with Cara Lopez Lee, author of They Only Eat Their Husbands, a memoir of adventure in Alaska & around the world
April 6, 2008
Guangzhou, China
Fiona Zhu and I took a taxi to an old Xiguan great house yesterday. The house is now a museum, displaying the lifestyle of rich merchants of the past in the Liwan neighborhood of Guangzhou. The old Chinese home was like something out of a romantic novel, not only to me, but to Zhu Zhu, too; neither of us had ever lived in digs even remotely as elegant as this.
April 5th, 2008
Guangzhou, China
Yesterday, Fiona Zhu and I went to the Haizhu Wholesale Market, a giant warehouse where hundreds of stalls sell the trinkets, baubles, kitsch and downright junk of a consumer society. Mainly we’re talking about the things no one actually needs: plastic Godzillas, hand-painted theatrical masks, fake fingernails, plastic flowers, fabric-covered keepsake boxes, fake-jade statues, fine China tea cups, not-so-fine China tea-cups, and trios of figurines meant to represent Joy, Luck and Prosperity. Zhu Zhu had been to this market many times. “Sometimes I don’t buy anything, just look around.”
April 4, 2008
Guangzhou, China
Yesterday, Fiona Zhu and I walked to Shang Xia Jiu, which literally means “Up-Down Nine,” as in “Up and Down 9th Street.” The long pedestrian avenue crosses the old town center, but it’s also one of the city’s trendiest hangouts. It’s the longest shopping street in Guangzhou, and a perfect showcase of Old China and New China.
April 3, 2008
Guangzhou, China
It’s another wet, cloud-swaddled morning in Guangzhou, the city’s towers and apartment blocks floating in a bath of white mist. Perhaps it’s for the best. This industrial city might otherwise look too starkly gritty and real in the full light of day. Since I’ve been here, daylight has seemed like the perpetual dusk of a nuclear winter.
If you’ve been waiting for the next installment of the search for my Chinese roots, please excuse the slight delay. As Marcia Brady would say, “Something suddenly came up.” It turns out I can’t manage a travel story every single day, unless I neglect my clients. So, to preserve my honor, and pay my mortgage, lets say I’ll post every day I can. That said, let’s return to China, where I’ve just left behind the small town of Bok Sa, for the big city of Guangzhou, once known as Canton. Once upon a time, this river port was a place where East met West. Now it is a place where the commercial power of the East is rising…
