Pre-Japan, post-Japan and alongside Taiwan

Xixi Ancient Town 西溪古城 

Think of this blog post as an addendum, an upload to parallel the recent posts covering my latest journey in Japan, this one from the late middle of September to the first week of October. This post will summarize the exciting (sic) goings on that unraveled just before and immediately after the Japanese trip. Away we go...

Two cats, one toy - a study in contrasts:

The day before leaving for Japan the missus and I had lunch at Yu Xiao Zao 御小灶, a restaurant specializing in something called "Chinese Hot Sushi". It certainly presented a different take on the usual sushi fare, some of which was actually quite tasty. Below are a few of the dishes we ordered:

 

"Salt-Grilled Wagyu Sushi" (L); "Flame-Seared Beef Tongue Sushi" (R):

"Braised Abalone Sushi":

"Garlic Geoduck Sushi". Geoducks are phallic-looking burrowing clams harvested, but not generally eaten in Washington state, but which are frequently found in Asian supermarkets in the U.S.:

"Pan-seared Scallop in Butter Sushi":

Our daughter sent this to us via WeChat. It seems Amber, who is now in her third year, never did the first day of school photos for new students, so she pretended to be a freshman and got one this year:

Now back in Guangzhou 广州 after the two-week trip to Japan traveling around the Tōhoku region 東北地方 and meeting up with old friends in Tōkyō 東京. At the time I returned the clock was ticking down to one week before Shu-E went back again to Taiwan for several weeks. On an unrelated note, this building has a large map of Guangzhou on its facade:

Monday, October 5th, the last day of the Chinese National Day 中华人民共和国国庆节 holiday period and the day after I returned from Japan. It was also the last day of a "Super Burger Festival" or "Burger Plus Carnival" outside the K11 shopping mall:

There were a lot of burger stands, many of them with long lines, though it wasn't immediately clear why some stalls attracted more custom than others:

I chose this one primarily due to the lack of a queue, a decision-making process that would no doubt horrify foodie content creators. I had the "Big Mac Double Cheeseburger", a telling statement on the strength of intellectual property laws in China: 

We live close enough that I could take it home to eat. It wasn't bad but American hamburger superiority is unlikely to be challenged by Chinese rivals anytime soon (unlike in some other critical fields):

Coming home one day to find Tiger stretched out like this:

"Galloping Steed over Sky-water cdf Charts a Grand Vision":

Guangzhou is known throughout China as the "Flower City" and flora blooms year round, including in October:

On Double Ten Day 國慶日(中華民國) (i.e. the tenth of October), the wife and I had a Sunday lunch at a sushi restaurant called Huaiqi 怀鮨. As October 10 commemorates the Wuchang Uprising, which led to the founding of the Republic of China, the date is unsurprisingly ignored in the People's Republic:

On the evening of the tenth Shu-E and I did something that's pretty rare for us these days - going out after the sun has set. My spouse is a big fan of traditional opera, and on this evening she invited me to go with her to see the Cantonese opera The Flower Princess 帝女花, a fictional story but one based on a real life princess named Changping 长平公主. Here's a synopsis of the story, which I took without citation from somewhere on the Internet. Spoiler alert!:

Princess Chang Ping, the daughter of the last Ming Dynasty’s Emperor, has returned to the palace under the order of the new Manchu ( Ching Dynasty) conqueror Emperor to marry her fiancé Fu Ma (the Emperor’s Son-in-Law) Sai Hin. She only agreed to do this so that her deceased father would be given a proper burial and the lives of her two brothers would be spared. She and Sai Hin had promised each other to sacrifice their lives rather than to accept and live under the Manchu Ching Dynasty rule. So, they performed their marriage ceremony and then committed suicide together, thereby remaining faithful to each other and to the Ming Dynasty.

In an embarrassing admission, I completely missed the suicide and thought the story had a happy ending! In my defense, in real life Princess Changping married a military officer before dying (while pregnant) from an illness in 1647 at the age of 16 or 17. Not exactly a heartwarming conclusion to a pitifully short life, but one that didn't involve offing herself. 

