広州第一日：会議

When I showed up for the 'opening ceremony' of the conference it was a bit surreal, if not for the huge banner behind the stage, i might have thought I was at a Red Guard rally in the 1960s. Much enthusiastic clapping at the end of nearly every sentence. But now with digital cameras, we also have a bit of a hollywood aspect going on, people running up to take pictures every few minutes over the span of the opening remarks as well as both the keynote speakers. (why someone still needs to take a picture 55 minutes into a 1 hour talk, I don't know).


I'll skip to the banquet that was held that night. As you can guess from the picture, I didn't particularly enjoy the meal all that much. :-(

But then things got weird...


They had the chair of the society and his wife and some other 'lao wai' dress up and do stupid things (including reading some stuff in chinese). The Chinese people enjoyed it quite a lot of course. I found it a bit embarrassing.


To clear my palette after that, I walked over to the Pearl River, located right behind the conference hotel.


Don't let the pictures fool you, the river isn't too nice, the water was low so there was just lots of mud and trash visible. :-(


But the night-picture mode on my new camera is pretty good, isn't it? my old one could only make HK's nighttime view look good, this one makes even Guangzhou look attractive at night.


Unfortunately there is no mode that can make the daytime view from my hotel look any better.