Kaiping, Guangdong
Sunday, 20 March 2005
On Sunday, March 20, 2005, five or us from the Guangzhou
Institute of Geochemistry visited some middle-school QQ friends of mine in
Kaiping. We had a wonderful time meeting them!
I had first been contacted on QQ last fall by Maple Leaf
(Zhou Yanhua), who told me she was a student of English in Kaping. I had never
heard of Kaiping, and eventually found that it lies 140–150
km SW of Guangzhou. We chatted a few times, and then another person appeared,
Lovely Girl (Yu Dantong), who was the seatmate of Maple Leaf in their English
class. In short order I was writing to five students from that class! (The
others were Joanne and Tingting, and were later joined by Susan.) Lest you
wonder why they were all girls, it turns out that there was only one boy in the
whole class!
I wanted to meet them during my four-week visit to Guangzhou,
and the institute graciously provided a car and driver. We were joined by Ni
Xiaohong, the English teacher at Zhongshan University who spent last fall with
me in Rhode Island (and who made the detailed arrangements for the visit), and
two students from the institute, Song Renfang and Ma Huimin. We met Maple Leaf,
Lovely Girl, and Joanne at the bus station in Kaiping. A fourth student, Katy,
soon showed up. The nine of us went to lunch at a Chinese/Western coffee shop,
toured their school (which has many historic buildings), and then had
personalized coffee at the coffee shop where Yu Dantong now works. Everything
was delicious!
I brought my camera, and took lots of pictures. I hope you
enjoy them!
Kaiping 1
Kaiping 2
Kaiping 3
Kaiping 4
Kaiping 5
Kaiping 6
Kaiping 7
Kaiping 8
Kaiping 9
Kaiping 10
Kaiping 11
Kaiping 12