Alright, well, I have been to some big cities before... NYC is quite large at five boroughs / 10.4 million, Tokyo weighs in at twice that with a population of 22 million, and Bangkok ain't no slouch. But until now, I have never been to a city so large as Guangzhou in south China. Originally known as Canton, Guangzhou was the starting point of the ancient silk highway; it's 2.2 thousand years old, spreads over 4000 sq. miles, and has a population of 59 million! It is not a tourists' town. Most people arrive here for business or to make a transit transfer from one of the umpteen hubs. I bought a map. It felt heavy. I unfolded it, steadied my gaze on the infinite sprawl, refolded the map, and tossed it away. Everything's written in Chinese. And the layout is dense. Here in Guangzhou, the odds of finding your intended destination are ugly. There's too many streets, and the place is huge. Then I set off to explore this boehemoth.
As I discovered the main river, and probably the bloodline of the city way back when, I noticed that it's best days had already come and gone. I did not taste this river for mineral composition or sniff it to determine the origin of its odor, but even to my color-blind eyes, I could see that I won't be bathing in it anytime soon.
As for crowds, they don't bother me and they almost never have. But Guangzhou changed all that on one October day. Now maybe it's that I have lived on Maui for too long, or maybe it's that a billion people is a lot of motherf++kers, but the crowds in the Guangzhou Main Train Station are in a league of their own. Getting a ticket and getting onto your train from here is both tough and demanding even for the strongest Chinaman. The absolute best one can do is to throw away all attempts at sanity and laugh at the situation. To surrender to the crowds is the easiest way to get through this phenomenon. Moving down the corridors with thousands of Chinese who all want to be first in line feels like a river tide and to join the flow and not disrupt it is the only to survive being crushed by little people. Don't go too fast, but don't go too slow. Go just right and you will live to do it again later.
It is my opinion that Guangzhou's greatest attribute is that it was Canton, and with that comes a tremendous amount of great foods cheap. But, otherwise, if you ever get the chance to go to Guangzhou... don't.
As I discovered the main river, and probably the bloodline of the city way back when, I noticed that it's best days had already come and gone. I did not taste this river for mineral composition or sniff it to determine the origin of its odor, but even to my color-blind eyes, I could see that I won't be bathing in it anytime soon.
As for crowds, they don't bother me and they almost never have. But Guangzhou changed all that on one October day. Now maybe it's that I have lived on Maui for too long, or maybe it's that a billion people is a lot of motherf++kers, but the crowds in the Guangzhou Main Train Station are in a league of their own. Getting a ticket and getting onto your train from here is both tough and demanding even for the strongest Chinaman. The absolute best one can do is to throw away all attempts at sanity and laugh at the situation. To surrender to the crowds is the easiest way to get through this phenomenon. Moving down the corridors with thousands of Chinese who all want to be first in line feels like a river tide and to join the flow and not disrupt it is the only to survive being crushed by little people. Don't go too fast, but don't go too slow. Go just right and you will live to do it again later.
It is my opinion that Guangzhou's greatest attribute is that it was Canton, and with that comes a tremendous amount of great foods cheap. But, otherwise, if you ever get the chance to go to Guangzhou... don't.
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