Last Chance to See #1 - Guangzhou, China!

Since becoming a designated S.E.Z. and thus "A World City", Guangzhou is modernising.

The Old backdropped by
The Looming New.

Old sections of this enormous city are currently being demolished to make way for glass and steel skyscrapers, and being, as you know, an inordinately and enormously curious sort with a penchant for old buildings, I casually asked Halley if she'd show me around what will be soon lost forever, thinking it would simply be a walk around several old streets, and/or maybe a visit to Xi Guan Old House; the Qing Dynasty courtyard-house Guangzhou has decided "the best of its kind" and thus to be preserved as a museum displaying houses and lifestyles of this period of history.

But Halley surpassed my expectations and deeply honoured me by taking me on her very own sacred and epic journey of "Farewell and Thank You" around her Very Own Old Neighbourhood, meant to already be demolished but stalled through negotiation issues with the final residents.

Down there in The Old 'Hood

This was Halley's world and, well, if she doesn't mind it all being torn down - and she doesn't - it's hardly my place to say anything different. However, the best bit about this is that ... well, I didn't actually want to say anything different. In her "Hood", the residential buildings looked ...

No protest from you either?

... tired, old, dangerous and ready to go! So, yes, it all can go without a word of protest from me either.

However, even with most of the residents already gone, there was a real kicker of a street life:
The entire area was full of people out and about in the streets, eating, shopping, trading, playing boardgames, minding the grandchildren, playing soccer, talking, laughing, gossiping, living large and publicly; old friends and acquaintances with lifetimes of shared events behind them! That is a treasure I'm sorry to see go!

But, in addition to that exceptional feeling of "neighbourhood", there several material features that I will also be sad to see go, and when I told Halley, she agreed. In fact, those things she was suddenly realising she loved were the same objects I was admiring on aesthetic grounds.

Like the signs I've already shown you that used to adorn these buildings:

Portable, and already for sale!

Or these bonsai trees everyone seems to cultivate:

Portable, so no loss here.

And these alleyways made of large carved chunks of granite:

Aren't these wonderful?
I do hope they recycle these someplace.

And these doorways:

Three layers deep:
the glass-door layer,
the lock-up layer and
the leave-open outer layer.

Here's a better example:


Looking at these doors in particular, Halley came over all nostaglic and explained how everyone always kept the first two layers open, with only the slat-door shut, day and night, and inside all the buildings were always so cool, never registering heat below 38 degrees centigrade, and how no one ever had or needed air-conditioning, the way they all do now in their new places, and that's when she realised how much she missed the deep cool of these old houses in the Old Hood she thought she'd found so easy to leave behind.

Ah, yes, the unexpected poignancy of the Sacred and Epic "Farewell and Thank You" Journey through The Past! I know that one well!

However, Halley also took me to her favourite shopping district also soon to be demolished, and here my heckles rose and I feel the need to fight! Wait until you see why!