Our first trip

Sitting in the Bullet train; I am amazed what human minds can create. It’s very comfortable to sit in such a train. It’s even more comfortable than sitting in a chair at home. Moving at a stunning speed of about 300 km/h you can look out of one of the big windows and appreciate the breath-taking skylines, lush and green jungles and seemingly endless rice fields. I have always been a fan of bullet trains. While looking back at our adventures in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, I am realising that it is just impossible to summarise everything we have experienced. But let me start:

First, the air quality has not been very good at the time we left Zhuhai. I discovered that we have had “203” on the air pollution scale. Trees which were located not even 15m away from me had this kind of fog in between. I had problems to breath. But nobody paid attention to it. Life went on. I need to buy masks, but still didn’t figure out how Taobao works (Taobao is the Chinese amazon.)

We already arrived in Guangzhou, time to get on the next train to Zhuhai.

The second train was a bit different, a bit smaller and older and looked like one of the trains in Germany, but it was still a high-speed train. By the way, high-speed train tickets cost about 1/5 of the price you need to pay for German high-speed train tickets (150km by High Speed train in China: 10,00€, 150km by High Speed train in Germany: 50,00€). In the last 10 years or so, China has built up a high-speed railway network which is longer than all high-speed railway networks all around the world combined.

广州 Guangzhou

At the very beginning of our little journey we got on the bus which brought us directly to the other Campus located in southern Guangzhou. One ticket was only 40Y which is less than 5€. What surprised me the most were the small TVs in the back of every seat. I could have picked some movies to watch during the two-hour trip but decided to listen to some podcasts instead. We arrived in a bustling city full of cars and people. I have never seen such an immense amount of people just in one place. Like our teacher told us: During every Chinese holiday the Guangzhou metro system transports the same amount of people which live in Italy (metaphorically speaking).

In the evening we went to one of the city centres of Guangzhou and admired the unbelievably high skyscrapers (looking up there made me feel a bit dizzy). And again, how can be something this high created by human hands?!

The following days we explored Guangzhou. This city is so big, I still can’t deal with its vastness. Being only one of million, million and million people is a new and truly terrific experience. Now I understand why collectivism does fit more to this country than individualism.

When I say “beautiful Chinese garden” then how does the first image you think of look like?

Now look at this!

After visiting this amazing garden with these beautiful bridges, we went to see the most famous river side of Guangzhou. On this day it was extraordinary beautiful because of the light show which was going on, so all buildings were lit up in different colours! This day was very special, because on this day China celebrated the 70^th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. On the 1^st October 70 years ago, Mao proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. A very important moment in Chinese history.

After this eventful but exhausting day we jumped on the bus home (we lived at the friend’s place) and then got stuck in an endless traffic jam. During the traffic incident I gave my seat to an older woman who afterwards was infinitely grateful. People in China appreciate you so much after you help them out.

Here are a few other things we saw on our trip in Guangzhou:

All in all, Guangzhou is a great megapolis with plenty of things to do. We still haven’t managed to visit all the famous sights.

深圳Shenzhen

There are different ways to arrive in Shenzhen.

1. Go by ferry (about 20-30€ from Zhuhai/Macau)
2. Go by high-speed train (about 20 € from Zhuhai)
3. Go by bus (even less than the previous options)

Shenzhen is quite unique. It’s super modern, though that wasn’t what we’ve discovered first. First, we saw a more old and dirty looking part of town after getting out of the metro:

Then slowly and steadily I started to realize what makes this city so special. It is full of young people, young people willing to work and to do business, people who are eager to become successful, people with a bright future awaiting them. My girlfriend’s cousin showed us around. He lives and works in Shenzhen. He also studied Chinese like we do right now. Without him we wouldn’t have had such an unforgettable time. First, we went to a more European style restaurant. There are a lot of them in Shenzhen. The city itself is very open-minded. There are a lot of foreigners everywhere. On the other side everyone starts to talk to you in English. The problem is that I personally do not understand the Chinese English (most of the time the accent is very heavy), and then must ask them if they could be so kind to repeat it in Chinese for me. The taxis and scooters in this city are powered by electricity and not by gasoline anymore. While the infrastructure is very developed, the city doesn’t stop to surprise me with its greenness and tidiness!

On the second day we set out to discover the city on our own. We went to Lianhuashan (莲花山). From this beautiful mountain you have an amazing view on the modern skyline of Shenzhen. I recommend you go by day, sunset and night. The weather in Shenzhen is the same as in Guangzhou and Zhuhai: It’s humid, hot and the sun has no mercy on you.

There is also a statue of Deng Xiaoping on the mountain looking down on his city. About 40 years ago this mega-city used to be a collection of small fishing villages. Only after the economical social market reforms proclaimed by Deng Xiaoping, and the decision that Shenzhen will be one of the first special economic zones of China, the city started to change very fast. It became a big business and technology hub even rivalling its neighbour Hongkong, which later became a part of China again. Today it’s famous for its business and high-end technology.

