b e h n d i n g

I.e., can you hear her voice and picture her face here?  I can!  Thanks for the reference Winnie

After successfully securing a much coveted 12-month multi-entry visa to China, I headed up to the motherland for a couple days to visit some family and recharge for my first November without a Thanksgiving break.

While this excursion, my first ever trip to China China, was brief, I was left with several strong impressions of the place.  For one, I had some of the most scrumptious dim sum dishes I’ve ever unleashed tastebuds on, though I won’t go into too much detail in that regard (though I gladly do over at my food blog).

I stayed in Panyu, which is part of Guangzhou, the capital district of Guangdong Province.  Panyu has an industrial feel to it but is also highly residential — there are many apartment/housing communities and suburban-type highways that cut across lots of green space.  Sugar cane fields often extend as far as the eye can see, and vendors can generally be spotted selling their product right on the highway…talk about buying local.  In addition to the common greenish-yellow-hued variety of sugar cane, I also noticed black sugar cane being sold, which my aunt claims is much, much sweeter.  Must investigate.

As with Hong Kong, Guangzhou seems to be characterized by dualities.  There are scenes like this:

adjacent to signs of American capitalism doing its thing:

I did not intend to take the first photo in black and white, but it does nicely capture something of the tone of the place.  We passed by many vacated buildings, such as this one, donning dreary, worn-out facades, clearly unmaintained and long deprived of human use.  I truly wonder what the point is of having so much land if so much of it remains stale and mired in the past.  It wasn’t at all rustic in its old age, just plain depressing.

The efforts at modernization are equally ubiquitous.  Across the street from abandoned buildings, one finds spanking new industrial complexes and gated housing developments.  Since I wasn’t in town for long, I didn’t get a chance to explore the cultural centers of the district, but the downtown area of Guangzhou seems to be thriving in its pursuit of twenty-first century urbanization.  Outdoor promenades, specialty boutiques, and high-rise commercial and residential complexes are all in place, and I suspect that they will preside over the city for a long time coming.  I will definitely be coming back here, and with luck often, to discover the rich historical and cultural roots that the district is known to possess.

The most memorable tangible impressions from my trip have everything to do with the perceived lack of what I call road propriety.  While I am confident in my driving abilities, I will never drive in China, at least under the road conditions that I witnessed over those 2 days: namely, under virtually no enforced traffic rules.  People driving literally on the wrong side of the road, people walking along the sides of highways (that have NO shoulders, mind you), bicycles and rickshaws leisurely making their way between lanes of cars and trucks whizzing by.  There is absolutely no concept of a ‘turn signal,’ little if any recognition of other moving objects on the road, really.  I think if there is one rule, it’s something like, “if you don’t get caught, it’s all good.”  For every one traffic light that has a camera, 49 don’t, so people regularly drive straight through reds seemingly without thinking twice about the illegality of their actions.  Maybe I was missing some unspoken rule, like, “the point of traveling is to endanger oneself at all times.”

Now, I’m all for bending the rules once in awhile — in fact, I think it’s important for one’s health to do so — but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the logic of such a systematic disregard for road propriety.  My aunt kept laughing at the various expressions of dumbfoundedness on my face whenever I saw a car strolling along in the opposite direction or a bicycler furiously trying to keep up with the speed of automobile traffic.  What struck me most was how casual people were about it, and all this with their lives at stake.  I couldn’t figure out if they just didn’t care about their lives or if they genuinely didn’t feel like their livelihoods were being threatened.

In the end though, I admit that my horror is of little practical value — after all, let’s be honest, it probably won’t deter me from future travels in China — I simply thought it worth spending a musing moment or two upon.

This past week, another ETA and I gave a presentation on the US to a class on foreign cultures.  The premise of our presentation was the difficulty of generalizing about the American experience, and as such, we thought that simply providing portraits of our individual lives would most truthfully convey a sense of America.  As I prepared my slideshow, replete with pictures of home, I fell uncharacteristically ill: of all things, stricken by a mighty bout of nolstagia.

Some of those pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Those renowned Jersey highways

Jersey diners

Jersey Shore

Union Square Farmer’s Market, New York City

Williamstown in the fall

And the fam, of course

I find it somewhat amusing that I am presumed to be an expert, an authority figure, on America because I happened to live there for a respectable period of time.  Similarly, my ‘credential’ as a native English speaker far outweighs anything on my CV, such that my value here, at least as a teaching assistant, is largely tied to my native English tongue.  I suppose it just feels odd that I’ve not done much to warrant the position that I’m in, except to exist in a certain place.

A couple days ago, I received this surprise in the mail:

For the first time, I am claiming my right (and fulfilling my duty, argues another fellow American) to vote.

I’ll drink to that!

I’ve been accused on several occasions of ‘only taking pictures of food.’ That accusation is for the most part justified. However, the following post will confirm that I do do things besides eat and take pictures of what I eat.  For example…

I visited a former war village (granted, this was in August):

I take the bus (a lot! Whoever invented public transport has surely been sainted in heaven.  In HK, public transport is cheap, efficient, and air-conditioned):

I am also classy and associate people who tolerate my company:

I attended a harp concert:

I eat people:

I ride sampans:

I rest my case.