Guangzhou

Express train from Shenzhen lasted 90 minutes. Guangzhou used to be known as Canton. After Hong Kong, it is the other major historical city and port in the Pearl River Delta. In the last few decades it has seen some of its glory and economic prominence eclipsed by the newer Special Economic Zones around the delta, such as Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Dongguan, but it is still the capital and largest city in Guangdong province. Upon arrival, I hopped on straight the metro and went straight towards Shamian Island. Shamian Island is the old foreign enclave and it still looks it today, with quite cobblestone boulevards and buildings that look straight out of 19th century France. Stayed in a hostel dorm with travelers from Canada, America, England, Ireland, and Spain. Across the street was a waterfront park with views across the Pearl River.

Guangzhou is much more of "real" city than what I saw of Shenzhen. And unlike Hong Kong, which is nearly all new, Guangzhou has a mix of new and old.

Just north of the island is Qingping market which is kind of a zoo. Literally. You can find nearly any animal for sale here. Most of them are for eating: lizards, crocodiles, crickets, beetles, cockroaches, snails, snakes, turtles, birds, fish, pigs, chickens. Point to your prey and they butcher it for you in front of your eyes. There are also more benign stalls in this market, such as those selling aquariums and aquarium accoutrements. There seems to be quite an aquarium culture in this city. Other market stalls sell all sorts of dried roots and mushrooms and medicinal plants.

Then there is the pet district. Hundreds of kittens and puppies, and even squirrels. At first I was assumed that these, too, were for eating, but then I saw cat food for sale. Still, the some of the scenes were depressing: a dozen kittens crammed on top of one another in a single cage, with no room to move about, let alone play.

Most of the people in Qingping market are adults. Walking north, however, I discovered where the young people shop. The pedestrian boulevard resembles a European High Street, lined with trendy clothing stores pumping techno music. One was playing a Chinese version of that infectious Romanian pop song, Dragostea Din Tei. Most on people this street are in their teens or 20s. This is the new face of China. I wonder what their elders think. Interspersed among the hip clothing stores are cafes and dessert shops with colorful cake slices for about 50 cents each. Lingerie shops abound as well, along with billboards and banners promoting lingerie with racy images of svelte Chinese models. This from the country that censored the Rolling Stones' lyrics? The contradiction seems even more bizarre when I notice a sex toy shop, blatantly advertising itself in the middle of the shopping district as "Sex Toy Shop". Apparently, censorship in China isn’t as thorough as I’d been led to believe.

Even though I am here during what I assume are school hours on a weekday, no one seems to be in school. Armies of young women stand outside the stores encouraging people to come in.

I'd heard horror stories about the traffic in China but, so far, they haven’t true. Traffic in Shenzhen was placid. Traffic in Guangzhou is busy, but no worse than an American city of the same size. It's probably better than New York. Yes, some cars run red lights, but if you are patient it is easy to cross the street. People, for the most part, follow traffic rules. There are crosswalks and pedestrian crossing signals. The traffic on the streets is mostly limited to motor vehicles. There are none of the cows and carts you have in India.

I see Chinese girls frequently sitting around with their friends, with each girl’s eyes trained on her mobile phone, lost in a text message.

Some of the city buses in Guangzhou have "live" digital maps on board - like the GPS navigator units some upscale cars have, but showing the bus's position along its route.