Silicon Valley 2.0

If you are interested in technology, you should consider coming to Shenzhen! You can buy everything for a reasonable price and have fun bargaining with the sellers. Shenzhen is a special economic zone and therefore has some economic benefits (more freedom for business) other cities don’t have. The area I am talking about is located near to Huaqiangbei station and is divided in different malls. But be careful! You should know how to distinguish between fake and real products. A lot of the technology is very cheap because its either fake (the Chinese distinguish between high-quality and low-quality fake), just self-made and not original. Original products of famous brands are often even more expensive than in Europe. But there are also original products which can be bought for a cheaper price than overseas. My girlfriend bought a new lens for her photo camera. It was original, but also cheaper than in Europe.

About the fakes: A lot of high-quality fakes are quite nice and can truly compete with the original ones. For example, I bought a pair of Apple headphones for about 20€. They are high-quality fakes as the shopkeeper told me. And they truly are made of high-quality. One of the best headphones I’ve ever had.

Old Dongmen Street

There are a lot of different tourist attractions in Shenzhen, but not all of them are as interesting as this one! Dongmen Pedestrian Street is a huge “street market” with a lot of cheap shops. You can buy almost everything here. The funny part is that the oldest and most beautiful buildings are occupied by McDonalds, KFC and Co.

Another few things I got knowledge about:

Food

Chinese love to eat a lot. Food is one of the things they admire the most. A few examples: We went to a Hotpot Restaurant. A Hotpot Restaurant is a restaurant where you can choose your own ingredients, like meat, fish, a lot of different kinds of vegetables and so on. Then, you usually get a big pot with boiling soup inside and start to cook the different ingredients by yourself. As you probably know, Chinese like to share their food. Whenever they order a dish, they order it for everybody to eat. That’s why there are those round tables with rotatable discs on it. Round objects are a good sign in Chinese culture because it depicts a family circle reunion.

• Clubs

There are a lot of clubs everywhere. A lot of the foreigners who are studying at our university like to go to the club almost every week or so. There are Chinese who don’t like to go to clubs and there are Chinese who really love it (but there are more Chinese who don’t like it). Yes, there are Chinese who are shy and introverted, but there are also Chinese who are extraverted as hell. So, you just can’t say that Chinese are all the same. I found out that Korean girls, for example, tend to be shyer than Chinese ones (Korean girls are so shy, that they drive our teachers crazy by always speaking in a very little voice.)

• Night markets

There are a few night markets in Zhuhai (not open daily), but they are not as common as in Taiwan. The Chinese love malls, so every little village has its own mall. Most of the time the malls are very disappointing. There are a lot of shops, but it seems to me that there is nothing interesting to buy. We still didn’t find any old markets in Zhuhai.

• Bookstores

The Chinese love to read books. The bookstores are amazing. Every single one of them is special in its own way. The books are very cheap, too. I recommend visiting a few when coming to China. Sadly, there are not that much books in English available (and they are very expensive), but there are lot of Chinese books for students like us to buy.

• VPN

Buy an iPhone before coming to China… I am not kidding. I am not that much of an Apple fan myself, but it makes things a lot easier. For example, you can’t access Google without having a functioning VPN connection. Therefore, you can’t access Google Play that easily. This makes updating apps and downloading new ones very hard. Sometimes the VPN connection does have its own problems too. You can either use a free VPN (but after a few weeks it gets useless), your University’s VPN or buy one for real money. Sometimes none of them works, like for example during the National holidays. As told before, during those holidays we travelled to Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

• Driving

Believe me, when looking from a German perspective, 85% of the Chinese don’t know how to drive properly. The roads are clean and nice most of the time, but driving on them can cause you a lot of trouble and get you in serious danger. I use to say here: Not the driver controls the car, rather the car controls the driver. I won’t even mention the busses and the bikes. If you don’t have a Chinese driving license you are not allowed to drive a car in China. I think that this rule already saved a lot of lives. Instead of wasting toilet paper you can use your International Driving License then. Which brings us to the next topic.

• The toilet dilemma

I don’t really know how to explain it in the cleanest way as possible, so I just start explaining it, I guess?! 90% of the time there is no toilet paper available in Chinese restrooms, therefore you must consider bringing your own along with you, or you’ll have to use your socks or International Driving License instead (which I do not hope you do). There are no toilet brushes to clean your mess up, so keep it as it is (as a present for the cleaning squad). Despite Xi’s toilet revolution campaign, there are still a lot of squatting toilets everywhere. And I think they won’t vanish that easily, because Chinese are used to it. Therefore you have to learn how to do the Slav squat/Chinese squat.

• Chinese willingness to help people

I love it! Chinese love to help people whenever they can. And it turns society in such a better place.  

These were my impressions and experiences on China in the last month. I hope you had fun reading them! See you next time!

Back to Zhuhai, we met my father who was visiting us. We showed him around and went for a nice hike near the Great Opera House.

All pictures were taken by my beautiful girlfriend Christy Man!