Guangzhou or ‘Canton’ is the largest city of the Guangdon province and one of the five national central cities of China. I know almost nothing about the Guangdon province, but can at least confirm that the great firewall of China hasn’t censored Wikipedia. It is in Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport that I find myself sitting, already travel-weary, waiting for the next flight to ‘Changsha’.
“What are you doing here?”, one may well ask. Actually, I am wondering the exact same thing. There are several answers, though the simplest reason I am here is that a little more than three weeks ago I applied, on the off-chance, to a ''Teach English in China” scheme advertised on my University’s summer job board. The Friday before last, the day I got my final exam results, I received an e-mail asking if I was still interested. The following Sunday, when recovered from my hangover, I received a call confirming my place on the scheme. I went to London on the next Tuesday to submit my passport application, contracted a horrible cold on the Thursday and graduated on the Friday. I graduated last Saturday, weny to London on Sunday, did three days of rather slap-dash TEFL training between Monday and Wednesday, flew to Guangzhou via Dubai yesterday, and now find myself basking, bleary eyed, in the Friday midday Guangzhou sunshine waiting for the next flight to ‘Changsha’, where I will be ‘teaching’ English at a summer school.
An incongruous horse in the Guangzhou Airport Hotel. Incongruous horses are all the rage in China.
The last two weeks have been exhilarating and exhausting in fairly equal measure. The highlight was results day, when the father of a friend, the CEO of a fairly (universally) well-known publishing company bought me and my girlfriend a £50 bottle of Champagne to go with our celebratory meal. He was impressed with our results and, apparently, our modesty. I doubt my modesty has impressed anyone before and don’t think it ever shall again, but the evening was much enjoyed. Suffice to say that when an e-mail arrived about the China scheme later that day, I was not quite in a condition to appreciate its significance.
More could be said about the following week and a half; the trip to London for visas via Camden market, punting up the Cam, hurriedly packing my University things, a toast to the fellows of Robinson College, graduation, a new camera, TEFL etc. but the fact that I was going to China didn’t really hit home until yesterday when I landed in Dubai airport.
If it was not immediately clear that Guangzhou Airport is very big, giant fake palm trees help illustrate that Guangzhou Airport is very big.
Dubai airport is an interesting and not altogether savoury mix of Western luxury goods, Huqqa pipes, dates, moustachioed men draped in white cotton, sand, palms and blazing sunshine. I didn’t get a chance to escape into central Dubai, but the place looked to contain the worst points of Western consumer culture and middle-eastern weather. Not a generous assessment, but, at 4am UK time on very little sleep, I wasn’t inclined to be charitable.
My first impressions of China were a lot better, if a little confused. The first thing that struck me was the size of Guangzhou's Baiyun Aiport. The place is huge, roomy and a lot easier to navigate than London’s own Heathrow and of a comparable scale (perhaps slightly smaller) than Tokyo’s ‘Narita’ airport. For a city I’d never before heard of, the airport’s gigantism was, and still is, a touch disconcerting. Gasping at the humidity, I was then ferried by taxi to the airport hotel, an establishment divorced from any species of food shop by at least a mile. I dined in style on instant noodles and a canned sweet kidney bean, water chestnut and lily-root porridge that I purchased under the mistaken belief that it was fruit juice. After sending a few e-mails and probing the great firewall of China (Google is blocked. along with Facebook and this blog), I headed to bed and slept for a full nine hours.
The last few hours have been spent returning to and cheerfully wandering around the hypertrophied Baiyun Aiport. I have partaken in the delights of plum tea and overpriced goose soup, though passed up the opportunity to buy ‘fruit juice pork bars’, salted plums and knock-off Angry Birds soft toys. Perhaps I shall go and sample some pickled egg cakes before my flight leaves.
The incongruous horse speaks no words but you can tell he is judging you.
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