Deep inside China...well, almost.

Chicken feet, curious faces, bumpy roads, mysterious dishes, quiet villages, giggly children, misty swathes of land, chaotic streets, foggy mountains…But also filthy street corners, quizzical looks, endemic pollution, beggars with missing limbs or putrefied skin,  extreme poverty disturbingly lined with ostentatious luxuries. All those stereotypes Westerners, « Lao Wai »– « Old Outsiders » - have of China, and that somehow, after all, hold some part of truth in them. All of that is, or has at one point been « my » China. The China I experience and see every day, through my routine here on campus or what I see when I venture outside.






A few weeks ago, Alice invited me to stay at her home again, and attend a couple of family dinners. I always value those experiences because they give me a real taste of China, and that time was no exception.

First, we were invited to eat and make dumplings at the home of one of Alice’s aunts.

Alice's cousin, aunt and uncle.


Her aunt and little cousin...



Once again, the guest friendliness of Chinese people struck me – When my stomach reached its maximum filling capacity, I had to purposefully leave some uneaten food in my bowl, on Alice’s advice, to avoid having more and more food being put into it. Actually, another stereotype many foreigners have of Chinese people, is that they eat very little – the typically Chinese small bowl would be to blame for that misconception. Chinese people love to eat, and  when I say they love to eat, they REALLY love to eat. I always thought I ate a lot, but that was before coming here – I’ve had to strongly reconsider that after seeing how much food people here wolf down in one meal.

Traditionally, every dish needs to be finished to avoid waste, and that tradition alone makes for some heavy eating. Then, people don’t just eat once out of their bowls. They take a little out of the main dish and put it in the bowl, and approximately twenty helpings follow the first. I usually can’t go past ten. Now that made me reconsider my own stereotype, that Chinese people are so slender because they only have one helping out of one tiny bowl.

Where we eat chocolate and chips for snacks, Chinese people eat dried squid and chicken feet. It tends to get amusing when I see Alice or her roommate try to type on their computer while holding a poor chicken foot, which is unwillingly turned into a sixth, clawy finger. Quite handy.
As for meat, it is usually more bone, fat and skin rather than white meat.Certain skill and mastery are required to deftly nibble around a piece of meat without dropping it from between the chopsticks. Which I still do way too often.

The day after the dumplings meal, we set off early to go have « dim sum »  (that morning meal made up of all those smaller dishes – see previous entries) to celebrate one of Alice’s aunts moving houses. Our expectations to have a quiet meal with only a few people were quickly shattered when we walked into the restaurant, where at least 20 people were gathered, with more coming later on.

As usual, the mere fact of being a foreigner quickly made me the center of attention. It is always a bit awkward, and it always gives me the feeling to be some sort of circus animal putting on a show. But people are usually just curious, and eventually the surprise wears off.We then went  to see her aunt’s new apartment, and I got to see yet another aspect of the new Chinese way of life. Brand new apartment complexes appear out of nowhere all over the city, in keeping with the Chinese construction boom. They are usually built in the suburbs, in the middle of old industrial areas lacking any obvious charm. Construction never seems to stop, and as soon as a building is finished, a new project starts a hundred meters away. New home owners expect to be surrounded by the constant cacophony of construction sites, and the view outside their window will also lack charm for quite a while. But to them, the joy of owning their first, luxurious home makes up for any unpleasant views and sounds.

After the early lunch,we went to Alice’s hometown in a rented van. I am always quite uneasy whenever I’m sitting in a Chinese vehicle, because safety rules here definitely don’t hold the same meaning as in Europe. The roads are really bumpy as it is, but vans like the one we rented usually only have security belts in the front, never in the back. And my seat wasn’t behind the front seat, but in the middle, meaning that there was nothing to stop me from crashing into the windshield if we had an accident.

But nothing happened, and an hour later we were driving through forlorn fish farms, through a scenery that had a distinct surreal feeling to it.
Everything was greyed out – the pollution around Guangzhou weighs down on the countryside surrounding the city, forming grey layers that shape it into a misty, desolated landscape. The hidden horizon and sun give it an even eerier look.





First we went to visit Alice’s grandfather in his village, the first of two villages I saw that seemed to have stopped in time. Life there goes at a very slow pace, with old people spending their days gossiping and playing Mah-Jong, and some villagers making a living from the surrounding fish farms and fields.


Her grandfather’s children completely rebuilt a house for him to live more comfortably, given that his previous house was an old, crumbling wooden house.

After a short visit, we made our way through more eerie scenery to another village, where Alice’s parents grew up in.





