Halfway through the show, the sky darkened suddenly. Seconds later, a soft spotlight lit in the middle to reveal a dancer in the air. Then, many small and brilliant spotlights lit all around her…

and it started to rain.

The dancer held on to a thin red ribbon and twirled herself around. Slowly, the lights deepened so we can see further beneath her.

Under her dance, stood a row of real live pink flamingos.

White dancer + red ribbon + rain = pink flamingos. Understand?

Then, a giraffe escaped from behind the stage, galloped around her totally scared the pink flamingos.

The dancer continued. (She is very good). It turned out she was holding on to two red ribbons instead of one.

She split them open with her legs and bound herself with them.

Meanwhile, her colleagues are happily swinging all around her on more red ribbons.

Yep, it all totally makes sense.

Just as this makes sense too.

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D

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A book on Shiwan ceramics describes,

Among the ceramic sculptures of China, none can surpass the Shiwan figures in terms of modeling, vivid expression, and colorful glazes.

A fair maiden standing in the middle of a lake. She is entirely made of clay. The only thing she’s missing is the breath of life, and some internal organs.

A potter made of clay.

While we were here, an artist demonstrated how he shapes a simple pot. It looks easy but it requires great precision otherwise the pot will sway and squish and you will have a lump. I wish that I saw the pot being fired in the roaring flames of the furnace as well. Too bad I was only here for such a short while.

Even the birds here seem more romantic. I wish I am the pigeon on the left. :)

All these red brick buildings around the Nanfeng Ancient Kiln are workshops. Inside each, you will see ceramic artists busily scultping away their latest piece. If I had more time here, I would have explored every workshop and chatted with the artists. Heck, I might even live here for a while.

You can, if you want to. You can even sign up for ceramic art lessons while you are staying here. There are camps held every year.

Perhaps after a few years of honing your skills, you will be able to create a sculpture as pretty and precious as this carp.

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D

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This is the home of Mr Xie Weili in Kaiping, Guangdong. Can you tell he had four wives?

Or that he had five sons? :) Mr Xie Weili made his fortune in the US and brought the money home, just like what the Filipinos still do.

The bandits were merciless when he’s away in the US so he made sure all his windows and doors are protected by thick iron bars.

As you can see, he liked imported tiles.

His wives, I’m sure, liked to cook.

Even though Mr Xie Weili was hardly around, he does care about his wives back home. He gave them beautiful flower beds to tend.

For his first wife, he knew that the staircase in the house will be steep.

He gave her small steps, for her bound feet. (Didn’t think of taking a picture of the small steps, sorry).

For his second wife, he imagined her sitting regally like the Queen of England. He gave her a veranda in the garden.

Unfortunately, she passed away only one year after their wedding, when he was overseas, when she was just a girl of 19.

Mr Xie Weili often felt he was a very unlucky person. He wanted to build something to cleanse himself so he built a Feng Shui garden.

It didn’t work. Mr Xie Weili changed the features of his garden a few times after consulting a few different Feng Shui Masters.

At the end of it, he still felt like a very unlucky bloke.

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D

This three-storey tower is the entrance to one of the most important places in Foshan.

It is a humble schoolroom with a simple table, chairs and few shelves of books.

Many brilliant scholars were taught in this room. One of them is Zhan Tianyou 詹天佑 who is now known as the Father of Railroads in China.

In 1905, the Qing government wanted a railroad that links Peking to the trade city of Kalgan and they wanted it built without any foreign engineers. Some were skeptical that this is at all possible since the mountains in the north are especially rugged. The government appointed Zhan as Chief Engineer and not only was he able to complete the railroad two years ahead of schedule, he did it under budget. He designed a zig-zag railway to overcome the steep gradient and used a vertical shaft construction method to accelerate construction.

I felt small when I visited here. My school had a hall, a cafeteria, a sports field and more and I didn’t even design any zig-zag railroads for my government.

Although, this little schoolroom does have something my school will never have – a view of rolling hills and tranquil lake. Perhaps a scenic view is the true secret to intelligence.

The locals believe that the real secret lies not in the view but in the three-storey tower at the entrance. If you want to be as smart as Zhan, keep walking to and fro under this tower.

Aha! My school didn’t have that either.

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D

and Guan Yin.

