A Series of Unfortunate Events

Anxiety kicked in at the precise moment I stepped onto the train to Lo Wu. Half the passengers had with them huge luggage you have to maneuver through like soldiers get pass military obstacle courses of rubber tires and barbwire. And more often on Lo Wu trains than on trains to other destinations that you'll find fellow passengers much more eager to shove through and step on your feet, and reluctant to apologize for such behavior.

It was my second time going to Guangzhou. Just like last time, I was to meet my boss at “Harbor Cha Chan Teng” just past the Shenzhen customs. The only difference is that this time I’m bringing my notebook, which I hung on to it with my dear life the whole time, in fear that some perfectly or not-so-much disguised crook would just snatch it from my hands and run.

Why my boss insists on visiting this particular cha chan teng is as big a mystery as why the thing isn’t out of business. I ordered the shrimp wonton noodle breakfast set, which comes with scrambled eggs with ham, and buttered toast. I’m not being sarcastic when I say it was the worst-tasting wonton I’ve ever had, the worst egg noodles I’ve ever tasted, and the most disgusting so-called scrambled eggs I’ve ever seen. If the toast hadn’t been left under the exhaust fan for three days before being served, I would’ve actually had something with which to fill my stomach.

If my stomach had been filled though, my experience for the next hour and a half would’ve been even more unpleasant (as if that was possible). For each part of Guangzhou has a distinct smell, each with a hint of either burnt engine oil or excrement. I refrained from eating for the rest of the day. My busy schedule allowed no time for hurling.

Like on any other rainy day, I manage to forget my umbrella at home. Good thing I was wise enough to be wearing my trusty Converse for the day though. Had I worn anything dressier my feet would've rotted by the end of the day of the fungal infection from the puddles of shit water we had to stride across throughout the sheltered parts of the Guangzhou train station.

One of the things I noticed about Mainlanders (at least those in Shenzhen and Guangzhou) is that they seem to have a whole different perspective on queues. The relatively new railway systems in these cities are, in many ways, carbon copies of our MTR. Passengers are encouraged by the multilingual PA system to act courteous. As civilized a city as I’d like to believe Hong Kong to be, I still find myself occasionally having to go head-to-head with one or two boarding passengers when I exit from MTR trains. But exiting from a train in Shenzhen is much like a salmon swimming upstream. It was no longer the one or two barbarians I had to fight with, but tidal waves of white water. More fascinating yet was the bottleneck queue at the taxi stand. The enthusiam of the crowd had me suspect someone was handing out cash at the front.

Now imagine the same chaos, but with cars. You can easily find seven vehicles scrunched side-by-side on a five-lane road in Guangzhou. Not to mention the cyclists coming from every which direction, who, on a rainy day, look like escapees from barbershops hiding under their dark-toned PVC capes.

When we finally reached the office, it was already lunchtime. The lack of air con (and air circulation for that matter) in the office, together with the scent of my lunchboxes of leftovers being heated up in the microwave, made me even sicker than I already was. Resorted to the trusty remedy called Coca Cola, only to discover that the Mainland version of the world's most popular drink tastes like, well, anything but.

For now I'm back in our suddenly notorious office building in Kowloon East. But by the looks of it, I'll be making at least two or three more trips to the home of my mother tongue in the coming weeks. There's bound to be a sequel to this piece.