Guangzhou

I spent this past Tuesday with a tour group (primarily my classmates) in Guangzhou, which is about a 2-hour train ride north of Hong Kong.  Guangzhou, formerly known as Canton, played a significant role in China’s history, dating back to China’s BC dynasties. Today Guangzhou is an important port city.  Of course the tour advertising made Guangzhou sound like a wonderful day trip.  In reality, it is a large (population 17 million!), industrial and polluted Tier II city...

Kindergarten students & teacher

We started our tour at a Mainland China kindergarten - why, I don’t know.  It was one of the stranger tour activities I have ever done in my life.  I believe it was a sort of Chinese propaganda, as the tour guide kept talking about the wonderful education the Mainland children get, and how wonderful all of the school facilities are.  In truth, it was a nice kindergarten – but highly unlikely that all kindergartens look like this.  Speaking of propaganda, we also received an earful about why Chinese medicine is so much better than Western medicine.

After hearing the kindergarten children sing and having our pictures taken with them (note that they made us have our photos taken with the kids, which was also a little weird), we continued on to a museum. At the museum we saw some terracotta soldiers from Xian and lots of jade.  We also learned that when you see Chinese lions on both sides of a doorway, the female will have its right foot forward and will be on the right side (when looking out the door). 

Tour guide Ricky with Chinese door lion

Intricate jade boat

 

We then went to a zoo to see a panda.  Would have been much nicer to see a panda in a more natural environment, but this was the best we could do. 

For the remainder of the day, we walked around a street market, saw the Six Banyon Tree Temple (dating back 1400 years) and the Memorial Hall of Dr. Sun Yat Sen.  

In front of the Dr Sun Yat Sen memorial

1,400 year old pagoda - Six Banyon St Temple

Artist painting with his fingers (at one of the requisite tour store stops)

 A few photos from the streets of Guangzhou:

Nap time

Mahjong

The day was interesting, but I was happy to be back in Hong Kong that night.  After visiting both Shenzhen and Guangzhou within about a week’s time, I have had my fill of China’s Tier II cities!