China, as many people say, is colourful. There is a show I posted about a while ago called Colourful Guizhou, and of course life in Guiyang is very diverse and colourful too. It might be a big city for european standards, but despite its 5 million inhabitants, it's a mid-range town for China. This one can be seen when living here. Guiyang is somewhere between city and village, and tends to be more village than city. The people don't behave in a way we would expect city dwellers to behave. There are many things you can find in bigger cities like Shanghai, but many more things simply don't exist here. There may be clubs, bars, cinemas, shopping centres, a symphonic orchestra, various cultural events, international hotel and supermarket chains, etc., but life can be too Chinese for westerners. For example many goods Carrefour and Walmart offer in Shanghai or Beijing, are not on offer here. I've never seen diet Pepsi or diet Coke in GY, but you can find them in Shanghai. This applies for many other things, like cheese, salami, etc. It even depends on the shop within GY if you find certain things. Not all Walmart or Carrefour shops offer the same products. Western products are very expensive compared to Chinese and to the prices in the West. Five pounds for a few slices of cheese is not what you call cheap. You can have lunch and dinner for that amount at any of the various food places in the city. Bread lovers will find it hard too. There's no real bread in town. What looks like bread, it's a soft and sweet disgusting Chinese version. Not even the French bakery Tous le jours bakes proper bread. Real tasty bread can be found in the 5* hotels. Western food is generally an issue in GY. The choice is very limited, expensive and often not good. Out of the various pizza places, only two serve really good pizza and other Italian dishes, Simone's FoodArt and Babbo's. Simone is Italian and imports many products from Italy, His food is delicious and he serves home made ice-cream. Make sure Simone is there when you go and you will enjoy an excellent treatment. Babbo's belongs to some Chinese who learnt the art of Italian cuisine in Shanghai by some Italians. There's the Mix Pasta, that serves a variety of western food and at least in the Huaguoyuan branch, thanks to our friend Jesus who is the chef there, foreigners enjoy 50% off. All the other places are not worth going. There's a Mexican restaurant that serves disgusting food, and that's about it when it comes to foreign cuisine. The only solution is to spend a lot of money (20 pounds for breakfast, 30 pounds for lunch, 40 for dinner) at one of the 5* hotels. Even there Chinese food is served along with western food and some hotels offer more Chinese than western food.
In GY and I guess in many other cities of similar size, you won't find clothes that fit westerners. Shoes stop at size 43 or 9, all other items must be tried on before bought, because large is not large but can be large. What do I mean? Western large is different to Chinese large. The latter is (too) small for us and we won't fit in. But in some rare cases you might find a large that is actually (western) large. Trousers tend to be too short for us westerners, even though the waist size is the right one. This is due to the size of the Chinese. They are thinner and shorter than us.
You needs strong nerves to survive in a city like GY. Especially if you come from a place with many well educated people and high standard of life. People here behave in an unnatural for us way. They are loud. They shout when talking on the phone or to each other, and even when standing next to you. If you tell them to be quieter they give you a funny look and think that is something wrong with you. They honk all day and night. They drive as if they were alone on the street. Indicator? What's that? Braking for no reason? Common practice. Crossing at red lights and driving the wrong way? Totally natural. Motorbikes driving on pavements and honking at pedestrians? What, you don't do this at home? Locals staring at you and finding weird everything you do, locals taking photos of you without asking for permission, and of course they upload them on WeChat and share with their friends. They even come touch you, as if you were from outer space and want to be photographed with you and don't care if you are not in a mood or eat or talk on the phone or do something else.
Some positive things are: There are very few foreigners in the city and there are many opportunities to earn extra cash. You can have many private students, perform music, do shoots and modelling, etc. If a local business wants to attract customers, it will ask some foreigners to show their cute faces and blue eyes and smile friendly for a few hours and pay them cash on hand. Teaching is another good source of income. You can charge anything up to 30 or so pounds an hour for English lessons. Other languages and skills have different prices. Other opportunities are to perform live music in bars or at various events like weddings. Or, if you are a writer, you can have a presentation of your work in front of a large audience.
Since we are only a few hundred Laowai in the city, we know and help each other and are very well organised. Many speak and learn Chinese and also sit the HSK exams, which is a wonderful thing. Foreigners or expats as we are called, don't bother doing this in many other places in this world. Unlike expats in many other communities, we here have many local friends. I happened to be at a wine tasting event a while ago. There were a few Chinese ladies whose venue it was and organised it, and besides me were some foreigners from France and Spain and a few Chinese men. One of the Spaniards asked me many questions about life in GY and said that this would never happen in a bigger place in China or in Hong Kong, because people there don't mix with each other. It's two separate communities, the locals on the one, the expats on the other side. I saw that in Riyadh and in many other places. People don't mix. Whereas here, we live and work together, help and learn from each other. Personally, I want to express my gratitude to all my local angels who make my everyday life easier. I try to pay it back as much as I can.
However, life here is very colourful, adventurous and most of us love it.
Bad ass Chinese, as a friend of mine says. Who needs a pram if you can carry your child in a basket or on your arms?
Downtown side street with food places and small shops
Gathering of the basket people. They carry around a basket on their backs all day and walk up and down the streets in search of work. If there's anything you don't want to carry, suitcases, shopping bags, anything really, ask them to do it with you and pay them a few yuan. Around lunchtime and later in the afternoon you see them sitting in little groups on the pavement eating, drinking and playing cards.
Fruit and veggie vendor.
The latest fashion.
More fruit and veggie vendors.
A local hospital
Cheaper by the dozen.
Stairway to heaven
GY downtown at night
People's square
Nanming River
Cos play shoot in a park
Hard worker
If you would like to read more by me, here are my novel and my diary from Ar'ar, in the northern Saudi desert. Both available on Amazon as soft and hard copy.
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