One major frustration I find living in China is that the internet is not nearly as useful as in the West. What little information is available is hard to find, hidden deep in forums, or is covered in annoying animated pictures (a predilection of Chinese web-sites, unfortunately^*).

Anyway, with this in mind I’ve been busy helping to put together a ‘Best Of’ website for Guangzhou, the city in which I currently live. It’s not complete yet, and there are big holes in the information, but it tries to give some real information (or at the very least, information that I would find useful).

Consider this a plug for the aforementioned site. If you’re interested then you can visit it at bestofguangzhou.com. Even better, if you’ve been to Guangzhou or live there now, please do send an opinion or review!

Note to any Chinese web developers – you do not have to fill every square centimetre of screen space with writing or moving images. My computer should not run at 100% just to visit your website.

So far I can describe my summer in Guangzhou with one word: wet.

It may just be the tail-end of typhoon Chanchu which, after having devastated the Phillipines, messed up much of South-East China and came very close to Hong Kong. Or this may be perfectly normal.

Friends tell me that I should expect the summer to get hotter and stickier. All very therapeutic I’m sure, but now I understand exactly why there is always so much washing hung out from Chinese windows.

When it’s not being hot and sticky, it’s being hot and rainy. In the space of one day the weather can change from this:

To this:

Now that’s what I call variable!

Guangzhou is all a-buzz at the moment with the semi-annual Canton Fair. This is South-East Asia’s biggest trade exhibition. We’re talking serious big here, and the numbers speak for themselves: last years show had a turnover of US$29,430 million, with 150,000 different products, and 210 trading countries. Not something to be ignored.

As you’d expect, the effect on the local economy is very pronounced. Hotels are all booked-up, and charge wildly exaggerated rates. Restaurants are trying their hardest to catch potential customers, with lots of bright English advertisements and special offers. The whole place feels alive.

From a personal perspective, just walking about the streets, it feels much more like a multi-cultural Hong Kong. Even the supermarkets seem different, and for a few moments yesterday I had a distinct feeling of confusion: am I walking around Chinatown, or am I in China?

Still, there are some differences. The influx of visitors has brought with it an increase in street traders, beggars, and all manner of methods to relieve foreigners of their money. It’s not uncommon to see young mother’s sitting on the street with one or two children, all wrapped up in many layers of clothes (despite the humid temperatures of 30 degrees). Upon seeing a foreigner the mother quickly directs the child to run alongside and chatter in a cheerful manner.

A more seedy effect of all this was experienced when taking a taxi to a restaurant that happened to be close to a popular luxury hotel. As the taxi neared the destination it went through an area crowded with people. Suddenly, there was a rush of noise, and 5 or 6 boys (maybe around 8-10 years old) came forward, pushing cards through a tiny slit in the car window next to me. It felt both disconcerting, and a little threatening. The cards were, of course, for call girls.

The thing I find interesting are the street traders. The fair seems to be very famous nationally, and it attracts a lot of people from the more rural parts of China, hoping to sell their products. In particular, there is one group of people wearing distinctively different clothes that have formed a semi-permanent encampment outside a nearby hotel. They are obviously some ethnic Chinese minority, although I’m not sure where from. They sit on a blanket on the street, all day and night, with their entire family (including Grandma!) and sell everything from jewelry to giant machetes and dried animal genitalia. The latter, I’m told, is because some Chinese believe that eating the genitalia of an animal is akin to an aphrodisiac/natural Viagra. Whatever the reason, it does make you look twice.