While you are here, you can also buy a red roll, think of a wish that you want fulfilled, speak the wish onto the roll and toss it onto a tree. Be careful what you wish for though, there was this guy who wished for a 12-inch pianist and…

Never mind.

I’m not sure how good trees are at making wishes come true. You’d think it is quite powerless to do so, being rooted to the same spot all day long and having to balance thousands of horrid red rolls.

For evil spirits who visit, you will have to pass through this gate if you want to see Guan Yin for yourself. You may want to take note that SIX stone lions are guarding the gate to prevent you from accessing this place. That’s right, like most tourist sites in China, admission is for humans, not ghosts.

But if you really want to see the biggest statue of Guan Yin in the world, here’s a tip for you. The stone lioness guarding the far left is kinda distracted with its cub, and its right teeth (your left)  are blunt.

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D

On my last day in Guangdong, I stayed a night at the Chimelong Hotel. The hotel stay itself turned out to be one of the main highlights of the trip. Room rates here goes from RMB2000 per room per night to RMB88,800.

There better be a pillow menu in the room for me to choose how thick I want my pillow to be. I like my pillows medium thick, in case you’re wondering.

There are very few White Tigers in the world six of them are lucky enough to live at Chimelong Hotel.

Photo in front of White Tiger enclosure, taken by Sun Yong of Yongsun101.blogspot.com

Hello, kitty!

Omigosh kitty is looking at me! May be it wants a stroke and a cuddle?

But I’ve gotta go, boohoo!

The Dr Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall in Guangzhou, China is quite literally – a hall. Who would have thought? I could stomp in and out of the place within minutes.

While I was there, the hall had been rented for an Amway Convention. Marketers were setting the stage for the event. Despite the surprise, I am glad I visited because the hall is a pretty place.

The ceiling is simply exquisite. I would have preferred to take a horizontal shot of the hall with its neat rows of passion-red chairs and mosaic ceiling all in one photograph but it would not fit in.

I tried to be creative…

Tilt your head at a 45-degree angle to enjoy the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall with me. :b

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D

This is not just martial arts. This is some form of rare Chinese acrobatic that only those with 100% pure China-Chinese blood are able to practice. Overseas Chinese like us, we’ve lost the ability to skip about in heavy lion outfits.

I bet we can beat them at munching McDonald’s French Fries though. I bet we can gobble those up faster than them. We can even munch french fries while watching them perform the lion dance. I bet they can’t do that. :b

Next I went to a potter’s house. The potter’s arms are firm, leathery and strong.

I’m sure the clay felt very secure in his hands.

Notice how carefully the potter is eyeing the movement of his hands as he firmly enlarges the mouth of the pot. This is at a 500-year old ceramic kiln, the oldest in the world.

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D

The chicken was as pale as a ghost! Or may be it looked pale because the person wielding the camera was still figuring out manual photography on the Canon EOS 50D.

There, there, don’t go punching your chest and suffering from breathing difficulty. After snapping the photo above, I did manage to run after the chicken which was parading away amazingly fast on its stick-thin feet while turning up the shutter speed, turning down the ISO, keeping the aperture at 3.5, and…

Tada! Now Chicken doesn’t look like Snow White. I feel really puffed up that I was able to tinker with the mysterious knobs and dials on the camera to get to this pic.

Back to Chicken. Chicken lives in an abandoned village that was recently listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There’s a sad story at Chicken’s village though. The people who used to live here have been scattered all over the world, the total population is now only 2 people including the Village Chief and his wife, not including Chicken.

Your great-grandparents may have been one of those who left this place a century ago on a lonely search for honest hard work in a foreign land. That was pretty tough, don’t you think?

If your great-grandpa was one of those ancient heroes who made it alive, (mine was), he would have eventually scrambled enough money to migrate his family members over, one by one, leaving Chicken’s village desolate.

Chicken’s village is so emptied, it is honestly quite eerie. I wouldn’t have dared to eat Chicken if you make me.

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D

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Normally, rain does not affect flights all that much unless it is a torrential downpour, a hurricane or a monsoon flood. But when you take a budget airline, you will need to walk out to the airplane under the pouring sky.

Everyone had to wait their turn to shuffle out to the airplane under the bright Air Asia umbrella.

My turn next, I can’t wait! :)

All photos on this post taken with a Canon EOS 50D