trivia night) I was otherwise still a shut-in for the entire month of August, with the excuse of it being too hot or rainy outside soon wearing thin. Finally, on the second day of September the wife returned just in time to drop me off at the hospital for another colonoscopy (my fourth). This time, in addition to the usual suspicious number of fortunately benign polyps, the doctor performing the procedure pointed out that I have an ulceration. He also wanted to do another test on the aforementioned polyps, a first for this kind of request, which had me concerned, but in the end everything was normal, and I can wait "another year or two" before undergoing this unpleasantness again.

Furthermore there is some additional good news appearing just around the corner. From this upcoming weekend I'll be making another visit to Japan (solo this time but in Japan, so I shouldn't have any problems going out and doing things and interacting with the locals there). However, following the end of that hoped-for enjoyable trip Shu-E will need to return to Taiwan once again, this time later in October for her own medical procedure, thereby meaning the single life in China will be forced upon me again. I could say I hope to do better this time, but based on past experience whatever high I'll have returning from Japan will rapidly evaporate once I'm back here in Guangzhou 广州. 

Oh, and I was passed over for promotion yet again (one of many this time around, so at least I wasn't singled out). One more annual evaluation to go and then I can stop giving any fucks. 

Needless to say, the hikikomori life isn't conducive to photography, so I don't have much to share during the time the 太太  was taking care of family matters back in Formosa. 

Waking up as usual at six in the morning on a work day to see what looked like smoke wafting up from somewhere in Huacheng Square 花城广场:

A sight that greeted me one evening in the lobby as I returned home from work. I never did learn what it was that was being promoted:

Yet another reminder that I'm only getting older. This time it was seeing lots of young women taking selfies with these posters. I had no idea who the singer was, and it took some sleuthing work utilizing Google AI to uncover that this was a promotion for a then-upcoming concert by Wang Junkai 王俊凯, a Chinese singer and actor. He was promoting his at that time impending Guangzhou stop on his "Endlessly" 当·潮汐漫溢 solo concert tour:

Fortunately I could always rely on Moon and Tiger to provide me with a tenuous grip on reality:

Reunited (if only briefy) with Shu-E it was time to reconnect with the greater world (i.e. those lands beyond the apartment and the office) again, beginning with lunch at a Hong Kong restaurant one Sunday afternoon after I was allowed to resume eating normally following the ulceration discovery (even if it was only a bowl of glorified instant noodles):

We then made plans to visit a historic site in Guangzhou on Labor Day Monday. But first there was an errand to be taken care of at ICBC, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. While my wife was in Taiwan I received a message from the bank saying our "certificates needed to be updated", which in plain speak meant the institution had detected that our previous diplomatic passports (the documents we used to initially open our accounts in Beijing 北京 four years ago) were going to expire next month. As we had renewed the passports back in March, it should've been a simple matter of updating the passport numbers and validity dates in ICBC's system, and in fact we were initially told it would only take five minutes. Instead, it turned into a 90-minute bureaucratic ordeal for me (for my wife, who has a normal three-character name, it really did take five minutes). When I had opened my account in China's capital in 2022, the bank clerk processing the application used my first name and surname. However, the system in the Guangzhou branch wouldn't allow the update to be completed because my passport has three names, not two - first, middle and last. Despite the fact I had presented a passport at that time containing all three names, the account was created in Beijing using my first and surnames only, but this didn't seem to have been an issue over the course of multiple transactions these past four years. The new passport I presented in Guangzhou also has the same three names (I presented both the expired and valid I.D. documents), but I was told the software wouldn't allow the update to be processed to completion, and that they would have to reach back to Beijing for guidance. So in short it wasn't a problem in 2022, but in 2026 it now is. By the time we were done arguing, it was already early afternoon, and the result was spending yet another weekend (this one three days in length) doing fuck all, this time thanks to one of China's premier financial institution. 

As it turned out, Beijing gave the local branch their blessing. Still, it meant I had to duck out of the office midmorning the following day, only to sit for a half-hour watching the clerk shuffle papers and make data entries before I was finally handed a piece of paper to sign, completing this particular transaction. And it will probably have to be repeated next year when my diplomatic ID card comes up for renewal. Fuck this country. 

Okay, that was a bit harsh and I should walk it back, but not by much. I harbor no ill will toward its people, for my interactions have generally been fine. And I admire its cultural and historical attractions, as our numerous travels around the PRC can attest. No, it's just life here in general that I've grown to become exhausted of. The two years we lived in Shanghai 上海 were great, but that was largely due to the assumption we would never be coming back. Life, and more importantly the State Department, however, had other plans. After three years in Beijing and one in Guangzhou (with another 20-21 months still to go) I've had enough. The bureaucracy, the surveillance, the Great Firewall, the "One China principle", the grimness of life in Chinese towns and villages foreign tourists will never see - you name it I'm sick and fucking tired of it. The clueless influencers and paid Western shills can drone on and on about how China is the "future", but I "maxxed" out a long time ago. 