Alice and her mum, at the village entrance.


"Happy Birthday "
As you can see from the pictures, it’s a very quaint, traditional Chinese village, but unfortunately tainted by China’s economic development. Fields and farms disappear to be replaced by small factories, taking with them a peaceful, quiet way of life. This lifestyle change is inevitable, but it dœsn’t prevent the villagers from mourning the old ways, when pollution, filthy rivers and the destruction of the surrounding countryside were  not as extreme.



That village was so exception. The local authorities are completely absent from the village, meaning that no one is there to take care of basic maintenance, such as litter removal. Many street corners, ponds and small streams are littered with plastic bags and various rubbish.



Alice took me around to take some pictures, and we went to look at an abandoned school, that had become the playground for the village’s children.



According to Alice, i was the first foreigner to set foot in the village, so when the children saw me, they immediately came and tested their English on me – « Hello? », « How are you? » ‘s coming from all sides. Many Chinese people automatically assume every foreigner is American, a belief fueled by all the American shows and movies they see on TV.  They were even more excited when I took their picture, and then followed me all over the village. That’s just one of these experiences you rarely get in a big city…


We had come to the village to celebrate a birthday, a baby that had just turned one month old. We crossed a river on a barge, going back and forth between the two river banks. It was one of these boats I never thought i’d ever set foot on ;)






A lot of these pictures aren't well framed again, because as per usual I try to take pictures of people as discreetely as possible, but since, being a foreigner, I never go anywhere discreetely...it doesn't make it an easy task ;)
We were accompanied by a little girl, who decided we were a lot of fun and stayed with us all evening.

It started to be very funny when I noticed that she was imitating each of my facial expressions, and actually sustaining them as long as me…that led to some priceless videos.





A building on the way to the restaurant...

I seem to learn more Cantonese than Mandarin at times, which is quite amusing considering that everyone tells me I pronounce Cantonese much better than Mandarin. After four days hearing only Cantonese around me, I became so accustomed to it that I nearly greeted and thanked people in Cantonese when I came back to the campus. Well, it can always come in handy later on. ;)


Today is Christmas Eve, and I can’t post this entry without writing something about the stark contrast I have noticed in China between the commercial side  of Christmas and the actual celebration. Most Chinese people don’t celebrate Christmas, since very few are Christian – which dœsn’t prevent an inevitable flow of glossy, shiny Christmas decorations from sprouting in stores and malls.

Here Christmas is nothing but a commercial event, using the image of Christmas to sell chocolate and various gifts without any of the usual Christmas spirit. I have seen more store clerks wearing flashy Santa hats here, than anywhere in Europe. Techno mixes of Christmas songs are played on the radio. Christmas decorations and occasionally  the odd tree here and there are added to the mix. But it makes me more homesick than anything, and I wish for once, the Chinese would leave commercial profit behind and stick to their own traditions. ;) The one positive being that there are discounts on chocolate…


I had a Power point based speech to do for my International Trade the other day. After a few days of intense stress considering my usual panick attacks in the middle of speeches, it went really well– so well that the teacher offered me a job as an English teacher, at a local English training school. I’m flattered – and frustrated because I really don’t have time to commit to a job that would involve 2 hours of daily teaching, plus the time spent going there and preparing lessons. I’m afraid it would get in the way of my Chinese learning, for which I already have too little time as it is.

So I had to turn it down, not without asking if I could possibly teach there once a week only. He hasn’t answered yet. The students are all near beginners, and it would have been a perfect opportunity for me to get the credentials I need, in case I do decide to take the teaching path later on.


What I will do next semester though, is join the campus’ Broadcast Journalism Association. One of my friends is part of it, and said I could definitely join. I badly need some Journalistic experience, so hopefully that will contribute to it, at least a little.  I’m sure I will spend most of my time being passive since most of their work is in Chinese, but I will most likely learn more just by standing there than by not going at all.


I wrote about China’s insane bike drivers in my previous entry. Well, a few days after posting it, an accident happened on campus. Two people collided, and one of them was ejected from her bike with such violence that she hit her head on the ground, and ended up in hospital, in a coma. We asked my one roommate why people here don’t use their brakes – she had hurt herself a few weeks before by crashing into another student too. She said that here people don’t react quickly enough to use their brakes when they are about to run into someone. But isn’t that just the point of going slower?

One last picture of my three roommates and one of their friends,  after eating out to celebrate Yunshu (my one roommate, right in front of me)'s birthday.

That’s it for this time, I apologize for my rare updates, and making each of them gigantically sized…