All gay

We passed through ShengZhen to go to Guangzhou yesterday. ShengZhen is one chaotic place, I must say. The outlying industrial zones were full of migrant workers, temporary bazaars selling everything, the dream to make it big by millions and also reality that is always less beautiful than dream. The city is a vast spread and it took a good 2 hours by bus to get to Guangzhou from where we were. We stopped to have breakfast at Real Kungfu, a Chinese fast-food chain that now fights for a piece of the big pie with KFC and McDonald’s across the country. Kevin happens to work for it. The food is completely Chinese and processed with high-temperature steaming. The price is in competition with the other chains and the taste is nothing extraordinary but definitely acceptable.
Later that day, I got news from Taki that for this reason or that, she and her husband won’t be able to go on the trip with us. So I am going to GuiLin on my own and meet Kevin later in Chengdu afterward to visit JiuZhaiGou, then l will take the three gorge cruise on my own again to Wuhan to visit my mom. It sounds actually like a good idea for I will get time alone on my own. The truth is that sometimes I feel I need a little bit space and privacy.
Being back only for a few days, China once again impressed me as a complicated place. Everything seems to have another layer that is waiting to be peeled and revealed. People definitely tend to put their noses into each other’s business yet there is a lack of sharing in a deeper level. The pursue for wealth, probably like US or anywhere else, predominates people’s mind, but people here seem to mind less to lay the money issues openly on the table. There is also a strong sense of general insecurity because of the lack of social security plan and less than desirable medical insurance policy. This insecurity appears penetrating through different economic sectors of the society, poor and wealth alike.

Because of the cheaper labor, one can always manage to get great service with less spending. We went to a chic hair salon to cut hair in the afternoon. The service was disgustingly good. A girl washed and messaged my hair for an eternity that I felt that I probably would never need to wash my hair ever again. The stylist then spent over an hour to meticulously cut and stylize my hair. The price about 10USD. After we got out, Kevin made a sudden announcement "They are all gay". I was not sure whether that means they are good at cutting hair or just something totally irrelevant that came up to his mind at that moment.