A Trip to Guangzhou

I can feel that my level of English was deteriorating even though I am using it daily. I don’t know why.

This part of the post is written on the plane to Guangzhou.

I am grateful for being blessed with an eventful life surrounded with competent friends. I thought this Ramadhan will be an uneventful one. Boy, how wrong I am.

It starts with a trip to Sarawak, 5 days in Singapore and a few hours from now my plane will land in Guangzhou. As recent as a year ago, I dreamt of  living a jetsetter life and suddenly I am living my dream life. Having said that, although I like to travel to new places, but I wish in the future it will be less intense.

One of my goal now is to do a spontaneous trip with my wife when I have one. Just go to the airport and take the first flight that is available. But that might take a few more years though.

The spontaneous part is easy, to find the right one to accompany me is the hardest part.

Part below was written on the plane back from Guangzhou.

Overall, I had a successful trip. Here are a compilation of my report on different subjects:

People

I met the most interesting girl in my life so far in Guangzhou. And that is an understatement. I have met and had an opportunity to work with quite a number of interesting girls in my life who not only excel in the look department but also have a brain to match it. And I deeply respect and admire them for their perfect package and lovely & positive attitude.

However this simple girl whom I first met a few days ago manage to break through the glass ceiling in my head and raise my expectation about girls.

When I saw her picture, I thought she is just another university kid. Maybe a first year student who become a freelance translator to earn some pocket money.

However after 4 days working with her, she has exceeded even my most ambitious expectation.

For people in my age group, I consider myself quite knowledgeable for a young man. I consider F as having the same trait too. During the course of my life, I find that like minded people are few and far between. Girls, I don’t even remember any that left a lasting impression.

But Y shows me that being a women does not limit you in what you can learn, what you can know and what you can do. I can say that she is very knowledgeable and in some part she knows better than me and F are.

For example, seeing her bargain on behalf of us is classic. She never cease to impress me with price that she is able to get for us, it is always better than what we can get if I bargained myself. And if you think she is lucky because item in China is cheap, you are wrong.

You need to see her disgusted look and the helpless look on the other side face when she daringly walked out of the door because she did not get the price that she want (and of course the shopkeeper relent finally). If it happened once, that is luck. But I see her do it over and over again. Plus, she understand how business works, what is the mentality of businesses in China and she perfectly apply these knowledge to her advantage.

She also shares a few of her wisdom with me. I know that her assessment is true because some of it I already heard from a much older and successful guy. So she definitely know her stuff.

Imagine a 22 years old, with a girl next door look, independent and full of initiatives, know a lot about business, import & export, shipping and sourcing, speak & understand English (and learning from tape that’s it) when 99% of people around her does not know squat, you knew she has the x factor in her. Oh and did I mention that she will be graduating magna cum laude?

And when she told me I am the fourth or fifth person to say that she will be very successful if she is in my country, I know I am not the only one who spot this rare talent.

Food

In contrary to what a lot of people believe, finding a Muslim restaurant in Guangzhou was not that hard. Suffice to say, we eat at different restaurants every day.

However, when people says that we have good food in Malaysia, now I have understand why. Even a real Chinese food lose compared to Chinese food available in Malaysia. Even the fact that they use fresher materials such as hand made noodles (which is very tasty) could not help them beat our food.

Another interesting observation, Chinese did not have drinks during meal. When you enter a restaurant they will give you a food menu but drinks was not listed. Some restaurant might served you with a sip of green tea, some might have bottled drinks upon request, but there are restaurant that offer none.

Objectives

I have one primary objective and one lofty objective set for these trip. We got both and more. Thanks for our teams’ resilience, I know we will fly higher after this.

Similarities & Differences

Timezone in Guangzhou is the same with timezone in Malaysia. However it is more similar to Borneo I must say. It is already dark at 6.

I have been to Singapore, Indonesia & Cambodia before. In rare moment of self reflection, you feel that these countries are not dissimilar to Malaysia. In case like Cambodia, although it is less developed, I fee like my hometown 20 years ago. However in Guangzhou, you know you are in a foreign country. Especially at night when the neon lamps lit the night like what you see in those Japanese and Korean movie.

On the Friday night, we went on Pearl River cruise to celebrate the deal we successfully made during the day (VIP ticket no less!). The city looks better at night. And we have an awesome brain exchange with our translator who decided upon our suggestion to change her name to Michelle Yu.

Lesson Learnt

Chinese in China will sell to you at any price as long as they make a little profit.