Southern China's Gems - Guangzhou and Shenzhen
Guangzhou, better known to English speakers as Canton, and neighbouring Shenzhen have been China's "windows to capitalism" for almost three decades. The two cities, particularly Shenzhen which is classified as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), were among the early “free market laboratories” of China’s then Senior Leader Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, when the largest Communist nation chose to relax rigid command economics for greater prosperity. The Beijing government’s efforts have paid off and today, both cities are among China’s most modern and their residents enjoy some of the vast country’s highest living standards.
Guangzhou and Shenzhen are located in China’s southern province of Guangdong, the ancestral home of the Cantonese who make up close to 20 per cent of Malaysian Chinese. Like Hong Kong, which shares a land border with Shenzhen, they are hustling and bustling with private enterprise. They are also increasingly popular as tourist getaways, especially for Malaysians and Singaporeans. Popular TV3 documentary Majalah 3 and New Straits Times recently paid a visit to both cities, in a seven-day trip arranged by AirAsia.
The low cost airline has had a daily flight to Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport and two daily flights to Shenzhen’s Baoan International Airport since January and last December respectively. AirAsia organises travel packages to both cities in partnership with Century Holidays, one of the leading travel companies in Guangdong. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong and is a port on the Pearl River, navigable to the South China Sea, and is located about 120km northwest of Hong Kong.
It has a population of 10 million and is China’s third largest city after Shanghai and Beijing. Originally called Panyu, Guangzhou was once the capital of the ancient Vietnamese kingdom of Nanyue. The Chinese Empire conquered Nanyue in 111 BC, and created the province of Guangdong with Guangzhou as its provincial capital. Since then, Guangzhou emerged as one of China’s most important ports. It was here that China first encountered Muslim traders and missionaries in the seventh century and one of them, Saad Abi Waqqas, has a mausoleum in the city.
China’s first encounters with Europeans, from the 16th to 19th centuries, also occurred in Guangzhou. Manufacturers from Hong Kong have opened factories in Guangzhou to take advantage of mainland China’s low labour costs. Many Malaysian and Singaporean businesses have followed suit, too. An environmentally-friendly city with no shortage of well-landscaped parks, Guangzhou has since January last year seen a ban on motorcycles plying its commercial centre. The Beijing government is also introducing LPG fuel for all taxis and buses in the city, and public transport is expected to be fully “green” by 2010.
Muslim restaurants are also aplenty in Guangzhou as the city’s population is five per cent Muslim. The city has more than 20 of them and they are mostly run by China’s large Uighur minority from the northwestern Xinjiang province that shares historical links with Kazakhstan. These halal restaurants serve a mix of Han Chinese and Uighur fare, and one of the latter’s trademark dishes is a crispy, yet tender fried fish which is prepared without cooking oil.
Guangzhou also has more than 10 mosques, including Saad Abi Waqqas mosque which was built in 651 and is China’s oldest. The Chen Family Academy in Zhongshanqi Road, built during the Qing Dynasty in the 19th century, is one of Guangzhou’s major tourist attractions. An “ancestral temple” for Chinese who bear the Chen (alternatively known as Tan, Chan, Chin or Ting) surname, it covers 15,000 square metres and has 19 traditional buildings. The academy contains intricate stone and wood carvings as well as traditional paintings and antique furniture. It also houses Guangdong Folk Arts Museum, established by Beijing in 1959 for the study and display of folk arts throughout the country.
Another tourist attraction is Panyu Baomo Garden which is a stylish, Chinese cultural village covering 100,000 square metres complete with traditional pavilions, about 30 curving stone bridges, lily and lotus-covered lakes and actors who portray village fishermen and duck breeders. Situated in Shawan, a suburb of Guangzhou, it was built in the late 19th century as a retreat for government officials. The cultural village contains several replicas of famous Chinese works of art, and chief among them is a lengthy porcelain sculpture of China’s most expensive painting “Riverside Scene Of Qingming Festival”.
Chimelong Paradise is Guangzhou’s answer to Genting Highlands. Containing a theme park complete with adrenaline-rush roller coaster rides and explosive stuntman shows, Chimelong also houses a Singapore-style safari park and zoo, and a safari-themed hotel with a unique restaurant built around a den of Siberian white tigers and pink flamingoes. Guangzhou has two popular shopping districts, namely, Shangxiajiu Street and Beijing Street.
Resembling Kuala Lumpur’s Bukit Bintang and Singapore’s Bugis Street, both shopping havens come alive in the evenings and offer lots of branded and home-grown goods at affordable prices. The brightly lit shops in both streets are housed in heritage buildings nicely preserved by the local authorities. Beijing Street also contains a historical underground road dating back to ancient times, and part of this pathway has been dug up and covered by a lighted glass panel for public viewing.
Shenzhen, with a population of eight million, has grown by leaps and bounds in the last three decades. Almost indistinguishable from neighbouring Hong Kong as a result of its many skyscrapers, its growth has largely been fuelled by investment from the former British colony.
More than 7,000 Hong Kongers work in Shenzhen and more than 2,000 Shenzhen natives study in Hong Kong. Shenzhen counts as its sister cities Houston in Texas, the United States, Jamaica’s capital of Kingston and Malaysia’s Johor Baru. Not unlike Guangzhou and Hong Kong, it is also a major industrial centre of Greater China. A shopper’s paradise, Shenzhen has several major shopping malls or districts, the most famous of which is Lo Wu (also called Luo Hu) Commercial City, just across from the Hong Kong border. Spread over several floors, its many small stores sell watches, handbags, textiles, fashion and jewellery, and shop owners are accustomed to bargaining.
The Dong Men Pedestrian Street is the place to go for Western-sized clothes at affordable prices. It is also the “home” of many international restaurant franchises such as Starbucks Coffee and McDonald’s.
The Window Of The World in the western part of the city is its most famous theme park. With about 130 reproductions of world famous tourist spots squeezed into 480,000 square metres, it includes a 108-metre tall “Eiffel Tower”, “Pyramids of Egypt” and the “Taj Mahal” in close proximity.
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