A Tiananmen Story Told Through Shirts & Dresses in Guangzhou, China

Today as I looked at the English messages on clothing sold and worn at the Dongji Xintiandi Shopping Mall in Guangzhou, I rather unexpectedly saw a potential story being told. So instead of sharing relevant links and tweets, what I witnessed at a Hong Kong vigil, or how much of what happens in China on this date is the same as any other day, this year I will reflect on the anniversary of the crackdown at Tiananmen Square through the messages on some of the clothing on display today in one shopping center in one city of China.

While this approach is certainly unusual, it captures some of the conflicting and almost surreal feelings one can experience considering today's history while walking down the streets of present day China. It also reflects how those who do speak out on this topic in China often have to resort to more indirect or creative expression to make it through heavy censorship even briefly.

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Twenty-nine years ago many students in China had a dream.

They had goals.

The students were peaceful, but the Chinese government was greatly concerned nonetheless.

Things didn't go the way the students had expected.

The government's response was not light.

And the streets of Beijing became like they they had never been before.

Without the witnesses, photos, and videos, some of it would now be hard to believe.

The government offered rationale for its actions.

And now the government even says that democracy is one of the twelve Core Socialist Values for the country.

Some outside of China would question whether the country really claims that.

Many people today don't spend much time thinking about what happened 29 years ago.

They may be focused on a variety of other things.

Some people don't want to talk about it even if they are aware.

Still, there are some in China who have their own dreams.

But they often see no effective way to proceed.

Some would say there simply isn't any chance in China for what the students sought 29 years ago.

Despite the challenges, some still hold out hope.

Some believe that even if they might not be able to achieve each and every goal they desire, that isn't reason things can't be better.

There are questions as to whether the change can occur over time by encouraging fundamental behaviors.

Or whether significant change would require much sacrifice for it to have even a slim chance of occurring.

Whatever the case, today in China it is difficult to discuss the facts of what occurred at Tiananmen Square. Even mentioning the date June 4 can lead to censorship. So people find ways to refer to the day in other ways.

And another May 35th goes by in China . . .

Nine Children Day Photos from Guangzhou

As in a number of other countries, June 1 is Children's Day in China. Children younger than 14 get the day off from class, which lead some parents to question why they aren't legally entitled to a day off too so they can spend it with their children. On that note, many schools arrange activities for the day.

Yesterday I saw signs of the holiday in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province. Despite it being a Friday, the activity level at some places felt more like a weekend. One movie theater lobby I passed was packed with excited children — likely due to discounts or a school outing.

Below are a handful of photos I took yesterday. I can't say each and every scene is directly connected to the holiday, but they all definitely include children.

Dance performance at Sunny Mall

Busy children's amusement center at Sunny Mall

Air hockey at an arcade in the JN Sunday underground pedestrian shopping street

Pizza-making party at The Pizza Factory in the Icon City shopping mall

On Gaodi Street

Photographic opportunity at Shangxiajiu Square

Lifting up a twin sister at Shangxiajiu Square

A piggyback ride underway

A (potential) learning moment for a boy who had tried to hijack a baby stroller

Anthodites, Dragons, and Something Sacred: Panlong Cave in Yunfu, China

The exit for Panlong Cave in Yunfu

The biggest attraction at the Panlong Lake Scene Area in Yunfu is inside the karst topography that gives the area much of its beauty — Panlong Cave (蟠龙洞), from which the lake and scenic area ultimately derive their names. Regular tickets cost 35 yuan (about U.S. $5.45) and tour guides take groups of visitors through the cave.

As the tour guide will note, one of the cave's claims to fame is its "stone flowers". After a bit of online research, I believe the formal name for them is "anthodites". As described in the Universities Space Research Association's Earth Science Picture of the Day blog post, anthodites aren't very common:

Anthodites are a relatively rare mineral formation found only in certain caves, such as Skyline Caverns near Front Royal, Virginia. They're normally nearly pure white in color and usually consist of radiating bunches of needle-like crystals of calcium carbonate. Their mode of formation is not well understood, but they presumably form in air-filled chambers by the slow precipitation of calcium carbonate from thin films of water that are held to their surface by capillary attraction.

A sign inside Panlong Cave leaves no doubt as to the quality of its own anthodites:

In short, they are claimed to be the best. I will leave it up to anthodite experts to debate this further if need be.

You can't get very close to the anthodites, which is probably a good thing for their preservation.

So here is a cropped version of the above photo with some clear examples.

There are some other special structures in the cave as well.

But it is something else which inspired the cave's name. The cave twists and turns in such a way that has been compared to a twisting dragon. And "panlong" means "coiling dragon". In a similar spirit, many structures in the cave are said to resemble dragons in some way or another. The guide will be sure to point many of these out to you. It is like identifying objects in the shape of clouds. I don't have any good dragon photos, but I do have one of the Dragon Door.

