Hemmed in on all other flanks by
rivers and hills, Guangzhou
inevitably expands east to
accommodate its ever-growing
population. Shadowed by highrises
and cut by expressways, Huanshi Lu
and Dongfeng Lu comprise the city's
most modern, fastest-growing area,
mostly the domain of corporate
headquarters. The architecture is
outwardly impressive, but under the
surface all is not well here; on
Huanshi Lu, the towering
GITIC
Plaza is a monument to China's
first corporate
bankruptcy .
The investment arm of the Guangdong
Provincial Government, GITIC
(Guangdong International Trust and
Investment Corporation) was closed
by the Bank of China after
defaulting on an interest payment in
late 1998, leaving debts estimated
at 2.5 billion US dollars. Illicit
loans, bribery, overborrowing and
simply bad investments were all
fingered for contributing to GITIC's
collapse, and, with a stable Chinese
economy vital to long-term financial
security in Southeast Asia, the
Chinese government is now
desperately investigating the
country's numerous other ITICs.
Leaving all this behind, Huanghua
Gang Park (daily 8am-5pm; „2),
northeast off Huanshi Dong Lu along
Xianlie Lu, holds reminders of Sun
Yatsen's abortive Canton Uprising
against the Qing government in April
1911. The empire was already
crumbling, and this failed coup was
one of many enacted across the
country in the months before events
in Sichuan and Hubei finally
demolished the dynasty. In 1918 a Mausoleum
to the 72 Martyrs killed in
Guangzhou was built at Huanghua
Gang, a very peculiar monument
designed to reflect the
nationalities of numerous donors who
had contributed to its construction
- Buddhist iconography rubbing
shoulders with a Statue of Liberty
and Egyptian obelisk. Of more
general appeal is Guangzhou Zoo
, about a kilometre farther out
along Xianlie Lu (9am-4pm; „10;
take bus #6 from Dongfeng Lu, one
block east of the Sun Yatsen
Memorial Hall). This is the third
largest in the country, with the
animals kept in relatively decent
conditions - though far below what
you'll probably consider pleasant.
Among the rarities are clouded
leopards, several species of
wildfowl and, of course, pandas.
Surrounding the train station 2km
due east of the zoo, Tianhe
is, in some ways, a monument to the
bureaucratic urban planning which
includes people as an afterthought -
you'll most likely find yourself out
this way en route to the East
train station . A designed,
rather than evolved, area of vast
spaces of concrete paving, broad
roads and glassy towers where
pedestrians are reduced to specks -
the total antithesis of Honan - the
showpiece here is a huge sports
stadium built for the 1987
National Games (Xiuyu Zhong Xiao
metro). Tianhe's eastern side is
slightly more liveable, featuring
residential blocks home to expat
families, and a few bars and
restaurants catering to them.
