This past weekend I was able to experience a small portion of being an international citizen. I went to see a jazz musician perform at a restaurant/bar. Now you might say, yeah, so? I do that all the time in Toronto, but let me re-assure you, it is a completely different experience out here.

I was in Guangzhou, China; I went to a Canadian owned restaurant/bar; I sat at a table with people from China, Scotland, the UK, Canada, and Switzerland, where the Swedish Consulate was hosting an event with a phenomenal young musician named Eliana Burki. Eliana plays an instrument called the alphorn, which looks like this.

She can get over 16 notes on this instrument, and all of the notes are generated by changes in her mouth and diaphragm – utterly amazing! I highly recommend visiting her website, listen to some of her music, and find out more about this talented lady.

Anyways, the really exciting aspect was that out of a group of about 70 people, there were over 20 nations represented. Now yes, it is very true, there are lots of nations represented in Canada, but the atmosphere is different out here, it’s somewhat energizing - I feel International, not Canadian. Experiences like this one really remind me how special this adventure is.

And what better way to share my experiences with you than with videos of the concert! I took these videos on my cellphone, so the quality is pretty poor, and you might have to turn down your volume to get clear sound, but as the name of the site goes… From China With Love…

At the beginning of the summer, Chinese factories were getting a lot of attention in the Western media – specifically the factory where the infamous Apple iPod is made. This factory is owned by Foxconn, one of the world’s largest IT companies.

The main reason for the attention was the fact that apparently the work and living conditions inside the Foxconn factory were below Apple’s standards. Upon a surprise investigation, it was discovered that employees were working more than 60 hours per week, and were working a seven day work week – which is technically illegal in China. There was also talk that the living arrangements provided by the factory to the employees were not satisfactory.

If you click on this link, and scroll down to the pictures, you can see a supposed picture of the dorm room. While I can’t quite remember the actual number, Chinese law says that if a company is providing housing for its employees, a company is only required to provide approximately two square meters of living space per employee. Apple launched an investigation and is apparently working on improving the factory conditions, but keep in mind this is only one factory out of thousands.

These problems exist within almost every factory in China. I’ve visited around 100 factories so far, and let me re-assure you, they are all the same. Employees are not treated well, the conditions are poor, and rarely does management care about the actual quality of the product.

Out of the 100 or so factories I have visited, maybe 5 or 6 of them have actually cared about product quality. These are the good factories, they care about the product, and they seem to care about their employees. The other factories have a lot of shady activities going on. I’ve seen employees being punished by being forced to stand and observe other employees. I’ve seen a complete lack and disregard for health and safety. I’ve seen sanitary conditions that are so bad, that I’ve wanted to bathe in bleach for days. In fact, the sanitary conditions have drastically decreased my desire to purchase any product – it’s never the same once you see how it’s made. Things in the factories aren’t so bright and cheery, but there are signs that things might start getting better.

Recently the province of Guangdong raised the minimum wage – some cities raised the rate by almost 18%. This equates to a new monthly salary of about $100 USD – can you imagine living on $100 a month?

It should be noted that even though the monthly salary is low compared to Western standards, the province of Guangdong is the wealthiest per capita province in China, with the city of Guangzhou being the wealthiest per capita city in all of China (followed closely by Shenzhen and Dongguan). In fact, some of the people in Guangzhou are so wealthy that it is not uncommon to see Porches, Ferraris, Rolls Royces, and Humvees on the street – I’ve been told that there is one club in Guangzhou, which has tons of these high end cars consistently lined up in front of the club every night. It should also be noted that the owners of these high-end cars are not factory workers, but local factory owners, and local property developers.

Back to our discussion at hand, the reason for the increase in wages is simple. It is not to force factories to find other ways to cut costs. It is not to make products more expensive in the Western world. The reason is to start taking actions on closing the gap. What gap is that you ask?

Well in China the gap refers to a gap between the rich and the poor. The rich keep on getting richer (remember those high-end cars?), while the poor remain stagnant (and sometimes get poorer!). It is very clear that a majority of the factories in China are not going to voluntarily start paying employees higher wages, otherwise this problem wouldn’t exist.

Another sign that things might start getting better is that there seems to be a shortage of workers in South China. This is the direct result of new factories being opened. One of the factory managers of a factory I visited was telling me how the owner is going to move the factory to a new location, because within the past year, ten new factories have opened in the current location! Factories now have to pay employees more money just to find employees for the most basic task – this starts to make profits decrease, and don’t kid yourself, profits are very important to the factory owners. It’s not that easy to move a factory though, especially when you are looking at moving out of the Pearl River Delta region, which is a strategically important region for factories (more on this in the future though).

