Guangzhou is busy with the preparation for the Guangzhou Asian Games that will take place in November. Some people in Guangzhou say the timing is not good, as the opening of the Games is only a few days after the completion of the Shanghai Expo. In any case, lots of construction works and beautification […]
My official schedule in Guangzhou is over as of tonight. Just came back from giving a guest lecture on Olympic Games and Mega-event Politics to the students at the School of Urban Planning and Geography. When I gave talk on the same topic to some students at the School of Government a few days ago, […]
Today, I had a walk around one of the study sites in Guangzhou. The area was completely empty of its residents, as the whole area is now being demolished. I will talk more about this at a later date, but for now, I could not resist my smile when I first saw this rather cute […]
Somehow last time in Guangzhou was also in September. This time again, I am spending three weeks in this city. I must have forgotten about the heat and humidity – no, to be exact, the cool/cold London weather must have tainted my memory, and forged my thought that it was not too bad, and that […]
Belated posting this time. When I paid a visit to Wudaoying in Beijing (see my earlier posting below), I was having a quick rest (meaning that I had a bottle of cold beer…) at this cafe somewhere half way into Wudaoying hutong. It was a three-storey building, and from the owner, I was told that […]
While driving in a taxi to go to the Guangzhou Book Center on Sunday, I had an interesting chat with the taxi driver. Having heard that I am a South Korean, he was obviously making some jokes and teasing me with various questions. One of the questions, after a brief exchange of views about the […]
Due to some complicated (but not so complicated) reasons, I had to come to Guangzhou via Hong Kong. On my way from Kowloon airport express train station to Hung Hom station where I could take my train to Guangzhou, I happened to catch this amazing sight – an army of cranes. In May 2009 when […]
It was raining heavily in Guangzhou. Really heavy rainfall, which continued almost 24 hours. Then, all of sudden, it stopped at around 8 am today. As I was walking towards the School of Urban Planning and Geography to be part of a workshop, I came to notice this very funny sound. Some people were gathering […]
In Guangzhou, I am staying at Sun Yat-sen University’s guesthouse. The university campus is a beautiful one with a green space along the central axis and trees lining the main street. While the scenery is quite pleasing, summer in southern China cannot be discussed without the presence of all sorts of small species. Upon my […]
The rise of Shanghai has been subject to academic scrutiny during last few decades. The study of Shanghai and other major coastal cities provides an window to understand China’s past, present and future, but sometimes, misdirects observers to believe that Shanghai (and a few other major coastal cities such as Guangzhou) represents China’s urbanism. As […]