At 2½ hours the opera was too long for this yokel barbarian but Shu-E enjoyed the performance. And it was better seeing it in person than having to listen to the dialogue and music on a CD in a car like I had to do when we were living in Taiwan:

Photographs and video recordings were not allowed during the performance but that didn't stop some people from trying. Those who made the attempt would have laser pointers aimed at their phones by staff. Below is an old YouTube clip showing the double suicide which I completely missed: 

Photos were permitted, however, at curtain call:

Outside the Guangdong Arts Theater  广东艺术剧院, which was the venue for the opera:

For the Columbus Day holiday weekend, and before she went back to Taiwan for several more weeks, my wife arranged an overnight trip on the Sunday to Dongguan 东莞, a city north of Guangzhou, the reason being the existence of an "old town" there. Shu-E had us booked at the Agarwood Hotel, reached by car from Guangzhou in about an hour and 45 minutes. Our large room was only 480 RMB ($60) for the one night:

The awe-inspiring view from the room:

Though we had traveled to Dongguan in our own vehicle, we took a Didi (China's version of Lyft or Uber) to the Xixi Ancient Village as we didn't know what the parking situation would be like. This tree adorned with pleas to the gods stood outside the entrance: 

The old town turned out to be mainly a disappointingly small strip of buildings facing a body of water. Behind the strip was a network of narrow alleys with cafes, restaurants and shops that was only mildly interesting:

At least the alleys were a little cooler than the 35°C/95°F temperature outside:

Lunch...:

...was grilled beef and shrimps on a bed of sliced melons: 

Afterward the owners allowed us to go up to the second-floor terrace:

Doing the photo shoot for my next album cover. Or is it for the blurb for my next NYT best seller?:

Very few of the buildings had any plaques providing some historical background. This one did:

I thought encasing the air conditioner in the wooden frame was a nice touch:

This man didn't ask permission to take my photo so I reciprocated. I didn't see any other Westerners during our time in the old town (though we did pass two gentlemen from the Indian subcontinent), so I must've been a rare enough sight that I needed to be captured on film (or the digital equivalent). Or he was working for the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and was just really bad at tailing suspected foreign spies:

A Taoist temple just outside the "ancient city". The presence of several worshippers there provided a certain authenticity the rest of the old town lacked:

A massive bowl of shaved ice proved to be an effective method to cope with the heat. This one (mine) was milk tea and caramel flavored:

My wife is overwhelmed by the size of hers:

Costumes on a clothesline. Unsurprisingly, there were many young women dressing up in Song dynasty 宋朝 costumes to have their photos taken. At tourist spots in China these days traditional clothing can be rented, along with a professional photographer to take pictures. The clientele is overwhelmingly young and female. This kind of dressing up also extends to ethnic clothing. In a country where one group (the Han 汉族) make up 92% of the population, cultural appropriation isn't a concern. Anti-woke conservatives would love it here in China:

Xixi Ancient City is small and not worth the effort to get there. Many buildings were vacant, with to rent signs in front. Shu-E thinks the authorities removed the original residents in order to turn the neighborhood into a sightseeing attraction. It certainly felt more like a tourist trap than a living community,

From Xixi we next walked 20 minutes to Xiangshi Ancient Town 香市古镇 (yes, there's another one). On the way we passed many small textile factories, each one with dozens of middle-aged women sitting in front of sewing machines, busy working on a Sunday afternoon. Dongguan has been called "the world's factory", churning out computer components, electronics, furniture, machinery, smartphones, toys and of course textiles. If you're looking to stay in an industrial city with thousands of factories then Dongguan is calling you! 

Compared to Xixi, Xiangshi turned out to be much less commercialized and felt more communal, but still wasn't that interesting:

Old men playing Chinese chess 象棋:

Back at our hotel:

We went outside later in search of food but as there wasn't much of interest to eat in the immediate vicinity, the two of us ended up at the hotel's restaurant:

Breakfast the following morn. The Chinese characters 早茶 translate as "morning tea", but refer to dim sum. Breakfast here was better than at some of the morning buffets I've had at Chinese and Taiwanese hotels, but it still wasn't what I wanted at 07:30: 

My wife ponders the tall doors to the hotel lobby which swing open automatically:

Shu-E thought Dongguan was ugly. It is after all the kind of typical Chinese city you will see should you venture away from the showcase cities (Beijing 北京, Chongqing 重庆, Guangzhou, Shanghai 上海 etc.) - think grey buildings, numerous factories, chaotic traffic and polluted skies. Content creators and influencers should be forced go to these cities and towns before proclaiming China as the "ultra-modern future".