Venting completed, we now return to our regularly scheduled blog post. The following Sunday the two of us finally made it out into the city, the first time in ages we had done something resembling exploring Guangzhou. Our destination was the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall 陈家祠. Guangdong Province's 广东省 largest extant Lingnan architectural complex. It was completed in 1894 by the residents of 72 villages in which members of the Chen clan were in the majority. There are 19 buildings constructed in the traditional Lingnan style, which combined acted as an ancestral shrine, Confucian school and business center for members of the extended Chen lineage. Upon entering visitors' eyes are drawn to the ornate rooftops:

One of the highlights of a visit is this carved wooden, gold-lacquered ancestral shrine constructed in 1949:

The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall now plays host to the Guangdong Folk Arts Museum, where there are exhibits on embroidery, murals, porcelain, pottery, stone carving, stucco relief, woodcarving and many more Guangdong art practices. One of the first items to catch my eye was this Qing dynasty 清朝 square dish with an eagle emblem that looks strikingly American:

Shu-E had visited this historic site last December with a friend who was in town for a few days. Which is why she could point out that these and other shelves had once contained over 10,000 ancestral tablets (two examples of which can be seen on the uppermost shelf). When I asked her what happened to them, she merely replied "Mao Zedong" 毛泽东:

A "high drum flower bottle" 高鼓华樽 dating from 2013 (not everything was of ancient provenance):

A 1957 copper engraving of the Chaozhou Phoenix Tower 潮州八景之一：凤凰塔:

A Qing dynasty horn using the popular folk tale "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" 八仙过海 as its theme: 

A tiny (2cm X 4.5cm) Qing dynasty bone carving of a lying cow:

I was particularly interested in these revolutionary objets d'art...:

...like this 1976 pottery piece depicting the brave action of a fourth-grade elementary school student who used his strength to pull a water buffalo off the tracks as a train was approaching: 

Examples of Canton Etched Colored Glass:

An ivory-carved, painted folding fan called "Fishermen's Joy" 渔家乐 created sometime in the first half of the 18th century:

A Qing dynasty gold-lacquered wood carving: 

The official English caption read "Chaozhou stone carving sparrow brace of colored Ao-Dragon fish". A photograph shows how these stone-carved fish and sparrow brackets were commonplace in traditional architecture in the Chaoshan region 潮汕地区: 

This giant gold lacquer woodcarving door screen originally graced the Guangdong Guild Hall in Guangxi 广西:

Facing the main hall one more time as were preparing to leave:

Back outside. My Lonely Planet guide recommends taking "a few hours to meander through the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall", but the two of us were done in less than an hour. My wife said it took longer when she had previously visited but that was because Shu-E and her friend and hired a guide to explain everything to them. Hardly being my first Chinese/Taiwanese first ancestral hall I like to think I made good use of our time:

Though the temperature was only 29°C/84°F that Sunday, the humidity was heavier than it had been the previous few days. As a result, our choice of a post-ancestral hall lunch spot was based more on the provision of air conditioning than the quality of the food on offer. Which is how I ended up with this meh chicken curry dish at a so-called "Thai" restaurant. The dumb(er than usual) look on my face was the result of an attempt to demonstrate how hot I was feeling while fanning myself with a handkerchief:

And as for the Chinese Taipei 中華台北 baseball jersey I was sporting that day, there's this.

No need to beware the Ides of September. It was around this time that our annual leadership day fell, an opportunity to get out of the office for a day and work on building that workplace esprit de corps. For this year's activity the entire section was transported to the Chimelong Safari Park 广州长隆野生动物世界, one component of the giant Chimelong theme park group:

The morning was spent in a conference room, with everyone divided into groups for several icebreakers/team building activities. As anyone you knows me could probably testify, I don't get much out of (or put much into) these corporate-style party games, but they are preferable to walking across hot coals or having to sit inside a sweat lodge. Following lunch...:

...we were set free to explore the safari park itself. My assigned group hopped aboard the Safari on Wheels, which as the name should imply is a ride in a park-provided vehicle through an area larger than a zoo but smaller than a game preserve, one in which compared to the former gives the inmates animals more space in which to move around:

White tigers, the one section where the residents were separated from the tourists by an obvious fence. The other predators were kept at bay by hidden moats, which was somewhat disconcerting at first until the water barriers revealed themselves:

Tapiring off:

"China's Leading White Rhino Conservation Center":

"China's Largest Giraffe Population":

This eland came over to gawk at the gawkers:

I liked the juxtaposition of the wild animals with the cable cars overhead and the condos in the background:

The unbearable cuteness of tiger cubs, capable of tearing you apart should you get too close. And let's not even think what kind of retribution their mother could be capable of dishing out:

"The Largest Koala Population Outside of Australia". Perpetually stoned?:

One of "The World's Only Surviving Giant Panda Triplets". Another one can be seen doing fuck all at the top of this blog post. Ah, the life of a Vulnerable species:

And now for something completely different but still related to the animal kingdom. I'll end this post with some photos and videos shared by my daughter from this year's edition of Big Fish Fest, "the world's only live-music accompanied shark dissection". Amber went to last year's concert/science experiment and was looking forward to 2026's event, which this year also included a bird dissection. She wasn't disappointed, either. I'm sure she'll be attending in 2027. Considering how poorly the Beavers have been playing football in recent years (2-10 last year; off to an 0-2 start this season), there isn't much else in Corvallis with which to get excited::

Speaking of zoos (or safari parks) I remember hearing years ago a discordant, distorted version of the children's song "We're Going to the Zoo" on KDVS. Unfortunately I never caught the name of the Flipper-sounding group that deconstructed the tune, and searches on Google and YouTube came up empty. But Flipper was the name of the star of a popular TV show in the mid-1960s described as an "aquatic Lassie", so I suppose this video kind of fits the animal theme that dominates the latter part of this blogpost:

Next stop: 日本! (hopefully it won't be too wet while I'm there!)