From Jinhua to Nanning: A taste of Eastern China

A view of Central Shanghai from the Oriental 
Pearl Tower

IT may not be as flashy as Shanghai or as popular as Beijing, but, certainly, Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi Province of China, has a character of its own.

Whilst in Shanghai skyscrapers do the talking, in Nanning, the abundant green vegetation speaks for the city. Almost every corner of this city has been decorated with trees, shrubs and all kinds of green architecture that does not only beautify the city, but gives it a natural and healing effect.

No wonder the people of Nanning prefer to call their city “the green city of China.”

A green park in Nanning

We had the opportunity to spend a number of days in this beautiful city during our recent visit to China for the seminar on “Think Tank for Anglophone Countries” which was organized by the Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU) with sponsorship from the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

It formed part of the PRC’s efforts to strengthen what it terms the “new strategic partnership” with Africa by engaging African scholars and technocrats to deepen their understanding of China’s state of development and its relevance to Africa.

It was love at first sight as we left the Nanning Wuxu International Airport, drove through the green streets and headed to the campus of the Guangxi University of Nationalities, where we were based during our stay in Nanning.

The campus itself is reminiscent of Nanning’s character as every corner is dominated by Almond trees, shrubs and calm water bodies.

In addition to the green culture, Nanning is also an important city when it comes to the preservation of Chinese culture. Many buildings still portray Chinese traditional architecture.

An exhibit at the Guangxi Museum

Almost every aspect of the economic, social and religious lives of ethnic groups native to Guangxi have been preserved or reproduced in two popular museums – Guangxi Museum of Nationalities and Guangxi Provincial Museum, both situated in Nanning.

Exhibits of fishermen casting their nets, blacksmiths fanning the fires, women knitting their traditional textiles and traders selling their vegetables are among the many things one would see in these museums, together with audio-visual tools that somewhat creates a real life situation as portrayed by the exhibits.

The mountainous countryside of Guangxi, about 2hrs drive from Nanning, offers a unique opportunity to every visitor to come face to face with rural life in China. Driving through narrow roads high up in the mountains from village to village, one comes across a picturesque of old red-brick houses, farmlands, green ponds, domesticated birds, rural enterprises and religious temples.

We climaxed our visit of the countryside at one of China’s popular tourist destinations, the Ancient Town of Yangmei. This city, which is about 30km to the West of Nanning, is said to be over 1000 yrs old, tracing its roots to the Song Dynasty (960-1279AD).

The Chinese have successfully preserved and probably recreated various aspects of ancient life in this city, such as the stone and wooden-based buildings and pavements, engravings and paintings of dragon-gods, age-old sculptures and remains of worship sites.

A compound in Yangmei

Also visible is families sitting together, sometimes playing cards and other traditional indoor games and refusing to be photographed. The old-fashioned buildings together with the green environment make Yangmei a place to relax, meditate and enjoy some inner peace.

This peace and quite we enjoyed in Yangmei was soon lost as we headed to Hangzhou and proceeded, to mainland China’s most popular city, Shanghai.

Shanghai

Wow! This word simply sums up the experience we had in this city, which appears more of an artist impression than a real community. Stretching our necks beyond 90 degrees just to gauge the height of Shanghai’s high rise buildings from our Higer bus was too much exercise for our already tired necks.

Oriental Pearl Tower

Although we spent little time in Shanghai, the visit to the Oriental Pearl Tower was enough to lift up the soul. What a piece of magnificent architecture. With a height estimated at 468metres (1,535ft), this tower used to be the tallest building in China until the Shanghai World Financial Centre was constructed measuring 492metres (1,614.2ft).

It is not just a tower, but a multi-purpose building serving as a broadcast tower, a museum and a tourism landmark, among others. It is also an epitome of China’s advancement in technology with such features like the 7-metre per second elevator and the revolving restaurant.

From various sections of this tower, we had a bird’s-eye view of the central part of Shanghai and it was breathtaking. Imagine, sitting on a glass 263metres high in this tower seeing the apex of Shanghai’s skyscrapers without difficulty and watching under your feet ferry boats and yachts sailing gently on the Huangpu River and cars of various shapes and colours crisscrossing the complex interchanges of Shanghai.