So while things might appear to look promising, keep in mind that corruption is still rampant in China (just look at the recent scandal in Shanghai), and things have a tendency to move very slowly when it comes to human rights.

This week has been somewhat eventful in Guangzhou, due entirely to the 100^th annual Canton Fair.  For those of you who do not know what the Canton Fair is, it is the world’s largest sourcing fair, operating twice a year every year since 1957.  There are two phases for the fair, the first being Industrial Goods, and the second being Consumer Goods.

So what makes this week so eventful you ask?  Well, everyone who does any sort of purchasing or acts as a vendor is in town, and the bargains are flying! Every hotel in town is sold out, and each hotel has shuttle buses running back and forth from the fair.  In fact, the city is so busy, that you can not find a taxi anywhere in town, a task which is usually very easy.

I’ve heard several locals say that the Canton Fair is the only way all of the hotels in the city survive, and after looking at the prices, I have to agree!  It’s almost impossible to find a hotel under $100 USD/night – every hotel has tripled or quadrupled their rates!  Now you might ask yourself how is this legal?  How can every hotel in the city increase their rates so dramatically?  Isn’t this price gouging? You bet it is, and this is how the hotels get away with it.  In Guangzhou, it is illegal to increase the rates of your rooms by more than 15%, so what each hotel does is it temporarily converts each hotel room into a super duper executive suite. The hotels then increase the room rates by 15%.  The end result, a room that should cost $100 USD/night costs $435 USD/night. A room that should cost $40 USD/night, costs $120 USD/night.  It’s a pretty ingenious way of ensuring that your hotel stays afloat until the next fair!

There are also problems with taxis, mainly that a lot of foreign taxis coming into town.  These taxis are not supposed to serve the Guangzhou area, they are here illegally.  The taxis refuse to use their meters for calculating fares, resulting in even more price gouging.  Now as a consumer you have every right not to use these taxis, but due to the increase in people, there are no available taxis!  You can wait anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour to find a taxi, so it’s best to grab the first one that comes in sight.  Of course you can always take the subway to an area that is far away from the fair, but this can be a hassle, as the subways are also completely packed.  One thing I have to commend the city on, is the sudden appearance of english helpers everywhere.  Whether it is in the subway, in restaurants, or in hotels, there has been a noticable increase in the number of people who can speak english. 

I’ve also noticed that some of the restaurants have increased their prices as well.  A dinner which would cost you about 100 RMB, costs almost 180 RMB during the fair.  Luckily you can still get a bowl of noodles for 5 RMB – one of the tastiest dishes you’ll find!

But all is not bad with the fair, as it provides the unique opportunity to source anything you could imagine.  The fair is just like any other fair (except this one is a lot bigger).  There are thousands of manufacturers, each in their own booth, promoting the products they manufacture.  As a buyer, you can go from booth to booth, looking for the item you want, and bargaining on prices.  If one manufacturer says a price that you think is too high, there is probably another manufacturer just down the lane that has a similar product at a lower price.  Of course you can bargain to your hearts delight, on anything from price to the shipping date. 

The thing I found the most intriguing is the fact that you can source anything at the fair.  Kitchen sinks, marble tiles, power tools, digital cameras, web cams, batteries, ice cream machines, flashlights, clothes, shoes, hats, helmets, motorcycles, and golf carts, the Canton Fair has them all.  You can even source machines to make products that are at the fair!

A rather unique part of the fair was the emergence of Chinese brands.  There was an entire room dedicated to Chinese brands such as Midea and Haier.  The room had big displays and sales people promoting these national brands.  I saw the words “Brand Power” at every turn, and I even had the opportunity to talk to some manufacturers, and when I asked if I could put my own logo on their product I received a shocking “no”.  Some of the manufacturers want you to sell their brand and only their brand! It is definitely obvious that the Chinese are picking up on the idea of branding and brand products – something every manufacturer in the West should be scared about.

The adventure continues with a quick breakfast at The Davis Hotel (I think by now this hotel should be paying me for advertising!).  Today’s agenda included more sight-seeing - we followed the morning portion of this 1-day walking trip.

After jumping on the Skytrain, we arrived at Ratchatewi station, where we disembarked and ran into a hotel to use the washroom.  After leaving the hotel we tried to find the Saep canal, but for one reason or another we started walking the wrong way.  We quickly decided that we should turn around and walk the other way – towards the canal!  We passed one of the hotel employees who asked us where we were going, and after I told him we were going to take a trip down the canal, he told us that the canal is closed and the only boats going down the canal are 2500 BHT/ride.  After having lived in Asia for a few months I knew not to trust any advice like this, and we carried on to the canal.

