I am delighted to read on the interweb, that Liuzhou's Diwang International Fortune City building, which I have mentioned before, has been completed. According to AECOM, the architects' website:

"Liuzhou Diwang Fortune Plaza, Guangxi, China

With a gross floor area of 600,000 square meters, the Liuzhou Diwang Fortune Plaza development includes an office tower, retail space and club house facilities. With an office tower measuring 303 meters high, together with the HOPSCA retail space, the development has become a landmark in Liuzhou. Between the mall, stores and “transport island”, there are parks and recreational facilities with water features and rocky landscape areas. The design balances space and vision, demonstrating the harmony between leisure and business activities."

It seems it was completed in Jan 2008* and is a landmark in Liuzhou no less!

That is strange, because I passed it just this morning and it is still just a big hole in the ground. Not a single brick has been laid.

When I mentioned the building before, it was because people were "Imagining Wal*Mart". Now it seems the architects are imagining the whole building!

Either that or I have managed, for over two years, not to spot the tallest building in Guangxi. My eyes are bad, but not that bad!

*The Peoples' Hospital which formerly occupied the site wasn't pulled down till February 2009. 

Recent news and discussions (including my last post) have reminded me of this true tale from around ten years ago.

Grandfather lived in a small house yards from the river, which flooded every summer. For a few weeks every year, he would move in with family until the waters retreated, then spent even longer trying to clean up the mess left by the flood which, at its worst, had totally submerged his sitting room and kitchen. The house had little in the way of furniture and the bedroom was reached by a ladder leading to a small room on the second floor – usually, but not always, above flood level. The house had no toilet so he and visitors had to use a nearby public facility – or the river. It was demolished years ago.

He was a simple man, largely uneducated. Very traditional, but with a naïve curiosity. When I first met him, he asked where I came from. When I said “England”, he nodded sagely but I could see in his eyes that he didn't really know what that meant. I always imagine that he thought England was perhaps just the other side of Guilin. He had never travelled outside of Liuzhou. But he was the first to unconditionally welcome me into the family.

He was by then in his late eighties and retired, but had been a hairdresser all his working life. Not in a salon. Just one of those roadside hairdressers you see all over China. A chair, a mirror tacked to tree, a pair of scissors and you are in business.

Grandfather would turn up to family dinners, seldom remove his hat, eat a little and then with a 慢慢吃*, he would be off, leaving us to get on with our eating. He lived alone with only his dog for company. The family visited him often to make sure he was OK and would sit chatting, sipping tea and munching on sunflower seeds while the kids played with the dog or threw stones into the river. 

A few years ago, he decided to invite the entire extended family for dinner during one of the minor Chinese festivals; I forget which – there are so many. The family thanked him but tried to persuade him against the idea. “Too much trouble for you,” they said. But he was fiercely independent and could not be dissuaded. 

So, the festival turned up and we all gathered at his home. There were about thirty people there. Again, we sat around drinking tea and chatting – there was no television. Some of the family had brought along dishes of pickles, fruit, peanuts etc. Grandfather was banging away in his kitchen.

I should describe the kitchen – it wasn't really a kitchen but more of an outhouse. You might have mistaken it for an outside lavatory if you didn't know otherwise. It was tiny and only one person could work in there at a time.

Eventually, grandfather emerged with various small dishes which he set around a huge makeshift table made from an old door. Then he went back to the kitchen, banged some more and appeared with a huge cauldron of steaming hotpot.

We all found a perch and got stuck in. The hot pot was spicy and utterly delicious. 

After a while some of the children became a little restless as children do. “We want to play with the dog,” they cried.

Grandfather looked at them and said, “You can't.”

“Why not?”

“You're eating him.”

 It turned out that, when he issued the invitations to dinner, Grandfather had forgotten to factor in the cost of feeding all these people and simply couldn't afford to buy much. So Rover was despatched to the pot.

What amused me most in this surreal scene was the children were weeping over Rover's tragic demise, but at no point did they stop shovelling him down their throats – they chomped away through their tears.

Later, I was chatting with Grandfather and thanking him for his hospitality. 

“Do people eat dog in England?” he enquired.

“No.”

“That England must be a very backward country, then! They don't eat dog? Are you sure?” 

Note: As I've said before dinner dog is usually farmed specifically for human consumption. This tale, although true, is exceptional. People do not usually cook their pets.

* 慢慢吃 - literally means "Slowly, slowly eat" - equal to "Take you time!"

Last weekend I had just finished writing a post about this topic, when the blog site went down for routine maintenance I had forgotten about and I lost the whole thing. I was so disheartened that I never got round to rewriting it - then over the last two days it started hitting the world newspapers. So, here I go again.

