So here I am. Four weeks weeks after receiving the news that I would be going to China for eight months, my journey has began, and I am writing my first post from the shining example of Chinese expansionism that is Shenzhen.
Apologies that it has taken so long for me to post anything, but I didn’t think that my battle with jet lag in the first week would make for very entertaining reading (or live up to the tag line: “Funny, compelling, and no holes barred…”). But as today marks two weeks since my arrival, I feel that I have something to write about.
Stepping off a plane full of Russians (all of whom seemed to know each other – on a BA flight, who’d have thought?) at Hong Kong airport, the drizzly conditions that met me didn’t fill me with the sort of excitement I hoped to have when starting my Asian adventure. Neither did crossing the border into the Mainland. If you want a good crossfit workout, I highly recommend carrying a 23kg rucksack and a 11kg holdall through Chinese border control. Safe to say I was glad to get into a taxi once I got into the People’s Republic.
Make of this what you will.
The weather remained cloudy with outbreaks of cloud for much of my first two weeks in Shenzhen, and it was about 10 days until I got a glimpse of the sky. On my first weekend I got invited on a trip to the city He Yuan with my hosts, so I shook off the jet lag and packed my bags and headed for the home of Asia’s Tallest Fountain.
Aside from the fountain, there is very little in Heyuan, however we did visit the beautiful Wan Lu lake and it’s islands, which are genuinely stunning and worth seeing. A serene boat ride, spectacular scenery, and naturally beautiful islands. This is probably the highlight of the trip so far, and highly recommended for anyone visiting Guangdong Province.
This was followed in the evening by a big Chinese dinner with a LOT of brandy and me being introduced to the concept of ‘Gan Bei’ – which, as every Chinese language student knows, means to literally empty your glass. So after downing more brandies than I care to mention, and still suffering from a bit of jet lag, I decided not to embarrass myself in front of my hosts in my first week with my karaoke skills (I have 8 months to do that), and had an early night, sorry everyone. This did however prove to be the first of many interesting dining experiences in China.
Now I was hoping to dispel some myths during my time in China, and admittedly I wasn’t greeted into the country by the sound of a crashing gong followed by pentatonic scales. But…well…I was served dog for lunch on the second day of the trip – or ‘traditional Chinese sheep’, as my hosts hilariously described it. I like Chinese food, especially out here; it’s so much nicer, all the ingredients are fresh and you get none of the crap they put into it in your average chow mein from the ‘Golden Dragon’ or ‘China Kitchen’ back home, so I’ve developed quite a taste for it and am keen to try more of the local grub. But apart from the thought of eating dog, the fact that it looks like fried turd when cooked, really doesn’t make it any more appealing. So I’ve had chicken’s feet (really popular out here, but nothing special really), I’ve had cow’s stomach, and I’ve had sun-dried fish, but I passed on the dog.
Right, that’s lunch
Other than that, there isn’t much else to report really. It’s slowly becoming apparent that my Chinese wasn’t as good as I thought it was before coming out here. ‘Useful phrases’ aren’t actually of much use when you can’t understand the replies to them. I’ve been taking a look at some of the local points of interests, such as hiking Wu Tong mountain, and seeing Lian Hua Park, where I discovered that the Chinese are into kite flying in a big way, and are not particularly deterred by the lack of wind.
Wu Tong Mountain – 2 hours to get halfway, but the views were incredible.
I’ll end this post with one of the most interesting discoveries of my time in Shenzhen, that a bottle of China’s finest lager, Tsingtao Beer, can be bought in a supermarket for the princely sum 29 pence. On that happy note, I’m going to bring this inaugural entry of the Dim Sum Diaries to an end. It will get better I promise, I just need to do more interesting things. Thanks for reading and enjoy the snow.
2.90 RMB = 29p. How is that even possible?
"Go East Young Man: The Dim Sum Diaries" 