Upon arriving at the canal, it looked deserted – maybe the hotel employee was right?  I had faith in the walking tour though, and after five minutes, a water taxi came barrelling down the canal.  We quickly jumped on the taxi (these taxis do not wait for stragglers) and away we went.

The sky was slightly overcast, the engine was very loud, and the water was wet, but we got to see some of the eye-catching scenery on the canal (for the record, this taxi cost 8 BHT/person, nowhere near the 2500 BHT we had been quoted earlier).  We finally arrived at the Golden Mount – the end of the taxi ride.  We started walking and sure enough ended up at the temple.  This temple is somewhat special for Bangkok because it is one of the few remaining free temples (meaning no enterance fee), although the temple is located at the top of a very high staircase.  On the way to the top, we stopped to take a few pictures of bells (this temple had a lot of bells!).

We climbed to the top and entered the temple, where there were more stairs leading to a golden statue.  After a quick stop, we decided to trek on to our next destination – Wat Pho, the world’s largest reclining Buddha.  Unlike the previous temple, Wat Pho charges each person 50 BHT for the privilege of seeing this giant Buddha.

We continued to walk around Wat Pho, looking at all of the detail and handcrafting that went into the creation of this temple.  Finally, our hunger overtook us and we decided to go find some food.  We started walking toward the Phraya River Express dock, and sure enough we landed right back at the same street restaurant I was at the previous day!  The food was just as good as the day before.

After finishing lunch, we found our way to the river and jumped on a boat going north.  We got off the river boat a few stops later and walked around a small market.  Thailand is famous for its coffee houses, so we decided to try one.  We each ordered an iced tea, which was very thick and strong – the tea leaves were brewed in an espresso machine!  Of course we had to eat some more food, so we stopped in at a restaurant and ordered a few dishes.

After eating again, we decided to go for tea at the Orient Hotel – back on the river boat we go!  Unfortunately this time the river boat was not as fun as it was raining!  A very wet 30 minutes later, we arrived at The Oriental dock, hopped off, and quickly crossed a road to the Orient Hotel – we were informed by the hotel that we were not dressed properly for afternoon tea, no flip-flops allowed!

Since it was still raining, we decided to go have a look at MBK mall (it looked no different from the previous day – lots of cheap counterfeit goods).  After an hour of wandering around, we got bored and decided it was massage time.  Dinner was soon upon us and we went to a Thai food restaurant which was delicious (yes, all my memories are surrounded by food).

The next day we woke up and decided to hang around the hotel, because I had a surprise for Sarah and Denise that afternoon – we were going cooking!  I had organized a trip to the Baipai Cooking School for Sarah’s birthday.  This school offers a 4 hour class teaching participants how to cook authentic food – we had a blast and cooked up a storm.  The following dishes were personally cooked by me.

That night we tried out Bed Supperclub, which is a trendy new restaurant that had everyone eating on beds!  I had now been to the two trendiest restaurants that Bangkok has to offer.

We finally awoke to our last day in Bangkok.  After eating breakfast at the hotel for the past four days, we decided to try something new, Crepes & Co.  This restaurant serves French inspired crepes, and is definitely worth checking out if you are in Bangkok.  We then decided to walk back to the hotel before we had to leave for the airport.  Upon arriving at the airport and getting our boarding passes, we parted ways – I had to work the next day and Sarah and Denise were scheduled for an elephant tour in Chiang Mai.

I was lucky enough to be leaving from the brand new airport in Bangkok – it is quite a sight, with lots of luxury brands for the eye to see, and of course, about 10 different coffee shops.

This tale ends with me safely landing back in Guangzhou.  I enjoyed my time in Bangkok, but am not sure if I would return anytime in the near future.  People are friendly, service is great, and the prices are fairly cheap, but I was just not able to find that special something that lures thousands of people to Bangkok every year. Maybe next year I’ll head to the beach.

After arriving in Bangkok, I checked into the hotel.  Sarah wanted to book us at a boutique hotel called The Davis Hotel – as usual her taste is superb, I could not ask for a better hotel room.

Sarah and her mom weren’t showing up until the next night, so I was on my own for dinner.  I went to the Seafood Market, but if you want to read a review about that, you’ll have to head over to my new project, asiagastronomer.com.

