I took a tour with Cycle Canton on Saturday. This area used to be called Canton before it was named Guangzhou. The old part of the city was enclosed in an ancient wall and the area to the west was called Xigua. Xi means west in Mandarin. The city wall is in blue around the Canton area in yellow. The red area to the left is Xigua.
It was noted that affluent families in the enclosed city would want their young men to marry a woman from Xigua for the best match possible. Xigua was where the merchants lived and where trading would happen. It was one of the first ports that allowed international trading in Guangzhou.
Xigua is also where Bruce Lee’s family ancestral home is located. Though he was born elsewhere and lived elsewhere, his father is from here and therefore where the family is officially registered.
A main street in Xiguan area.
There is also a Lion Dance museum. The Lion dance is traditional during the Chinese New Year. I have posted it before and will most likely post another next week as well!
The Lion costume is worn by two people: one at the front and one in the back. They do some really incredible acrobatics sometimes running around like a lion or standing tall with one person on another’s shoulders in the costume.
We toured some back streets of Xiguan that is where merchants use to be. Now there are sections for every market you can find here: Dried goods market, fruit and vegetable market…..pretty much a market for anything that you need…..
This is an example of hair threading. They use criss crossed pieces of thread to take the fine hair and literally yank them out of the follicle.
From here we continued along the back streets to Shamian Island. After the British won the second opium war (fought over trade issues), they laid claim to this part as a port for trade. The British controlled 80% of the island while France controlled 20%. You can see the difference on the architecture here. This was the first International port.
Many of these buildings show colonial architecture.
This church is on the French side of the island.
From here we left to go to the riverside to take the ferry across to the other side in Haizhu. The side of the rivers is called the bund.
This is the British custom house and the first clock tower in the area.
In Haizhu we visited the Haizhuang Buddhist temple that i did not know existed. As with all temples it was very serene and beautiful. At the entrance of the temple, there is what looks like a swastika. It’s arms are pointed a different direction. The symbol in Buddhism denotes plurality, abundance, prosperity, and long life. The Nazi’s took the symbol and turned the arms clockwise as their national symbol.
In the old part of Haizhu we wandered the streets, weaving through the alleys. This building was a place built for a young man who was to marry someone chosen by his family, but he was in love with another. he took some of the family money with him and built a beautiful house with a courtyard where they married and lived.
The woodwork is amazing.
The top of the mansion from a distance. The building in front is the entrance to the courtyard.
In many of the old buildings, there are three layers of doors. The inner one is shown closed in this picture. The second door looks like a gate with bars. It is pulled across to let air flow in but keep people out (cats of course would love to sleep on the bars). Unfortunately, everyone could see in and what was going on in the house. The last set of doors was like saloon doors where people could not see what was going on inside but the second doors could still be used for ventilation.
Biking back along the south side of the river.
Friends who joined on the tour stayed at my place at night to celebrate one of their birthday’s. We ate Indian and cupcakes in my apartment before going out to Hooley’s to watch some members of school who are in the band Gigantic.
Jack and I at the celebration.
I rarely go out like that and usually only one big night a year. It was fun to be with friends on a night out.