Guangzhou - China

China...hmmm.wasnt re ally sure what to expect, guess i thought it would be similar to japan in a way...dont ask me where i got the pre-conception from. anyway, i left an incredibly snowy niigata on thursday and got the train to niigata, the bullet train to tokyo and the airport express train to narita international airport - tokyo. landed late (again) and was picked up by the company who i was going for an interview with. got to the hotel at around midnight (again). i have a stinking stinking cold and felt terrible. i wake up and open the curtains of the very very swanky 5 star hotel (paid for by them) and see a sprawling mass of grey. grey skies, grey smog/low cloud, grey tin houses. grey. hmmm...
im being picked up by a german guy called oliver, who would be my boss, and is head of the company's automotive division in south china. hes due to pick me up at 9 at the hotel. he doesnt. at 9:45 i ring him and he tells me to get a cab. great. interview turns out not to be an interview, its 2 hours of him trying to sell me the job, and outlining what he wants me to do. the job is to set up and run a testing labratory for seatbelts, seats and interiors for the automotive market. this is indeed a great opportunity and sparks interest. this is reduced when he tells me that it would be in another city about 2 hours flight inland from guangzhou. by this time, im shattered, though lack of sleep and awful cold. my plan is to get the interview out of the way, go back to the hotel, sleep, then spend the rest of the weekend on my own looking around the city (like i did in oslo). i really really just want to rest and be on my own.

so, at 12, he takes me for lunch, ok i think, lunch, then i can go to the hotel. he takes me to a japanese restaurant of course...just what i want...a japanese restaurant :-/ great. anyway, by this point i am all out of conversation and small talk and need sleep badly. we go back to the office, and im preparing my goodbyes, then he says, oh, ill give you a tour of our labs here...ok i think, not long now...except they are on opposite sides of the city...great, so i get a taxi with a minion of his and get dragged around 2 labs. one of which is an electrical test lab...of which i know NOTHING at all about. so this guy, who for some reason thinks im his future boss goes through in finite detail what the lab can do, what each piece of kit can do, and its technical capabilities....i honestly dont have a blinkin clue what hes talking about, but i nod and arch my eyebrows to exclaim surprise and how impressed i am that this kit can measure to 50 hertz every now and again, and i get by, when he asks me if i have any questions at the end, i resist the obvious question ie 'what the hell are you talking about??' and tell him that hes just about covered everything and leave. total blag.

so its 4pm and im shattered. i get back to the office to say goodbye, but oliver tells me he is a bit busy at the mo, and he will pick me up at 6.30 to take me for dinner....NNNOOOO!!!!! i want to be on my own, i want to rest, i want to switch off!!! dinner is nice but painful, yet more small talk...hours of small talk, oh god, the hours of small talk... but its nearly over, tomorrow is mine

as oliver is paying, he says, 'right. tomorrow...' (alarm bells ring in my head) 'tomorrow morning i have to spend some time with my wife and child, (phew) but tomorrow afternoon i have something planned'. oh good god no....please no.... turns out he has a full itinery for the weekend. tomorrow at 4pm he is sending a car to pick me up and take me to his home for coffee, then on to dinner again, then onto a nightclub until 3am. (i have to get up to catch my plane at 5am). i dont have an excuse. i am genuinely gutted, tired, so ill i feel like im stoned, pissed off and generally fed up. im really not good without my own space and i havent had any all weekend. i leave at 9. check my emails and go to the hotel bar for a nightcap, where theres the typical filipino house band (2 girl singers and a guy on keyboard) i swear to god, every where in asia theres a filipinio house band...are there any people left in the phillipines???

saturday i get up and go for some sightseeing. now, guangzhou is grey. if some one asked me to describe it, id say 'grey, and big'. the sky is smoggy and grey. all of the buildings are grey and dirty. its just wall to wall concrete. grey, even the supposed nice bits are grey. its pretty oppressive. im in a decent mood, but with the impending 11 hours of small talk to look forward to, im not that happy, and i still feel lousy. i get a taxi to the river (which takes longer than it should with a few too many u-turns to be the best route...im being robbed, but it gives me a chance to see the city). i walk around for a few hours with my camera, pretty fed up at first, but then i have an epiphany. up until now ive been looking at guangzhou as a place to live, but for some reason now, i start to look at it from a 'travellers' point of view. this changes my outlook entirely. i start to realise that i dont actually want to live here, in fact im pretty certain by now, and this makes me enjoy the city a lot more. its still grey, but where the was despondency in this, i begin to see the beauty in the dereliction, its such a fascinating place, run down, but interestingly so. honestly, its such an interesting place to view, so many thing i cant begin to describe, from the dragon dancers to the old buildings to the people just going about their daily lives, absolutely fascinating. i took over 150 photos in 3 hours, everytime i put my camera away, i got it out again immediately. i loved just walking around, but was now certain that this wasnt the place for me.

i reluctantly go back to the hotel where im picked up...i really dont want to do this. im tired, ill, fuggy and dont want 11 hours of small talk with someone who id never met before friday. i get to his house and he shows me around. by this point i twig that he wants to show me where i could live if i took the job, in fact i twig that this whole weekend is his way of pursuading me to come here, showing me the house, the area, the workplace, the restaurants, the bars, even the clubs, which wouldnt be too bad, but i kinda already knew before i got here that i didtn want the job. he lives in a kind of suburban complex, the complex is about 1km square, amazing houses, really cheap, the centre has everything you ever need, and you dont really have to leave. at this point i almost have second thoughts, but then realise it would be like living in stepford or something, totally devoid of reality. we spend a nice, but painfully long few hours at his place, and go for a long walk around the area. we then go into town for dinner...now, the driving, jesus, ive seen some chaotic driving, kuala lumpur city centre, cambodia...portugal! but christ, this is amazing, its total mayhem and carnage. its utter chaos and madness...driving like you couldnt even begin to imagine. we go to an irish bar for dinner, where im beginning to fall asleep, i have to order a few coffees to keep me awake,after more painful small talk and him trying to pursuade me to tak the job he convinces me to go to the nightclub. oh yeah, during dinner, he tells me he loves 'techno' music, and wants to take me to a techno discoteque (his exact words)...oh good god this cant get any worse!!! going to a techno discoteque with a german who youve spent almost every waking hour with all weekend, while dying from a dreadful cold, tired, fed up and wanting home....hmmmm...

in the end we went to an R'n'B club..which is only marginally one better than a techno club for me....it was ok i guess, but i was thinking how long i had to be there before i could go back to my hotel...that came at midnight, i couldnt take it anymore. i made my excuses, depsite protests. we had a nice chat before i left...well, he was trying to sell me the job again. and to be honest, its a great opportunity, but i just dont want to live there, not now, maybe a few years ago, but not now, its just too grey and dirty and big, and smoggy and ...grey for me to live there. he was a really nice guy as well, and was being genuinely friendly and hospitable, but i really really need my own space a lot of the time, and the lack of it drove me mad. id love to visit/travel china more, shanghai, beijing and hong kong...but not live there, not now, not at the moment, not in guangzhou anyway...am currently plucking up the courage and the words to email him and tell him...

guangzhou, truly fascinating, wonderful and beautiful in a derelict kind of way...great to visit, wouldnt wanna live there...