While the dragon shapes might be easy to miss, the twisting path is not. I have visited a number of caves in the past, and found it both remarkable and enjoyably disorienting as we twisted and turned over several levels.

Walking past and over water from a underground stream is an added touch.

Towards the end of the tour through the cave is a structure named "Longmu's Return" that I feel safe safe saying isn't the result of completely natural processes.

From The Tao of Craft by Benebell Wen:

"Long Mu" means "Mother of Dragons." Long Mu was born human, as a woman named Wen Long Ji (溫龍姬), and became an orphan after her parents drowned in a great flood. She then came to raise five orphaned baby dragons to adulthood, who were loyal to their human mother until her death. Long Mu was later deified for mothering the five dragons. She is venerated as the goddess of motherhood, parenthood, fertility, and filial piety.

There is a box for giving money to the goddess.

Overall, the anthodites and coiling multilevel route are enough to recommend a visit to people who make their way to Yunfu. But if that's not enough to entice, perhaps one of the first sights in the tour through the cave will seal the deal.

Ladies and gentleman, the Sacred Cock:

The lighting and glass panel don't make it easy to take a great photo, but if you look closely you may make out the form of a chicken, a sacred one at that. How many caves have one of these?

Why it is with the dragons was not explained. But you can ask if you visit Panlong Cave in Yunfu.

Karst and Water: The Panlong Lake Scenic Area in Yunfu

The first thing that caught my eye as I arrived in Yunfu, Guangdong, was the incredible number of places selling various types of stone. The second thing was the karst topography in the midst of Yunfu's central urban area.

Soon I was photographing some it from my hotel room window. But the Panlong Lake Scenic Area which I had just passed is a more popular place to take in the karst views. It isn't as famous as similar sites in Guilin or neighboring Zhaoqing, but it has its own charms. And you can walk around the lake and hills for free.

I had planned to mention this scenic area earlier, but I ended up going down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what to call it English — more about that in a later post. The lake takes it name from Panlong Cave, which is in one of the hills surrounding the lake. More about the cave in another later post. A guide at the cave said it isn't possible to walk up any of the hills. But there is an accessible hill top not far away. More about that crag in yet another later post.

For this post, below are some photos taken on a cloudy and slightly hazy day as I walked around Panlong Lake in a clockwise direction. Yes, the sculpture in the last two photos is leaning to one side. And yes, there are ducks in the lake. But mostly, I share these to highlight more of the karst topography and some of the nearby urban areas in a city not familiar to most people outside of this region in China.

Buckling Up Success: Belts for Sale in Yunfu

The previous post with a photo of a crag in Yunfu I didn't try to name indicated that some future posts will include more crags. Incredibly enough, though, some other posts I have been working on don't include a single crag. So for a slight hint of what these cragless posts will be about, here is a sign for some belts for sale at a shop in Yunfu:

I believe that is it for this week. Next week should be more post-heavy.

An Unidentified Crag in Yunfu

I have recently spent much effort on research for several posts here. I don't actually have any of the posts ready yet though. And a good chunk of this research won't lead to anything that would make most people think, "Wow, you must have put a lot of time into this!"

If some people knew how much, they would probably wonder, "Why in the world did you spend so much time on this?"

Such is life.

So for a contrast (and to get something actually posted today) here is a scene from Yunfu.

I don't know the name of the crag / rock / hill in the photo. I am not going to try to figure it out. I just thought it was a nice thing to find while walking around an urban area in Yunfu.

More crags soon. At least one will be named.

Aspirations for Wheels in Yunfu

Advertisement in Yunfu for Miao You Che —
"a car-leasing platform that offers customers with one-stop auto financing services"

A Feilai Sunset in Qingyuan

No rainbows in Qingyuan today, but I'm not complaining.

Feilai Lake Park

A Long Wait: Colors Arc Over Qingyuan

Earlier today I returned to my room in Qingyuan, Guangdong, just in time to avoid a thunderstorm. Later as I worked at my laptop, I turned to look outside. The rain had appeared to come at least nearly to its end, and there was an unusual type of sunny brightness. I wondered if this could be an opportunity to see a rainbow. On several recent occasions I thought I might catch one only to be disappointed each time.

In fact, the last time I saw a rainbow in China was three years ago in Shaoyang, Hunan province. And four years ago after seeing a painted rainbow on a building in Hengyang, Hunan, I considered the fact that I couldn't remember having seen any real rainbows during my previous eight years in China. I later wondered whether the rarity with which I spotted them in comparison to when I lived in the U.S. could be at last partially connected to air pollution.

The end of daylight was soon approaching, and I thought about where the sun would be at the moment. I realized that if there were a rainbow, my window was facing a favorable direction. So I took a look.

