Guangzhou Truisms

For my Ethnography class, I'm reading The Return of the God of Wealth: The Transition to a Market Economy in Urban China by Charlotte Ikels. The book is an ethnographical study on the culture of Guangzhou; it was written in 1996, but I'm sure much of the information is still relevant today. I've come across some funny/true/amusing facts, which I will list below (some facts are not verified):

• "The national perception of the quality of Cantonese cuisine is captured by the popular saying 'For eating it's Guangzhou'...What both locals and outsiders most appreciate is the freshness of the food, especially the seafood. Most Cantonese dislike purchasing fish or fowl that is not still breathing at the time of the sale. To enhance one's appreciation of this freshness, food tends to be lightly cooked and lightly spiced." (9) - See Exhibit A: Baba.

• "Cantonese are aware that outsiders, even within China, do not eagerly embrace every item of Cantonese food. They mock the more timid eating habits of other Chinese by asserting that while 'Shandong people do anything and Beijing people endure anything, Cantonese people eat anything!'" (9) - See Exhibit B: All Canto people say this.

• "When writing, a Cantonese uses what to a Cantonese are literary words - in many cases the spoken word is entirely different and not expressible in characters. Sometimes Cantonese cheat and make up characters for these Cantonese words, though this is more likely to happen in Hong Kong than in Guangzhou. The convention is to put a little mouth radical on the left side of a likely phonetic - this tactic conveys the meaning 'the word I'm trying to write sounds like this in Cantonese.'" (19)

• Boat People: known in Hong Kong as "Tanka" (literally "egg people" with the connotation that they are born of reptiles), "they lived on boats and made their living by fishing (and, depending on the times, by smuggling and piracy). Both the settled village population and government officials viewed these highly mobile people with suspicion." (22-23)

I'll have to ask my mom about that one...

• "Some workers, such as members of rural construction teams, come to Guangzhou with a job in hand, and it is the responsibility of their employers to provide them with accommodations (usually in temporary structures on or adjacent to the construction site). Others come with just the hope of obtaining a job and if unsuccessful soon move on to other parts of the delta region. At night these people sleep in crowded hotels (or, when their money runs out, under overpasses); during the day they squat beside busy roadways with little wooden signs advertising their skills and try to catch the attention of people seeking an extra hand. When their presence becomes a public nuisance, they are summarily sent back to their home districts...They are immediately distinguishable from ordinary residents of Guangzhou by their simple dress, unfashionable haircuts, slight stature (even by Guangdong standards), and suntanned appearance." (24-25)

• "During most of the day there are few trash barrels to be seen; they are hauled out of their hiding places only briefly, just in time for the daily refuse collection. If the barrels were left in the open for any length of time, they would attract many scavengers and probably create a danger to public health. Thus, anyone walking along the sidewalk (to say nothing of walking in the gutter) constantly risks tripping over damaged pavement, slipping on orange peels, or even stepping into a pile of discarded chewed sugarcane. Daily street sweeping and refuse collection keep the situation from getting out of control, but the walker must be ever vigilant." (28)

• "While Guangzhou residents are generally spared the indignity of stepping into dog excrement (dogs may not be kept as pets), in crowded neighborhoods lacking indoor toilets they face the real risk of stepping into human excrement. Rather than visit the public toilets, parents and grandparents in these neighborhoods allow and even induce their infants and small children to urinate and occasionally defecate on the sidewalks outside their entryways. Despite government efforts to eliminate spitting, the practice remains common, and people spit almost anywhere except on or directly at another person...But even among the urban born, noises issuing from the digestive tract, such as farting and belching (softly), are viewed as natural and inevitable and warrant neither embarrassment nor comment when they occur." (28)

...To be continued...



Notes to self:

• Qingping Road (Liwan district across the river from Shamian) - for buying creatures (to bargain, comment on its thinness) (10)
• Yuexiu Park - Five Rams Statue (11)
• Huaisheng Mosque (13), near junction of Zhongshan and Renmin Roads
• Shamian - near former European-esque town for trade