University City

Me in the garden of the Foreign Languages University


University City is a, if not purpose-built, at least purpose-reinforced island for the purposes of higher education. It's not such a bad idea, you have to feel there ought to be some synergies from having so many clever people in one place. Apart from world class backbiting and professional jealousy, that is.

At this stage though, no-one will be getting any inspiration from the environment, although maybe in 10 year when the trees have got to a decent size the foreshore will be rather fine. But at the moment - of course the river is nice, all rivers are nice, that's definitely a bonus - it's a bit Canberra-esque. Not everyone probably thinks that an overplanned soulless city without history or significant cultural endeavour is necessarily bad, so I won't rush to judgement. But if someone had co-opted half a dozen old city streets near the river in the old city and converted them into a university of seven, then I would have been drawing comparisons with dreaming spires and sandstone (not that downtown has either of them, but it does have a very human-friendly atmosphere).

Of course converting downtown would just have meant relocating several thousand people from a perfectly nice place to live to a swamp, hardly sensible or fair even by the standards of property developers, so turning a swamp into a university makes perfect sense. And give it time - I'm a big fan of Chinese urban design, I think they pretty generally know what they are doing. The streetscapes in Guangzhou feel less oppressive than either Sydney of Melbourne CBD's, and in general have a ton more trees, so when you consider the sheer volume of high rises, there is some magic ingredient in their planning standards, so far.



Building an island


Speaking of downtown, I had a tip that there was a fabric market complete with tailors in an area called Da Sha Tou (Great Sandy Point? - maybe the river has moved) so I headed off down there. I was completely unable to find the bus, so I caught a cab. I do not know how anybody is able to find there way around this city; it makes Sydney look like a grid. Chinese style there are highways 3 storeys tall joined by roundabouts, flyovers, on-ramps, and even occasional traffic lights. Following the journey on my compass (I'm in denial about GPS) I can state that at various times on the journey (basically south west) we were pointing at all 360 degrees, and not just because we were going round a roundabout either.

Anyway, I was unable to explain the concept of fabric market to the taxi driver, but he dropped me at the camera market, which turned out to be intermingled with the audio market. Here is where you go in China if you want to spend in excess of $10000 AUD on your stereo. Judging from the number of shops in this business, lots of people do. Lots. Also, PA equipment, mixing desks, speakers, microphones, the works. Unsurprisingly the occupants of half the shops looked like they were probably up too late the previous night testing the equipment. And the camera market, apart from cameras, had thousands of lenses, lots second hand so relatively affordable if you are a lens junkie. Lots of tourists here, but 95% of them African. I live in the European tourist precinct, there is a subcontinental tourist precinct on the other side of the East railway station, and now I've found the African tourist precinct.

Da Sha Tou is one of those nice downtown places mentioned above, lots of trees. I did find the fabric market & it was full of fabric. I was intimidated, but I ploughed on. I embarrassed myself by bargaining something UP in price - I know everyone learns the numbers in lesson two, but there is something difficult in thinking about numbers not in your native language - but very nicely no-one took advantage of me. Well, I wasn't planning to buy anything anyway, but still, they were very sweet, kept the laughter down to a restrained smirk. I spoke to a tailor, curiously he was determined to speak English and I was determined to speak Chinese, which worked surprisingly well. Anyway, I will head back at some stage, they had more stuff than I could take in in one day. it's difficult to bargain for things that already seem cheap though.



Looking back towards Guanzhou (NOT Guangzhou, an outer suburb with a property developers' name)



Went out for a farewell management dinner with Mike (the guy whose barbeque I went to on Thursday) who has been here long enough to track down an excellent northeast style restaurant. So that was a satisfactory day, all in all. A lot of walking. Surprisingly, I woke up this AM not feeling too stiff. Maybe it's the humidity, the 24 hour sauna that just keeps on steaming.

OK, better go to work. It's Sunday, but I have to pay back Friday. *sigh* The Australian work ethic hasn't caught on here. I guess, to be honest, it's losing its grip in its country of origin. I haven't run across a good old fashioned bludger for years.