Although Nanning’s green and cultural beauty and Shanghai’s awesome architecture won our hearts, Jinhua was actually the city we would always call home. Jinhua’s peace and busy industrial and commercial areas make it one of the important cities in Zhejiang province.

Jinhua

With a population of about 4.5m, Jinhua is one of China’s agricultural and industrial cities, with some people describing it as the “fruit city” due to the popularity of its fruits, like the finger-shaped citron, Teng-ren grape and strawberry.

We stayed in Jinhua city at the ZJNU International Exchange Centre hotel for most part of our stay in China and by the time we left, we had developed some affinity to this town, the people and the university.

The ZJNU is specialized in teacher training and other courses. It has a student population of about 50,000 and staff strength of about 2500.

Its main campus, where our hotel is situated, is next to a national scenic spot – the Double Dragon Cave. From our rooms at the 6th floor, we had a perfect view of the mountains, partly covered by clouds.

Some sculptures on display at the African Museum

One significant part of this university that lit up our hearts and should excite every African is the African Museum at the Institute of African Studies. This museum has a rich mix of African artefacts, some of which were donated by Africans. They include swords and spears, xylophones and other musical instruments, sculptures of various kinds, wooden/bronze masks and other cultural relics.

Also on display were photos of some African leaders, such as a historic and nostalgic photo showing our own Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah interacting with Chairman Mao Zedong, who was the leading architect behind the founding of the PRC.

Although we were impressed by the rich display of these African artefacts and symbols, we left this museum feeling a little sour: why have non-Africans shown more interest in preserving elements of African culture than Africans themselves?

We left our comfortable abode one bright, but scorching, sunny morning en route to two administrative villages in Jinhua – Xinyedian and Xiafan.

Apart from the many farms and quietness that portrayed a rural outlook, all other features of these two villages made them fit to be described as small cities, like we have in Africa.

A part of Xiafan village

A blend of complex to simple two and three-storey buildings, beautiful ponds and fountains, paved roads and pathways, playgrounds and sports facilities and modern local government offices.

We were told by the authorities in each of these villages that the primary activity of the village folk is farming and due to the government’s support for agriculture, the people earn enough to make a decent living. The annual collective income of the villagers in Xiafan alone was estimated at 300,000CHY (47,619USD).

Yiwu

We could not have left Jinhua without making a visit to the Yiwu International Commodity City or market, which has been regarded by a number of global bodies, including the World Bank and the United Nations, as the world’s largest small commodity wholesale market.

The share size of this market (4 million square metres) alone makes it impressive, not to mention its beautiful architecture and modern facilities that include restaurants and sports facilities for recreation.

It has over 62000 stores offering over 400,000 different types of commodities, ranging from textiles, electronics, electrical appliances, computers and accessories, sports facilities, hardware, bags, food items, stationery, ceramics, kitchen ware, raincoats, umbrellas, toys, jewellery, arts and craft and counting.

Traders from all over the world travel to Yiwu market to purchase their consignments. China’s state television, CCTV reported during Christmas in 2011 that traders from over 100 countries had visited Yiwu to purchase Christmas goods. Do not be surprised therefore if the Christmas tree in your room was imported from Yiwu market.

The negotiation aspect of the trade at Yiwu and other shopping areas we visited reignited the ‘Ghanaian’ in us. We only had to say one sentence – ‘Tai kwei laa’ (it’s too expensive) – and the negotiation starts from there.

We spent only three hours at this gigantic market popping in and out of a few stores since we could not dream of touring the entire facility.

By the end of our 21 days in China, we could not help but say ‘xie xie’ (thank you) to our host for making us have a feel of rural and urban life in four of China’s Eastern cities – Jinhua, Nanning, Hangzhou and Shanghai.

In all these places, the people we met were lovely in spite of the ‘cultural shock’ that gripped many of them as they tried to come to terms with our complexion. We said ‘ni hao’ (hello) to almost everyone we encountered and the rest is history.

Travelling from one city to another and from one scenic site to the other revealed a lot about the Chinese way of life and if nothing at all, the preservation of culture and green environment, the habit of healthy living through exercises and good diet and the unwavering desire and unanimity exhibited by the Chinese to transform their country were enough lessons for us to carry back home.

End.