Cantonnes of Concrete

This "special administrative region" post comes hot on the heels of a whirlwind voyage through the Cantonese super cities of Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Canton to some). Hot being the operative word too; it is about 30 degrees and 99% humidity in this neck of the woods each day and night, converting you to a walking sweat factory within seconds of leaving your air conditioned city hovel. You can walk around the streets, dreaming of cold rain all you want, instead the only showers you'll receive are from drip drying clothes and air conditioning units above as far as the eye can see.

I'll start first with the accommodation: the (in?)famous "Chunkhing Mansions", where seemingly every other cheap traveler in the city goes. When reviews of your accommodation include statements such as "ignore the blood on the walls in the stairwell, it's actually pretty safe", you know you're onto a budget winner. Needless to say it's not worth spending a great deal of time hanging around the hostel enjoying the surroundings. Unless you're interested in buying a cheap "Rolax" watch or being fitted for a tailored suit.

Hong Kong, due to it's British colonial heritage and western influence feels very much like an Australian city on steroids to me. It sports things other Chinese cities can only dream of such as an incredible metro system (complete with London-style "Mind the Gap" warnings!), recycling bins everywhere, a relatively high level of public order and consideration, a lack of spit and (disappointingly) predominantly correct English translations (although the word "fook" comes up enough times to make me giggle). All in all it's a pretty sanitised and slick Asian experience, but whatever you do, don't hire a car. You'll probably want to gouge your eyes out with chopsticks while battling endless armies of Toyota Crown taxi's and Jetson's sounding bikes to go anywhere. And everyone knows better than to get involved in a land war in Asia, even if it's just a traffic one.

Ultimately why would you drive anyway when the city has gigantic escalators throughout AND you get metro credits for walking! Kick ass!

Actually, while I am on the topic of cars, they drive on the left side of the road in Hong Kong, but on the right side in mainland China. I wonder if they meet each other head on and pile up in endless destruction at the border? I guess not, but the slapstick comedy potential in the scenario is too big to ignore for this blog writer.

Anyway...

For a city as effortlessly cosmopolitan and advanced as Hong Kong you still see glimpses of Asian-ness shining through. Walking through the city in the morning is like walking through the Matrix due to the number of people moving in Tai Chi slow motion, in the evening tiny little ramshackle snack huts permeate the cracks of the histogram-like skyline, there are monks walking around the streets trying to bless people for cash, there are vines and weeds threatening to reclaim the city in a few days if not held at bay, gleaming sky scrapers under construction are still surrounded with ever precarious bamboo scaffolding. There is certainly enough of Asia there to give you a taste, but it's covered up pretty well in modernity.

On the other side of the Shenzen boundary is Guangzhou. Another megalopolis, but with a distinctly more mainland China flavour. This place is definitely an architect's wet dream compared to Hong Kong however as it appears to be some sort of sand pit for trying out new and wildly funky building designs, all in the same spot. It was fortunate to visit during the mid autumn full moon festival where people hit the streets in droves to walk around, look at the moon and eat a lot. Especially mooncakes, sometimes filled with raisins, sometimes with white lotus paste, sometimes with pork jelly. The latter was experienced at a family dinner with a friend. It was a real honour to attend, leaving with epic bags of tea that will probably be destroyed by Australian customs.

Now I am aware that I spent basicially an entire blog post previously talking about the weird and wonderful foods encountered, but it was probably premature to go to press given Canton had not been encountered yet. They well and truly eat anything here ... in fact they have a proud saying, "If it has legs and it is not the table, if it has wings and it is not a plane, if it has fins and is not a boat or submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."

From black medicine jelly made from turtles that supposedly helps clear throat phlegm (a common problem as you would know by now), dried crispy fish skin, seaweed dessert, weird noodle soup made with the famous "thousand year old egg", fried chicken feet, steamed cakes and bread, horse lungs to "Pheonix milk" - Canton has it all. Here I was thinking the Pheonix was just an imaginary animal, not so, it's very real. And it produces milk, apparently.

If you don't feel like fantastical bird milk, you can drink copious tea here. In fact this is arguably where it all started for China in terms of tea drinking so naturally making tea is a complex, ancient ceremony and pretty serious business. Making tea involves pouring hot water OVER the tea pot to warm it up, then pouring hot water into the tea pot, pouring the first tea brew into your cups but just using it to warm and wash them, throw that first brew out, pour hot water in the pot again, scoop off the bubbles at the top, pour hot water over the pot to clean it, pour the second brew into the cups - getting each last drop and alternating between each cup per drop rapidly. Overall it's a wet and convoluted process, but very special and cool. I for one certainly feel shortchanged with the crappy tea bag experience back home.

Before I wrap this up, I should make a special mention here about how impossibly difficult learning Sino-Tibetan languages is. Mainly because of the concept of using tone/pitch to change the meaning of words - a concept that is completely foreign to Westerners where tone/pitch is used to denote questions or emphasis. Get the wrong tone and you have just said a totally different word, making your sentence complete gibberish. People don't seem to be able to join the gaps either if you get the wrong tone, meaning blank stares a plenty are waiting for you.

Reading the script is even more difficult given there many thousands to remember - although I am told you really only need a few thousand to "get by". Some of them are pretty easy as they almost look like what they represent, thus it is easy to make up mental stories for them. But not are all like this. Here are some examples below ... I provide a story for each one to help you remember it, as you go down the list it demonstrates how progressively tenuous and desperate this technique becomes.

火 = fire

It looks like a little fire with some embers flying off it.

山 = mountain

It looks like a mountain with three peaks.

油 = oil (edible)

It's a little olive tree with a barrel of olive oil next to it.

麵 = noodles

This is a little noodle stand on the right, with an absolute mess of noodles to the left.

恨 = hate

The little dude on the left hates it when someone breaks the leg of his exercise equipment and then doesn't bother to fix it properly, instead just leaning it on the broken leg.

钍 = Thorium

Erm, it kind of looks like a chemistry set, with some ... umm ... Thorium on it. Yeah, that's it.

豬 = pig

It looks like maybe, erm, ahh, FRACK IT ... I give up.