Day 6 - Being Fed at Qingyuan (清遠) 5/12/2011 Thursday

Arriving in Qingyuan was like stepping into paradise. Qingyuan (simplified Chinese: 清远; traditional Chinese: 清遠; pinyin: Qīngyuǎn) is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong province of the People's Republic of China. Its total population is 4.03 million, and the primary language spoken is Cantonese. With an area of 19,015 km², Qingyuan is the city of the largest land area in Guangdong. It is located on the Bei Jiang river, is surrounded by mountainous areas, and features an expressway to Guangzhou. (Wilkipedia)

It is one of the second fasting growing cities in Guangdong Province. The 5 stars hotel called Lilac Garden Hotel was second best in town after Sofitel Hotel. It was scenic, quiet, cleaned and spacious. The best part was it had modern plumbing with western style towel.

For the next three days, Tao Sun, his wife Oiy Sun (愛新), his son Fat Wing (佛榮) and daughter-in-law Ying (穎) played host to us. Wing and Ying were the example of the new wealthy class in the fast emerging Chinese economy. They both held high government posts and let’s just say they have ample opportunities to make a good living. Ming, the chauffeur came and fetched us at the hotel at pre-arranged time for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. In between meals, sightseeing was planned. Ying, who was 5 months pregnant, chose the best restaurants with a different style of cuisine for every meal. Every place we ate, they had reserved a private room with a view plus a giant TV, sitting area and private rest room with two servers. Well, let me make it clear, the servers were for serving food not bathroom. All courses were specialties at that particular restaurant. For example, one of the restaurants was made famous for the chicken served at the State dinner during Richard Nixon’s first China visit. That particular breed of chicken was called “3- yellow chicken” and has three parts that bear yellow color, the beak, feet and bone. I cannot help but think that it must be a very timid creature to earn that kind of name. Any way, the flesh was tendered and flavorful. Surely was the best bird I had ever tasted.

We had tasted the best of the local fish, prawns, lobsters, vegetable, melons, tofu, egg dishes, pork, beef, chickens and various style of soup which was a specialty of the Guangzhou cuisine. Each meal was at least 12 to 15 courses and although all were very good. The displayed of hospitality was a little excess. There was an old saying in Chinese, “To eat is in Guangzhou. (Now you know where my ChinGlish come from). After several of these elaborate meals, I began to buy into that notion. Oiy Sun, the wife had said to me privately that Tao Sun was so excited about our visit that he couldn’t sleep for days. Tao Sun also enjoyed his liquor and he found a good excuse and partner in me that we drank a whole bottle of Martel Cordon Bleu in two sittings.

With the face of On Punk still on my mind, I called and persuaded him to come to Qingyuan for an overnight visit so I can properly thank him. He immediately agreed even there were only him and his wife to run the little grocery store. He was to take a bus from Lianghua and meet us at the hotel the following morning.