There was an article in the local rag which caught my attention. It seems that Liuzhou's government decided to hold a food festival and they nominated three local dishes as being typical Liuzhou cuisine. Not surprisingly, the first was Luosifen, the local variety of rice noodles, served in a spicy snail soup. The second was offal in general and the third was Dog Hot Pot. They had decided that promoting the local specialities would attract more tourism. 

This took place just as a proposal was put to China's legislature proposing a total ban on eating dog (and cat). This proposal is what hit the western news media, as well as being discussed in the Chinese media.

Local web forum site, Hongdou carried out a survey of the locals and found that 53% were against the proposed ban, with 31% in favour. The remainder didn't care one way or the other. There is a strong local tradition of eating dog hotpot in the winter.  

In the meantime, the dog restaurants are still doing good business and the market stalls are still selling dog meat. I can't see this proposal coming to anything.

Now. What's for dinner? 

Back in October, I was watching the Chinese National Day parade - purely in the interest of historical research, of course. The highlight of the parade for most people (including Hu Jintao who even managed to smile for once) was the march past of the female soldiers of the PLA.

I remember thinking that it would be wonderful if they would send a few of these to Liuzhou so that I could carry out further research. Two or three would do me.

I now read that a souvenir of the parade has been sent to Liuzhou. Unfortunately, not what I ordered. 

Earlier in the day, when I wasn't paying attention, it seems that they paraded some immense phallic symbols in order to prove their potency. Technically known as Sword 10th cruise missiles.

And I'm sorry to say it seems this is what they have sent us.

According to today's Taiwan News (unsurprisingly blocked in China), these missiles have been deployed in the 215 cruise missile brigade in Liuzhou. The missiles have a range of over 1,500 kilometres which covers Vietnam, Taiwan, northern India, the Korean peninsula and Okinawa.

Now, I just need to find out where they sent the women! And what their range is!

Three times in about as many weeks, different people have informed me that Liuzhou is soon to have a branch of Wal-Mart. This rumour pops up regularly.

What happens is that somewhere in Liuzhou a new building site emerges (the whole city is a building site) and they erect a protective hoarding around it. Of course, they need to decorate the hoarding and inform the public of what delights await them. Unfortunately, it is always nonsense. Housing projects are idealized to a ridiculous degree and shopping mall projects are pure fantasy.

The main reason for the current rumour is the building site on the north side of the city square. They blew up the People's Hospital in order put up what they promise will be Guangxi's biggest erection - delightfully named "Liuzhou Royal International Fortune City". They haven't started constructuion yet - the site is just a big hole in the ground, but the hoarding around the site is covered in pictures of the proposed building. First they took an old panorama of Liuzhou and Photoshopped their erection into place.

(The building in the foreground with the red lettering on the roof is the building which they demolished recently, temporarily creating the leaning tower of Liuzhou. So the picture depicts a building which hasn't been built yet and a building which has been demolished))

To add variety to the decorations, they have added pictures of a shopping mall which is supposedly going to be at the base of the erection. 

Close inspection of these two pictures reveals that they are, in fact, airbrushed photos of a shopping mall in Canada! The same picture was used a few years back when they built the Liuzhou mall which is home to the Pizza Hut - and everyone was convinced then that the site would be guess what? Wal-Mart.

But what I really can't understand is why people would be excited by a Wal-mart anyway. I have met foreigners in China who are convinced that this will give them access to all sorts of western delights. They must be very disappointed when they get to the stores. Wal-Mart isn't in China to cater to a handful of expatriates; they are firmly after the Chinese shopper and they stock what the Chinese shopper wants. They carry very few western goods which can't be bought everywhere else.

I suppose one day Wal-Mart will roll into town, but I'd be very surprised if was any time soon. 

In the meantime the nearest branch is in Guilin.

Life is full of little disappointments - and thunderously huge ones!

There I was lazily flicking through the newspaper when a headline caught my eye. Well, nearly - actually only one word caught my eye - "吉尼斯" 

This is the common phonetic translation for Guinness. It is pronounced jí ní sī which is close enough.

In my sorely deprived state, I took this to be something about the black liquid which I miss so much. An overexcited scan of the headline tells me that Liuzhou is to have its own "Guinness"

Every time I hit Hong Kong, the first thing I do is head for my favourite Irish bar and a pint or three of the beautiful black stuff, but here in Liuzhou - forget it.  So, you can imagine my excitement.

Then my disappointment when I calmed down and read the article properly.

They aren't providing Dublin's finest after all. Instead, they are planning to publish a book listing Liuzhou's "achievements" - a sort of "Guinness Book of Liuzhou Records"

Liuzhou's now world-famous Leaning Tower has finally been toppled. Following the spectacular failure of the 30th of December when explosives failed to bring down the 22 floor residential building, a demolition crew finally brought it down yesterday, the 8th of January, by using a hydraulic battering ram to punch a hole through the building, weakening it enough to let gravity do its job.

Cleaning up the debris is expected to take till the end of the month.

Here is Liuzhou TV's news coverage.