My last post described my visit to Beijing with a tour guide. Actually I have spent most of my recent time in China without a guide, visiting friends from my years working for Huawei.
This year was the first time I had been in Guangzhou, historically an important city in the development of China. It is the capital of Guangdong province and lies on the Pearl River, about 120 km northwest of Hong Kong. At the end of the 17th century, the Qing dynasty chose to start trade with the rest of the world, but only through Guangzhou (the 'Canton System'). From 1750 there were regular visits from British, French, Dutch, Danish, Austrian, Swedish (and later American) ships with associated trading companies establishing a base there. At that time, the city was one of the world's greatest ports, exporting tea, porcelain and silk.
It is the site of the Thirteen Factories, which were the only legal place to conduct foreign trade with China from 1757 to 1841. One of the 'factories' has been renovated and is an interesting tourist attraction.
After 1841 the city's monopoly was broken following a series of events triggered by the British East India company importing opium to China, the trade then being forbidden and  the Pearl river delta becoming the scene of many sea battles. The Chinese usually lost the battles, the British then imported opium through Hong Kong and Shanghai and many other countries forced 'treaty ports', through which they then traded.
The city of 20M people is not universally developed and modern. There are older, more 'gritty' areas interspersed with the new. As with everywhere in China, it always amazes me how quickly things can get done. I was invited to tour a semiconductor plant which did not exist in 2018. By the end of 2025 it will have gone through four phases of expansion and will be producing over 10 billion chips annually! (If you wonder where the chips go, a modern EV car uses more than 3000 chips per car and China produces circa 30M cars annually)
Chinese hospitality is always fantastic and one evening I was invited to dinner at a special restaurant across town. My host was most apologetic about the rush hour traffic when his app suggested a one hour taxi ride to cover the nine kilometers. However, we solved the problem by renting bicycles (top picture). We shared the pavement with pedestrians, which required great concentration, but the trip along the banks of the Pearl river at sunset was both memorable and great fun.
Shenzhen, a fishing village turned into mega-city, lies downstream, close to the Pearl river mouth. It was designated as China's first 'Special Economic Zone' in 1980. It was the home of Deng Xiaoping, the successor to Chairman Mao, who can claim to be the father of modern China, having been responsible for properly opening up the country to the rest of the world.
Since then the city has become a technology juggernaut, being home to companies like Huawei, DJI (drones), BYD (cars), Tencent (wechat) and with the presence of Foxconn (largest electronics producer in the world) and Alibaba.
The skyline is instantly recognisable thanks to the City Hall (wavy building) and the Ping An Finance centre, the 5th tallest building in Asia.
The city is very modern, well laid out and offers lots of green space despite the 20M inhabitants.
When I visited there was a flower show going on, celebrating the many varieties of Bougainvillea, the official flower of Shenzhen.
It seemed half the city had turned out with their families to enjoy the festival. There were vendors hawking the most extravagant balloons I had ever seen and actors dressed as characters from famous Chinese children's books (e.g. the monkey king from 'Journey to the West') working to get their photo taken with the enthralled children.
Another landmark is the 'red bridge'. It snakes for many miles, from a park on the edge of the city, to high up into the mountains. The incline is gradual and the surface akin to an athletics track. There are several exits which you can use to explore the forests. It may seem incongruous with the surroundings but, in the weekend, encourages literally thousands of people to leave the city and hike to higher ground to enjoy (relatively) fresh air. We used it on a wet and grey Thursday and had it virtually to ourselves.
Tik Tok is another Chinese phenomenon. Whenever you visit a tourist attraction or well-known spot, you will find people (usually young women) recording their two minute clip which they hope will go viral. Supposedly, there is much money to be made and I am advised that live clips from the middle of the ocean would be very popular. But first, I would need to learn Chinese!
