Guanzhou, the real China

Thanks to the difficulties updating my blog I am now faced with a dilema, do I skip the China leg of the trip, run a week late with my entries or blend  current  and drip fed the chinese leg at the same time.  I will try the latter.  We travelled to Guangzhou in Southern China as saw the real China, one whre Westrners are uncommon, let alot e a minivan of them.  We  visited several vegetable farms, fruit markets and got immersed in the culture

 The Chinese have been global traders for Millennia and are very good at it.  Do not be fooled by any preconceptions about China being a third world.  The fact is there are so many of them and they need to interact with people regularly. Commerce is in their blood.

A funny story I must recount relating to the first photograph.  James, my Aussie counterpart from Longreach and I went to buy some bananas from a street vendor.  A young child, possible aged six or so was the salesman and we set about haggling with him for the price of six bananas.  To cut this part of the story short, he took us to the cleaners. As he was filing his six Yuan in his money belt, I caught him grinning ear from ear.  James and I walked ten or so meters before we realised we had been fleeced.  We burst out laughing and were in hysterics when we rejoined the group.  We recounted our trade and our illustrious leader, Jim Gelch sought to teach us youngsters a life lesson in bartering.

Jim went over to the trader, picked up a bunch of six bananas and offered him 5 Yuan, the trade counter offered with six, Jim stuck with five so the boy picked up the bunch and deftly cut off one banana.  This went on for some time till in the end Jim was poised with seven Yuan in one hand and four bananas in the other, with which the boy plucked out the seven Yuan and banked it.  Jim had sucessfully bought four bananas for seven Yuan, nearly twice the cost at which James and I had paid. James and I watched all this in hysterics and congratulated the boys with his brilliant work and photos were taken all round.  The sad part of this story is that the system is that this boy is likely to remain a fruit seller all his life.

 We stumbled accross a street market just behind out hotel and it was like entering a another world.  On side was a busy western shopping precinct and no more than fifty metres away was a market which sold some pretty intersting stuff; live snakes, turtles and toads....for eating.  It struck me here that the western face of China is somewhat like a thin veil.  Most of China is still steeped in tradition but we only see the modern face, which is mostly in pockets, particularly in the smaller centers of only ten million people.