Baishizhou...

On the second day of my life in Shenzhen, China, Pinky and her mom took me to Baishizhou, a place just outside of OCT so that I get to see the authentic China where it is dirty and smelly. I wanted to see the the village area actually but it is too far away, so this will do. We took a bus there, just a few stops away but kinda far to walk. The moment we left OCT area and entered into Baishizhou, I only have one word in mind,"YUCK~!" There were two things that I find extremely irritating and annoying in China. The first was the honking culture. They beep and honk at every corner and whenever they see someone on the road. If it was just a short honk then I was okay with that but when it was a fast-tempo endless honking, that irked me the most. I was honked at countless of times for reasons I do not know. According to Pinky, they honked so that the pedestrians will know that there is a car or a bike behind. So it's like a warning not to cross the road or walk in the middle of the road. If you study the photo above, you will see that the pedestrians horde the road, walking in the middle like it's their grandfather's road. There seems to be no road laws in this country. You do as you wish, turn as you like, make a wrong turn then make a three-point turn in the middle of nowhere. I risk my life crossing roads so thank God I'm still alive and well. Chinese are resilient people. See the heavy load that they carry? Some of they carry a much heavier load. The whole place was dirtier and stinkier than Komtar back home. Thank God it's winter, if it's summer I wouldn't want to walk around with the heat. I realize that most of the Chinese are afraid of the cold, but I'm not~! I'm a Malaysian, from a hot country, I prefer the cold weather. It's so so cooling. Oh, we stopped by and bought some fruits. There were a few fruits unknown to me, bought and ate it, don't like it. Hey~! Is that Malaysia's mangosteens? Copy cat version or real one? The numerous old-looking flats in Baishizhou were scary looking. They were really run down and you can even share a bottle of ketchup with you neighbour staying in the next block. Just open the window and pass it over. That's how near it is. You don't even need a telephone, just open the window and start talking. The walls of the buildings are not decorated with loan shark's stickers like ours back home, theirs were decorated with telephone numbers of houses for rent. Again, thank God Pinky is not staying in this kinda area, so I don't have to stay here, too. We went walking around the town and took a short cut back home. This old place and the modern OCT was separated by just a gate. That's how cruel life is. A separation between the rich and the poor by just a gate.