Mention Dongguan to a Chinese person, and something else will probably come to mind. The city was once notorious as China's sex capital, but authorities cracked down starting in 2014. We didn't see any obvious indications, though what my wife calls "special businesses" must still exist as the hotel across from ours charged an hourly rate for rooms. Notoriety, however, is still apparently attached to Dongguan's name. Normally when sharing photos on Facebook I might get 50-100 views, but a few photos from Xixi that I posted received over 1200 views. No doubt there were a lot of disappointed visitors.

Speaking of the world's oldest profession, during this past month I was propositioned on four separate occasions by very attractive women in the area near the Four Seasons Hotel. It used to happen a lot in Shanghai but these were the first times here in Guangzhou. It was only after the second one asked me if I wanted a "massage" that I realized this was probably happening because of the Canton Fair, which ran from Oct. 15 to Nov. 4 (my suspicion was confirmed when I saw the "masseuse" return to a group of similarly good-looking young women hanging out just around the corner from the Four Seasons entrance. Sorry, no photos). The fact these women have all been, frankly speaking, hot also leads me to think they were part of some organized ring, probably run by gangsters. Or they could've been "honey traps". For whatever reason, I'm sure they were on the hunt for foreign businessmen, of which there were many in my area while the Canton Fair was operating. 

Once my wife had left town for Taiwan, there was little for me to do outside of work. One weekend afternoon when I was bored I took yet another walk. "Medical Aesthetics" 醫學美容,  written in traditional characters, even though the simplified variety is primarily used in China: 

This is what happens when people suddenly come into money:

The less photogenic side of Guangzhou, looking in the other direction from the Liede Bridge 猎德大桥 and Canton Tower 广州塔. The buildings are lit up at night. It's difficult to make out in the photo below, but the building with the wavy roof at the end of bridge is part of the Canton Fair Complex 中国进出口商品交易会展馆, which Wikipedia says is possibly the largest convention center in the world. Having passed by the buildings on the Guangzhou Tram 广州有轨电车 (see the next post when it gets uploaded) it's a claim I find very credible:

Guangzhou Gourmet Week was the reason for the blinding, flashing strobe lights that were lighting up our apartment and startling the cats. I stepped out on a Saturday evening to have a closer look:

I didn't feel like dealing with the crowds so I remained outside:

Interior of the G.T. Land Plaza 高德置地广场 shopping mall: 

Coming home one evening to find a musical performance taking place in the lobby:

That weekend there was a lion dance-related event being concluded. I know because I could hear the performances from my living room:

A man taking a stroll with a box on his head. I couldn't see the front but from the back I was reminded of LMFAO's Shuffle Bot:

Meanwhile, in Taiwan Shu-E and a friend had themselves documented collecting shellfish in Penghu 澎湖群島. I'm not at liberty at this time to explain what was going on here, only that the effort didn't succeed:

For those of you who find the timeline of the above goings on leaving you somewhat confused, you should be. In short, my wife was away for almost all of August due to family matters, returning in early September. We were then together for around 2½ weeks before I skipped town and sauntered off to Japan. I came back during the first week of October, and it was after that the two of us made our overnight trip to Dongguan. And then almost immediately after Columbus Day Shu-E returned to Taiwan for more family matters before returning at the beginning of this month. While she was away I returned to being a recluse as I had during her previous visits back home (here and here), which explains the paucity of photos in the latter part of this post. Fortunately she doesn't see any need arising for another trip to Taiwan anytime soon (knock on wood), so with the holiday season approaching and the weather cooling (even in Guangzhou) things should be a bit less dull around here.

Should be...