Actually, I have already made a video for a Chinese audience. Â A friend of mine runs a research institute in Wuhan and, last year, I was persuaded to prepare a motivational talk to young engineers. With my day-to-day dominated by sailing, I chose to describe the Age of Discovery, the exploits of Vasco de Gamma, Columbus and Magellan, and tried to link their motivation and lessons learned to the life of a young research scientist. The links may have been somewhat tenuous but I found out this year that the talk has been downloaded over 15,000 times. That puts this website, with 100 reads per post (on a good day), somewhat to shame!
When I first visited Wuhan in 2002 we arrived on an overnight sleeper train from Shanghai. However, in just fifteen years, China has installed 41,000 km of high speed rail track across the country. Today, despite the distances, high speed train is definitely the best way to explore the country. I dread to compare the Chinese experience to the UK HS2 project. Designed to improve connections between north and south, after fifteen years, we will be lucky if 150km of track will have been laid. And none of it connecting the north.
The favourite liquor in China is 'baijiu', which is used as part of the mealtime greeting ceremony, be it for family or business. It is said to be ruder to not share a toast with someone than to fall over having shared too many! The dominant brand in Hubei province is 'Baiyunbian' and I was offered the opportunity to tour their factory and see the process.
The first three fermentation steps, where alcohol is produced, happens in a 'soggy, solid form', not in liquid form (like for whisky, beer or wine). The third of these stages happens in shallow pits where the wheat, yeast, crushed sorghim and water are shovelled, and then covered in mud. The pits are then left for several months as the yeast works its 'fermentation' magic.
After the mud is carefully removed, the mixture is loaded into tubs and warmed with boiling water. In this way, the alcohol is transferred from the fermented mass of material into the liquid. Then distillation separates the alcohol from the water and a 48% proof spirit is condensed off. The spirit is stored in ceramic barrels for months.
The final step is to use 'calibrated noses' to combine the various batches of spirit to generate the finished product. The actual production process, where little seems to have changed in fifty years, contrasts sharply with the fully automated and very slick product storage, bottling and packaging operation.
Of course, the success of such a business relies almost entirely on successful marketing. Baiyunbian, although only being sold in Hubei province (and 4 other major cities), has annual revenues around US$1.2B. So they must be doing something right!
Since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China has started to embrace environmental issues. Today, China installs more solar energy each year than the rest of the world combined. It also installs more wind power than the rest of the world combined but it is with hydroelectricity that it really leads the world. In 2023, 75% of all new hydroelectric power worldwide was installed in China. By 2030 carbon dioxide free power generation should account for more than 50% of China's needs.
The Three Gorges dam project, completed in 2006, is still the largest dam in the world (based on power generated or amount of concrete used in its construction). As it was relatively close to the Baiyunbian factory, I had to take a look.
Actually, it is quite a tourist attraction with boat tours along the first gorge.
Upstream of the dam, the water level was raised 130m, flooding three gorges in total, hence the name. Approximately 1.3M people were relocated as their homes disappeared underwater. The lock system for large vessels is off to one side of the dam but, for smaller craft, they have a 'ship lift'. The vessel sails into a concrete container and the container, water and ship are raised vertically to the height of the lake above the dam. The door opens and the vessel sails out. Seems a barmy way to do things but is very impressive.
Economically, the dam has been a huge success and the cost was recouped (from the electricity generated) within seven years.
Finally, a comment on China and 'rules'. (This is meant to be 'light-hearted' and in no way 'political'). China is known as having a one party system, rules are defined and people follow them. Or, at least, that was what I had been led to believe. In addition, the advent of cameras has made surveillance universal. It has dramatically reduced 'street crime' although many westerners would rile at the effect on personal freedom. Specifically, you would have thought it made it impossible to park in the wrong place without being seen (and fined).
But not for taxi drivers. Here, they are all waiting in a lucrative spot, where parking is forbidden. The boots (trunks for the US audience) are open so the cameras cannot see the number plates!
Maybe the Chinese are not so 'compliant' after all!
I completed my unguided tour and left China when my 30 day visa-free stay expired (mid-December).
Next on the agenda was to return to Europe to visit family and friends in the UK and Belgium.