I woke up the next day, headed to the roof of the hotel, and went for a swim on the rooftop pool – what a great way to start the day!   I then had breakfast, and decided to venture out on my own in Bangkok.  I guess after spending so much time in China, venturing out into a foreign city really doesn’t faze me at all, as I did practically no research on Bangkok before arriving.   

I decided to go see the Chatucuk Weekend Market in North Bangkok.  I hopped on the Skytrain (which is basically a subway about 100 feet above the roads) and took it all the way to the market.    The Skytrain is somewhat intriguing because you get a mid-level view of the city and if you look really hard you can see into people’s bedrooms!

After getting off of the Skytrain, I found myself lost in the mass of people surrounding Chatucuk Park on a Sunday morning.  I saw some purple umbrellas and started walking towards them.  On the way, I passed a stand selling grapes.

I also found a place selling Birkenstock’s for $3/each – obviously fake, yet they were slightly comfortable (I should point out that I had a choice between Birkenstock’s and Birkenstocc’s, no that is not a typo on my part).  Anyways, after walking around the outskirts of the market, I ventured into the market, and was I ever surprised – it was packed with people!

The market is only open on weekends and sells; well it sells everything you could possibly imagine - food, clothing, jewelry, furniture and a wide variety of knickknacks.  Almost everything here was counterfeit, but hey, can you really complain for $2?  My time in China has really turned me off of consumerism, so I wasn’t even interested in buying anything, but it was still a sight to see.  The market was basically a bunch of lanes stocked with stores.

I got lost at least 3 times, and was told by wikitravel.org that if I see something I like, buy it immediately otherwise I will never be able to find the store again, and trust me, this is true.  Throughout the market are a large number of food stalls; I had lunch at one of them (chicken and noodles in soup, without the soup).

I also sampled a freshly squeezed bottle of orange juice, which was perhaps the best orange juice I have ever sampled (and I’ve had fresh Florida orange juice before!).  After walking around for three hours, I decided that I had enough of the market and wanted to see some other parts of Bangkok.  After unsuccessfully trying to bargain with a Tuk-tuk driver, I elected to take the Skytrain once again to MBK – a large mall selling a lot of counterfeit products. 

I also went to three malls across the street called Century Siam, Siam Center, and one other name that I have forgotten.  These were upscale malls lined with authentic products – basically your average 8 story Asian mall.

I hopped back onto the Skytrain and decided to head to the river.  I jumped on a river-taxi, paid 8 BHT, and was on my way up the river.  I took the taxi a few stops up and randomly got off at Watpho.  At the time I had no idea where or what Watpho was, but I would soon find out the next day when I returned!

I walked around this area for a bit, and saw some more food – street food!  I ordered a chicken and coconut dish which was delicious and spicy!

After walking around for a little, I decided to try and find a taxi to take me back to the hotel.  Unfortunately the first two taxis I tried refused to take me back.  I finally found a taxi that was willing to brave the Bangkok traffic system to take me to the hotel.  Have I mentioned how crowded the streets of Bangkok are?  It makes getting around the city a very unpleasant experience.  A ten-minute drive at night took me well over an hour on Sunday afternoon – and this wasn’t even rush hour!

I finally arrived back at the hotel and decided to treat myself to an authentic Thai massage.  What is a Thai massage you ask?  Well it’s a massage, with a lot of physical manipulation – imagine a massage combined with a yoga class at the same time.  I felt like a million bucks after the massage, and ventured into the café at the hotel, where I waited for Sarah and her mom to show up.

When we were finally united, we went to one of the so-called top restaurants of Bangkok – Vertigo, which is located at the top of the Banyan Tree Hotel.  It is an outdoor restaurant with an amazing view of the city, and the food wasn’t too bad either.  I recommend stopping in even for just a drink, the view is spectacular!

After a long day of exploring I was exhausted, and we decided to head back to The Davis.  We woke up the next day and…

Stay tuned for the next part of my trip! 

In case you are really impatient, here are the pictures of my Bangkok Adventure.

Moving to China has been a great experience, but one of the more common problems I encounter is finding good places to eat!  Sarah and I have started to start a new website, asiagastronomer.com!  This site is dedicated to our love of food.  We’ll be constantly writing reviews of asian restaurants, cafes, and food in general. 

We are also welcoming other reviewers to contribute, so if you want to be a full time reviewer, a part time reviewer, or even a one time guest reviewer, visit asiagastronomer.com and contact us! 

If you happen to be in a non-asian country, but still want to contribute a review about asian foods, we are more than happy to post your review!

p.s. Thailand pictures are coming, stayed tuned!