I'll admit, seeing a rainbow outside led to a small gasp.

A glorious rainbow outside my window

After excitedly taking some photos, I raced outside. Well, the elevator wasn't in a hurry, but I did my best otherwise.

I made a quick decision that heading to the Qiaobei Road Overpass, from where I took a previous photo shared here, would be my best bet. And from the pedestrian bridge, I took more photos.

Glorious rainbow over Xianfeng East Road (先锋东路)

I had gotten there just in time. About 10 minutes later the rainbow was gone. And soon after that so was most of the sunlight. From the time I went out, the peculiar type of light when facing some particular directions wreaked havoc on my camera's white balancing. But I took effort to ensure the photos above are reasonably faithful to what I actually saw, which I prefer over taking some simple steps to make them more visually appealing to many people with a bluer sky.

I later noticed faint signs of a double rainbow in the photos. It isn't easy to spot, but it's there. That might be a first for me in China. The rainbow (and these photos) won't win any awards, but it still greatly lifted my spirits (though not that high). And after I received puzzled looks from some passersby, once they figured out the target of my attention, sometimes with my help, they appeared to appreciate it as well — especially the little girl who had pointed out the foreigner to her mother.

Hopefully it isn't another 3 years before I see another rainbow.

A Passing Day in Qingyuan

Playboy at Jiefang East Road in Yunfu

While just looking through my photos, I suspected one could have been included in the earlier post of scenes from historical Jiefang Road in Yunfu. I didn't consider it before, because when I first took the photo I didn't think of it as part of the same street. But a look at a map and enlarging an address sign in the photo confirms it is indeed from Jiefang East Road.

Especially since the photo contrasts with the others, I will share it here:

Playboy is well known in this part of the world but not in the same way it is in the U.S. The brand positions itself quite differently here. More about that another day.

A Sign of the Donkey and Goat Food Street in Qingyuan

Earlier this evening while standing on a pedestrian bridge I looked for a particular bank. I didn't see the bank, but I did notice a sign for an eating establishment which reminded me of yesterday's post about a butcher shop in Yunfu, Guangdong province, which offers goat, donkey, rabbit, dog, and cat meat.

I will go ahead and translate the "驴羊食街" that appears on one of the signs in the above photo as "The Donkey and Goat Food Street", though as mentioned before the second character may be for sheep instead of goat. In China sometimes animals in restaurant names doesn't mean they are on the menu. Sometimes it does. In this case I would expect the latter.

Two years ago I shared an example of a restaurant I had seen the year before in Zhuhai, Guangdong, that featured the same combo. The sign was more explicit about the animals being on the menu since the Chinese character for "meat" appeared as well. I see I interpreted "羊" (yáng) as "lamb" then. That was before I began exploring what the character alone often represents in such cases in Guangdong.

Finally, the above scene isn't from Yunfu, nor is it from the city I visited next — Zhaoqing. Yesterday after an unexpectedly scenic bus ride I arrived in Qingyuan, yet another city in Guangdong. Specifically, I took the photo from the Qiaobei Road Overpass (桥北路立交), and this view looks down one side of Qiaobei Road as traffic slowly makes it way from the south.

Oh . . . and no, I didn't try the donkey and goat place. No food reviews for today.

From Donkey to Cat: The Selection at a Butcher Shop in Yunfu

A variety of shops line historic Jiefang Road in Yunfu, Guangdong province. One which especially caught my eye sells meat.

It was specifically the selection of meat available listed on its signs that I found notable. I have seen all of these types of meat sold and on restaurant menus in China before, but seeing them all together listed so prominently isn't a daily event for me.

The first meat listed is identified with the Chinese character 羊 (yáng), which can refer to sheep or goats (and some other animals as well). Given how I have found the term used in many parts of Guangdong province, including in Jieyang, I presume it refers to goat.

Donkey meat is next, which I saw on the menu at a restaurant in Huizhou — another city in Guangdong province.

Then comes rabbit meat, which I most strongly associate with Zigong in Sichuan province since it is especially popular there. A couple of relevant dishes I had in Zigong appear in a post where I offer spicy evidence that family-sized portions of rice are quite common in parts of China.

Next up is dog meat. I have seen this for sale in many regions. A post including photos of seven restaurants in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang province, that feature dog meat comes to mind.

The last item listed, cat meat, is the one I come across the least in China. I don't have any relevant posts about it. I have photos of various sightings though — potential material for a future post.

While it significantly differs from what is available at typical grocery stores, I wouldn't consider this selection of meats especially exotic for Guangdong. In terms of what I have personally come across, the winner for that is probably a live animal market I visited a number of times in Shaoguan — more material for a future post. The bamboo rats did not look happy.